by Kay Hooper
“And I can’t wipe out two million years of evolution,” Dallas complained wryly. “For good or bad, the instinct is to protect—” The one you love, he finished silently.
“There’s two million years of intellect as well,” Troy pointed out.
“Instinct is stronger,” Dallas told her. “I want to understand, Troy, but—”
She turned suddenly and took a few steps away from him, then wheeled around to face him. The wounded look he had seen only once before was in her eyes, her golden eyes, and it made his heart ache.
“Then maybe this will help you to understand.” She took a deep breath. “I told you that my parents were killed by terrorists.”
“Yes.”
“I was eighteen.” Her voice was abrupt, hard-edged with an obvious effort of control. “In college. Two different governments and various law-enforcement agencies promised that the murderers would pay. Promised—but didn’t deliver on the promise.”
“Empty promises,” Dallas realized slowly, the explanation of her disillusionment with promises becoming clear to him.
“Empty promises. Oh, they were sympathetic; they made all the right noises. But the bottom line was that since the terrorist group couldn’t be proved responsible, nothing could be done. That’s when I decided to do something about it myself.”
“What did you do?” Dallas asked slowly.
“Using every spare moment and with Jamie’s help, I began what you might call a paper search for some kind of proof. It took five years. And during that time I made a lot of the contacts that I find so useful now. I traveled all over the world checking leads, gathering data from every source I could find. I retained a rather well-known attorney to keep me advised on the legality of the proof I obtained.”
She hesitated, then added softly, “I saw parts of the world I’d choose to forget if I could. I—still have nightmares sometimes.” She lifted her chin suddenly. “But I found the proof. The people responsible for my parents’ deaths paid for what they did.
“And I discovered then that I could do something about injustice. Nothing major, nothing spectacular. I loved art, and I knew that private collectors and museums were being ripped off; I was good at security systems. And I loved the excitement of pitting my wits against the problem. So I became a cat burglar. Although you may not believe it, I don’t profit by what I do. I have a private investigator’s license, and I am what might be termed an honorary member of Interpol.”
Troy took a deep breath and finished dryly, “And I haven’t explained that much of myself to anyone for years—if I ever did.”
“Thank you,” Dallas said seriously.
She looked at him perceptively. “But you still—object—to my working tonight, don’t you?”
He hesitated, certain that the wrong words would be more than a mistake. “It isn’t that I doubt your ability. It isn’t that I think what you do is wrong—”
“You don’t think it’s wrong?” she inquired, suddenly suspicious.
“No, I don’t think it’s wrong.” He saw that Troy didn’t believe him, but went on anyway.
“What I object to is the risk. The edge of danger is a slippery place, Troy. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Nothing will happen to me,” she said carelessly, going over to the table and taking a last quick look at the diagram lying there.
“Troy—”
“Dallas, I’m going.” She gave him a very direct look.
“I can’t change your mind?” His voice was even.
“No.”
“All right, then.” Without another word he turned on his heel and left the room.
Troy stood there for a long moment, staring blankly after him. Somehow she was disappointed that he’d given in so easily, and her own disappointment irritated her. “Idiot,” she muttered to herself. “You know you don’t want him to interfere—so what’s the problem?”
Since the room was at the front of the house, she heard the roar of Dallas’s Mercedes as it pulled out of the drive, and a frown crossed her brow. He was definitely, angry; from the sound of his car, he couldn’t wait to put distance between the two of them.
She bit her bottom lip, her fingers toying with the gloves tucked into her belt. I’m right, she thought violently. I’m right not to let him interfere! Troy had been in control of her own life too long to willingly relinquish that control. And if she backed down on this point, if she let Dallas interfere with her work, it would be the first step toward giving up control.
Something else they had in common, she realized dully: Neither wanted someone else in control. That was why she had so quickly seen his dislike of being a passenger; she was the same way herself. And that was not a good trait for two people to have in common. Two strong personalities could coexist, but not if they shared the same powerful will. Not if one was a man and one a woman, both living in a world where traditional values still held. And not if those two strong-minded people wanted to spend their lives together.
