by Sophie Lark
She hadn’t given them any helpful information with regard to the stolen sculpture, but Black had come back again, a few times, on the pretext of speaking to her further about the case. Really, he just wanted to see her again.
Looking back on it now, he was quite certain that Lex had humored him so she could follow the case.
Because she, herself, had stolen the sculpture.
He was sure it had given her a thrill, watching their progress, or lack thereof. Seeing how little information she had left behind for them.
Then, later, when similar cases arose, they had interested her in a different way.
She had been intrigued by his work in general. When it had anything to do with art or other valuables, she couldn’t get enough. She would ask him question after question, utterly enthralled.
It was intoxicating, having her full attention. He loved to entertain her with the details, more than he should have shared. He could have been fired for that alone, all the confidential information that he spilled to her.
There was one case that particularly fascinated her: the theft of a painting from the National Portrait Gallery. It was a portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi, who Black knew by that time was a particular hero of Lex’s—a pioneering female artist of the Italian Renaissance.
He had seen photographs of the stolen painting, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Even as a philistine, he could see how striking it was: the subject turning to gaze intently upon the viewer, her strong arms gripping the broken wheel to which she’d been bound.
It was exactly the kind of thing Lex would have stolen, but he knew she was innocent in that particular case. For one thing, the methods didn’t match. The thief had sliced the painting right out of its frame, rolling it up to stuff it down his pant leg, an action that surely cracked the ancient paint, doing irreparable damage.
Plus, they’d captured the thief a few weeks later, when his girlfriend ratted him out. They’d gone to the mechanic’s shop where he worked. He escaped out the back, rushing back to the flat where he’d stashed the painting. By the time they apprehended him in the back garden, he’d already torn the painting into strips and set it alight in his fire pit.
A four-hundred-year-old masterpiece, reduced to bubbling paint and ash.
Lex cried when he told her, silent tears running down her face.
It was the most emotion he’d ever seen her betray. It shocked him.
Now he wondered if she shed a tear when she left him alone in the car, the stolen diamonds scattered all around him.
Probably not.
He had tracked every theft across the continent that he believed could be traced back to her. Since she left so little evidence, he was going off the type of item stolen and the few witness reports that mentioned a young woman—very beautiful—in the vicinity of the crime at the time of the theft, or in the weeks leading up to it.
Lex could disguise her features, and her accent, and her style of dress, but she could never hide the fact that she was gorgeous. Men always remembered her.
She took advantage of her charms to gather information from employees of the places she intended to rob.
And she had a definite pattern in what she stole. Almost always it was a singular item, chosen with care. She often ignored far more valuable pieces, or artifacts that were less secure, that would have been easier to steal. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she took only that one thing.
Not a single item she had stolen had ever been recovered on the black market.
So, either she had an impenetrable network of unimpeachably discreet buyers, or she wasn’t selling the objects at all.
Black was beginning to think it was the latter.
After all, she was so selective in what she took. He was building a picture of her tastes, from what she had told him herself, what he had observed in the time he knew her, and the common threads amongst the missing items.
He knew that she loved artwork from the Renaissance, the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, The Victorian Era, and Ancient Rome. However, as with the Romanov Cross, she was also drawn to art and jewelry that had a story behind it, that was linked to a significant event in history.
And always, the things she took had kind of aesthetic perfection. He doubted, for instance, that she would take something like the Venus of Willendorf. As unique as it might be, it didn’t have the symmetry and craftsmanship that she seemed to find utterly irresistible.
Of course, she wasn’t always an idealist. Even thieves must eat. That’s why she had taken the diamonds from the Home Secretary’s house, he supposed. To fund her other adventures.
He believed that by tracking the network of thefts, he would eventually create a web with her real home-base at the center. Because he was quite certain that Lex never stole in her own city. Every theft he noted was a place she didn’t live. And somewhere in the center of all those was her actual home.
He could deduce a few other things about her. For instance, he thought she really was American, at least originally. Though she spoke French and Italian so well, and apparently passable German, there was something about the way she had talked about the Midwest to him—with real disdain and resentment—that made him think she had actually grown up there.
But she must have lived in Europe too. Which made him think she’d been a military brat, shunted around from country to country, absorbing the language and mannerisms like a chameleon.
He knew that she had dozens of aliases: Guilia Bianchi, Heloise Dubois, Emma Price. And of course, the one she had used with him: Alexandra Hart.
He wanted to know her real name. He needed to know it.
So, he kept doggedly reviewing the little information he had, over and over.
It was maddening.
At about twenty-three hundred hours, he had an impulse.
The following day was Sunday. He wouldn’t be able to get much done on the cash-heist case—the Stockholm police had an intractable aversion to working over the weekend.
Venice was only a two-hour flight away. He could go there just for the day. He could see the Doge’s Palace for himself. Talk to the witness who had seen a female figure climbing out the window.
