B. G. McCarthy - A Thief At Heart

by A Thief At Heart (lit)

  Riley saw the look of shared understanding that passed over his face. He rubbed his jaw with his palm and pushed his untouched beer away. She wished she’d never brought up that night they’d spent together as teenagers. She was supposed to hate him right now for what he was doing to her. Not believing he was sincere, that he’d thought she was beautiful then. That something about that night was so powerful and real it had scared him into running away.

  But it had happened last night and he seemed to be saying he wouldn’t run this time.

  Was he sincere?

  She pushed that thought out of her head.

  “Have you ever seen that Pee Wee Herman movie?” she asked, looking over Rob’s shoulder at the entrance. The door opened and some men came into the bar. Hairy and tattooed and dressed in dirty leather. A total contrast to the cool, clean man dressed in black leather in front of her.

  Her heart stopped. “They’re here,” she said in a whisper.

  One of them had a waist length, greasy pigtail.

  “Don’t move. Just talk to me, baby. They’re supposed to be meeting someone, remember, and we have to get a good look at whoever it is. You’re fine.”

  “Are you going to call your people now?”

  He shook his head, taking swig of beer. “I’m wearing a wire I keep in my bike kit. They can hear me.”

  She gaped at him.

  “What are they doing?” he asked her.

  “Nothing. Just looking around.”

  He reached under the table and grasped her knee, giving it a squeeze. She was so wired her heart was tripping. His steadfast, almost loving look, his firm touch freaked her out. He was proud of her. She could tell.

  He believed she could do this. She realized she wanted to make him proud of her. It was so dumb that she felt like that. She couldn’t trust him. She shouldn’t trust him.

  This was getting ridiculous, she thought, trying to center herself. She wanted to go back to the cabin and fall into his bed, wrap her arms around his strong back, open her eyes on a fresh morning to the sight of his sleep-drenched blue ones smiling down at her--

  She wasn’t going to let it happen again. Not now. Was she? How could she consider giving herself to him again? Knowing what she knew?

  Did she know anything remotely concrete? Just that he was Robin James Butler, her first love. Could she involve herself further with a mystery man whose values she didn’t respect? A man who gave her nothing more than shivers of lust now and a future of empty arms and regrets?

  Pigtail looked directly at her, made eye-contact. He turned his head and spoke to his companion. Riley’s head swam. The room seemed to pitch with the rise in her blood pressure.

  Rob leaned forward. “Riley?”

  “He knows me, I think.”

  “Shit.”

  The door opened and some men came in. They didn’t exactly fit in here somehow. She didn’t know why.

  Rob pushed back his chair suddenly. “It’s over, Otis.”

  Riley didn’t know who the hell he was talking to for a minute.

  “I’ve changed my mind, man. This idea sucks. She’s not safe here.” He reached for her hand. “Let’s get out of here, Riley.”

  His words were suddenly drowned out by something she could only describe as pops and bangs.

  She heard the shrill scream of the waitress as some of the glass shelves and several of the liquor bottles behind the bar exploded. Someone was shooting up the place with an automatic weapon!

  She saw Pigtail go flying, the front of his leather vest imploding in a sickening bloom of blood. A wave of panic hit her. She did the first thing she thought of and leapt to her feet, wanting nothing but to get out of there, determined to bomb straight though the nearest exit.

  “No! Get down, Riley!” Rob cried, grabbing her painfully by the arm and dragging her to the floor. He held her by the hair, shoving her as far under the table as she’d fit. Before she went under she saw the glass partition over their booth shatter in a hail of bullets. Glass flew everywhere. She thought she heard his gasp of pain as he covered her with his body.

  It seemed an eternity before the quiet came. There was silence, eerie in the extreme; an utter stillness, like they’d passed through the eye of a tornado. Then she heard the wail of police sirens and the sound of a woman whimpering.

  He was still covering her with his body. He was heavy and warm. She shoved at him. “Robbie, I’m okay. Get off me.” She pushed at him again.

