by Dana Moss
He made her try the gesture with him watching. “Okay, you’ve got it.”
He opened another jewelry box. “This matching necklace contains a small sound recorder so if you do get a chance to record something, just flick this little clip on the back clasp.”
“Do I get to keep the spy jewelry when I’m done? It could come in handy later.”
“Sorry. It’s rented from a colleague.”
He had her try on the necklace. “Keep an ear and an eye out for someone named Vladimir Petrov and Dimitri Mikhailov, and possibly Sergei Tolstoy. They are the kingpins. If they show up, pay attention to what they say. Beyond that, just have fun.” Mitch grinned.
Taffy couldn’t match his enthusiasm. “I’ll do my best.”
“I appreciate it. Just lay low, remain discreet, and all will be well.”
“Discreet.” She nodded. “I should go. If you hear from Ethan…”
“He’ll probably come by here later.”
“Tell him to call me, okay?”
Mitch promised he would.
* * *
Taffy headed off to Lorenzo’s for her updo. For the first time, she felt impatient and dissatisfied sitting in her stylist’s chair. A place that had once felt so comfortingly familiar, like home, now felt threateningly foreign. And indulgent. With every brush twist and pin up, she found her old self taking over her new self, only this time it didn’t feel good. She felt edgy and impatient. Out of sorts. It didn’t help that Ethan still hadn’t responded to her calls or texts. They also didn’t seem to be going through, so either his phone battery was dead, or he’d blocked her. She had no idea how to reach him. They both had some explaining to do now.
By the time Taffy went home to touch up her makeup and don her gown and shoes, she still had no word from Ethan. At her fifth attempted call and ninth text she realized she might be verging on crazy ex-girlfriend and decided to back off for a few hours. It was time to focus on the mission ahead anyway. If she could catch Veronica with her contacts or saying something critical about one of her deals, Mitch would have something to work with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Just a few minutes before Luke’s arrival to pick Taffy up, she stood deliberating over two clutch-style purses. She turned to her Nana, “The Dior or the Prada?”
“A woman in doubt should always err on the side of Dior,” Nana said with a sniff.
Taffy decided to take the Prada.
Joffrey, Nana’s butler, entered and said, “There is a caller for Taffy downstairs, and Mr. Atticus Mitchell left a message to say he’ll be over in an hour.”
“Thank you, Joffrey.” Then to Taffy, she said, “Will you be late tonight?”
“Not if I can help it.” She winked at her Nana. “Will you be?”
Nana actually blushed slightly. Taffy knew her grandmother and her financial advisor, Atticus Mitchell, had lately been exploring expanding the nature of their relationship. Taffy was happy for her, even in the midst of her own relationship uncertainty. She patted her Nana’s hand. “I’ll call when I’m on my way home.”
“Well, that’s not nec—Tush, tosh, Taffy. It’s not as if…” Then she cleared her throat forcefully. “My, my.”
Taffy grinned. “You are so easy to fluster.”
* * *
Downstairs, Luke stood beside a matte-black stretch limo.
“You look stunning,” he told Taffy as she climbed into the car. He followed her in and sat very close, his eyes traveling up and down the length of her gown. “I don’t know how I ever let you go.”
“It was for the best,” Taffy said. “Believe me.” She patted his knee in a mild yet distant gesture of comfort, but he didn’t take it that way. Instead, he clasped her hand and lifted it to his chest.
“It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
She was glad she wasn’t wearing a wire tonight. She didn’t want Mitch listening in, especially not if Ethan was with him tonight, and where else would he be?
Luke leaned in, maybe aiming for a kiss, so Taffy turned her head and coughed. “I’ve had this tickle in my throat since this afternoon, probably from the plane. You don’t want to pick up my germs.”
Without leaning back, and with his lips nearly brushing her ear, he said, “What if I’d bought you one of those blue boxes at Tiffany’s today?”
“Just a box?” she said, laughing lightly and trying to shift away.