Misery washed over her suddenly, causing her to lean numbly against the table. She had known from the beginning that it would happen, but was unprepared for the pain she felt then. Love didn’t frighten her, not loving or being loved; what frightened and hurt her was the knowledge that she was in love and that her love was impossible.
“Mon enfant?”
Troy blinked and looked up at Jamie, her hand automatically reaching for the diagram on the table and rolling it into a neat cylinder. The mark of a professional, she thought vaguely, was that he or she never allowed personal pain to interfere with the job at hand.
She was a professional.
“I’m ready, Jamie. Let’s go.”
His big hand came out to rest on her shoulder, and concerned blue eyes probed hers. “Maybe we should postpone the job. The house is supposed to be empty through the weekend; we’ll go tomorrow.”
Troy shook her head and pulled a smile from somewhere. “No. Mr. Jordan sounded very anxious about his jade figurine, and I promised to get it back to him tomorrow afternoon. Besides, the only security out there tonight is electronic; the guard dogs are supposed to be brought in tomorrow.” She frowned a little, trying to think clearly. “Sloppy arrangement,” she observed.
Jamie hesitated, obviously troubled. “I haven’t been able to trace the deed to that house, chérie; we still don’t know who owns it.”
With an impatient shrug Troy started for the door. “What does it matter, Jamie? You saw Roberts around the place yesterday and today: he’s obviously the owner.”
“We’ve rushed this job,” Jamie protested, following her. “We should have taken the time we usually do to verify everything. We only have Jordan’s word for it that Roberts stole the figurine.”
Troy was at the stairs by the time Jamie caught up. Still impatient, she told him, “Jordan had a legitimate reason for not reporting the theft; since his inheritance of the collection is still tied up in the courts, he wouldn’t want to rock the boat by losing a piece—especially through negligence. We saw his house, Jamie, and you know as well as I do that his security system has holes big enough for an elephant to slide through.”
While still speaking. Troy wondered with an aching part of her mind if Dallas would ever want to see her again. Probably not. And even if he did, what would be the use of going on with something that would never—could never—work? God, she was tired….
“I don’t like it,” Jamie insisted with unusual force. “There are too many unknowns in this job. Too many—”
“We’ll argue about it on the way,” Troy said absently.
Jamie muttered a comical mixture of Irish, French, and purely American oaths as he followed her from the house.
Dallas hurled the Mercedes around a turn and checked his watch for the tenth time, fragmented thoughts flashing through his mind as he searched for conscious understanding of what he’d already realized intuitively.
Troy. A woman who could not be leashed, but only coaxed to walk by
his side. Willingly she could be led; unwillingly she would never follow. She would give as much as she was given, take only what was taken from her. And she demanded freedom as a basic need that had nothing to do with the modern cry of equality. Troy had to be free to choose her own way, accepting the risks and the responsibilities that accompanied her choice. She could never be less than she was.
It would take a strong man to be able to live with that. It would take a strong man to persuade this proud woman to share his life.
Checking his watch again, Dallas smiled grimly and hurled the straining car around another corner.
Over his protests Troy left Jamie to wait in the car as she approached what she knew was a beautiful Colonial mansion. The darkened house was visible only by moonlight; it was set back from the road, and the two acres of land were enclosed within high brick walls that provided reasonable security and privacy.
She went over the west wall easily with the aid of a large oak tree, and dropped inside with a muffled thump. Crouching there for a long moment, she studied the house’s lifeless appearance, then straightened and made her way silently through the dark, peaceful yard.
Once at the house, it took only minutes to locate the fusebox and disconnect the security system. Troy frowned briefly behind her ski mask. Sloppy. In fact, she decided, the security for this place was lax to the point of stupidity. Brushing the thought away, she uncoiled the nylon line from her belt and expertly threw the grappling hook up to catch on a third-floor balcony on the east side of the house.
