by Nora Roberts
tall, dark-suited man as he came in. She nearly overbalanced, flushed scarlet, then sidestepped clumsily.
“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“No problem.” Marvin Jasper watched her dash down the sidewalk. He took a detour, backtracking until he was away from the entrance of Wyley’s. Keeping his eye on Tia’s retreating back, he made a call on his cell phone.
“Jasper. Just ran into the Marsh woman coming out of Wyley’s.”
“Alma? Marsh’s wife?” Anita demanded.
“No, the young one. The daughter. In a big hurry. Looked guilty. I can catch up and tail her if you want.”
“No. She always looks guilty about something. Do what I told you to do and don’t bother me again until you have something.”
With a shrug, Jasper pocketed the phone. He’d follow orders and keep the bitch happy. He knew she’d done Dubrowsky but it didn’t worry him. Jasper figured he could handle himself, and the Gaye woman, better than his unfortunate former associate.
So much better that when everything shook down, he’d arrange a little accident for the ice bitch. A fatal one. He’d probably have to take care of the Marsh woman, too. And her old man. But once the slate was clean, he’d be the one walking off with those three statues.
Thinking Rio might be a nice retirement spot, he walked back to Wyley’s, to follow orders.
JACK MET BOB Robbins at the bar and grill two blocks from the station house. It was too early for the change or end of shifts, so there was only a scatter of cops and civilian customers. The place smelled of onions and coffee. In a few hours, the scent of beer and whiskey would predominate.
Jack slid into the booth across from Bob. “You called,” he said, “you buy.” He ordered a Reuben, a side of fries and a draft. “What’s up?”
“You tell me. Morningside.”
“Lew caught that.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“The B and E got through the first level of security, gained entrance to the target. Secondary kicked in, as designed, and all hell broke loose. Word is the boys in blue responded within two minutes. That’s good hustle.”
“How’d they get through, Jack?”
“We’re doing a system check, a full analysis.” He stretched out his legs. “If you’re thinking about hassling any of my people over this, you’re wasting your time and you’ll piss me off. If any of mine had turned on a client, they wouldn’t have missed the second level, would have taken out what they went in for and would even now be sunning themselves on a foreign beach where extradition wouldn’t be a weighty issue.”
“Maybe they did get what they went in for.”
Jack picked up his beer when it was served, watched Bob over the foam as he took his first sip. “Which would be?”
“Again, you tell me.”
“As far as I know, the client hasn’t completed her inventory check. And I can tell you, all my people are accounted for. Burdett hasn’t earned its reputation by hiring thieves. You taking this over from Lew?”
“No. I’m working something that might be connected. Couple of things just don’t gel for me. Here’s the big one. I go years without anyone saying the name Anita Gaye to me. Now, within a short span of time, you drop it on me in connection with some two-bit muscle who ends up dead in Jersey. I hear it from Lew when he catches a burglary attempt at her place of business, which involves your security. And I get it tossed in my lap again today, from a woman who knows you.”
Jack leaned back as his lunch slid in front of him. “I know a lot of women.”
“Tia Marsh. Says you told her that her phones are tapped.”
“They are.”
“Yeah, they are.” Bob nodded, picked up his burger. “I just checked it out. Question is, why are they?”
“My guess is somebody wants to know who she’s talking to, and about what.”
“Yeah, ele-fucking-mentary, Watson. She thinks it might be Anita Gaye.”
Jack set his beer down, carefully. “Tia Marsh tell you that?”
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“I’ve got nothing solid. But let me tell you this.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Whoever got into that building knew enough about the system to get in. And not enough to stay in and finish. I always see to it the client knows as much as he wants to know about the operation. In this case, with this client, she knew the basics.”
“She wants something out of her own place, why doesn’t she just walk out with it?”
“How the hell do I know? Five minutes, Bob. The primary was down for five maximum before secondary kicked the alarms. Your guys responded in two. Coming in from that section, I can’t see how they got squat out of there in under seven minutes. Even if the thing ran smooth as silk while they were inside, they couldn’t have gotten much. I’d be real interested to see what she files on her insurance claim.”
“Doesn’t sound to me you like your client, Jack.”
“Can’t say I do.” He went back to his sandwich. “That’s personal. On another level, I’ve got nothing on her but speculation.”
“How do you connect her to Dubrowsky?”