  Robbie didn’t move.

  Her heart sank like a stone. She shoved at his big, hard shoulder again. Her fingers came away covered in something warm and sticky.

  Blood.

  “Robin?” she whispered. “Robbie, answer me.”

  Oh, God. Oh, dear God, he’d been shot. She started to wriggle out from under him, impeded by the cast iron base of the table. She didn’t care if the baddies were still roaming around with their guns.

  Oh, God, what if it was too late? What if he was dead?

  She managed to squirm out from under him. Losing the support of her body, Robbie fell face down on the floor. Blood dripped out of his hair and onto the filthy linoleum.

  Then he moaned her name, lifting his head slightly. “Riley? Are you okay?” she heard him rasp.

  Her body sagged with relief. “Robbie, don’t move. You may have been shot.” She looked up just as sheriff’s deputies rushed through the doorway, guns drawn.

  “I’m not shot. It just creased me,” he said. “Maybe it was glass.”

  She shuddered at his words. He’d come millimetres from death. God, she almost couldn’t bear thinking about it. “Don’t move.”

  “I’m okay, dammit.”

  She leaned close to him. There was a wicked slice cut through his flesh from hairline to eyebrow. It was bleeding profusely, blood tricking over his ear and down the side of his neck. “I have to get you out of here,” he said. “I should never have done this. I shouldn’t have used you this way.”

  She stroked the slope of his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  “We have to get out of here. Now.”

  Fourteen

  Riley awoke from a restless sleep at five, amazed she had even gone to sleep in the first place. The sun was almost up, though the rain made it dark outside.

  What had happened the night before came tumbling back in a rush of images. She and Rob coming here to Mary’s cabin after they escaped the bar; how he’d spent an hour yelling into the phone to this mysterious Otis; how she’d tried to close the wound in his head with butterfly bandages from the first-aid kit. He’d kept going to the window to check for intruders but Pigtail and his friend were probably already dead.

  They hadn’t slept together. Did that mean anything?

  Rob’s door was ajar and she peered inside to see if he’d bled to death. His bed had not been slept in.

  Riley hurried downstairs. The fire had gone out.

  Where was he? Had he left her alone here?

  She told herself she was more angry at him for being a fool than for leaving. She slipped on some boots, suddenly seething with the notion that he may have stolen her car, but when she charged outside the small SUV she’d borrowed was there in the drive.

  She thought she could hear rustling in the bushes. “Robin? Robin, are you down there?”

  “Riley, stay there!”

  “What are you doing? Are you trying to get that bike up by yourself again?”

  “Riley, I’ve found something. Just go back in the house.”

  “What have you found?”

  There was a long silence. “There’s something down here. I just have to get down a bit further to check it out.”

  She walked a little closer, peering down the edge. Without her contacts she could just see him, a dark blur through the budding alder branches. It was raining and slippery and she didn’t want to fall. He didn’t say anything for a full ten minutes and she got more worried for him.

  “What is it? Bigfoot?”

  “
Not quite.”

  “Riley, could you just throw down a blanket, then go in the house until I get back up?”

  Her heart faltered in her chest. “A blanket? What is it?”

  “Get the blanket, dammit.”

  “Will you be able to get back up, Robin?”

  “I’ll manage it.”

  She hurried into the house and got the blanket. She wadded it into a ball, stuffed it in a bag, then tossed it down to him. He thanked her.

  “Riley, there’s going to be a helicopter coming in the next half hour or so. Watch for it,” he yelled. “When it lands on the road, go out and find them. Show them where I am.”

  “A helicopter? What are you talking about? A police helicopter? What’s going on?” She couldn’t imagine... Had he found something bad? A body? Her mind reeled.

  Todd?

  “I have my cell phone down here with me. I’ve called some people. They’re coming here now. Everything will be fine. I have to stay down here until they come.”

  “What have you found?” she yelled. “Maybe I can help. You’ll start bleeding again.”

