Tharpe smiled and said, “Well, well, well, little miss perfect has a dark secret. It makes me like her that much more.”

She hesitated for a moment in the parking lot, staring at us through the window, then regained her composure.

And my heart broke a little bit.

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

BY THE LOOK on Katie’s face, she didn’t know who she was going to meet, either. She stood at the edge of the waiting area, right in front of us, brown leather car coat with a fur trim and red Aldo purse draped over her shoulder. Her blond hair hung down her back in a loose ponytail. She wore the same black running shoes my mom did at the hospital. She must’ve come directly from work.

It felt like the three of us were in an Old West standoff, silently assessing one another as the sounds of normal bank business drifted across the tile floor.

I scanned the tellers behind us. There were no visible security guards and no one was paying any attention to our little moment in the corner.

Katie’s eyes cut to Tharpe.

I said quickly, “He’s not here in an official capacity.”

Tharpe let out a cough and muttered, “That’s an understatement.”

Katie ignored him, turned to me, and said, “Hello, Mitchum. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Who did you expect to see?”

She gave Tharpe a nasty glance and said, “I don’t know. But he doesn’t surprise me at all.”

I could’ve explained my involvement to her, but right now I needed this to go quickly. Besides, she didn’t deserve to know exactly what was going on.

“Do you have the code?” I asked, hoping she was some kind of a pawn.

She nodded and said, “Do you still intend to split it evenly?”

Tharpe mumbled, “Not as evenly as any previous agreement.”

I cut in. “We’ll work it out. The only thing I want is for Natty to be released.” I just needed Tharpe’s statement. After that, these two could negotiate.

Katie considered this. When she nodded, I realized there was no way she’d been more than just a pawn. That didn’t just break my heart, it pissed me off.

The three of us walked down the long hallway, past the armed security guard, and met an attendant who led us down another long hallway to the room that held box number 68. The building was designed like a maze, and I stood in the center of it with a guy I hated and a woman who had tricked my whole family. Great. Just another Wednesday in upstate New York.

The attendant, a thin man in his forties with a Boston accent, said, “Who has the code?”

Katie stepped up and faced the keypad on the side of the closed door. She pulled a small piece of paper from her purse and punched in the five-digit code.