“Much as I’d love to drag you back down to the station, if I arrest you, I have to arrest Trump, the mayor, and half the city council, too.”
“Sucks to be you. And you still haven’t asked your question.”
“At Locke’s somebody bypassed the alarm using a copper wire and some duct tape. They pried the window open with a crowbar and walked past at least three other paintings to get to the Picasso. Why?”
“Why only the Picasso?”
“Yeah.”
“My guess would be that the thief is moving fast and traveling light, and he’s got a shopping list.”
“Nothing random about the break-in or the theft.”
“I doubt it. A narrow window of time and a daylight break-in means to me that the thief had the timing down pretty well.”
“You think it’s the same person who got Locke and Addison.”
She shrugged. There wasn’t anything she could prove for certain, not that she would tell him if she did have proof, but if she could earn a point or two with the NYPD, she’d give him a little taste. “Shutting down the window alarm and using a crowbar isn’t exactly difficult. It could be completely different guys. But with both houses the thief passed other valuable stuff and took one painting.”
“And that thief wasn’t you.”
“And the thief wasn’t me,” she snapped, her body and her mind beginning to remember what a very long couple of days it had been.
“Because you seem to have a pretty good understanding of this shit,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken.
“That’s it, I’m calling the cricket.” Wondering about the marvels of irony, she picked up the phone again. Relying on Tom Donner to save her ass. The world was turning upside down.
“I’m just saying,” Gorstein interrupted as she listened for the dial tone, “your average civilian wouldn’t know the things you do.”
“I’m not your average civilian. Do I dial?”
“I could have you in handcuffs before you punch in the first number.”
“Doubt it.”
“What about the Hodges place?”
“What happened? I heard they’re calling the guy the ‘Peanut Butter Bandit.’ Did he eat a sandwich while he was inside?”
“No, he baited the dog with the stuff. No alarm, but he cut a hole in the window and came through the fire escape, just like the other two.”
She nodded. “Makes sense. Do you think it was the Picasso guy?”
“I don’t know. There was other stuff in that house, too. A Remington sculpture and a pair of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings.”
So the Hodgeses were western fans. That meant Perry probably had had a shotgun somewhere close by. Thank Christ for peanut butter. “If you could tell me—”
At that second, the phone by her haunch rang. The standard ring, not one of the personalized ones she’d given to friends and family. Crap.
“You gonna answer that?”
Sending him a glare, she picked the cell up and flipped it open. “Hola.”
“You have a policeman in your house, just when I’m expecting my present,” Nicholas Veittsreig’s voice came. “Care to explain that?”
“Hi, sweetie,” she returned, pasting on a warm smile. “You’ll never guess who I’m sitting here talking to right now.”
“What the fu—”
“Nope. It’s Detective Gorstein. He wants to know where I was this morning when Boyden Locke’s Picasso was getting lifted.”
“And what are you telling him, Sam? I warned you about the consequences of your not cooperating with m—”
“Let’s just say I’m trying to be nice, but I’m getting a little bored. Why don’t you call me back in five?”
“Why don’t I come see you in five? If the cop’s still there, he’s dead.”
“Thanks, honey. ’Bye.” She hung up and set the phone aside, keeping her expression calm despite the hammering of her heart. She didn’t like Gorstein, but she certainly didn’t want him dead. “Anything else, Detective?”
“Not right now. If any more art or diamonds go missing, though, I’ll be back. With a warrant and cuffs. Then maybe you’ll answer some questions.”
“The next time you want my help with something, ask before you start handing out the threats. For now, get the hell out of my house.”
He pushed upright. “The rich guy’s house, you mean.”
No, she’d actually been feeling rather territorial about it since people had started breaking in. “We share. Good night.”
Gorstein chucked his toothpick into the dead fireplace. “Stay in town, Ms. J, or I’ll get suspicious again.”
As soon as the front door clicked shut, Samantha locked it and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Both the butler and the cook were watching a preseason baseball game on the television there. “Guys, I need you to stay down here for a little while,” she said, as Wilder stood up.
“Is something amiss?”
“Not yet. Just stay down here. Do you have a cell phone?”
The butler frowned. “No, Miss Sam. The—”
She tossed him hers. “If you hear anything like gunfire or screaming, lock yourselves in the pantry and call the cops. And lock this door now,” she continued, gesturing behind her. “Don’t open it until you hear me, Addison, or somebody you know is a cop. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am. But—”
Shutting the door behind her, she flew up the stairs to the main part of the house again. The housekeepers would have left hours ago, and Ben was driving Rick, so the only problem would be if Rick came home early. Home.
Pushing away the sudden surge of domesticity, Samantha checked the hem of her shirt to make sure the copper wire she’d fed in there remained. A paperclip and a rubber band lay in one pants pocket, while a strip of duct tape curved around the inside of one pants leg. If she got grabbed, she’d have a fair chance of escaping.