“Round about.” He moved his shoulders. “Another client told me how Anita was hassling her about a certain art piece. Enough high pressure that this client was uneasy, and tells me how she’s seen this guy following her. Described him to me, I described him to you, and you tell me he’s stiff. She ID’d him from the picture you slipped me.”
“I want a name.”
“Not without her okay. You know I can’t, Bob. Besides, all she knows is Anita spooked her, this guy tailed her, and now he’s dead.”
“What about the art piece?”
“Pieces, actually. They’re called the Three—”
“Fates,” Bob finished, and Jack registered surprise.
“You are a detective.”
“Got the decoder ring to prove it. What do these statues have to do with you?”
“I just happen to have one.”
Bob’s gaze narrowed like pinpoints. “Which one?”
“Atropus. Third Fate. Came through the family, the Brit side of it. Anita doesn’t know that, and I want to keep it that way. She wanted me to get some information on them for her, which got me to thinking and led me to Tia Marsh and my other client.”
“Why’d she come to you if she didn’t know you had one?”
“She knows I’m a collector, and she knows I’ve got connections.”
“Okay.” Satisfied, Bob dipped into Jack’s fries. “Keep going.”
“The Marsh woman’s phones are tapped. My client, who’s the lead to Lachesis, or Fate number two, is being tailed. And Anita’s been pressuring them both. You do the math.”
“Plugging a guy full of bullets is a long way from trying to finesse a couple of statues.”
“You talked to her. What did you think?”
Bob said nothing for a moment. “What I think is I’m going to dig deeper.”
“While you’re at it, look into a homicide on West Fifty-third a few weeks ago. Black guy, dancer. Beat to death in his apartment.”
“Goddamn it, Jack. If you know something about an open homicide—”
“I’m giving you information,” Jack said evenly. “Check the witness descriptions of the guy who went in and out of the building. It’s going to match the hired fist you got from New Jersey. Find a way to get a warrant for Gaye’s private line. I bet you’ll find some interesting calls on it. I’ve gotta go.”
“Stay out of the police work, Jack.”
“Happy to. I’ve got a hot date with a gorgeous Irish redhead.”
“The one you brought into the station? Rebecca,” Bob remembered. “She your client?”
“Nope. She’s the woman I’m going to marry.”
“In your dreams.”
“There, too.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a box and flipped it open. “What do you think?”
Bob’s jaw dropped, nea
rly bounced off the table as he stared at the ring. “Holy shit, Burdett, you’re serious.”
“First time around, I went to Tiffany’s. But Rebecca, she’ll like the heirloom thing. This was my great-great-grandmother’s.”
“Well, hell.” Bob climbed out of the booth and gave Jack a one-armed hug. “Congratulations. How the hell am I supposed to be pissed off at you?”
“You’ll find a way. You want to give me a wedding present? Take Anita Gaye down.”
Twenty-six
WHEN he was parked, sitting behind the wheel of Jack’s SUV, Gideon was happy enough with his assignment. It was just when he actually had to drive that he cursed his luck. It was bad enough to be swallowed up by the intrinsic anger of New York City traffic and its seemingly mad competition between cars, cabs, the ubiquitous delivery trucks, the kamikaze bike messengers and the always-in-a-damn-hurry pedestrians. But he had to contend with it all from the wrong bloody side of the road.
He’d practiced. Even managed to negotiate the viciously jammed cross streets, the wide avenues where everyone drove as if they were on a raceway, without killing anyone. And so had been elected for this task.
As he sat brooding a half block from Anita’s posh house, he wondered whether any of them had considered that driving around with a coach and driving alone—with the express purpose of following a car to the airport—were vastly different matters.
Still, he’d been drafted for it, as he and Rebecca were the only ones whose faces Anita wasn’t personally familiar with. And Rebecca was needed at the keyboard.
He’d have felt better if Cleo had been there with him. Egging him on, or giving him grief or . . . just being there. He’d become entirely too used to having her around.
They’d have to work out what they intended to do about that once they’d dealt with the Fates. With Anita. They’d have to work out the single fact that he couldn’t live in New York and stay sane. Visit, certainly, but live in a place so crowded you could barely draw one clean breath? No, not even for her.
Christ, he wanted the sea again, and the quiet rain. He wanted the hills and the sound of cathedral bells. Most of all he wanted to wake up in a place where he knew if he walked down to the quay or the boatyard, or just wandered the steep streets, he would come across people who knew him, knew his family.
