The Catspaw Collection

by Anne Stuart

  At first glance she didn’t notice anything unusual. Inside the large leather bag were the usual toiletries. Blackheart favored a single-edged razor, a shaving brush and soap, a British shampoo and an organic toothpaste. For some reason he’d left his passport in the bottom of the leather bag, and she stared it for a long moment, considering the value of trust versus the comfort of certainty.

  She knew she shouldn’t do it. She knew she was going to do it, anyway. She started to move a small zippered case out of the way of the passport, then stopped, staring at the thing in her hand as if it were a dead slug.

  It looked like a manicure kit. When she unzipped it that was what she’d find, she told herself. When it came right down to it, she didn’t need to unzip it to prove that he had never replaced the lock picks he’d sworn he wouldn’t need again. She didn’t need to check his passport to know he’d been to England and only England and nowhere near Madrid or Lisbon and the recent rash of jewel robberies. She could put everything back, walk out of the bathroom and take him on blind faith.

  She unzipped the small leather pouch. She knew picklocks when she saw them—she’d broken half his previous set in an amateurish attempt at breaking and entering.

  And it was with a curious deadness in her heart and no surprise whatsoever that she opened his navy-blue passport and read the entry stamp from Madrid, Spain, dated two weeks ago.

  “Learn anything interesting?” Blackheart inquired from the open door, his face an unreadable mask.

  “Enough,” said Ferris. “How many people have you robbed?”

  He’d pulled on a pair of jeans but hadn’t bothered with a shirt. She’d scratched his chest as well as his back, she noticed absently, and there were love bites on his neck. He opened the door wider, and there was no expression on his face at all. “I lost count years ago, Ferris. Why do you ask?”

  “Thief.”

  “You already knew that.”

  “Liar,” she added, some of the ice cracking around her heart.

  “That should come as no surprise either,” he said coolly. “You want to tell me some more about how much you trust me?”

  “Do you want to tell me you haven’t robbed anyone these last few weeks?”

  “You wouldn’t believe anything I told you. You’ve made up your mind. Hell, I’ve faced more impartial judges in my time.”

  “I’m sure you have. You’re so good at manipulating people.”

  “But not you.”

  “No,” said Ferris. She took off the canary diamond ring and set it on the sink. “Not me. Goodbye, Blackheart.”

  He could have said something sarcastic, considering she was standing in his bathroom wearing his bathrobe and nothing else. But he didn’t. “Goodbye, Ferris,” he said, the phony name saying everything, and he shut the bathroom door.

  Chapter Four

  The Man Who Knew Too Much

  (Paramount 1956)

  FOR FIVE DAYS Ferris Byrd did nothing but drink coffee, pick at her food when she remembered she was supposed to eat, and brood. Everywhere she turned in her apartment she could see the piles of boxes, a nasty reminder of her shattered plans. Blackie seemed to think she’d made a terrible mistake. Not even Brie at the perfect stage of ripeness could tempt his finicky appetite. He showed up just long enough to hunch his shoulders at his mistress with a perfect display of contempt before taking off into the streets once more. And Ferris had nothing to cry into but her pillow.

  At least she wasn’t due in to work. In one of her more stupid moves, right up there with falling in love with John Patrick Blackheart, Ferris had taken a job as director of the Committee for Saving the Bay. Babysitting socialites, Blackheart had called it, and he wasn’t far off the mark. But with the termination of her engagement to Phillip Merriam had come the end of her job as his administrative assistant, and the ensuing publicity of the whole Von Emmerling affair had made her profile a little too high for the discreet sort of employment she fancied. So she’d taken what she could get, herding a bunch of good-hearted but basically inefficient women through their charitable duties, fund-raising events such as balls, theater benefits and auctions. While this raft of unpaid assistants managed to arrange dinner parties for twenty-four and direct the running of mansions and their children’s lives, most of them had never held a paying job and they were unused to some of the practicalities of life as most people lived it.

