Confidence Tricks

by Tamara Morgan

  “I’m sure he just wanted to chat about the good old days,” Poppy assured her. “You know how bad Jared is about taking a hint. I get the feeling he thinks we’re going to pick up where we let off. You know, now that I’m a free woman and all.”

  Bea drooped—all of her, from the tired lines of her face to the solidly packed muscles of her body, which also fell in line with her general bad-ass appeal. Or what used to be her bad-ass appeal, anyway. Bea was officially out of the game now. Motherhood had forced early retirement, transforming her from a free-wheeling sidekick to this benevolent, maternal creature Poppy barely recognized anymore.

  “You promise it’s not anything else?” Bea stood, her eyes traveling the length of Poppy, finally taking in the miniskirt-in-a-wastebasket look she had going on. “You’re not doing anything illegal?”

  “Of course not,” Poppy lied smoothly. The less Bea knew about her current activities, the better it was for all of them. Besides, it wasn’t totally wrong, what she was doing. Lots of young, attractive, falsely blonde women dated older men to try to get them to buy expensive jewels. She was a little more intent on her goals, that was all.

  She planted her hand firmly on her friend’s back and pushed her in the direction of the kitchen. “Everything is fine, I swear. I just find it difficult to stay inside for long periods of time. Whenever I turn around, the walls are a little bit closer, the air a little bit harder to breathe. I needed to get out.”

  That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Even though the air outside had cooled to about forty degrees, she pushed open the window above the sink, letting the night air waft in with the tangy promise of rain. Small spaces had never bothered her before, but these days she couldn’t even stand in a closed gymnasium without feeling an overwhelming rush of panic. She needed windows and doors and the absolute certainty that she could walk away at any time.

  “Want some chamomile?” Poppy asked, changing the subject.

  “I wish you’d let me thank you,” Bea said quietly. She settled onto one of the yellow vinyl kitchen chairs and ran a finger along the edges of a Dora the Explorer placemat. “Ever since you got out—”

  “Stop right there. I don’t want to hear another word on the subject, okay?”

  “Poppy…”

  Poppy clanged the teapot in the sink as she filled it with water, making as much noise as possible extracting the mugs and bags of tea. The last thing she wanted to do right now was get into a soul-searching discussion with Bea about the choices they’d made.

  Why beat a dead horse when you can make some damn fine dog food and leather jackets out of it? It wasn’t hard to imagine Grandma Jean standing in the kitchen with them, spouting her usual crass wisdom.

  “There’s no reason, Bea,” Poppy said, her voice firm. “Regrets and apologies don’t mean anything. If I could go back, I’d do it all again.”

  “And you’re sure you aren’t in any trouble?”

  Oh, she was in trouble, all right—but not over anything Bea could control. Poppy’s biggest problem right now was that those two robbers had somehow known who she was—or at least who she was with the wig on and her breasts out. That meant she was being watched, and that her activities weren’t going unnoticed.

  There was no way those men were there by accident. And there was no way she could just let that necklace go.

  Todd was her mark, dammit. She wasn’t going to sit back and let him get poached by a pair of ham-fisted men in masks. Girly masks too—not some cool Zorro swatches of fabric, but velvety masquerade things. All that had been missing were some feathers and a cape, and it would have been a ticker-tape parade of mockery.

  “I’m good,” Poppy said, a smile firmly on her face. “I promise.”

  The kettle screamed then, and Poppy poured Bea her favorite calming tea. Thankfully, her friend was too tired to do much beyond lifting the steaming cup to her lips.

  “Sit down,” Bea murmured. “All your energy is making me antsy.”

  “I’m just going to do the dishes.” Poppy surveyed the mountain of pots and pans—most of them crusted over with baby food and macaroni and cheese—and pushed up her sleeves. In times of trouble, Grandma Jean had recommended elbow grease. Personally, she’d always preferred a hearty bout of hand-to-hand combat in the Pit.

  These days, she’d take whatever she could get.

  Chapter Two

  “Someone has breached the perimeter,” Asprey announced, pulling a pair of binoculars down from his eyes.

  Graff looked up from his book. “You make it sound like we’re in the White House or something. It’s probably a salesman or a Girl Scout. Get rid of them.”