In truth, he didn’t believe that Lex was still in the city. She might not be in Italy at all. But he wanted to walk through the same places she walked through. He wanted to stand where she had been, only a day or two earlier.
And if anything came up, he’d be right there to act on it.
8
Alex Moore
Venice
The most alive is the wildest.
Henry David Thoreau
When Lex woke up alone, on the floor of Angioletto’s shitty apartment, she was the angriest she’d ever been in her life. She couldn’t believe that after all the master heists she’d successfully pulled, she’d been scammed by that blundering nincompoop.
And he’d fucking poisoned her!
Her head was still pounding from whatever it was that he’d snuck into her tea. When she found him, she was going to take every one of those musty old teabags and shove them directly up his ass.
Her backpack was gone, of course, and the cross along with it. She shuddered to think what Angioletto planned to do with it. He was obviously desperate for cash, probably something to do with that nasty bruise on the side of his face, which had probably come from someone a lot meaner than Martina.
He might head straight to the nearest pawn shop, and get them both busted in the process. She could only hope he wasn’t stupid enough to offer it for sale openly. He must have at least an inkling that the police wires would already be buzzing with the theft.
Speaking of which, she had to get out of the flat as soon as possible. The cops might break down the door any minute. Or somebody worse.
She tried to stand up, but her legs were shaking, and her head was spinning. She stumbled to the kitchen, leaning heavily on the wall, and tried to find a glass in the cabinet that looked at least moderately clean. Swa
llowing down her nausea, she filled the glass with water from the sink, forcing herself to chug it down.
Immediately, she vomited it back up again into the sink. That was good. Hopefully it would clear out whatever was left of the drugs in her stomach.
She looked around for a clock, trying to figure out what time it was. There was nothing on the walls, but she could tell from the full sunshine streaming in the kitchen window that it was late in the day.
Groaning, Lex filled the glass again and drank it down. This time, the water stayed put in her stomach.
She stood up straight, keeping her balance with a hand on the cabinet doors. She had to pull it together, even if Angioletto had half killed her.
She wasn’t in a great spot. He’d stolen her backpack, including her fake passports, cash, and her phone.
Still, Lex was nothing if not optimistic. She was alive and as crafty as ever. With some luck, she might catch up to Angioletto by dinner time.
First thing first: she needed to get cleaned up. And there was no way she was stepping in that traitor’s filthy shower.
Lex made her way carefully down the crumbling staircase of the flat, out to the street. Once she was in the sunshine and fresh air, she started to feel a little better. Passing by a vendor’s cart, she nipped up a pair of faux Gucci sunglasses, and used them to cover her smeared and puffy face.
That done, she found the nearest posh hotel (the Palazzina Pisani), and strolled inside with her head held high, as if she were wearing a mink coat instead of her rather dirty black catsuit. She headed for the elevators, scanning the lobby from behind the stolen sunglasses, searching for a well-loaded luggage cart.
Spotting a likely candidate close to the check-in desk, she grabbed a Louis Vuitton suitcase that clearly belonged to a woman, then boarded the elevator, pressing the buttons for the second, third, and fourth floors.
As the elevator stopped at each floor, she poked her head out, looking for the cleaning carts. She spotted them on the fourth floor, about halfway down the hallway. She headed that direction, trundling the pilfered suitcase.
“Ciao!” she called to the maids, poking her head in the room they were currently cleaning.
“How can I help you, miss?” an elderly woman asked, hurrying over to the door.
“I wondered if I could trouble you for some extra shampoo?” Lex said, with a little laugh. “My husband uses so much of it.”
“Of course!” the maid said, hastening to get it from her cart. “Here you are,” she said, handing Lex three little bottles.
“Thank you so much!” Lex said.
She took the shampoo with her right hand, sneaking the maid’s universal keycard from her belt with her left.
“Arrivederci,” Lex said, heading down the hallway with her suitcase.
She went back to the rooms the maids had already finished cleaning. Opening the doors with the keycard, she checked if there were any personal belongings scattered across the dressers and nightstands. Once she found a room where the guests had already checked out, she pulled her bag inside.
Within an hour she was freshly showered and dressed in some other woman’s expensive designer clothes. The blue floral dress she’d selected was a little large on her petite frame, but with the use of a crocodile-skin belt, it all worked just fine.
Feeling like a new woman, Lex left the hotel and began her search for that blithering idiot, Angioletto.
9
Luca Diotallevi
Venice
Oh, but you must travel through these woods again and again...and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time...But the wolf...the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.”
Emily Carroll
Luca and the Roma stopped to grab food from a donair cart. It was weird watching the Roma do normal human things like eat falafel and sip from a straw. When he was just sitting motionless in the passenger seat of Luca’s car, he looked like the Terminator.
For fun, Luca tried asking him questions.
“So, what’s your favorite color?”