  “Just stay calm, Riley. I’ll tell you soon.”

  “You actually work for people who will come on a whim in helicopters? Within moments of your call? For something you’ve found in a stinking ravine?” she sputtered.

  “Yes, I do. And stop with the questions.”

  She ran her hands through her hair, feeling her voice going. “You don’t want me to question that, Robin? I have to question that! This defies all rationality.”

  “I know. Everything about me defies rationality. Go, Riley, get a warm coat. Wait for the helicopter.”

  ~ * ~

  They were still out there.

  The portly man with the gruff voice and the pinstriped shirt had sent her into the cabin with a woman who had a tape-recorder. No one bothered to answer her questions, but she was seated like a balky child and made to answer theirs. She’d described at least three times in detail the two men she’d seen with Todd’s car.

  It was pretty clear to Riley that Robin Butler wasn’t some small-time lone-wolf criminal type as she’d once suspected. That was a relief. Maybe...

  She didn’t quite know what she was relieved about. What if he was some kind of special agent? That raised a whole new mountain of questions and complications.

  Just who were these people?

  The door to the cabin opened with a blast of cold wind and she almost jumped out of her skin. Robin came in. He looked worn to the gills, but the smile he gave her was heartbreakingly perfect. It almost seemed like he was going to take her in his arms for a second, but he kept his distance.

  Hard to believe he was that troubled young boy she’d loved so long ago. Right now he was charged with energy, in the thick of something and excited by it. Her heart turned over in response. The very fact that he seemed so dangerous made her heart turn over, so nothing had changed. She was a sicko.

  “You’re bleeding,” she observed without reproach. His black hair was dripping. His bandage was gone.

  “I know. I’ll be okay. They’ll look after me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes. No one has told me what the hell is going on here. I’d really like to know.”

  He nodded and smiled. “I bet you would.”

  “Do you work for the CIA?”

  He shook his head. “No. We’re not affiliated with the American government. We’re more international in scope. More covert.”

  “More covert than the CIA?” she marvelled.

  “The way we operate is slightly different; we have a distinctive way of looking at things. An enhanced reach, if you will. Maybe we have a less romantic, one-sided code of ethics.”

  “Cloak and dagger stuff?”

  “Not if I can help it. I just do my job for them, get what they need and get out in one piece. It could have been that way without the beautiful distractions.” His eyes swept her body. She shivered.

  “Have there often been distractions?” she squeaked.

  He just smiled. “None as beautiful as you, Riley Jane Turner.”

  A thrill shot up from her toes. “What do you do for these black helicopter people?”

  “I steal.”

  “You steal?”

  “I’m good at it. I find stuff they need. Track things down that have been taken. Figure out how the nasty people pull off the things they do. I go undercover sometimes to gather information on how the bad dudes operate. I’m, for lack of a better term, a hunter. I know how to get information from places and people. Maybe you could even call me a hired con man. I get paid well for it.”

  “Maybe we could just call you Robin Hood?”

  “Not exactly. I’m no hero. Never have been.”

  “What was that down in the ravine, Robin?”

  “I can’t tell you now. I’m still under orders.”

  She stared at him. “You’re not kidding me, are you?”

  “Riley... it’s better that you don’t know everything. For once I agree with them.”

  She walked closer to him, lifting her chin, hands on hips. “Tell me.”

  He winced. “No.”

  “Was it a person?”

  He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, heaving a sigh. “Yes.”

  “Dead?”

  He shook his head. “Barely alive. It was a miracle I found him.”

  “Good God. Did he talk to you?”

  “Barely. He managed to tell me something we needed to know. And now they’ve taken him to be treated and possibly soon we’ll know more.”

  “Robin, was it Todd down there?”

  He didn’t meet her gaze. “I can’t say. And if you’re smart, you won’t mention it again. The same people who chased that guy down there may come after you. They’ve assumed he’s dead, no longer a worry. You are still alive, Riley, and I mean to have it stay that way. If you were smart, you won’t go back to the Connors’ place, but I know for damned sure you will.”