  It was Ferris’s job, as the only salaried employee, to herd her ladies through these shark-infested waters, and to do so with tact and diplomacy.

  Right then she didn’t feel terribly tactful or diplomatic. Fortunately the committee closed its offices at the drop of a hat, and September offered horse racing in Santa Barbara, yacht racing in Santa Cruz, and changing leaves any place one cared to look for them. So Ferris could spend five days holed up in her apartment, coming to terms with the shambles of her life, and no one would even miss her.

  By the time Monday rolled around and Ferris, her social armor fully in place, made it in to work, she’d moved from despair and anorexia to something far more satisfying: anger and gluttony. Everyone had heard, of course. And everyone was very kind, very tactful, though Regina Merriam, Ferris’s favorite person in the world and the major reason she’d once considered marrying her son, State Senator Phillip Merriam, had taken her to task about it.

  Regina strode into Ferris’s uncharacteristically neat office, her faded blue eyes blazing, her Calvin Klein suit hanging on her somewhat bony frame. “What’s this I hear about you and Patrick?”

  Ferris swallowed the jelly doughnut she’d shoved into her mouth and managed a disinterested smile as she wiped the powdered sugar from her face. “Word gets around fast,” she said.

  “Of course it does. Patrick’s a particular friend of mine. As are you. Anything that concerns the two of you would be bound to reach my ears sooner or later.”

  “Sooner,” Ferris grumbled. “It’s only been five days.”

  “Ferris, are you certain you aren’t making a very great mistake?” Regina said earnestly. “I can’t believe there could be an insurmountable problem between you and Blackheart. You two are made for each other.”

  “No, we’re not.” Ferris’s voice was very firm.

  Regina didn’t bother to hide her skepticism. “I’m assuming this breakup was your idea? I have too high an opinion of Blackheart’s intelligence to think him capable of such a mistake.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Blackheart’s a man who recognizes true love when he sees it. He wouldn’t let pride or misunderstanding get in his way.”

  “Neither would I.”

  “Then why . . . ?”

  Ferris pressed a hand to her temple, leaving a trail of powdered sugar in her dark hair. There was no way she was going to tell Regina that Blackheart was on the prowl again. “I’m not going to offer any justification or explanation, Regina. We simply decided it wasn’t going to work. Blackheart’s free to pursue his own interests.” Cat burgling, she added mentally. “As am I.” She stared morosely at her jelly doughnuts.

  Regina shook her head, clearly unconvinced. “I hope it doesn’t take you too long to see reason. You’re not getting any younger, darling, and fertility decreases after you’re thirty.”

  “Regina!”

  “Though I did have Phillip when I was thirty-seven. And look how he turned out,” she added gloomily, twirling her perfectly matched string of pearls.

  “Regina, Phillip is charming.”

  “I know. Charming, handsome, kindly, manipulative and shallow. The perfect politician. It’s a good thing he never had to work for a living. Though I suppose he could always be a salesman.”

  “What would he say if he heard you talk like this?” Ferris was both amused and appalled by Regina’s customary plain speaking.

  “But he has. Ma
ny times. And he thinks I’m a meddling, hard-hearted old woman who ought to support him with the mindless adoration of his constituents. We still love each other dearly. I just wish he’d find someone like you to marry and give me grandchildren.”

  “He did,” Ferris pointed out. “He found me.”

  “But you weren’t in love with him. He needs someone with your combination of brains, ambition and warmth, but he needs it tempered by love. Someone to keep from taking the easy way out.”

  Ferris added guilt to all the negative emotions assailing her. “Regina, I thought I loved him.”

  “Of course you did. He’s really very lovable. But he wasn’t right for you. John Patrick Blackheart is. And nothing you say can convince me otherwise.”

  “I won’t even try.” Ferris reached for another doughnut and stuffed half of it into her mouth. “Did you have anything else you wanted to tell me, or were you just here to chastise me about my love life?”

  Regina grinned. “I suppose I’ll have to leave it to you to come to your senses. Or to Patrick. He can be very persuasive.”

