King of Thieves

by Shea Godfrey

  Jack stared at her.

  “It’s a message.”

  “It’s bait.”

  “Maybe,” Casey said quietly, studying the bottle from afar. “But I took it, Jack, and she walked away. I even asked her to stay, and she still walked.”

  “A manipulation,” he countered before he took another bite. “A gamble.”

  Casey remembered the warmth of Finn’s eyes, and her strong hand as it rested on the table. Finn had pushed at a stitch in the linen tablecloth with an uncertain touch, and it had signaled a change in her entire demeanor. She’d been trying to decide something, and she’d been unable to hide her emotions while doing it. She had changed her mind. “She gave me her name, Jack. I’ve got enough information now, as basic as it may be, that she might as well have worn a sign around her neck telling me to stay the hell away. She broke cover. She didn’t have to do that.”

  “Maybe she thought it would get her somewhere.”

  Casey smiled. “If by somewhere, you mean closer to me than she already was, she didn’t have to try so hard. If you must know, she was already there.”

  Jack waited a moment, and then he picked up his beer again. “I knew she was a badass.”

  “I’ll take care of her, at least for the moment,” Casey told him. “Colin is digging deeper. Give him what you have on the second tail as well. Both of you, find out whatever you can. Text if you find something I should know about, but otherwise, wait until I call.”

  “Do you want backup?”

  “No, I’ll be okay. I’ll check in on Colin’s app.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  Casey took another sip of coffee. “I’m going to see if Finnegan Starkweather has anything interesting to say.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  “By going shopping and getting my hair done.”

  “Are you getting those frosted tips again? Those were just simply divine.”

  Casey laughed. “Shut up.”

  Chapter Six

  Finn opened her eyes as she gasped for air, and the ragged sound against her throat filled her head like a scream. She lay perfectly still, and though her lungs were suddenly full and on fire, she needed more.

  The sheets clung to her skin and the sweat stung her eyes, but she didn’t move, nor did she blink. The shadows within her bedroom were well known, but they held a coldness that was alien and it filled her with fear, like the frozen waters of an unfamiliar lake, ready to break apart with unexpected life if she offered them too much weight.

  Breathe…

  A flash of light, harsh and empty, washed across her vision and she reacted. She kicked free of the sheet, stumbled from the bed, and fell to the floor on her hands and knees.

  The sound of the gunshot exploded inside her head and she tipped back onto her heels. Her bedcovers pulled within her fist and she staggered to her feet. The darkness closed in as she moved, and she threw her right arm up against its approach, certain of her destination. The bathroom light was like a hammer against the side of her head, but it dispelled the shadows rather neatly. That was all she knew, that the shadows were gone.

  The cold porcelain of the sink was beneath her hands, and then her stomach rolled and her shoulders tightened. There wasn’t much for her stomach to reject, but what there was, her body found offensive. Her muscles pulled as she threw up, the cough that followed coming from deep within her body. Her right hand trembled as she turned the water on.

  She shivered as she stepped back from the sink, avoiding the mirror with a deliberate turn. She looked down the short hallway that led back into the bedroom.

  The darkness she had left behind seemed to move, taking long, deep breaths as it waited for her return. She saw the glow from the clock on a far bookshelf, but her vision was blurred. She wiped the back of her left hand over her eyes and pushed the hair from her forehead.

  Time.

  She still couldn’t read the clock. The numbers hovered beyond the rise and fall of the air, oddly splintered and bleeding when she blinked, a taunt in slow motion. She would have to brave the darkness if she wanted what it could tell her.

  It didn’t matter what time it was. It was just that time.

  The floor was ice-cold against the soles of her feet but it felt good, and she took the few steps necessary to close the bathroom door. The heavy surface bolt was more serious than most, and the thick brass rod slid past the edge of the door and fit tightly into the plating that was mounted on the frame.

  Finn stepped back to the sink and cupped her hands together. The water was cool, and she spat the sour taste from her mouth several times before she cleaned the sink with a washcloth, shut off the water, and turned to the tub. She pushed the curtain back and spun the knobs.

  Her T-shirt and boxers peeled away from her skin as if she had already been in the shower, and Finn moved in a stilted manner as she tossed them into the laundry basket.

  The sound of the water was soothing, and as Finn turned back to the tub, her left hand slid along her ribs and over her stomach. The two scars to the left of her belly button were about two inches apart, and as each patch of rough tissue passed beneath the palm of her hand, she felt her stomach roll with nausea. The pain she felt throughout her abdomen was a ghost, but she recognized its familiar presence as if it were an old acquaintance she had no interest in seeing.

  She stepped into the shower with the help of the tub and stood on shaky legs as she pulled the curtain back around. The firm spray of hot water jolted her thoughts to the side and pushed them into a no-man’s-land between reality and memory. It was not the worst place to be, and she knew it.

  Paris

  December 2009

  Asher James took the cigarette from his mouth and contemplated what he saw.