  “You know me that well, do you?”

  “I do now.” He said it in a husky whisper.

  “So your covert friends are letting me go?”

  “You’ll be free to go at the moment, but you may be under surveillance.”

  “F-for real?” she stammered.

  He rubbed his unshaven jaw. “Until it’s safe they’ll watch over you. You won’t even notice.”

  “What the hell was Todd involved with? Has this all got to do with drugs?”

  “I can’t comment on that.”

  Riley shook her head. “Poor Mary.”

  Robin nodded. “Riley, I have to go now. They’re going to see that you get back to town.”

  Riley stared up at him. “You’re just going to leave me?”

  “I have to. I told myself I’d finish this one job. I want to give you something before I go.” He reached into his jacket and took off the pendant. “Aggie gave me this when I left her house. I want you to have it, Riley.” He dropped the chain with the religious medal--the silver still warm from his body--into her palm.

  She looked up and searched his blue eyes. “Why? Why do you want me to have this?”

  “It’s precious to me. It’s like a talisman and I want you to take it.”

  “To remember you by?” she asked, her throat thick.

  “I’ll be back. I’ll see you again soon. Try and stop me this time.”

  She didn’t know if she believed him, but she slipped it on over her neck and tucked it down inside her sweater. It rested between her breasts, strange and yet familiar, the metal oddly warm against her skin.

  “Don’t worry, Riley. Everything will be okay.”

  “I’ll bet you spy guys say that to everyone.”

  “I’m not a spy guy.” He chuckled softly, pulling her into his arms. She didn’t stop him. Instead of kissing her, he tucked her head under his chin and held her tightly. She breathed in the scent of his skin, imbued with leather and cedar, mossy-earth and sweat, the metal
lic scent of the blood still on his jacket. She listened to the quick beat of his heart. “I need you to be careful. Mind your own business like you always have. Don’t call attention to yourself. Will you do that for me, Riley Jane?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try to ease Mary’s fears about Todd, but keep this close. She’ll know soon enough what’s going on. So will you, my love.”

  Riley nodded. His hand splayed in her hair made her want to sob against his chest. “Take care, Robin.”

  He kissed her forehead just as someone rapped at the door. “I have to go now. Stay in here until someone gives you the word.” With that he turned swiftly on his heel and was gone. Before she could even say his name. Before she could kiss him goodbye.

  ~ * ~

  “Riley, for the second time, please pass the plum sauce.”

  Riley came back to earth with a thunk. She’d been thinking about Mary. Two days ago, to Riley’s amazement, Todd had apparently called Belinda to pass on the news that he was in France. Mary was so excited she immediately arranged to visit a resort in Cannes that she loved. They’d meet Todd in Paris later.

  Belinda had enthusiastically agreed to accompany her and to handle all the arrangements--a first. Mary had insisted that Riley go along, too, something that had seemed to irk. Maybe she was imagining Belinda’s reaction. After the events of the week before, everything that happened in Mary’s home was looking suspicious to Riley.

  Riley passed the plum sauce to Jenny. She, Rory and Riley were eating take-out Chinese and working on the plans for the reunion. Annika was working that night.

  “What time’s your flight tomorrow, Rye?” asked Jenny.

  “Ten.”

  “Do they only give rich people on their way to Cannes decent flight times?” Rory asked snidely.

  Riley smiled. “They still have to be there two hours early and go through security like everyone else.”

  Riley didn’t really want to go to Cannes, ridiculous as that sounded. She kept holding out the hope that Robin would turn up. He’d already called Mary with the lie that he’d gone back to Toronto because of a problem with the family business. He hadn’t asked to talk to her.

  Riley went to sleep each night wondering if she’d ever see him again and if he did come back, what he’d want of her. Obviously he led a very exciting and dangerous life. Why would he want to give that up for a wife, kids and a house with a picket fence?