The Roma stared at him with those creepy shark eyes, unamused.
“What bands do you like?”
“What was the last book you read?”
“What did you think of the Game of Thrones finale?”
The Roma took another sip of his drink and swallowed.
“I thought Jon Snow was a fool,” he said.
“Really?” Luca asked, astonished at actually getting an answer.
The Roma balled up the wrapper from his food.
“I wouldn’t kill my woman,” he said.
“Especially not if she was that hot, huh?” Luca laughed.
But the Roma had no interest in continuing the conversation. Apparently, that was his full quotient of sociability for the day.
He pulled out his laptop to continue their search.
Luca’s cellphone chimed in his pocket. He quickly wiped his hands on a paper napkin and pulled it out.
Got your guy, the text read. It’s that fat little fence, Angioletto.
The text was from Matteo, a car thief Luca had attended primary school with, once upon a time.
Luca typed back as quick as he could.
He’s got the cross?
Ellipses as Matteo wrote his response.
Luca waited nervously.
He’s selling it, Matteo said.
Shit.
Do you know where he is?
Another pause that seemed to stretch out forever.
He’s at Gallo’s place, at the wharf.
“We’ve gotta go,” Luca told the Roma. “I know where the cross is.”
Luca sped his Alpha Romeo toward the docks, expertly winding through the congested side streets he knew would take him there the quickest. He’d been to Gallo’s place once or twice before: it was just a little shipping office, ostensibly used to coordinate freight shipping of medium-sized crates, but actually a low-level drug-smuggling operation.
Gallo was a two-bit criminal with few skills and less sense, similar to Angioletto himself. They were idiots to think they could hide the sale of the cross in Venice. It was too small of a network.
“Take it easy once we find him,” Luca said to the Roma. “He can’t tell us where the cross is if he’s dead.”
The Roma fixed Luca with a look of utter disdain.
“You do what you know,” he said in his flat voice, “and I’ll do what I know.”
Luca felt a little nauseated. He’d been involved in a few dust-ups over the course of his career, but he’d never killed anyone. The Roma, on the other hand, was a cleaner. He cleaned up Bruni’s messes, by any means necessary.
This was exactly why Luca wanted to get away from the Fratellanza. He didn’t want to be a murderer. And he didn’t want to be associated with them.
The problem was that Bruni had been the closest thing he’d had to family. Luca was an orphan, poor as dirt, without even an aunt or uncle to take care of him. He’d been raised in a Catholic boy’s home until he ran away at the age of fourteen. He’d lived on the streets for a while. That’s when he had started stealing.
Just little things at first. Purses and wallets from tourists, mostly. But then one day, he’d stolen a briefcase from what he thought was a businessman. It was one of Bruni’s goons, actually. They’d tracked him down within hours, to the shitty little hovel he’d been living in. He’d already thrown the briefcase away, realizing that whatever the papers were inside, they had nothing to do with legitimate business. He thought they were going to kill him.
They’d recruited him instead. Bruni had called it a “nice pull.” He’d seen Luca’s potential.
Luca knew that Bruni had used him, of course. He wasn’t blind. But Bruni had also spent time with him, teaching him, talking to him, protecting him. Which was more than anyone else had ever done.
And of course, there was the little complication that Bruni wasn’t just going to let Luca walk away. They might have been close, at least by
criminal standards. And Bruni might have affection for Luca, having no real sons of his own. But Luca knew that if he stepped out of line, Bruni would send the Roma after him just as easily as he would after anybody else.
However, all that was a problem for another day. The task at hand was to recover the cross. Hopefully, Angioletto would hand it over without too much trouble, and that would be that.
Luca parked away from the docks so he and the Roma could slip quietly through the monolithic stacks of shipping crates. The sun was going down over the water. The wharf stunk of gasoline, dead fish, and barnacles. They moved through heavy shadow, across the deserted lots.
He could see Gallo’s dingy little office, but no sign of anyone inside. He motioned to the Roma that they should split up, in case anyone tried to slip out the back.
Luca took the front stairs, up to the glassed-in office.
He crept up as quietly as he knew how. Still, when he slipped in through the front door, the person in the room was already sitting cross-legged on the desk, waiting for him.
It was the thief from the museum.
He recognized her at once, from her petite frame and her clear blue eyes.
She was even more stunning than he’d imagined. Long, dark hair, porcelain skin, full lips. She was dressed more like a socialite than a criminal on the job, which was a little strange, but he couldn’t help but notice how well the soft, blue floral dress suited her.
“Going dancing after this?” he asked.
The thief snorted.
“Oh this?” she said, lifting the ruffled hem of the skirt. “It’s quite comfortable. You should try it sometime.”
“I’m surprised to see you working with Angioletto,” Luca said. “I thought you had better taste.”
The thief scowled, annoyed at that comment.
“I’m not working with him,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust that turnip to pick up my dry-cleaning.”