by Nora Roberts
It mattered. Though she’d tried hard to deny it, it mattered what he thought. For the first time in more years than she could count, she needed someone else’s support and approval.
The east side neighborhood was far less affluent than her Central Park address. The covering of snow helped, but the crude graffiti spray-painted on the sides of buildings stood out. Here and there windows were boarded up, and more than one car parked along the curb was as hot as a five-dollar watch. A knock on the right door could get you a nickel bag of heroin, first class stereo components that still sizzled, or a knife in the back. Philip hadn’t been there before, but he recognized it.
“An odd place to pay New Year’s calls.”
She tucked her hair under a mink hat. “We won’t be long,” she told the driver. He nodded and fervently hoped so.
There were a few choice pieces of garbage in the gutter. An empty crack vial, a used condom, broken glass. Philip steered her around it as his anger grew.
“What in the hell are we doing in a place like this? You can get your throat slit for your shoes alone, and you wear mink.”
“It’s warm.” She reached in her bag for keys. “Don’t worry, I know most of the people who live on this block.”
“There’s good news.” He took her arm as she started up a set of crumbling, slippery steps. “Let’s hope they don’t have any cousins visiting from out of town. What the hell is this place?”
She opened three locks. When she pushed in the door, her voice flowed in, then back to him. “It’s mine.”
He shut the door behind him, but it did nothing to keep out the cold. “You never mentioned you were a slumlord.”
“I don’t rent it.” They walked into a huge empty room. The floor gapped in places, making him think uncomfortably of rats. Two of the windows were boarded, and the others were covered with a thick scum of grime and dust. What light fought through was weak and as dirty as the walls. A few boxes and rickety tables were pushed into corners. Some local artist had drawn pictures of couples in various sexual positions, then had added unnecessary captions.
“This used to be a rather seedy hotel.” Her footsteps echoed as she moved around the room. “I’d take you upstairs and show you the rooms, but the staircase fell in a couple of months ago.”
“Just my luck.”
“There are twelve rooms on each floor. The plumbing is, well, unreliable at best, and the wiring has to be completely updated. Naturally, a new furnace is in order.”
“In order for what? Shit.” He tugged spiderwebs out of his face. “Addy, if you’re thinking about going into the hotel business, think again. This place would take close to a million just to shovel out the dirt and kill the vermin.”
“I estimate one and a half million to renovate, another million to adequately stock and staff. I want the best.”
“The best is several miles away at the Waldorf.” Something began to gnaw cozily behind the wall. “I hate mice.”
“Probably rats, anyway.”
“That’s all right, then. Addy, I love you.” He dragged more cobwebs out of his hair. “And if you’ve got some notion about retiring and giving the St. Johns a run for their money in the hotel trade, fine. But I think we can do a bit better than this.”
“It’s not going to be a hotel. It’s going to be a clinic, The Phoebe Spring Abuse Clinic, staffed with the best therapists I can draw in. When it’s finished, it will be able to house thirty women and children who have no place else to go.”
“Addy—”
She shook her head to hold him off. Her eyes were lit now with a new kind of passion. “Can you understand what it’s like to have no place to go? To stay with someone because you don’t know what else to do, because over the years you’ve grown almost used to the beatings, the humiliation? So used to it that you’ve started to feel as if you deserve it?”
He had no glib remark for her now, no soothing comment. “No, I can’t.”
“I’ve seen women like that, and children. Battered, more than bruises, Philip, scars on the mind, on the heart. They’re not always poor, not always uneducated, but they have something in common. The hopelessness, the helplessness.” She turned away for a moment. Her emotions always took over here, but she wanted him to see the practical side. “We should be able to handle at least thirty more on an outpatient basis. Double that if and when we expand. The staff will be made up of both professionals and volunteers. Fees will be on a sliding scale, based on ability to pay. No one will be turned away.”
Wind whistled through cracks in the windows and crept through the floorboards. It was a miserable place in a miserable neighborhood. He wished he could leave it at that, but like Adrianne, he had vision. “How long have you been planning this?”
“I bought the building about six months ago, but I’ve had the idea for quite a bit longer.” Her footsteps echoed again as she crossed the floor. Above her head the ceiling was sagging and waterstained. “Taking the necklace is something I have to do, for myself. The motive is completely selfish.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes.” She turned back. “Don’t attach any nobility to it, Philip, or to me. It’s revenge, pure and simple. But after it’s done, it’s done. I don’t want it, I have no need for it. Abdu can have it back—for a price.” In the dull light, her eyes were very dark. Swathed in dark mink, she looked every bit the princess. “Five million American dollars. It’s only a fraction of what the necklace is worth, both monetarily and emotionally, but it’s enough. Enough to set this place up, to give my mother back her dignity, and to allow me to retire a very wealthy woman. I need to do all three of those things. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life preparing for it. There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can do to stop me.”
He dug his hands into his pockets. “What makes you think he’ll pay? Even if you get it, and manage to get out of Jaquir alive, he has only to notify the authorities.”
