Always a Thief

by Kay Hooper

  “So . . . when I stumble across another thief while casing the museum, I make it a point to follow him until I know who he is. He's naturally upset that I was able to find him, but I make it clear I don't particularly care who he is and that I have no intention of either exposing him or horning in on his territory. No, I'm going to go back to Europe—but I want very badly to take one piece of the Bannister collection with me.”

  “The Bolling?” she guessed.

  Quinn smiled slightly. “Are you kidding? That bloody thing's got a curse on it. Every time it's been stolen in its long and colorful history, it's brought disaster to the thief.”

  Startled, she said, “I didn't know that was the curse.”

  “Oh, yes, and it's well documented. The diamond came into the hands of the Bannisters somewhere around 1500—legitimately. A gentleman named Edward Bannister found the uncut and unpolished stone lying in a streambed in India. Just lying right out in the open.”

  “Talk about luck,” Morgan said, perfectly aware that Quinn was deliberately trying to distract her. What she wasn't certain of was whether she was going to let him get away with it.

  “Yeah. Anyway, he had the stone polished—not faceted—and gave it as a betrothal present to his bride. The first attempt to steal it actually occurred during their honeymoon, and the would-be thief broke his neck trying to escape out a window. Rumor has it that Edward stood over the body wearing nothing but a sheet grabbed in haste from the connubial bed and promptly declared to all present that the diamond was obviously fated to belong to his family and would henceforth be considered an amulet. Then he christened the stone the Bolling diamond.”

  “Why Bolling?”

  Quinn smiled. “Well, Edward couldn't call it the Bannister diamond, because he already had one with that moniker. So he had to think of something else. And it seems he possessed a somewhat ironic sense of humor. The thief who broke his neck trying to steal the stone went by the name of Thomas Bolling.”

  “And the stone he couldn't steal would forever wear his name. That is ironic. And it's a strange kind of fame.”

  “Thomas Bolling would probably be pleased; from all accounts, he was both stupid and somewhat depraved and likely would have passed through history unknown if not for his encounter with that pretty yellow diamond.”

  Morgan eyed Quinn. “Are you sure you aren't making this up? It spins very readily off your silver tongue.”

  “I swear. Ask Max.”

  “Mmm. Okay, so then what happened?”

  “Well, by uttering what he most likely thought would be a warning that would ward off superstitious thieves at least, old Edward appears to have laid a solid foundation for the curse. Maybe fate was listening. Or maybe there simply followed a very long string of amazingly unlucky thieves. In any case, the Bolling diamond began to build quite a reputation. In those days, the stone probably weighed at least a hundred carats and likely more, so it was quite a target. And later on, when it was faceted and eventually set into the pendant, it was so breathtaking that few could resist the lure of it.

  “During the next four hundred years, there were dozens of attempts to steal it, some of them remarkably ingenious. But nobody could successfully get it away from the Bannister family. Without exception, all the thieves died—most in decidedly painful ways. A few were caught and died in prison, but all of them died because of that stone.”

  Morgan shivered a little. She had never been a superstitious woman, but the story definitely unnerved her. No doubt because she was in love with a jewel thief. She cleared her throat and said a bit fiercely, “You stay away from that thing.”

  He smiled and moved suddenly, sliding off the couch and onto his knees in front of her chair. Before she could do anything, his hands were on her knees, easing them apart. She caught her breath as warm fingers stroked her outer thighs, then slid upward very slowly, under the silk of her robe, until they could cup her bottom and pull her toward him.

  “I'm not going to steal the Bolling, Morgana,” he murmured, his eyes heavy-lidded and intense. He kissed the side of her neck, then her throat when her head fell back against the chair cushion. His lips trailed slowly down along the V of silky flesh exposed by the robe's lapels, and his voice grew hoarse. “It's the Talisman emerald I'm after.”

  Morgan slid her fingers into his thick pale-gold hair and tugged gently, frowning at him a bit dazedly when he looked at her. He was distracting her, dammit. “You're after?”