It would have been simpler, she knew, to pick a lock on one of the ground-floor doors, but Troy preferred this way. The practice never hurt, and besides, she’d found it quicker to walk through only a single unfamiliar room rather than an entire unfamiliar house.
She “walked” up the wall, her gloved hands gripping the nylon line easily, until she reached the second-floor window that was her goal. Locking the line, she hung there long enough to check for the possibility of a second, less obvious, electronic screen, then used a thin probe to open the window far enough for her fingers to slide beneath the sash.
Within seconds she was inside the house. She stood for a moment, listening and allowing her eyes to adjust, then unhooked her flashlight and turned it on. Keeping the light at waist height, she swept it quickly around the room. A brick fireplace, dark and cold, with a beautiful lithograph framed above the mantel. Built-in bookshelves on either side, filled with expensive leather-bound volumes. A thick, light carpet. In one corner a comfortably overstuffed wing chair and reading lamp. Several other chairs. A large, neatly bare walnut desk.
Troy focused her attention on the bookshelves behind the desk. Crossing the room, she gripped the flashlight between her teeth and carefully shifted books from one shelf onto the desk. If she had planned a safe for this room, she would have—
There! Behind the books was a sliding panel. She opened the panel and found the safe. A few moments work had the safe open, and Troy mentally reviewed the description of the figurine before reaching inside. In the narrow beam of light she identified an unwise amount of cash stacked neatly, a long black jeweler’s case, a bound sheaf of negotiable bonds, and one chamois pouch about the size of her hand.
She removed the pouch, carefully untied the leather thong binding it, and examined the jade figurine exposed to her light. Bingo, Very old, very beautiful, and priceless.
Tucking the pouch securely in her tool belt, Troy quickly erased all evidence of her visit, closing the safe and placing the books back on their shelf. Then she headed for the window, unusually relieved to be virtually finished with this job.
That was when the light went on.
For several very good and quite logical reasons, Troy never carried a weapon while she was working. Even though, like Dallas, she was qualified as a sharpshooter with most handguns, she firmly believed that carrying a weapon bred a dependence on that rather than on her own wits. Also, and more importantly, her various law-enforcement supporters might not have been in favor of her efforts had they been worried by visions of guns going off through carelessness or panic. Besides, she didn’t approve of violence.
Except in certain situations.
She turned quickly back to the room, her eyes adjusting to the light, and her mind clicked suddenly, belatedly, into gear. She ripped off her ski mask and then very calmly unclipped a Handie-Talkie from her tool belt and thumbed it on. “Jamie.”
“Yes,” he answered immediately, his voice whispering through the technological marvel she held in one hand.
Troy spoke evenly, her words edged with evidence of a growing rage. “We have been royally set up.”
“Are you all right?” Jamie demanded quickly.
“Oh, I’m fine. You go on back; I’ll be along later.”
“But who—”
“Cameron,” she answered briefly, interrupting his question. Then she switched off the Handie-Talkie and returned it to her belt. With barely controlled violence, not caring for the first time in her life about valuable and lovely works of art, she threw the chamois bag across the room. “I assume this is yours,” she spit through gritted teeth. And it wasn’t a question.
SIX
DALLAS CAUGHT THE pouch easily in one hand. He stepped from behind the reading chair in the corner and crossed to the desk, where he rested a hip on the edge and watched her gravely.
“I don’t believe it,” Troy said, her voice shaking with rage. “I do not believe it. It was all there, right under my nose and I didn’t see it.”
He waited silently, aware that she was, at the moment, more angry with herself than with him. The anger with him would come later.
Troy was pacing like a caged tigress. “A setup. And I walked right into it like a rank amateur. No wonder the security system was so lax: no wonder the house was conveniently empty.” Even in the midst of her tirade Troy realized that there were conflicting emotions feeding her anger. She was angry with herself for having been too preoccupied to read the signs of a setup and furious with Dallas for making her feel like a fool. And since the latter anger could be safely vented, she let it have its way.