Who were family.
She’d probably hate it in Cobh, he thought and tapped his fingers restlessly on the wheel. The very things that sustained him would likely drive her mad.
Why should two people who came from such different places, who wanted such different things, have fallen in love?
One of fate’s little jokes, he supposed.
In the end, she’d probably go her way and he his, so the rest of the thread of their lives would spin out with an ocean between them. The thought already depressed him. He was so busy chewing over his own misery that he nearly didn’t register the long black limo that glided up in front of Anita’s town house.
He tucked away his personal troubles and clicked into gear. “Well now,” he said aloud. “Travel in style, don’t you?”
He watched the uniformed driver get out, walk to the front door and ring the bell. Gideon was too far away to see who answered, but there was a brief conversation, then the driver returned to the car.
They both waited a full ten minutes by Gideon’s watch before another man—the butler, Gideon assumed—came out carrying two large suitcases. A young woman trailed behind him rolling another, smaller case.
While the three of them loaded the trunk, Gideon pressed the buttons of the car phone. “They’re loading the car,” he told his brother. “A limo big as a whale, and enough luggage for a modeling troupe.”
He got his first in-person look at Anita when she stepped through the door. Her hair was copper bright and sleekly styled around a face that looked to be soft to the touch. Her body—and he could easily see what had appealed to his brother there—was very female with its generous curves.
He wondered, studying her, what had twisted inside her to make her what she was. He wondered, too, why others couldn’t see how out of place she was with her polish and gloss in that fine, dignified old house.
Perhaps she saw it, Gideon mused, whenever she looked in the mirror. That might be one more thing that drove her.
And he’d leave the philosophizing to Tia.
“Here’s the woman of the hour, just coming out.”
“Remember, if you lose them, you’ve just to go to the airport and pick her up again there.”
“I’m not going to lose them. I can drive better on the wrong side of the road than most of the people in this city can on the right side. They’re pulling away now. I’ll get back to you from the airport.”
Malachi hung up, turned to Tia. “They’re moving.”
“I feel a little queasy.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “But I’m starting to like it. I don’t know what I’m going to do when my life gets back to normal.”
He took her hand, pressed his lips to her fingers. “We’ll have to see it doesn’t.”
Flustered, Tia pressed the intercom and contacted the garage. “She’s on her way to the airport. Gideon’s behind her.”
“Then let’s move out.” Jack clicked off.
Tia pushed away from the console, rose.
“Steady?” Malachi asked her.
“Steady enough. Have you ever planted anything?”
“Like a tree?” He stepped into the elevator with her.
“I was thinking more like seeds. Different seeds in different places.” She took a deep breath. “It’s going to be a very interesting garden when we’re done.”
“Any regrets?”
“Not so far. And I don’t intend to have any.” She stepped out into the garage, looked over to where Cleo, Rebecca and Jack were already beside the van. These people, she thought, these fascinating people were her friends.
No, she didn’t have any regrets.
“Let’s rock and roll,” Cleo said.
On this leg, Tia manned the keyboard and Malachi communication. With Jack and Rebecca in the cab, Cleo chilled out with Queen blasting through her headphones.
“I don’t know how she can do that,” Tia commented. “Relax that way.”
Malachi flipped a glance over his shoulder to where Cleo sat back, body swaying to her music. “Storing energy. She’ll need plenty of it later.” He hit a switch and spoke to Rebecca on her two-way. “Gideon says there’s heavy traffic on something called the Van Wyck. He still has them, but they’re moving slowly just now.”
“That’s fine. We’re nearly at the parking lot.”
“You be careful, darling.”
“Oh, I’ll be better than careful. I’ll be good. Over and out.”
Rebecca tucked the two-way back into the holster on her belt. She stored energy her own way as Jack pulled the van into the parking lot. She went over every step of her assignment in her head.
When she got out of the van, walked around to Jack, he held out a hand. “Holding hands as we return to the scene of the crime.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s so bloody romantic.”
“Nervous?” he said as they walked.
“More revved up, I’d say. That’s a good thing.”
“Don’t rush. We want to move through this stage quickly, but we’ve got the time to do it right.”
“Do your part. I’ll do mine.”
Together they walked directly to the front entrance of Morningside. Casually, Jack keyed in the new code he’d programmed