  Asprey ignored his brother and peered back through the window, which faced the runway leading up to the massive hangar they called home. This was definitely no salesman or little girl. The woman was still far enough away that he couldn’t make out all the details, but a smallish pair of jean shorts, bright teal cowboy boots and a flowy white blouse didn’t seem like standard attire for hawking Avon or vacuum cleaners.

  “She’s on foot,” Asprey added, searching around for a parked car or bicycle. Located as they were at the end of an abandoned airport, the only other way to get to the hangar was by teleportation. They weren’t exactly on the bus route. “Why would anyone walk all the way out here?”

  Graff slammed the book in his lap that time. “I don’t know, Asprey. Why don’t you go out there and ask? I know it might seem foreign to you, but I’m actually working over here.”

  “Fine,” Asprey returned. “I’ll forcibly remove our visitor.” He set the binoculars aside and gently rotated his shoulder. It still hurt like a bitch—he’d gotten their younger sister, Tiffany, to pop it back in two nights ago, but she’d been less of the ministering angel he’d been hoping for and more like a gleeful spectator.

  “Man up, big brother,” she’d said as he lay on the ground and she lifted his arm over his head. Bones and joints weren’t supposed to go that way, he was sure of it. “According to Graff, the woman could have done a lot worse to you. He said she went easy. I bet she thought you were cute.”

  “Laugh it up, Tiffany,” he’d replied. “It’s easy for you to judge from the safety of your Internet cocoon back here at the lair.”

  At least he thought that was what he’d said. His memories were rendered slightly hazy, what with the bone-searing pain and all. He might have just been screaming.

  And now he had to hold his arm at a weird angle for days, moving around like a baby bird and praying there’d be no call for any sudden movements. Experience and multiple dislocations had taught him to avoid a sling—sucking it up and getting back to life were the best ways to make the recovery period ten times shorter, mostly because the muscles grew too stiff otherwise.

  “Need some help?” Tiffany didn’t glance up from her computer, set up along the far wall of the hangar on a long, faux-wood table like the kind housed in school cafeterias. “I’m just about done with this code.”

  “Sure,” Asprey said. “Why don’t we put you in charge of security? You can intimidate all incomers with your stature and overalls.”

  That got her to look up. Tiffany promptly stuck out her tongue. “I can’t help that I’m short. And it’s called a romper.”

  He laughed. “I can’t remember the last time you did anything even approaching romping.” For as long as he could recall, Tiffany had been attached to technology like her USB cord was some kind of umbilicus. She had the translucent skin tone and caffeine addiction to prove it.

  “Can you please stop being an idiot for five minutes and go take care of our problem?” Graff asked.

  “I was about to.” Asprey used his stiff movements to exaggerate a swagger. “Do you think I should do slick mobster or Texas Ranger?” When Graff didn’t answer right away, Asprey swiveled on one leg and pretended to pull a gun out of a holster. “Texas Ranger, I think. That thar woman won’t be able to resist the ol’ Asprey charm.”

  Graff sighed and got up f
rom his chair, gently adjusting it so he faced the opposite direction of the door. Asprey made a face. His brother never appreciated his talent for accents. His brother never appreciated him, period.

  As he passed, Asprey ran his hand over the upholstery of his brother’s chair. Soft, buttery yellow silk rippled under his fingertips.

  “Don’t. Touch. Louis,” Graff said through his teeth. “Unless you wash your goddamn hands first.”

  Asprey leaned down and licked the chair, careful to duck when the heavy leather tome his brother had been reading sailed past his head. He covered his laugh with a tsking noise. “Didn’t you say that book was a first edition? You should be more careful.”

  And then he practically skipped away before Graff threw something heavier—like a hammer or one of the steel katanas they’d recently acquired. The only thing he could be sure wouldn’t be thrown was Louis, their authentic eighteenth-century Louis XV chair. It was Graff’s prized possession, his baby.

  It was also the only piece of furniture in the entire twelve-thousand-square-foot hangar, if you didn’t count a few folding chairs and the worktables heaped with Tiffany’s computers and the bulk of their stolen goods.

  Asprey thought about grabbing one of the shotguns leaning against the wall by the door, but changed his mind at the last minute. It was early afternoon, and the woman traveled alone. Chances were she’d gotten lost or had a flat tire somewhere in the vicinity. Even he couldn’t botch this one up.