“And you.” She whirled on him suddenly, her eyes glaring green fury. “How dare you do this to me! How dare you.”
“I was trying to make a point,” Dallas murmured, refusing to meet anger with anger.
“What point?” she demanded witheringly.
“That I could be conned like three kinds of a fool?”
He ignored that. “Tell me, Troy. When I told you before that I didn’t think what you do is wrong, did you believe me?”
“No,” she snapped.
“And now?” he asked softly.
Troy stared at him, completely missing the point for a moment because of her anger. Then, slowly, she understood what he meant. “The money,” she said dully. “The bonds, the jeweler’s case. It was all a—a test, wasn’t it?”
Dallas shook his head immediately. “No, it wasn’t a test; I was proving a point. Troy, I knew damn well that you’d take only the figurine—”
“Was that other stuff supposed to tempt me?” she asked tightly.
“It would have tempted a thief,” Dallas responded, “but you aren’t a thief.” He looked at her with a hint of pleading in his eyes. “I mistakenly called you a thief; I don’t want that standing between us.”
Determined to hang on to her anger at least long enough to air her grievances thoroughly, Troy ignored the plea. “This is your house, isn’t it? Did you hire Chris Jordan to impersonate an anxious victim of theft?”
“He’s a friend. Troy—”
“Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
“And Roberts. The supposed thief? Another friend?”
“Yes—”
“Why couldn’t we trace the deed to this house?”
“You aren’t the only one with sources. I made sure the deed was temporarily misplaced.”
Troy stared at him. “That’s illegal.”
<
br /> “Isn’t it though.”
“Scrupulously legal Dallas Cameron illegally suppressing a deed?”
“You’ve turned me into a criminal,” he said, suddenly mournful.
Totally against her will, she felt a laugh rising in her throat. The one perfect gem of Dallas’s unlawful tampering had destroyed her temper as nothing else could have done.
Encouraged by her obvious amusement, Dallas continued along the same lines. “Between the two friends whom I was forced to take into my confidence and my source downtown, I’ve shot my lawful reputation all to hell. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the gossip columns proclaim to the world that Cameron is tarnished beyond redemption.”
She tried to conjure up a frown and failed. “You should be shot.”
“You’re not mad at me anymore, are you?”
“Of course, I’m mad. It was a low-down, underhanded, sneaky trick.”
“Motivated by sheer desperation, I assure you.”
“It didn’t prove anything,” Troy told him loftily. “I could have planned to come back later and empty the safe.”
“Why?” Dallas asked reasonably. “The stuff in there is paltry compared to what you own yourself.”
Troy stabbed a finger in his direction. “Ha! The truth will out. You decided that I wasn’t a thief only because I obviously don’t need to be a thief.”
He looked thoughtful. “Partly that. But mostly because I’ve gotten to know you these last few days. You’re no thief.” When she made a slightly scornful noise, he added impulsively, “And I’m so sure of that, I’d consider it an honor to be your backup on your next job.”
Troy started to laugh derisively at that, but she was reluctantly impressed by his willingness to participate in what he had—at least in the beginning—considered to be unlawful and morally wrong. “I thought you said that the edge of danger was a slippery place. Sure you want to walk on the edge?”
Dallas sighed softly. “One of these days, Miss Bennett, you’re going to realize that I have absolutely no sense of self-preservation where you’re concerned. Shameful, but true. I will undoubtedly be ruthlessly blackmailed by two former friends for the remainder of my life because I was forced to bare my soul to them and confess an obsession for a benevolent cat burglar; I have taken my life in my hands—or in yours—each time I’ve gotten into that little black misguided missile laughingly called a car; and last, but by no means least, I seem to have developed the fixed intention of hitching my fate to a redheaded, half-French lady cat burglar who also happens to be a Rhodes Scholar, an electronics expert, a pilot, a pillar of Washington society, a philanthropist, a rather talented singer, and who happens to possess one of the most hair-trigger tempers I’ve ever encountered.”