Sapphire

by Sophie Lark

  Of course, Luca had brought just such a magnet, and also a silk kerchief to lay between the metal door and the incredibly powerful magnet, to help it slide more easily.

  Had he wanted to, he could have also run the magnet along Kasperian’s computer, destroying pretty much everything within it. But he had neither the time nor the inclination to wreak havoc.

  Luca located the correct spot on the door of the safe. He carefully positioned the magnet—this alone took a fair bit of strength—then jimmied it along until he heard the locking mechanism release.

  The safe door popped open.

  Inside, he found four stacks of cash bound with bank bands, two Manila envelopes, what looked like a deed, and a small brown box. In the box, nestled in cotton, he found the cross.

  He checked it over twice. There was no way he was going to make the same mistake again, stealing a duplicate. But there was no mistaking the solidity of the gold, the sheen of the pearls, the depth of the ruby. It was the real deal.

  Luca slipped the cash and the cross into his backpack. The papers and envelopes he left behind.

  He did, however, take the time to close the safe and fit the vent cover back into place. If he could get out without being spotted, it might be some time before anyone pieced together what he’d actually been up to.

  Luca had already found a better exit out of the place than the way he’d come in. Going back into the walk-in closet, he dropped down the laundry chute, sliding down three floors into a pile of sheets and towels on the ground floor.

  From there, he snuck back to the chaos of the kitchen fire. Far from avoiding the mass of people, Luca wanted to be where the most noise and action could be found. It was a fantastic distraction.

  He swapped his grocer’s cap and coveralls for a fireman’s helmet and boots, then jumped into the fray.

  He spent a jolly hour spraying a hose over the blaze he’d created. When Luca and the other firefighters had extinguished every last coal, they hopped on the bright red truck and rode it back out the gates, Luca’s backpack and the cross hidden nicely within the coils of the hose.

  13

  Byron Black

  Venice

  “So?” Calcio said when Black came out of the interrogation room. “What did she tell you?”

  “Not much,” Black said. “I’m gonna give her the night to stew about it. In the meantime, let’s track down Gallo.”

  Calcio sighed. “That means I have to write up an actual arrest report and have her transferred to the holding cells.”

  Black shrugged.

  “Sorry,” he said. “She’s a professional thief. She’s not going to give up her prize that easy.”

  “I miss being out in the field,” Calcio complained. “I’m just a bureaucrat now. You wouldn’t understand, working with those FBI cowboys.”

  “Come with me to pick up Gallo, then,” Black said.

  “I’d better,” Calcio said, “if only to keep an eye on you.”

  They paused at the admitting desk so Calcio could sign them both out.

  “You got a pen?” he asked Black.

  Black felt inside his jacket.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t.”

  “I have one,” the clerk said, passing it across the counter to Calcio.

  Black smiled a little to himself. Lex never disappointed.

  But she wasn’t the only one who could be tricky. While she’d been nicking his pen, he’d been planting a bug on her. Fresh out of FBI dev tech: a tiny little tracking device, smaller than a grain of rice, and able to stick to anything, even a strand of hair.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket—the Stockholm team, wondering where the hell he was. He ignored it.

  “We can take a squad car,” Calcio said, “but you have to drive.”

  Black got in on the left side of the car. He’d gotten used to driving that way, since most of the rest of Europe drove on the right side of the road. Still, Venice was a nightmare for cars, with its congested cobblestone-paved streets, its winding alleyways, and the likelihood of a canal showing up unexpectedly in front of your bumper.

  Calcio was a good navigator, however. He directed Black through the labyrinth of streets, over to the southeast edge of the city where they thought Gallo was holed up.

  They found him hiding in a flophouse, one of the many houses on that part of the lagoon that had so rotted away on their piling that they were expected to collapse at any moment.

  Black could hear the creaking and groaning of the ancient building as they scaled the broken staircase.

  “Careful,” Calcio muttered to him. “They didn’t build this place for a giant like you.”

  Calcio had his gun out, but Black was unarmed, having chucked his weapon in the harbor. A rat scurried down the stairs. Calcio kicked it unceremoniously off the step.

  They snuck up to the topmost floor, clearing each corner before proceeding.

  All their stealth was for nothing. When they found Gallo, he was curled up on a pile of dirty old blankets, sound asleep.

  Calcio kicked him with the toe of his boot.

  “Wake up, you lazy shit,” he said, in Italian.

  Gallo sputtered to life. With his scrawny frame and watery little eyes, he looked rather rat-like himself.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, squinting up at Calcio.

  “Get up,” Calcio barked, completely out of patience.

  Gallo scrambled to his feet.

  “What is it?” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything. I was just having a nap.”

  “Cut the shit,” Calcio said. “Where’s the cross?”

  “What cross?”

  Calcio hit him across the face with the butt of his gun.

  The blow made Black wince. He wasn’t opposed to rough tactics, generally speaking, but the rules drilled into him at the British police academy hadn’t left him entirely.

  Gallo stumbled to his feet. He tried to sprint in the direction of the stairs, but Black was much quicker than he looked. He stepped in front of the skinny little criminal, knocking him back on his ass as if he’d run into a brick wall.