If Veittsreig came after her with a gun, though…She eyed the various items in the front sitting room. A bronze mask of Apollo, a hunk of rock with a dinosaur tooth sticking out of it, the fire poker, and sundry other knickknacks of various sizes and values. A pretty good choice of ammo, really, if an expensive one. And on top of that, if she ended up dead, at least Rick and Stoney would know who to blame.
Footsteps padded down the stairs behind her. He’d come in through the damn window again. “In here,” she called, sitting back down on the coffee table. It was pretty central, so she could move in any direction.
Veittsreig appeared in the doorway. “Since when do you talk with the police?” he asked, his German accent stronger tonight. He was irritated or edgy, then—neither of which emotion was good for her.
“Since they arrested me and still consider me a suspect,” she returned. “Did you forget how to knock?”
“You seem to have cops watching the house.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Besides, I go where I want.”
“And take what you want, apparently. Why the Picasso, and why Locke? Did you know I met with him earlier this week? You knew I was at his house for a party last night.”
“Are you wearing a wire, Sam? Is that why the policeman came by?”
“Fuck you. Do you really think I wanted him in here tonight?”
Nicholas shook his head. Slowly he pulled a pistol from the small of his back, where it had been hidden beneath his light jacket. “I have to be sure, though. Stand up. Hands away from your sides.”
Great. “This isn’t a very good way to start a partnership,” she snapped, complying. “If you get fresh, I’m gonna castrate you.”
He approached, and with his left hand felt up and down her legs, around her waist, down both arms, and then down the front of her bra. Before he moved off he squeezed her left breast.
“Satisfied, Mr. Grabby?”
“I thought you were going to castrate me.”
“After we make some big money. I can be patient.” She was also very, very grateful that her gentleman knight hadn’t been a
nywhere around to see that. “Why Locke?”
“Where’s my present?”
With a scowl she dug up the felt bag from the couch and tossed it at his head. He caught it with his free hand. Tugging the strings open, he looked inside, then dumped the contents on one of the cushions. “Very nice. Did you choose them last night at your party?”
“Are you wearing a wire? Why Locke?”
“We’ve been around, watching, for a couple of days. My buyer needed a Picasso, and you knew Locke, who has a Picasso, so I thought, hey, the more tangled you are, the more likely you are to stick with me on this.”
“Gosh, I’m flattered. Who’s the buyer?”
“Like I would give you the chance to cut me out of the deal. He’s my business. You stick with yours.”
He. A guy, and solo. That narrowed it down—by a teeny, tiny bit. “Possessive, aren’t you?”
“You don’t carry a gun,” he said, as he put away his own weapon.
“Guns are for hacks who can’t get in and out of a place clean. And they piss people off.”
He cocked his blonde head at her. “Are you pissed off?”
With him as close as he was, if she sat again her face would be at his crotch level. Not a good idea, given the way he’d been eyeing her. She stayed on her feet. “I’m wondering if you think you’re being sexy, or if you actually have something I’m interested in—like a plan.”
For a moment he looked her up and down again, while her flesh tried not to crawl. He was good-looking, she supposed, but Rick was in a class so far beyond this guy—beyond most guys—that even if they split up she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to date again, much less sleep with anyone else.
Finally Nicholas sat on the arm of the couch. “Once I tell you, you’re in one hundred percent. You even flinch, and that’s it.”
Samantha didn’t have to fake her frown. “I thought I was in already. Hence the fucking diamond theft.”
He smiled. “Well, yes, but I want to make sure you understand. In, or dead. And if it helps, given your talents and your reputation, we agreed on an even seven-way split.”
“My dad agreed to a seven-way split, too?”
“Your dad, too.”
Her dad rarely shared credit or profit, so he had to be working for the white hats. “How much, then?”
“Figuring our take after redistribution, two and a half million each. That doesn’t include the Hogarth or the Picasso or the jewelry. They’re a different deal—one that doesn’t include you.”
The diamonds would only have netted her five figures, anyway. “Euro or U.S.?”
“Good old American dollars.”
Doing some swift calculations she totaled the thieves’ take, and then the likely overall total net of the job. “A hundred and seventy-five million? What are you doing, hitting the U.S. Treasury?”
“Are you in?”
“Are you guaranteeing my cut?”
Nicholas chuckled. “There are no guarantees in life, Sam. You know that. If the job’s successful and nobody tries to pull anything, then you’ll get your cut.”
“Then I’m in.” Deep inside, she wished she’d had to argue with herself over the moral and material implications before she agreed to take part in a robbery. Mostly, though, she was dying to know what the gig was, and already anticipating going in. Last night had been too damned easy, and mostly it had served to remind her of how much she missed the rush. “What’s the job?”
“Let me remind you first that if the cops or Interpol or the FBI or anybody else hears about this, I’ll kill your father, your boyfriend, and everyone else you know.”
“Now just a damn minute,” she retorted, fighting the contrary rushes of panic and adrenaline. “You said I was in or dead. I’m in. But six other people plus whoever hired you know about this job, and probably in way more detail than I do. I won’t snitch. The rest are your problem.”
Slowly he nodded. “Fair enough.”
“So what’s the fucking gig?”
