“No, I don’t. If they always crew with Nicholas, though, I probably wouldn’t.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We go in twenty minutes before closing. I disable the central alarms—that’s the fire and safety doors and barriers and shit—” she explained, glancing at Richard, “and I do the outlying sensors—the video, and the ones that call the cops. And then I head for the Music Room to get the Stradivarius while the guys go after the paintings.”
“People are going to notice you,” Richard said, clenching his hands together so hard his knuckles showed white, “cameras working or not. Twenty minutes before closing is—”
“It’s nuts. I think Veittsreig figures with more people there’ll be more chaos, and more chance for us to get out before they get the system rerouted.” She picked up the second half of the sandwich and took a bite. “If it was me planning this, I would have gone in at two a.m., with a three-man crew, and winched in from the ceiling. Not that I would hit a museum in the first place.”
“They’ll be armed, I presume?” Rick reached over and feathered a lock of her hair behind her left ear. From hearing her talk and knowing some of what she’d done previous to their meeting, he would have imagined her to be some kind of biceps-rippling Amazon with superpowers, not a five-foot five inch, hundred-and-twenty-pound dynamo.
“Yes. They gave Martin a Glock, even. And they were kind of pissed when I said I wouldn’t carry.” She frowned at her turkey and mustard extravaganza. “Since it’s going to end up being four against two, maybe I should have taken a piece.”
“I’m not so sure about those odds,” Richard said, wishing he could be telling her in private—or mostly that he didn’t have to tell her at all.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I made some calls this afternoon.”
She slammed the remains of her sandwich down. “You called Donner, didn’t you? Dammit, Rick, don’t you realize how rough these guys play? If they smell anything—anything—they’ll shoot Martin and me in the head, and then go after you.”
“There’s nothing for them to smell.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you m—”
“Tom knows some people in the State Department, who know some people in the FBI. He put out that I might be interested in loaning some of my pieces to the Metropolitan Museum, and with a few more arm twists, he was able to learn from one of the FBI officials about a sting happening in New York. The FBI and Interpol are all set for the hit—on Friday. They’re even going to put undercover agents inside the museum to pose as visitors.”
“On Friday,” Walter echoed quietly, his dark skin going gray.
Samantha sat at the table, silent, for a long time. If it had been anyone else he would have said she was simply stunned. Numb. Not his Samantha, though. She was thinking, running scenarios through her head.
Finally she nodded. “In a way, that makes me feel better.”
“Better? Because Martin’s crossing Interp—”
“No, Stoney, because Martin’s not setting me up to take a fall. I figured he was going to cross somebody, but I just thought it would be me. But he got me pulled into a legit job. Or his version of one, anyway.”
“At a museum. And with guys carrying guns.”
“Martin never had a problem with hitting museums. That was my thing—me being a snob, he used to say.”
Richard looked at her. “If I might point out, you are now involved in the planning of a straight-up theft.”
“One thing at a time.” She started to push away from the table.
“No, this first,” he countered, wrapping a fist around the back of her chair, keeping her in her seat.
“I have to go in, Rick,” she said, her voice harder. “If I don’t, the same penalties still apply. They’re finally trusting me to the point that I’m not at a complete disadvantage. If I do or say anything the tiniest bit hinky, I’m dead.”
“And if you go in, there’s a whole other set of penalties. Going in to steal something in the middle of a crowd, carrying guns, is not cat burglary. It’s armed robbery. Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong? And even if no one shoots anyone and you still happen to get caught, you get twenty years in prison. Life, if they dig into your past.”
She smirked at him. “Have a little faith, studmuffin. And give me a few damned minutes to think without you being Dudley Do-Right, okay?”
He released the chair, and she slammed it backward. Standing, she headed for the hallway. “Dudley Do-Right is Canadian,” he said succinctly.
Samantha slowed, sending him an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Sir Galahad, then. I’m going to take a shower. Stoney, go back to Delroy’s. I’ll call when I think of something.”
After she left the room, the two men sat facing one another. “She’ll find an angle,” Walter said after a moment. “She always does.”
“But she won’t be trying to find a way to back out of the job,” Rick returned. “She wants to do it.”
“Just to see if she can, I think.”
“It’s her not knowing for certain that worries me.” That and the fact that if she did flat-out steal something again, their relationship would be finished. He could justify, at least to himself, her reasons for breaking into the Hodgeses’. This robbery was on a much grander scale, with much more serious repercussions involved. And as much as he loved her, he would not let her use his home, his life, as her base of operations or something. With a breath he stood. “Come on. I’ll help you out the window.”
Walter climbed to his feet, as well. “Okay, but I’m taking the tortilla chips.”
Samantha had said she wanted some time to think, but Richard wanted to remind her that this was about more than just a dangerous job. This was about their future together, as well.
He helped boost Walter out the back window and watched him down the fire escape, then closed and locked the thing and trotted downstairs to set the perimeter alarm. Obviously the system wasn’t worth the wood and plaster it was fastened to, but he refused to make things any easier than they already were for whomever chose to break in to his house next.