  “I mean—it's the Talisman emerald that Nightshade thinks I'm after. Can we talk about this later?” He caught her lower lip delicately between his teeth, nibbling, then he was kissing her with unhidden hunger.

  He got one hand between them long enough to tug at the belt of her robe, and she felt the garment open up as if it had been designed to slip over heated flesh. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, and the feeling of his clothing against her naked skin maddened her.

  She wanted him now, right now, that primitive need overwhelming everything else with a suddenness that was dimly terrifying. She didn't realize her hands were tugging at his shirt until she had to lean back a bit to cope with his buttons, and then the tautness of his face and the blazing need in his eyes told her that he was as impatient for her as she was for him.

  Quinn helped her to get his shirt off and tossed it aside. He unfastened his jeans and pushed them and his shorts down only as far as necessary, and Morgan heard herself cry out in an incoherent sound of pleasure when she felt him inside her.

  When the peak came, it was as swift and sharp as the ascent had been. Quinn wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against him, both of them shuddering under the force of the waves of ecstasy that tore through them—and left them with barely the strength to remain upright.

  Morgan kept her face buried in the curve of his neck, breathing in the heady male scent of him while her pounding heart slowly returned to its normal steady beat. She didn't want to move or open her eyes. All she wanted to do was hold him like this while he held her and luxuriate in the sensations.

  It gradually occurred to her, however, that their positions, while amazingly erotic, were hardly comfortable now that passion was temporarily spent. In fact, being Morgan, she was suddenly tempted to giggle. A chair in her living room, for heaven's sake, and in the middle of the day. Even with the carpet, his knees were probably giving him hell, and she'd never felt so astonished at herself in her entire life.

  He lifted his head suddenly and looked at her, smiling but with fierce eyes. “If you laugh, I swear I'll strangle you,” he told her in a voice that was still husky.

  Either she had given herself away somehow, she thought, or else the connection between them was growing stronger.

  She cleared her throat and tried to stop smiling. “I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I'm not amused because this is funny, I'm just sort of . . . startled. What happened? I mean, one minute we were having a perfectly rational conversation, and the next minute we were . . .”

  “Yes, we were. We certainly were.” He kissed her, then eased away and pulled his jeans up, zipping them but not bothering to fasten the snap. “Let's do it again.”

  “Wait a minute.” Trying to think clearly because something was bothering her, she tapped the middle of his chest with her index finger in a useless bid to get his full attention. “What you told me about your—your sting. You're over here just to catch Nightshade, that's the plan, right?”

  “Mmmm,” he agreed, nuzzling her neck.

  “Then—” She gasped when he gently bit her earlobe, and she felt her eyes starting to cross. “Then why did you take that dagger the night we met?”

  “Camouflage,” he murmured, but not as if the subject interested him much. “You would have wondered if I hadn't taken anything that night.”

  “Oh. Umm . . . Alex? I know I asked you before, but . . . did you steal the Carstairs diamonds?”

  “No.” He stopped exploring her neck long enough to swing her up into his arms. He kiss
ed her and started toward the bedroom, adding cheerfully, “I just borrowed them.”

  “Why can't she be identified?”

  Both Wolfe and Jared looked at Storm, and the latter said, “You mean Jane Doe?” They were still in the computer room and still brainstorming the situation.

  “Yeah. Why can't she be identified?”

  “No fingerprints, for one thing,” Jared began, then stopped and nodded slowly as he realized Storm's meaning. “Why doesn't the killer want her identified.”

  “It's an important question, isn't it? A piece of the puzzle. He makes damned sure she can't be identified yet leaves signposts all over the place pointing to the museum.”

  “So,” Wolfe said, “either her identity would lead us far from the museum, or else it would get us a hell of a lot closer to seeing a big piece of the puzzle. Another assumption, but a reasonable one.”