  “Not this time.” In fact he hadn’t even tried. No phone calls, no notes, no sudden appearances in her apartment when she least expected it. Blackheart had taken the severing of their relationship with perfect equanimity, and she told herself that was relief burning in the pit of her stomach and at the back of her eyes. Regina was right, he was very persuasive indeed. If he’d had any interest in persuading her, she might have a very hard time resisting.

  “As a matter of fact I did have something for you. I wanted to make sure the permits are all in order for our next fund-raising extravaganza. It’s only eight days away.”

  “They’re in order,” Ferris replied. “My love life might be a mess, but at least I’m efficient. Why do you ask?”

  “Efficient, yes, but you’re getting forgetful in your old age,” the ageless Regina said with a smirk. “Who do you think is arriving today?”

  “I haven’t the faintest—” Ferris smacked her forehead in disgust. “Of course. The Porcini Family Circus.”

  “All set for Circus Night for the Bay. We were lucky to get them, you know.”

  “I know we were. I still can’t imagine why they offered. Not that it matters. Do you need any help on the reception?”

  “All under control. Just show up tonight and smile.” Regina reached out and snatched the final jelly doughnut from Ferris’s grasp. “Circuses are supposed to be fun.”

  DANY SURVEYED her hotel room with profound distaste. She’d never been in America before, and what she saw she didn’t like. Everything was very new, very clean, very plastic. She’d take a tacky hotel room in Paris any day—paint peeling, water-stained walls, lumpy mattress—rather than this soulless perfection.

  She listened to Marco moving around in the room next door. The connecting door was closed, and she wished she dared lock it. It would have been an absurd gesture—Marco could get through the most challenging of locks with effortless ease. Hadn’t she taught him everything she knew? The one-cylinder lock on this hotel door would be child’s play.

  At least she didn’t have to put up with his so-called conjugal rights. To the curious eyes of the circus performers the adjoining rooms put up a perfect front. If most of them were also aware of Marco’s interest in the voluptuous but cowed-looking wardrobe assistant, they turned a blind eye to it. Circuses were like one big family, but the family members learned discretion from the cradle.

  Eight days. She had eight days left, and then she’d be free. One last hit, one last big score, then she would never have to answer to anyone again. All she had to do was play it cool, do her part, and it would be over.

  At least Marco no longer touched her. It had been almost two years since she’d had to put up with his particularly nasty form of lovemaking, and God willing, she would never have to again. Eight more days.

  THE QUEEN-SIZE bed in Ferris’s bedroom took up almost all the floor space. She lay on her stomach on the tiny section of rug, fishing under the bed for her other black shoe, fighting her way through discarded panty hose, old magazines, empty tissue boxes and crumpled-up bags of Mrs. Field’s Cookies, when her hand caught what felt like a high heel. She pulled it out, and then promptly threw it back under the bed. Instead of her black sandal she’d found a sparkly red shoe, reminiscent of Dorothy’s ruby slippers, a gift from Blackheart in better days.

  She pulled herself into a sitting position, crossing her legs, and let out a shuddering sigh. She shouldn’t have left the shoe under there; she should have taken it and hurled it off her tiny balcony. With her luck that huge, humorless policeman would have caught her doing it, and she would have ended up in prison. The place where Blackheart belonged.

  To hell with the red shoes. She wouldn’t even remember it was under there. And to hell with the black shoes; too. She wasn’t going to wrestle around in dark places looking for it anymore. Heaven only knew what nasty thing she’d come up with.

  Back to the closet. She was already late for Regina’s welcoming reception for the Porcini Family Circus, and she was feeling edgy, guilty and hungry. She’d have to find something else to wear, something that would go with the one matching pair of shoes she could find, and then get the hell out of there.

  She was pawing through her closet when she heard the doorbell ring. Her immediate reaction was panic, a reaction she quickly squashed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, grabbing the first thing she could reach and pulling it down over her ice-blue camisole and tap pants. “No one’s after you. If anyone’s done anything wrong it’s Blackheart, and you don’t have anything to do with him.”