As he marched back upstairs he heard a door click closed. Samantha was already running the shower—he could hear it through the closed master bedroom door. He walked past it, and stopped at two doors down. Shit. “John?” he said, knocking softly.
A few seconds passed, and the door opened. “Yes, sir?”
“How are you settling in?”
“Fine, sir. I, um, with your cook gone, what’s the rule for meals? For breakfast?”
“Help yourself. The cupboards are full. Or order out.” He paused. “Do you need any towels or blankets or anything?”
“No, sir. Everything is fine. I’m fine. The…you have a lovely house.”
“Thank you.” He backed away a few steps. “Good night, then.”
“Good night, sir.”
“And remember, it’s Rick.”
“Yes, sir. Rick. I’ll remember.”
“Oh, and the perimeter alarm is set. If you open an outside door or a window, it’ll go off.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Rick. Thank you.”
The door closed, with the same click and cadence he’d heard a few moments earlier. Where had John Stillwell been during that conversation down in the kitchen? And how in hell had he managed to forget that someone else was staying in the house? It wasn’t like him at all.
Richard pushed open the master bedroom door, then closed and locked it behind him. He kicked off his shoes, sending them in the general direction of his closet, then unbuttoned the dark burgundy dress shirt he’d never changed out of. Shedding it and his trousers, he headed for the bathroom, leaving his boxers and socks in the doorway.
“I forgot to tell you something, Yank,” he said, pulling open the shower door.
She faced him, soap running down her bare, wet skin in delicious rivulets. His body responded immediately, and he walked into the large showe
r and closed the door behind him.
“I can see that,” she returned, her gaze dropping to his cock.
“We have a houseguest.”
Her eyes lifted again. “Stoney can’t stay here.”
“No. John Stillwell.”
“The guy I creamed this morning?”
“Yes. I’ve been a little…distracted, so I brought him in to help me with a few things.”
“So he’s here. Now.”
“He’s in the guest room.”
“You just did that so I can’t move in there again.”
“Yes, I’m devious that way. I’m paying a man nearly half a million dollars a year to keep you from leaving our bed.”
“Okay, so now I know. Go away. I’m still thinking.” She turned away, running her face and shoulders under the steaming water.
“Think about this, too,” he murmured, slipping his arms around her front and caressing her nipples. They hardened under his fingers.
“Rick, you—”
“And this,” he continued, leaning down to nibble at her ear and the nape of her neck.
She tried to turn around, but he kept her facing away from him, her bottom wriggling against his cock making him ache. Putting one hand down between her legs, shifting her folds apart with his fingers, he bent her forward with the weight of his body and slowly pushed inside her.
Samantha grabbed on to the safety rail and held on as he pumped into her, hard and fast. The wet slap of their skin intoxicated him, and he moaned, shifting one hand back up to her breasts again.
This, she had to understand—that they were made for one another, that he owned her in a way that neither of them would probably ever acknowledge. In the same way that she owned him.
“God,” she rasped, and her muscles tightened convulsively around him.
“I love when you come for me,” he whispered, increasing his own rhythm until with a grunt he climaxed.
He held her there for a long moment, breathing hard and letting the soap and sweat and water intermingle on their bodies. Finally he pulled away from her.
“I just wanted to remind you that you have more to think about than just a robbery,” he said, opening the shower door and stepping out to grab a towel.
“Rick?”
He faced her.
A washcloth hit him full in the face, warm and sopping wet. As he pulled it away, angry, Samantha was still gazing at him. “I didn’t forget about that,” she said in a much milder voice than he’d expected. “Now come back in here and wash my back.”
This was what he never wanted to give up. Richard dropped the towel and stepped back into the shower.
Chapter 19
Monday, 7:40 a.m.
“I don’t need to go into the office,” Rick said, as he adjusted his black and gray tie.
Sitting at the small table beneath the windows of the master bedroom, Samantha flipped another page of the Metropolitan Museum of Art guide she’d picked up when she’d visited with Stoney. “Yes, you do,” she said, gazing at the photo of the Stradivarius violin she was supposed to steal tomorrow. “I’m not writing you a note for missing your negotiations today, bucko.”
“That’s why I’m employing Stillwell, so when something unexpected comes up, I’ll be available.”
She looked at him. “You hired him so you could be free to keep track of me. You’re not my damned mother. Or my parole officer.”
Rick frowned. “Fine.” Moving to the bedroom door, he quietly closed it. “I think he might have heard us.”
“This morning? We haven’t said anything too weird.”
“Not this morning. Last night.”
“Last…Oh. Shit.” She paused. “Not the shower sex, right? The talking in the kitchen.”
“Precisely.”
“Shit. So fire him.”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong. In fact, yesterday he may have saved me about half a million annually in property taxes.” Rick gazed over her shoulder at the photo. “And isn’t it a bit hypocritical of you to assume that he’ll be trouble?”
She shot him a grin. “You weren’t wrong about me being trouble.”
“Just keep an eye on him until we know.”
“I have to say that I don’t like the idea of having a potential spy in our own house.”