“You know what I mean. Would you have made a fool of me or made me the happiest man in this crazy city?”
Luke probably thought the effort she’d made to dress up had been for him. And maybe she did secretly and belatedly want to make him feel regretful for having broken up with her all that time ago, but she didn’t expect nor want his confession that he still loved her.
“We’re just friends now, Luke. And recovering ones at that. I’ve put the past behind me. I’ve forgiven you, yes, but I don’t know what I want in the long term. I need some time. Let’s just enjoy tonight. Let that be enough for now.”
He let out a long breath. “I guess as long as you’re not saying you don’t want me, I’ll sit back at wait for now.”
He didn’t sit back though. He leaned forward and opened a side cupboard and pulled out a bottle of champagne. “How about a toast to the recovery of friendship?”
She nodded. He poured. They held up their glasses.
“To recovering friendship.” Taffy sipped.
And then Luke added with a wink: “And to where that friendship might lead.”
Taffy held her tongue and willed herself to get through the evening.
She touched her jewelry delicately, not triggering any buttons or clips just yet, and focused on the task ahead.
* * *
The limo pulled up behind a trail of others in front of the Metropolitan Opera House. The fountain was lit with golden light that faded every few seconds into a deep red to match the carpet leading to the soaring, five-arched, mostly-glass building facade, on which projected images from the evenings upcoming opera, Don Giovanni, flickered and danced.
The upper echelons of society poured into the main doors of the opera house. Veronica was somewhere in the midst of this throng. Taffy kept her eyes open, but in all likelihood, she might not find her until the intermission. Mitch, who’d been tailing Veronica since he’d last seen Taffy, sent her a picture via text of the dress she was wearing. A long black, backless number, unfortunately, just like a thousand other women here tonight. Her hair was up, again like so many others, but it looked as if she had a jeweled pin tucked in her dark locks, and was she wearing dangling gold earrings? The image was a little blurry.
Once Luke and Taffy had handed over their tickets and crossed the lobby, they made their way up the stairs. Here, operagoers milled about before taking seats. Luke had agreed to meet his mother outside of her parterre box seat entrance.
“How good to see you again, Taffy,” Mrs. Khiels said when they got there. “So glad you could make it on short notice tonight. I hear it’s you I have to thank for getting my son to reconsider his cultural responsibilities.”
Taffy had never been a fan of Luke’s mother, but she was polite and demure in her presence, for Luke’s sake.
While they chatted, Taffy kept an eye out for Veronica, and she thought she saw her standing with a group of men at the top of one side of the curving staircase. She wore a long, elegant, backless, black gown trimmed in what looked like tiny crystals. She spoke intimately and intensely with a few of the men. Every few moments she threw her head back with a charming laugh. Should Taffy turn on her camera earring now? She wanted to get close enough to hear what they were saying, and was about to excuse herself to move closer, but the lights started flickering. It was already time to take their seats. Taffy watched Veronica walk to the other side of the theater.
Luke said to his mother. “We’ll see you at intermission. Let’s get to our seats, Taffy.” They were in the box next door.
All through the first act, Taf
fy wondered how she was going to get close enough to Veronica to gather useful information for Mitch. She also wondered how she was going to stay far enough away from Luke so that he didn’t get the wrong idea. He’d already tried to hold her hand several times, and now he was stretching his arm over the back of her seat for all of New York society to see.
Taffy had spotted Veronica across the theater in a box with her guests. She reached for the opera glasses Luke was holding to get a better look. Veronica and her guests barely watched the opera. Had she just seen an envelope pass between two of them?
Luke whispered something about their luxury of privacy with their seats. He suggested they might get closer during act two. Taffy fidgeted next to him, while below, on stage, Don Giovanni seduced and betrayed a bevy of Donnas.
It was a relief when the house lights came up for intermission.