  The lights along the Seine were golden, and the reflections they left upon the water moved with the current, the cresting wake of a westbound barge still pushing in waves against the built-up banks that contained them. It was late, even for the Left Bank, for though the Montparnasse was still home to artists and musicians, it was not so much the cauldron of freedom it had once been. People tended to work for a living these days and ply their loves with hope after earning their wages.

  The woman was tall and beautiful, though her beauty was fierce and unique among those women he had thought beautiful in the past. Her hair was covered by a loose-fitting stocking hat at the moment, but when she had ordered drink after drink at the Café de la Rotonde, it had been a wonderfully wild landscape of rebellion. Her clothes were very American, her jeans dark and her boots buckled loosely. Her jacket was wool and warm, but the T-shirt beneath it showed her allegiance to a Boston baseball team.

  She was not given to drink—Asher could see that after her third one, for her complexion had begun to pale and her strong personality had dimmed. The natural confidence she wore began to fade as her demons awoke, and she did not seem so at home within her skin.

  It wasn’t until she had left the bar and he had followed that he began to suspect what she might finally be about. He’d been following her for almost a week in order to take her measure, and what he’d discovered was when left to her own devices, she would become a ghost.

  She had indulged in drink, but it was not her vice of choice. She had spent three of her nights at the Atelier Charonne, where the jazz leaned toward the manouche and devotees of Django Reinhardt. She had mingled with an older, more dangerous crowd and smoked from several water pipes, hashish most likely—her reaction had not been overly dramatic. She had taken absinthe as well, though whether the thujone had affected her, Asher couldn’t tell. She had gone home with several different women, and then escaped into the early morning like a thief.

  She walked along the edge of her world with no apparent concern for whether she fell, or not, into the emptiness that waited.

  She’d been sitting on the bench for well over an hour and she had barely moved, not even to stamp her feet or to warm her hands with a breath. Whi
le it was not what she might be used to in America, a Paris winter could be gloomy and wet and just plain annoying.

  When she finally stirred, Asher cursed beneath his breath and pushed away from the unlit street lamp he leaned against. He hurried across the wide walkway as he tossed his smoke to the ground, no longer able to see her hands as he neared. He coughed as he approached the bench, and though her shoulders jerked in surprise, she did not turn around.

  Asher stepped about the far end of the bench, and without invitation, sat down several feet from her. He spoke to her in French, but there was no reaction.

  He glanced at her amiably and then toward the river, her weapon held between her knees with some small attempt at discretion. A burst of adrenaline moved through his system and he narrowed his eyes at the buildings across the way. He waved a hand at them as if in disgust and spoke again.

  From the corner of his eye, he watched as she pulled her hands back and put them in the pockets of her coat, the handgun disappearing into the black wool. Asher looked at her openly for the first time. “Do you speak English?”

  She wiped quickly at her face before she found the bench between them. “Yes, I’m sorry.” Her gaze lifted, but she had turned back to the river.

  “Do not apologize,” he said in a gentle voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his tobacco and papers. “All of this attitude—if you don’t speak French, you are a piece of shit.”

  She let out a breath of laughter and glanced at him.

  “I’m telling you, I am French myself, and they look at me like I am a piece of shit. I was born in Lyon, for Christ’s sake.”

  He caught the surprise in her expression, her eyes still swollen with tears. She pulled her jacket shut as her shoulders came in.

  “But then, maybe they know something that I do not.”

  She smiled a very small smile.

  “I said before that I am sick of this cold and rain…and they have not even turned on the festival lights. It is very beautiful if the lights are on, even if it is cold.”

  “It’s beautiful anyway.”

  “Yes, you are right. It is the Seine. You can’t really go wrong.”

  Asher filled the paper and closed his tobacco pouch with a pull of his teeth before he let it drop into his lap. He gave the paper a practiced shake and rolled his smoke with skill. With a touch of his tongue he sealed it. “Do you smoke? It is a bad habit, but it calms my nerves.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and took it.

  He leaned over as he pulled the gold Zippo lighter from his jacket pocket. “My name is James. I do not bother you, do I?”

  She met his gaze for just an instant as she sought out the flame. Her words were almost lost within the smoke she exhaled. “No, it’s okay.”

  Asher retrieved his tobacco pouch from where he had dropped it and began to roll a second smoke. “Do you know this place, where we are sitting?”

  She pulled at her smoke but did not look up from the water.

  “This place, in the 1930s, it was the best place to be. Writers and painters, and beautiful women looking to be someone’s muse, they were everywhere here. Picasso and Chagall, and even your Hemingway, they all lived here.”

  For the first time, he caught her smile.

  “That would have been a good time to sit on this bench, eh?” He put his new smoke between his lips and lit it.

  “Yes.”

  “My daughter…” Asher let out a sniff of affection. “My God, when we were in Paris, she would be here at all hours. She was not so much loving trouble, but she liked the romance of it. I stood where Modigliani stood, she would say, and then laugh. Your curfew is foolish.”

  Her eyes held his for the first time. “She was right.”