He drew a breath. “Neither do I. But I’ll handle him.” He sat beside her. “And I hired him because my life has changed over the past few months, and I’m adapting. And yes, you’re the reason my life has changed.” Rick picked up her glass of Diet Coke and took a swallow. “It’s just not the same as coffee.”
“And amen to that. Go to work. I’m going to run through the schedule and make sure I have everything I need.”
He tilted her chair back to give her an upside-down kiss. “I’ll call you as soon as I get a moment.” Setting the chair back on all fours, he picked up his suit jacket and headed for the bedroom door.
As Samantha watched him exit the room, it abruptly occurred to her. The solution. A way to stop Veittsreig, and a way to keep Martin from reneging on his deal with Interpol, and a way to move any suspicion away from Rick. Her heart stopped, and then slammed into hyperdrive.
“Hey, Brit,” she called, rising and making her way to the head of the stairs.
On the landing, Rick stopped and looked up at her. “What is it?”
“I love you.”
His jaw worked for a moment. “I love you, too, Yank.” He hesitated, as though contemplating climbing the stairs again.
“Call me,” she said, giving him a smile. “We’ll do lunch. And don’t forget to take Stillwell with you.”
With one of his your-ladyship bows, he grinned back at her and continued down the stairs. Samantha waited where she was until she heard the two men’s voices, and then the click and lock as the front door closed. Then she bolted back into the bedroom and grabbed her cell phone off the charging cradle.
She’d memorized the number the one and only time she’d seen it, and she punched the buttons before she could change her mind.
“Gorstein,” the voice at the other end came.
“Gorstein, it’s Jellicoe. I’d like to have a chat with you.”
For a heartbeat she didn’t hear anything. She’d surprised him, then. Good. “Come down to the station.”
“Nope. Meet me at the Art Café on Broadway for breakfast. Eight-thirty.” That should give her time to lose whoever might be tailing her this morning.
“I already ate.”
“Like I care. Are you going to be there, or not?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.”
“If I see any uniforms or any handcuffs, Gorstein, I’m going to assume you won’t play nice.”
“You are one paranoid lady, Ms. J.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
It probably didn’t matter if the cops tailed her today, but it was the principle of the thing. Besides, she couldn’t risk having Wulf or Bono or one of the other members of Veittsreig’s crew tracking her to a meeting with a cop. Especially one they’d seen visiting her house before.
Grabbing her phone, purse, and the museum guidebook, she left the house and hailed a cab. For a second she considered leaving Rick a note, just in case, but if this went wrong, no couple of words on a piece of paper would be able to explain it.
Four taxis later, she stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the Art Café. She liked the place—good, inexpensive food, unpretentious, and best of all, Veittsreig and his guys probably had no idea it even existed.
“Ms. J.”
She turned around as Detective Gorstein approached from the corner. He was on time, anyway. So he was the guy she was going to bare her soul to. Yep, that was her brilliant plan: Tell Gorstein everything, and hope that he would be happier at being able to nab some big-time art thieves and get in good with Interpol and the FBI than he would be to get one more crack at her and Martin. As for the Hodges job, well, she hadn’t decided about that one yet. Confessing to a crime n
o one suspected her of—that was just wrong.
At least, unlike Frank Castillo in Palm Beach, Gorstein didn’t exude copness, which made talking to him in public a little less problematic. She still didn’t like him, but anybody who knew her old rep and not him would think she was meeting with a fence or an antiques dealer or something.
Her thumping heart did a flip and then crashed into her gut. Gorstein didn’t look like a cop, yet Nicholas had identified him as such the night he’d come to collect the diamonds. And Nicholas hadn’t been in town long, so how had he known what Gorstein was? Well, she could think of one reason. Gorstein was dirty. And that meant she was about to shoot herself in the head.
“Are we going in?” he asked, holding open the door.
Christ. She needed to know for sure. Subconsciously, she’d trusted the way she’d felt about him enough to make the call. If her gut was right, the plan could still work. If she was wrong, Nicholas knew exactly where she was, and was waiting to see if she was willing to sell him out to the police or not.
She went into the café. “Since I’d like to keep this low-key,” she said, signaling that they needed a table for two, “do you have a first name? Besides Detective, I mean.”
“Yeah. It’s Sam.”
Samantha blinked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I’m not calling you that.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Trying to buy some time while she ran all of their past conversations through her head, she ordered the pancakes with bananas and walnuts, plus a Diet Coke. He asked for a bran muffin and coffee. Cop food, not that that meant anything at this point.
“I thought you’d eaten,” she noted, glancing around the room for any familiar faces. Nothing.
“I had some gum and a Tic Tac.”
“You’re trying to quit smoking, aren’t you? That explains why you’re so cranky.”
“I don’t smoke,” he grunted. “I’m always cranky.”
Other than the ubiquitous toothpick, which he wasn’t chewing on this morning, he wasn’t bad-looking, either. That fact made her feel disloyal, but it gave her another reason for wanting to see him besides spilling her guts—if it turned out that she needed another reason.
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