  Calcio hauled Gallo to his feet once more, holding him up by the filthy material of his shirt.

  “It’s very late,” Calcio said, in an exhausted voice. “My wife is waiting for me at home with an excellent bottle of wine. If I’m not home when she expects me, she’ll think I’m out with my mistress, and she’ll be very angry with me, without any of the benefit of actually being out with my mistress. So, I’ll give you one more chance to tell me where the cross is before I throw you out the window.”

  “I don’t have it! I swear, I don’t have it. Angioletto sold it already. And he stiffed me on my cut! I didn’t get a single euro from it, I swear.”

  “Who did he sell it to?” Calcio demanded.

  “Kasperian,” Gallo said, “He sold it to Kasperian.”

  Calcio raised his gun, as if he were about to smash it down on Gallo’s face again.

  “He sold it to Kasperian!” Gallo screamed, “He already has it, I swear to you!”

  Calcio let go of Gallo’s shirt, dropping him on the floor.

  He turned to Black, looking disgusted.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “One second,” Black said.

  He had spotted a backpack, next to Gallo’s pile of blankets. It didn’t look nearly as dirty as everything else in the ramshackle house.

  “What’s this?” Black asked, picking it up.

  “I got it off Angioletto,” Gallo said, sullenly. “He didn’t pay me, so I took it.”

  “Well, I’m taking it now,” Black said.

  Gallo didn’t dare protest.

  Calcio was already stalking off back down the rickety staircase. Black followed after him.

  Once they were back at the squad car, Black said, “We’ll have to get a warrant to search Kasperian’s place.”

  “That’s impossible,” Calcio said.

  He was shaking his head, looking utterly fr
ustrated.

  “Why?” Black demanded.

  “Because he’s bribed all the right people,” Calcio said. “I won’t get permission to search his house, not even if he’s got the cross pinned up on his front gate. And even if I did, by that time he’d have moved it someplace else.”

  “So that’s it, then?” Black said.

  “That’s it,” Calcio said, shrugging.

  “Fine,” Black said. He was annoyed with Calcio’s defeatism. “I’m keeping this bag.”

  “Suit yourself,” Calcio said. “Hurry up and get in the car, I really do need to get home to my wife.”

  14

  Alex Moore

  Venice

  Necessity has made us allies.

  John F. Kennedy

  Having never been caught before, Lex had never actually seen the inside of a jail cell. Granted, she was only being kept in a holding cell, not an actual prison, but it wasn’t too terrible. This being Italy, the food was quite decent, and it was quiet enough at night that she slept reasonably well. By the morning, however, she was ready to be off again.

  Part of her was tempted to stick around, to see what else Black might have dug up. But in truth, his presence made her more nervous than her imprisonment. He stirred up too many feelings in her, and his fixation made him dangerous. This was too personal for him, and for her as well.

  So, in the morning, Lex began demanding a lawyer and a translator. (She had been pretending not to speak Italian.) She was well aware that it might take some time for her requests to be granted, the Polizia having the motivation and attention span of the average toddler, but their lassitude surpassed even her low expectations.

  She began to get antsy, thinking that Black would surely come back any time now. But he didn’t appear.

  She found that odd. Was he really trying to get her extradited back to England?

  Her mind was also occupied with thoughts of the other thief, Luca. She wasn’t annoyed with him for taking off at the wharf. She would have done the same, in his position. The thing she might not have done was attack a hitman to protect a rival thief and virtual stranger.

  Why had he felt compelled to save her? He didn’t seem like the type for grand, chivalrous gestures.

  She liked to think that she might have gotten out of that particular pickle on her own, but the truth was, she wasn’t so sure. That brute had scared her. He was cold to the core, impossible to manipulate, or maybe even surprise.

  She was probably very lucky that Luca had jumped in like that. She owed him her life. And she didn’t like owing anything to anybody.

  She stewed on that for a few hours while waiting on the glacial bureaucracy of the Polizia. At last, late in the afternoon, she was handcuffed and taken back to the interview rooms, where apparently a bilingual attorney would be coming to meet her.

  She was kept company by Officer Ricci, a bespectacled young man who wiled away the wait by eating a cup of gelato.

  “What flavor is that?” Lex asked, in Italian.

  The officer looked up, spoon midway to his mouth.

  “I thought you didn’t speak Italian?” he said, smirking at her.

  “I might know just a little,” she said.

  Lex tilted her head to the side and smiled at the officer in her most mischievous way. She was still wearing the blue floral dress. She let the sleeve slip off her shoulder just a little. Irresistibly, Officer Ricci’s eyes were drawn to her smooth, creamy skin.

  “So?” she said. “What flavor is it?”

  “Stracciatella,” he replied.

  “Is it good?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  Lex brushed her thumb lightly across her bottom lip, drawing attention to her mouth.

  “Let me have a bite,” she said.

  The officer laughed.

  “No way,” he said, shaking his head.

  “That’s not very kind,” Lex chided him. “I thought Italians were the friendliest people on earth.”

  “Not to thieves,” he said.