“A Stradivarius violin, Bellini’s Madonna and Child, Titian’s Venus and Adonis, El Greco’s View of Toledo, and Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware. How’s that for five minutes’ work?”
Samantha went ice-cold to her bones. “You’re hitting the Met.”
With another grin he stood and headed for the door. “I’ll contact you with the details in a couple of hours, once I can verify that these are the Hodges diamonds, and that you didn’t just take advantage of somebody else’s bad deed. And one correction, Sam: We’re hitting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On Tuesday.”
Chapter 15
Saturday, 11:25 p.m.
As the limousine stopped at the front steps of the townhouse, Richard climbed out. “I’ll need you at nine o’clock, Ben,” he said, as the driver held the door open for him.
“I’ll have the car here.” Ben hesitated. “Do you…would you like some assistance, sir?”
Richard looked back over his shoulder. “Nine o’clock.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the limo pulled away, Richard tried the front door. It was locked. Since he was not going to knock at his own bloody house, he searched his pockets for a key. Finally he found one, and shoved it at the lock. He missed, and the key fell onto the brick steps with a quiet clatter.
Bending down to pick it up, he almost fell off the steps and rolled into the street. That would have looked good on the front cover of CEO magazine. Belatedly he glanced around, but other than a few cars going by, the street looked empty. Of course, if what Samantha said was true, police were watching the house, and burglars were watching the house. And maybe Godzilla and Santa Claus, too.
With a snort that didn’t feel or sound particularly amused, he retrieved the key. This time he got it into the lock and opened the door. Inside, the house was dark and quiet. It was early still for Samantha to have gone to bed, but for all he knew she was hanging out a window somewhere miles away. How would he know? Maybe Veittsreig wanted more diamonds. Or some emeralds.
He locked the door behind him and made sure to set the perimeter alarm, though neither seemed to do much good these days. People apparently came and went at will in all of his properties. Even so, he had no intention of making things easier for anybody.
Despite an irregularity of the stair spacing that he’d never noticed before, he made it to the first floor. Or second floor, rather, since he was in America. Thankfully the bedroom door was unlocked, since he didn’t have a key to that one. Or to the woman he hoped was inside.
The lights and the television were on, and Samantha sat on the bed with a spread of books and papers around her. She hadn’t gone off to rob the Fudge King tonight, anyway.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “Did you buy any more floors of the hotel?”
“No. I’m almost there, though. I think. Unless something happens to make Hoshido want to raise the price again. Damn Matsuo.”
“Why? I liked him.”
“So do I.” At dinner, though, Matsuo had talked a little about courtship traditions in Japan, and the changes his wife had insisted on making both to their engagement and their wedding. Miazaki Hoshido was clearly a special and unusual woman—even given the fact that she’d probably never stolen anything in her life.
He pulled off his suit jacket and tossed it over a chair. His tie followed. He’d been wearing the bloody things for sixteen hours straight, and he was ready to relax—except that Samantha was entangled with a crew of killers, and that last night they’d stolen diamonds from a couple who gave a percentage of their profits to some of the same charities he did. Frowning, he kicked off his shoes.
“Are you drunk?”
Richard looked over at the bed. “What I am, my dear, is pissed. That’s how we say it where I come from.”
She began gathering her papers and books into a pile. “At least tell me the drinking didn’t start until the negotiations were finished.”
He undid his belt and unzipped his trousers. “Excuse me
, but are you telling me how to conduct business? Because I seem to recall your refusing that advice when I offered it to you.”
“I am not going to argue with you tonight,” she said coolly, climbing off the bed and setting her papers on the writing desk. “I know you’re pissed, and I know you probably need to vent. But I’m not having any conversation with you when you probably won’t even remember it.”
“Why not? Does my having a few drinks change the way you lied to me about knowing who stole my Hogarth? Does it change how you decided to participate in some robbery and tell me about it over lunch? Does it change that we—we—stole from some nice old people who bake biscuits—cookies—for a living? Does it change how whatever I try to do to help you, you actively circumvent me so you can go off with your criminal friends who shoot people?”
For a long moment she stared at him from the far side of the bed while he tried not to wobble. Then she picked up her paperwork again and walked up to him.
“You know,” she said in a low voice, “I spent the last three hours thinking how much I really wanted to talk with you tonight. I really wanted your help.” She moved past him to the door.
Richard turned around, nearly tripping over his sagging trousers. “Where the devil do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to the guest room. I have some more work to do tonight, and it’ll take longer than I expected, because I’ll be doing it alone. Good night, Rick.”
She left him standing there in his dark blue shirt, checkered boxers, and black socks. “Fuck,” he said, and collapsed on the bed.
Four hours later he woke up cold, cranky, and his head aching. As soon as he could stand up, he staggered into the bathroom for aspirin, grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste, and stepped into the shower.
Twenty minutes after that he could open both bloodshot eyes at the same time, and his brain began to creak into motion again. Samantha. She’d said she was going to the guest room, but she had a nasty habit of slipping away from him in the middle of the night.
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