  “The police are working on an I.D.,” Jared noted.

  “But are they working on the right thing?” Wolfe frowned at the Interpol agent. “The killer went to the extreme of using a blowtorch to obliterate her prints. That says to me that he knew or had good reason to believe the prints were on file somewhere.”

  “Criminal, police, or military,” Storm said. “All are routinely printed. Some states' DMVs are beginning to print drivers, but it's not universal yet. There are other groups with databases, but those are primaries. Covers a lot of territory.”

  “But it does narrow the field,” Jared noted. “Gives the police somewhere to look. If they can ever get a usable print to run against the databases.”

  “The military tends to be possessive of its information,” Wolfe noted. “Max might have to pull a few strings. That's assuming the police forensics people can produce a usable print.”

  Storm said, “It could be just another signpost, you know. Another way to make us look for something that isn't there. I mean, he's already gone to so much trouble—just planting that knife in the basement the way he did, for instance—that maybe using a blowtorch to destroy his victim's prints is just one more bit of sleight of hand. No pun intended.”

  “We're spending too much time second-guessing ourselves, that's the trouble,” Jared said.

  “You've been a cop a long time,” Wolfe said, staring at him. “What do your instincts say?”

  Promptly, Jared replied, “That knowing who Jane Doe is will give us a very big piece of the puzzle.”

  “Then I say that's the assumption we follow,” Wolfe said rather surprisingly. “What does Alex think?”

  “About Jane Doe? He hasn't said much. He's very focused on Nightshade. Maybe too focused.”

  “Reel him in,” Wolfe suggested bluntly.

  “It's not that simple.”

  “Maybe it should be.”

  Wary that the tentative peace between the two men could end abruptly over this, Storm intervened to say calmly, “Alex is certainly in the best position to track another thief, so until we're absolutely certain Jane Doe or her murder is connected to the museum, it's probably best not to split his focus.”

  “Morgan already has,” Jared muttered.

  “Best not to split it a third way, then.” Storm smiled. “Can't fight human nature, guys, we all know that. Maybe it is a lousy time for those two to find each other, but we're not really in control of these things.” She was smiling at Wolfe. “Are we?”

  His face softened. “No. No, we're not.”

  Whatever Jared might have said to that was lost when a timid knock on the door interrupted them. Chloe Webster stuck her head in without waiting for a response.

  “Storm— Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were alone.”

  “It's all right, Chloe. What's up?”

  “Inspector Tyler just called Mr. Dugan to tell him the forensics team wants to take another look at the basement. Possible points of entry, I think he said. I thought you should know.”

  Storm nodded. “Okay, Chloe. Thanks.”

  The new assistant curator sort of ducked her head and hastily withdrew, closing the door softly.

  “Am I being paranoid,” Jared said, “or was that a pretty flimsy excuse to see what was going on in here?”

  “You're being paranoid,” Wolfe said, then grimaced and looked inquiringly at Storm.

  “She's poking her nose into corners, but that's natural,” Storm said. “Trying to learn the place. I haven't seen anything to send up red flags. The background check was clean, you both know that.”

  Jared sighed. “Yet another tangent, probably. I'm getting suspicious of everyone. Christ, I wish Nightshade would make his move and get it over with.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Storm warned soberly.

  It was late afternoon before Morgan could summon the energy to resume their earlier conversation, and when she did her voice was wondering. “Borrowed them. You borrowed the Carstairs diamonds. You're a lunatic, you know that?”

  He chuckled softly.

  Persisting, she said, “You took an awful chance to steal that necklace. You could have been caught by San Francisco police officers who don't give a damn about your deal with Interpol. Or you could have been killed.”

  “I needed it, Morgana. Nightshade required a . . . good-faith gesture.”

  “You stole it for him?”

  “I borrowed it so he'd think I stole it for him. The Carstairs family will get it back, don't worry.”

  “If you say so.” Pushing herself up onto her elbow beside him, Morgan gazed at his relaxed face and said in bemusement, “It's nearly four in the afternoon, and we're in bed.”