“And admit publicly that he broke the law by keeping it from my mother?” Her lips curved. “Admit publicly that he was bested by a woman and bring shame on the House of Jaquir? He’ll want me shamed, he may even want me dead, but he’ll want his pride, and The Sun and the Moon even more.”
“There’s a chance he’ll find a way to have all three.”
Under the fur she shivered. “It’s cold. Let’s go back.”
He said nothing as they drove. He could still see the way she looked surrounded by those filthy walls. It was easy enough to understand why she’d taken him there, why she’d told him of her plans. She’d made it clear in the way words never could that she was committed. He couldn’t stop her. But there was something else he could do. Every decision he’d made in the past had been with an eye toward his own gain. He didn’t regret it, and never would. He could only hope that this decision, one made selflessly, wouldn’t bring regret.
The moment he closed the door of her apartment, he became businesslike. “You have blueprints of the palace?”
“Of course.”
“Specs of security, timetables, alternate routes?”
She shrugged out of the mink. Her sweatshirt bagged at her hips. “I know my job.”
“Show them to me.”
After removing the hat, she shook out her hair. “What for? I don’t need a consultant.”
“I don’t go into a job until I know all there is to know. We’ll use the dining room table.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That should be obvious.” He brushed melting snow from his coat. “I’m going with you.”
“No.” She grabbed his arm before he could walk into the next room. Her fingers, long and delicate, dug in like spokes. “No, you’re not.”
“I assure you, you can afford my fee.”
“This isn’t a joke. I work alone. I always work alone.”
He removed her hand from his arm and brushed it with his lips. “Your ego’s showing, darling.”
“Stop it.” Swinging away, she hurt
led up the steps. When he reached her, she was pacing the bedroom. “I’ve spent half of my life planning this. I know the country, the culture, and the risks. This is my vision, Philip, my life on the line. I won’t have you there, I won’t have your blood on my hands.”
He stretched out on the bed, much as he had the night before. “My dear girl, I was picking locks while you were still playing with dolls. I’d stolen my first million before you were out of a training bra. You may be good, Addy, you may be very good, but you’ll never be half the thief I am.”
“You conceited, self-centered son of a bitch.” She whirled on him, to his delight. “I’m as good as you ever were, and probably better. And I haven’t spent the last five years on my duff pruning roses.”
He only smiled. “I was never caught.”
“Neither was I.” When his smile widened, she swore and swung away again. “That was entirely different. You only suspected until I decided to tell you.”
“You were sloppy when you broke into my room to get your necklace back—because you were angry. Because you let your emotions take over. Revenge might be your purpose now, but revenge is among the strongest of emotions. You’re not going to Jaquir alone.”
“You’re retired.”
He picked up a small jar of hand cream from her nightstand, unscrewed the lid, and sniffed. “I’m temporarily back in the game. You asked me once if I didn’t long to do one last job, one last, incredible job.” After replacing the jar, he tucked his hands behind his head. “I’ve decided this is it.”
“This is my job. Find your own.”
“You go to Jaquir with me or not at all. I have only to pick up the phone. There’s a man in London who’d be very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You’d do that?” Torn between fury and betrayal, she sat at the foot of the bed. “After everything I’ve told you?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do.” He was quick. She’d almost forgotten how quick. His arms snaked out and pulled her against him. “I’m in love with you. That’s a first for me. I have no intention of losing you. I’ve got a home in the country that might have been built with you in mind. Whatever it takes, you’ll be there with me in the spring.”
“Then I’ll come in the spring.” Too desperate to think clearly, she grabbed his sweater. “I’ll give you my word, but I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
His eyes narrowed. His grip tightened. “Why?”
She shook her head and started to move away.
He started to demand, then forced himself to settle back. “All right, that can wait. Just listen. I’m not giving you a choice, not in this. With me or not at all. I’m trying to understand why this is so important to you, why you can’t turn away from it. You’ll have to understand why that makes it just as important to me.”
When he released her, she sat back. He looked so much as he had that first night she’d seen him in the fog—dressed in black, his hair dragged back from his face, his eyes intense. She reached out, for the first time without his urging, to touch his face.
“You are a romantic, Philip.”
“Apparently.”
“I’ll get the plans.”
They spread all of Adrianne’s research on the dining room table. She’d chosen the traditional here, Chippendale, Waterford, Irish linen. On one salmon-colored wall was a Maxfield Parrish sea nymph. Noting it, Philip had affirmed that Adrianne was more of a romantic than she wanted to admit.
Philip questioned her, point by point, moving forward, backtracking, overlapping while the snow fell steadily outside. When dusk came early, they switched on the lights and reheated coffee. The files and ledgers, the occasional click of a calculator gave their plotting the atmosphere of a business meeting. He made his own notes while they picked at an evening meal of cold sandwiches.
“How can you be sure the security system hasn’t been updated?”
“I still have contacts inside.” Adrianne wrinkled her nose. The dregs of the coffee were bitter “Cousins, aunts. When Abdu’s son—”
“Your brother?”