  She padded barefoot to the front door, shifting the clinging silk dress around her curves, curves that were getting a little curvier after two days of nonstop eating. She didn’t even take the elementary precaution of asking who was there. With the impatient doorbell buzzing in her brain once more, she fiddled with the three stiff locks and flung open the door.

  She’d been expecting Blackheart, she realized with a sudden wary disappointment. She should have known better, but deep in her heart she’d hoped he might show up and try to cajole her.

  The man standing in her doorway was about as far removed from John Patrick Blackheart as a human being could possibly be. He was good-looking, as was Blackheart, in a sort of rumpled, world-weary fashion. He was somewhere in his mid-to late thirties, as was Blackheart, with sandy-colored hair and steely gray eyes. He was also holding police identification and a badge, something the most famous retired cat burglar in the world would never come close to possessing.

  Ferris swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Police Detective Stephen McNab, Ms. Byrd,” the man said in a pleasant, slightly raspy voice. “I wondered if I might talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “About what?”

  “The man who was in your apartment last week when you were involved in an episode of littering. It took Officer Sweeney a few days to place him, but when he did he came straight to me.”

  “Why?”

  McNab’s mouth twisted in a grim smile. “He knew of my particular interest in John Patrick Blackheart, alias Edwin Bunce.” He looked pointedly over her shoulder. “May I come in?”

  “No.”

  “Ms. Byrd, I’ve done some checking.” He had the patience of a saint, it seemed. Or the tenacity of a bulldog. “You were engaged to Blackheart for a period of six months, an engagement that came to an abrupt end when he returned from Madrid last week. I might mention that there was a spectacular jewel robbery in Madrid around the time Blackheart was in Spain. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  Her blood had frozen in her veins, an odd sensation, when her heart and stomach were burning and churning in panic. “Not a thing.” Her voice was wintry.

 
“And it had nothing to do with the termination of your engagement?”

  “Do I have to answer these questions?”

  McNab smiled again, but his light gray eyes were chilling. “Certainly not. Not now. When I bring you in for questioning that might be a different matter.”

  “When?”

  “If,” he amended. “It would be a lot easier on both of us if you were helpful. May I come in?”

  She couldn’t help it. She felt like a lioness whose cub was being threatened. It didn’t matter that she’d severed her ties with Blackheart, it didn’t matter that he’d accepted his dismissal with too damned much grace. She wasn’t going to stand by and let this rumpled, deceptively mild detective hound him. “You,” she said, “may go to hell.”

  It was a mistake, she knew that from the broadening of his smile, the very real pleasure lighting his eyes. “You’ve been very helpful,” he murmured. “If I had any doubts about Blackheart’s involvement in the Madrid case, you’ve set them to rest. I don’t suppose you care to comment on the Vasquez robbery in Lisbon? Or the Phelps Museum in Paris?”

  She slammed the door in his face, her hands shaking as she secured the row of locks. She started toward the kitchen, in search of the comfort only ice cream could provide, when she heard McNab’s raspy voice through a thin pine door. “Loyalty’s a fine thing, Ms. Byrd. When it’s justified. I’ll be seeing you.”

  It took her half a pint of coffee fudge ripple before she felt up to facing the rest of the evening. The dress she’d pulled on in a rush would do—it was blue silk and the small spot of ice cream near the waist wouldn’t show if she was careful. She wouldn’t have to stay long, just spend enough time there to make sure the ladies of the committee and their husbands were enjoying themselves, and to make sure the Porcini Circus was set for the benefit performance next week.

  They’d been a stroke of luck she was still thankful for. The committee had already made arrangements with another small European circus, when those plans had fallen through. The owner and star performer of the Mendoses Cirque du Lyon had been the victim of a vicious mugging that had left him laid up for at least three months. It was no time for them to start their first American tour.