  He opened one bright eye, then closed it, tightened his arm around her, and sighed pleasurably. “My idea of how to spend an ideal afternoon.”

  She reached out and began toying with the dark- gold hair on his chest. “Yes, but I haven't even talked to anybody at the museum. And when I do talk to them, what do I say? I've taken a whole day off without any explanation at all, very rare for me, and it wasn't because I ran into Nightshade on a fire escape last night.”

  Quinn opened his eyes. They were still bright and very steady on her face. He was smiling slightly. “Do you care if they know we're lovers?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “No, of course not. But will this—our being lovers—cause any problems for you? With Nightshade, I mean.”

  After a moment, Quinn said, “Not if I can convince him that I seduced you to get information about the exhibit.”

  Very conscious of the intent, searching look in his eyes, Morgan smiled. “Is that why you haven't asked me any specifics about the exhibit? So I could be sure you weren't after information?”

  He reached up and brushed a strand of her glossy black hair away from her face, his fingers lingering to stroke her cheek. “Maybe. It isn't something I do, Morgana. I want you to understand that.”

  Perhaps oddly, she believed him. For all his charm and his undoubted sexual experience, he wasn't the kind of man who would seduce a woman merely for the sake of gaining information from her. Not because it was a dishonorable thing to do, she thought shrewdly, but because it was the more predictable thing—and Quinn would always choose to be contradictory.

  “Sweetheart?”

  Realizing she'd been silent for too long, she said, “I understand—and I believe you. I just hope Nightshade doesn't realize that trying to get information out of me in any way would have been useless; I don't understand the security system.”

  “He knows what your area of responsibility is, just as anyone familiar with museums would know, but I think I can convince him that you did provide me with a very important bit of information. That is—if you agree.”

  “I'm listening.”

  Quinn frowned a little. “Let me think it through first. Why don't we get dressed and check in at the museum? I know you won't be happy until you make sure the roof didn't cave in today because you weren't there.”

  “Very funny.” But she was smiling. “Sounds like a plan.”

  CHAPTER
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br />   THIRTEEN

  They walked about a block away from Morgan's apartment to get Quinn's car, which was where he'd parked it the night before, a distance short enough that it didn't strain Morgan's still-sore ankle. He never parked near the museum when he was being Quinn, he explained to her, so as to avoid having his car noticed.

  “That was why you had to carry me all the way last night,” she observed.

  “Well, it was one of the reasons.”

  Morgan didn't probe, and she tried to keep their conversation casual. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had been slowly assembling the bits and pieces of information she had gathered over the last weeks. Discarding some things and reexamining others in the light of more-recent understanding, she was trying to put together a puzzle when she wasn't entirely certain what the finished picture was supposed to look like.

  It was a slow and rather frustrating process, but one she had to endure for two reasons: because Quinn was unwilling to tell her all of the truth—at least for now—and because she was too curious to wait to be told. She had an excellent mind, and even if she hadn't been worried about the man she loved, she would doubtless still have been pondering the situation.

  But most of the puzzle pieces were still floating about in her mind when they reached the museum, and Morgan put the matter to one side for the moment. With less than an hour before closing, there were far more people coming out of the museum than going in; it looked as if a respectable crowd had visited today.

  “I need to check the security and computer rooms,” she told Quinn when they were standing in the lobby. “Just in case.”

  He nodded, then caught her hand and carried it briefly to his lips in a very loverlike caress. “I'll wander around a bit.”

  Morgan hesitated, but then smiled at him and made her way toward the hallway of offices, wondering what, in particular, he wanted to examine in the museum. She didn't believe for an instant that he'd be as casual as he indicated, of course. It wasn't that she was suspicious of him exactly, it was just that she'd developed a healthy respect for his innately devious nature. She had the distinct feeling that he'd never walk a straight line if he could find a curve or an angle.