“Abdu’s son,” she repeated. She wanted no emotion there. It would hurt too much to think of the little boy and how terribly she had loved him. “When he attended college in California, we spent a little time together. I was able to finesse some information. Like most members of the House of Jaquir who travel abroad, Fahid considered himself very Americanized, very progressive. At least while he was wearing Levis and driving a Porsche. He wanted to see Abdu make some changes politically and culturally. One of his complaints was that the palace remains much the same as it has for centuries. The guards still carry arms, when a modern electronic security system would make it unnecessary.”
“That’s outside.”
“Yes. The guards and the palace’s position are enough to insure security. Particularly since no one in Jaquir would consider challenging it. There are ramparts and battlements on this side, the sea on that, making a clandestine approach from the outside difficult. Which is why I will exercise my right to be housed inside.”
“Give me the rundown on the vault one more time.” He touched a finger to the blueprints.
“The vault is more than a hundred years old. It’s twenty feet square, airtight, soundproof. Shortly after the turn of the century, an adulterous wife was locked inside so that she could die slowly, and alone, among a mountain of jewels. It was once called the treasure room, but since then has been known as Berina’s Tomb.” She rubbed eyes gritty with strain. “Sometime after World War Two the door of the vault was modernized. It has three locks, two combinations, and one key. The key is traditional. The ruler of Jaquir carries it on his person as a symbol of his power to open, or to close.”
“And the alarms?”
She sighed and pushed her empty cup aside. “Installed in the seventies, when the oil boom brought so many infidels to Jaquir and the Middle East.”
“Infidels?”
She ignored the amusement in his tone. “American businessmen in particular. As in most Arab countries, they were both used and despised. Their technology was needed, and needed desperately to allow Jaquir to profit from its oil. Money flowed, progress in certain areas was made. Electricity, modern roads, an upswing in education and health care. But foreigners were never trusted. In order to insure that none of them entered the palace without supervision, or that no one in the palace left to fraternize, the alarms were installed. Again, they are mainly to guard against break-in. There was, however, a system installed on the vault.” She pushed the specs toward him. “Very basic, really. The wires can be clamped and deactivated, here and here at the source.” She indicated the points. “I prefer that to cutting in this case, as it may be some time after the theft before I can leave the country.”
“That takes care of the alarm when you unlock the door, not when it’s opened.”
“I’ve had to rig a remote control for the secondary alarm. It’s very similar to the device used to control stereo components or a television from across the room. It’s taken me nearly a year to perfect it.”
“And you’re quite sure you’ve succeeded?”
“I used it on the Barnsworth job last fall.” She gave him a bland smile. “Electronics are rather a speciality of mine.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“With it, I’ll be able to shut off the alarm from a distance of one hundred and twenty feet. The tricky part comes from a more human element. Guards patrol the palace inside as well. Until I’m in, I won’t be able to learn the timetable.”
“Security cameras?”
“None. Abdu abhors cameras.”
“What’s this?”
“The old tunnel into the harem from the king’s rooms. A woman could be sent for and leave the harem without risking showing herself.”
“Is it still used?”
“Possibly. Probably, why?”
“Just looking for escape routes. What’s the drop from this window?”
“
Sixty, perhaps seventy feet. Into the rocks and the sea.”
“I prefer the harem.”
“Yes, you’d only be castrated for being caught in there.” She said it briskly as she handed him a book. “This is an excellent work on the customs and the country. You’d do well to read up before you find yourself in a dark cell for touching a woman’s arm in the marketplace or asking the wrong question.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“It isn’t a place you’ll understand, Philip. You’ll be on your own while I’m inside. I still have no idea how I’ll be able to contact you and let you know it’s done.”
“If you have the idea that I’ll be kicking my heels in some hot, miserable hotel while you play princess in the palace, you’re mistaken. I’m going in with you.”
Sitting back, she waved a finger at the book. “You really are going to have to read that. Once I’m in Jaquir, you won’t even be able to speak to me, much less go into the palace with me. That’s a matter of law. As a woman, I’ll be forbidden contact with any man outside of my family. If I were married, I could also see men in my husband’s family.”
“We’ll have to find a way around that.” He flipped through the book. “And you’ll have to wrangle me an invitation to the palace.”
“I’m hardly in the position to ask Abdu any favors. He has to let me come back or shame himself, but he doesn’t have to grant me any requests.”
“Then you’ll have to marry me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She was up and grabbing the coffeepot, striding into the kitchen.
“We could postpone that, I suppose.” He followed her into the kitchen, then began to rout in the refrigerator for something more interesting than sandwiches. “I would like you to meet my mother first.”
“I’m never getting married.” She dumped grounds into the trash.
“All right, we’ll live in sin until the first child comes along, but back to the business at hand.” He found a pint of ice cream in the freezer and, locating a spoon, ate out of the carton. “What if we were engaged—as far as Abdu was concerned,” he finished before she could object again.