  “Oh, come on now,” Lex pouted. “That’s nonsense. I’m only here because that Brit brought me in, and you don’t take orders from him. I only want one bite.”

  Officer Ricci hesitated, trying not to smile at Lex’s excellent Italian and her beguiling blue eyes.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Lex said, raising her handcuffed wrists to show how utterly helpless she was.

  “This is the best gelato in Venice,” Officer Ricci said, coming around the table to her side. “It’s from La Mela Verde.”

  He spooned up a bite on his little plastic spade and held it out to Lex. She opened her mouth, extending her tongue ever so slightly. But when he tried to give it to her, she jostled it just enough to send it dropping down the low-cut neckline of her dress, onto the tops of her breasts.

  “Oops,” Lex said.

  “Sorry!” Officer Ricci said, blushing furiously beneath his cap.

  “Can you get it?” Lex asked, jingling the cuffs once more.

  “Yes, yes, one moment,” he said.

  He had no napkin, so he tried to use his fingers at first, but realizing how inappropriate that was, he switched to the sleeve of his jacket instead.

  That was when Lex slapped her handcuffs onto his wrists. During the little shake of her cuffs, she had picked the lock using the clip off Black’s pen. While Officer Ricci stared at the cuffs in shock, she nipped a second pair off his belt and chained his wrists to the table leg.

  “What are you doing!” he cried, in outrage,

  “Don’t worry,” Lex said, walking around him. “Remember, I promised not to hurt you.”

  She started to undo his belt buckle. The officer stiffened at her touch, but he didn’t try to pull away.

  “If you don’t mind,” Lex whispered in his ear, “I’m going to take your pants off. Because I need them.”

  A minute later, she was slipping out of the room, dressed in Officer Ricci’s uniform, his keys jingling at her belt.

  As she strolled down the hallway, she saw her lawyer coming the other way, lugging an overstuffed briefcase.

  “Wait in there,” Lex said in Italian, pointing to the wrong room. “We’ll bring her to you in just a moment.”

  She kept her hands tucked in her pockets to keep her pants up, and to conceal the fact that she’d had to slit the sleeves to get the jacket off Officer Ricci. She was almost all the way to the admissions desk when a hand closed around her arm.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  She turned and saw the lean, tanned face of the thief Luca grinning back at her. He had a very nice smile, with straight white teeth, a little dimple on the right side of his mouth.

  He, too, was wearing a Polizia uniform, though he had the opposite issue of his pants being several inches too short. His wavy, caramel-colored hair was stuffed under a police cap.

  “Great minds think alike,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her attire.

  She had to admit, she was strangely glad to see him. Still, she wasn’t about to let him see that.

  “I’m leaving,” Lex hissed at him, “so let go of my arm.”

  “All right,” he said, releasing her arm but keeping pace with her as she headed towards the doors.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I’m breaking you out.”

  That was a bit insulting. She was no damsel in distress—she was perfectly capable of breaking out of a sleepy Italian police station.

  “As you can see, I don’t need your help,” Lex said, with all the fierceness she could muster, “so you can bugger off.”

  “Oh really?” Luca said. “Because you look like a five-year-old in her father’s clothes. And I don’t think you’ve got a ride waiting for you out there.”

  He stepped to the opposite side of her, to partially block the view of her as they passed the admissions desk.

  Lex allowed this but planned to shake him off as soon as they were out the doors.

&nb
sp; Once outside, however, he seized her arm again. He was shockingly fast for someone so tall.

  “This way,” he said. “I’ve got a car.”

  “I don’t need your car!” she snapped. But he was so much stronger than her, that it would have been futile to try to resist him. Besides, she didn’t want to draw attention from the other officers walking up the steps.

  Luca pulled her over to an old Alfa Romeo, rather beat up.

  “Why do you smell like smoke?” Lex demanded, wrinkling her nose at him.

  “It’s a long story,” Luca said.

  “Shame I don’t have time to listen to it.”

  “You might,” he said, strong-arming her into the car and closing the door behind her.

  She could have hopped out again as he walked around to the driver’s side, but the truth was, she didn’t have any solid idea of how she was going to get out of Venice. She might as well let Luca drive her at least part of the way.

  He started the engine and pulled away from the police station, driving in that quick, confident way common to Europeans.

  “So?” Lex said. “What do you want?”

  “What makes you think I want something?”

  “I assume you didn’t come get me simply because you were feeling guilty about running off at the wharf.”

  “No, I don’t feel guilty about that at all,” Luca said. “That was obviously between you and the Englishman. Who is he, anyway?”

  “Just some cop,” Lex said.

  “I don’t think so,” Luca said, eyeing her as he steered the car through a roundabout. “Come on. Is he your brother? Ex-lover?”

  He must have seen her flinch, because he laughed and said, “Oh, that’s terrible. Did you know he was a cop? Or did you go through his wallet in the morning and find the badge?”

  “I knew he was cop,” Lex said coolly, “I could see if from a mile away. Just like how no one would ever mistake you for a competent thief.”

  “Well, I stole the cross back,” Luca said, “so how’s that for competent?”