  Asher laughed, but he felt a wave of sorrow move through his chest, for her eyes couldn’t hide the pain she was feeling. They were eyes he had seen before, and it was like a punch in the stomach. “I know,” he agreed. “But she would not call, and she would just disappear into the Paris night at sixteen years old. My God, it gave me gray hair, you see?”

  She smiled, still looking at him. “That’s our job.”

  Asher willed all his love for Casey into his expression. “Yes, just so. I did not scold her. I would have done the same.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Asher debated for a few moments how he might answer the question. He had pondered it before, and he had never come up with a satisfactory solution. One’s true identity as a thief was more precious than any work of art. Such information was worth more than its weight in gold, and Casey was even more cautious than most. She was an artist herself, and he had no wish to ruin the fine canvas of anonymity she had created with such care. He did not forget for a second, however, how precarious the current moment was. He could feel the veil pulled back, within the fog and darkness, and it deserved respect.

  “I have called her Domino since she was a girl.” He smiled and gestured with his hand. The ash from his smoke fluttered to the bench between them. “She has that power to tip over the rest, you know?” He chuckled, certain of his words. “A little turn of her head?” He made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. “They all fall. I call it Domino’s gravity.”

  Her tears returned. “My name is Finn.”

  “It is good to meet you, Finn,” Asher said with a genuine smile and then glanced away. He did not wish her to be embarrassed. “Will you join me for a coffee, Finn? I am too old for this wet and cold, and I have had a strange day. I am lonely for my family.” He looked back at her. “Just to talk, I promise you. Sometimes, it is good to talk with a stranger, and if you would permit me, I have a story I think you will like.”

  Finn stared at him, and he waited for her to focus. “A story?”

  “Yes, my new friend. I think you will find it interesting.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because it starts in Nuenen, in the Netherlands. It starts with the sketch of a church and a spire and a young Vincent van Gogh, who had not yet discovered the joys of a colorful palette.”

  He watched as she fought desperately to clear her mind of whatever influence she was currently under. He smiled, satisfied he had her full attention, or at least, as much as she was able to give him. “And it ends with a man named Ketrin Arshavin.”

  Chapter Seven

  San Francisco

  Present day

  Finn sat down at the table, glanced at her phone, and felt like a fool.

  The foot traffic on the other side of the window was steady, but it was fairly tame for a Wednesday. The sun was bright and the sounds within the small restaurant were pleasant—the rise and fall of conversations and the noise of dishes and silverware from the kitchen were familiar and safe. The smell of apples and bacon hung in the air, leftover from the breakfast crowd.

  Her attention had been elsewhere for just an instant, or so she had thought. Apparently, it had been long enough for Casey to slip away and disappear rather easily.

  Casey had been efficient with her time since she had left the hotel, though she had browsed at several shops along the way. Finn had laughed and watched with pleasure as she had walked slowly through a custom jewelry store and chatted amiably with the salespeople. She had tried on a bracelet, as well as what appeared to be a sapphire ring. She had purchased nothing, though, nor had she liberated anything expensive that yearned to be free.

  When Casey had finally emerged, she had smiled as she put on her aviator sunglasses, and though Finn had been absolutely certain she was out of sight, she could’ve sworn Casey looked right at her.

  Cassandra Marinos knew she was being followed, and she did nothing to deter it. In fact, she seemed to be having a wonderful time.

  Finn was tired and slightly off her game, but from the moment she had watched Casey leave the Palace Hotel, as bold as a life well-lived and looking delicious in just about every way, Finn’s nerves had eased. The painful heat that had swarmed in the tense muscles of her back and shoulders w
as gone, replaced by minor twinges that were far less distracting. She had no real headache to speak of, and she actually felt hungry, which was new but not unwelcome. Perhaps she had slept better than she thought, though that would be something altogether rich and strange, so she had her doubts. She had counted on her adrenaline to keep her sharp, but it appeared now, sitting alone in a strange diner with her target nowhere in sight, that this had been a rather poor plan of action.

  Finn dialed Malik and waited through the third ring for him to answer.

  “Did you lose her?”

  Finn smiled and glanced across the main room of the old-fashioned restaurant. “I’ll have you know I’m better at this than you are, and I don’t appreciate your apparent glee at the possibility that I might’ve misjudged my current abilities.”

  Malik’s laughter was decidedly pleased on the other end of the phone. “You just used about thirty words when you should’ve used three. You fucked up. You did, just admit it.”

  “I did nothing of the sort.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, you’re the first one to lose her. It’s good to be the first one of anything, right?”

  Finn narrowed her eyes and grabbed a menu. “We really should have a longer conversation about your theory, using our critical thinking skills, but I see your point. Do you have to be a dick about this?”

  “But I’m really good at it, and I rarely get the chance.” There was laughter in his voice. “Where are you?”

  Finn was amused by his response, despite that she’d blown the simplest tail she’d had in years. All Finn had to do was spend the day with her, albeit from a distance. Her fatigue was a terribly poor excuse. “I’m in a nice little diner just off Geary, where I fully intend to enjoy a bacon sandwich, I might add.”

  Malik let out a startled sound that turned into an odd giggle. “That’s so wrong.”