Taffy was ready for a drink and keen to pick up some dirt of Veronica, but Luke was insistent on locating his mother and her friends as he’d promised. As they approached, Mrs Khiels was saying to her friends, “Oh, here she is, ladies. Isn’t she charming? Our families have always been close, so it makes perfect sense. Maybe a summer ceremony? Luke tells me they’ve already perused Tiffany’s ring selection…” Mrs. Khiels and her friends moved toward the VIP hors d’oeuvres and champagne table.
Taffy turned to Luke. “What is she talking about?”
Luke laughed it off. “Mother, gets a bit ahead of herself, but she means well.”
“But, Luke, you know I’m not—”
“Relax, I’ll get us some champagne.”
He stepped away for a moment. What had Taffy gotten herself into?
Veronica and her entourage of Russian businessmen were converging on the VIP spread, too. Taffy edged her way closer to overhear some of their conversations. She clicked on her earring, ready for photos, and fiddled with the clasp of her necklace. She didn’t know how well it would pick up on eavesdropping chatter.
—The children are well cared for, of course… each orphan goes to a good home. We make sure of that.
—And get paid handsomely for it.
—But the real estate is essential, and really the better investment.
One man laughed. “The cleaner one at least.” That made the others chuckle with satisfaction.
—Gentlemen, get your drinks and a snack, and let’s find a more private place to talk.
—I want more than snack. What about dinner?
—Patience, Dimitri, she promised to take us to that fancy Japanese restaurant after.
—That’s right, gentleman. We’ll have our own private tatami room and the royal treatment. I’m friends with the owner.
As Veronica led them away from the table, one man leaned toward her, his hand at her waist, and said, “You promised me a Pollack and a Rothko, darlink. When will I see them?” His hand drifted lower, pulling the back of her dress down a little.
“Patience, Sergei.” She sidestepped away from his wandering hand and readjusted her dress.
Taffy fiddled with her camera earrings to get shots of all their faces. They now stood by one of the walls. Taffy would look conspicuous if she got too close, so she watched them from a distance.
Until she saw a sight she wasn’t the least bit prepared for.
Across the mezzanine, near the top of the stairs, she noticed a tall, broad-shouldered man who reminded her of Ethan. She did a double take when she realized it was Ethan!
But it couldn’t be! Where was his beard? Why was he in a suit? How could he look so swooningly different?
Barely realizing what she was doing, she walked directly toward him. She caught his eye.
He smiled, his eyes sweeping up from her heels to her hair.
“You clean up nice, Miss Belair.”
“What the heck are you doing here?” She hadn’t meant to sound so intense, but she was several layers of shocked to see him here. And looking like this.
“I could ask you the same, but I already know.” He winked and glanced toward the group by the wall.
“Why did you run off this afternoon? It wasn’t what you—wait, is that a Gucci suit?” Taffy reached out to feel the fabric.
“Does it matter?”
“And you shaved.” She reached out to touch that, too, but then stopped herself as he ran his own hand over his squared jaw.
“Feels pretty strange actually.”
But it looked good. It looked very good.
“Listen, Ethan, about this afternoon…”
He took a step closer to her and said quietly. “Taffy, you don’t really belong here.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She looked around at the well-heeled, jewel-decked, and sparkly-sequinned guests. “I belong here as much as anyone else.”
He also looked at the clusters of gala-worthy operagoers. “This is the old you. I like the new Taffy.”
She looked him up and down. “And what about this new you? What if I like this version of you?”
His jaw flexed. “Do clothes change a man that much?”
“I don’t know. Do they? Something has to have changed for you to be here looking the way you do. You don’t belong here either, Ethan, so what are you doing? Why did you come here? Why did you run off on me today?”
He cleared his throat. “There’s something I came here say to you, Taffy…”
The gravity in his voice made Taffy feel self-conscious. She glanced around the mezzanine, stalling for time, dealing with a strange combination of shock and confusion. A blonde near the bar was watching them. Her face at first looked curious, searching, and then it seemed to focus in on them like a dive-bomber. She strode over to them just as Ethan was starting to say, “I’ve given a lot of thought to—”
The blonde made her strike. “Ethan McCoy?”
Startled, he turned away from Taffy and toward the woman. Taffy didn’t see his reaction, but the blonde’s face shifted to some kind of dominant satisfaction. She was tall and slender and at least as pretty as Taffy, probably more so.
She said, “Never in a million years did I imagine I’d run into you again.”
Was this someone he used to work with? Another FBI colleague? Were her earrings small cameras like Taffy’s? She reached for her lobe to snap a picture, and then she stiffened. Luke had spotted her. Before she could say another word to Ethan, Luke was handing her a champagne flute, possessively slipping his arm around her waist, and saying, “Your ring size is five and a half, right, baby?”
Ethan, his cheeks slightly flushed, turned back to Taffy. He saw Luke’s arm. He must have overheard Luke’s words. His clean-shaven jaw steeled. “Clearly, it was a mistake to come here.”
“It’s not what you think,” she said, trying to pull away from Luke.
But Luke didn’t let her go, instead he leaned in and said, “Mother’s making a fuss. She wants you to meet Uncle Phillip now.” Then he had the nerve to kiss her cheek.
Ethan’s face paled. He turned on his heel and left. Again.
The unknown blond woman followed Ethan for a few steps before giving up. He’d disappeared down the crowded steps to the lobby. The blonde gave Taffy a head-to-toe glance, smirked, and then returned to the bar.
“Who was that?” Luke asked.
Hadn’t he recognized Ethan? Then again, why would he? Taffy had barely known it was him all dressed up like that.
“You’re not trying to make me jealous, are you?” He nuzzled her neck.
“What is wrong with you?” Taffy batted Luke on the chest with her Prada clutch.
He just smiled and said, “What? Come on. Mother and Uncle Phillip are waiting.”
“Screw Uncle Phillip.” Taffy downed her glass of champagne and grabbed a second one from the tray of a passing server. She downed that in three gulps. She had to go after Ethan.
She had to see him again, to take in that tall frame in that dark suit. To run her fingers along the skin of his smooth jaw. What had he wanted to say to her? She had to explain t
his silliness. But Luke was coming after her. And she had no idea how to locate Ethan in this crowd. The mezzanine was packed and so were the stairs to the lobby. And Luke was suddenly by her side again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He held her arm rather tightly.
“I’d like to know what you think you’re doing.” She was about to lay into him and dispel his delusions when she caught a glimpse of Veronica heading toward the ladies’ room.
“Excuse me.”
Luke, Ethan, and certainly Uncle Phillip, would have to wait. She still had a job to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Once inside the plush powder room, Taffy opened her purse and pulled out her phone to text Ethan. She told him to meet her in the lobby in ten minutes so she could explain everything. By then, Veronica had finished in the toilet and sashayed over to the mirror zone of the ladies’ room. She laid her little black clutch—was it Dior?— on the ledge and checked her teeth, her mascara, and adjusted the straps of her gown to reveal more cleavage. She then twisted to check her back, which was spa-smooth and speckled with a luminous bronzer. Taffy set her Prada on the ledge in front of the mirror and applied fresh lipstick, acting like just another visitor to the restroom, and watching surreptitiously while Veronica pulled at the waistline of her gown to cover something near her tailbone. A blemish the spa missed? Or was it a little tattoo? Turning again to face forward, she caught Taffy’s gaze in the mirror. Taffy quickly looked away.
Veronica then pulled out her own lipstick tube. Before she’d slipped the cap off, her phone rang. Hastily, she tucked the lipstick tube into her purse and then pulled out two phones and looked at both. She answered the ringing one.
Veronica watched herself in the mirror as she spoke into her phone. She told someone named Vlad to relax, that the deal would go through tomorrow. “Pour yourself a drink, and I’ll call you in the morning.”