  As the woman drew nearer, Asprey leaned against the corrugated metal exterior of the hangar and donned his most disarming smile, squinting into the rare patch of sun. The shorts she wore were as infinitesimal as distance had promised, and she carried a red jug in one hand, a clear sign that her tank was empty and she was in need of a little assistance.

  “Do I detect a damsel in distress?” he asked as soon as she came within earshot.

  One of the woman’s brows rose, but she didn’t say anything, so Asprey took her reticence as an invitation. In addition to the world’s smallest shorts and her odd choice of footwear, everything about her attire was eccentric and playful and invited perusal. Her hair was a short tangle of loopy brown curls, and there were a few brightly colored feathers worked in, dangling over her shoulders and making it look as though she might take flight at any moment. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, fresh-faced and glowing with the exertion of hiking all the way to their quiet, secluded hiding place.

  But it was the legs he kept going back to. This woman obviously worked out.

  “Are you done?” she asked, using the toe of her boot to scratch the back of her calf.

  “Sorry,” he said, not feeling nearly as sheepish as he should have, given the situation. He blamed months of sleeping on a mattress next to Graff in their makeshift apartment in the office above the hangar. All that stuff in the movies about dashing thieves and women being wooed by his outlaw ways were a crock. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date, let alone near a pair of legs like that.

  “So…what can I do for you?” he asked. She wasn’t a very forthcoming visitor, that was for sure, content to stand there trying to stare him into a state of discomfiture. Good thing Asprey was impervious to the disdain of others. As the least impressive and most likely to screw up member of his family, that sort of thing came standard. “Are you running on empty?”

  “Only temporarily,” she said. “I was hoping you might be able to help me get on track again.”

  Her smile, crooked and mocking, seemed familiar. His awareness of it was more of a visceral reaction than a mental one, all warm and tingly and a bit like he was about to be strapped to a chair and given intense dental work without Novocaine.

  “So I was right?” he asked, ignoring the feeling. “About the distress?”

  “This place was hard to find,” she agreed, setting down the red jug. “But I hate to disappoint you…I don’t need anyone to rescue me.”

  “Oh, really?” Asprey asked. “Then what brings you all this way?”

  “You do,” she said, her eyes meeting his. They were large and brown and seemed to be on intimate terms with him.

  Asprey’s mind immediately started flying through all the women he’d slept with in the past year, searching for eyes like the ones facing him. He tilted his head a little. Would he call those scorned eyes? Irate eyes? You’re-a-jackass-and-I’m-going-to-kick-you-in-the-face eyes?

  “If this is a staring contest, you really suck at it,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “You’ve blinked like twelve times.”

  “House rules—blinking is allowed. I have very dry eyes.”

  “That’s odd,” she said, breaking into a wide smile and flashing her teeth, complete with a strangely charming turn to the tooth in the front. “I don’t recall your eyes being very dry. In fact, there was a moment there when I was pretty sure you were crying.”

  It took a moment—a much too long moment he would later regret—before Asprey realized what she meant, before those legs and that smile finally registered in his brain. He only got one step back before Natalie did some strange sort of tuck-and-roll maneuver to get behind him, and she had his bad arm in her clutches before he was able to do much more than draw a breath.

  The familiar feeling of fire and ice, alternating in a kind of primitive torture, shot up his arm. She didn’t pull hard enough to pop his shoulder back out of the socket, but his poor muscles had already had their fill that morning trying to eat breakfast. And that was just Cocoa Puffs.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Asprey cried, bending awkwardly to try to reduce the amount of pressure. “Spork! I cry spork!”

  She released some of the tension on his arm but didn’t back away. “You cry spork?”

  “It’s my safe word,” he managed. “You know—functional yet innovative? I hate to brag, but I’ve been told I’m a little of both.”

  Her laughter was warm on his neck. “For a miserable thief, you’re kind of funny.”

  The compliment meant far more than it should have, given the circumstances. “And for a killer ninja-spy, you’re incredibly attractive.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.” She turned them so they faced the door to the hangar. “All sporks aside, are you going to invite me in, or am I going to have to storm the castle?”

  “It’s Natalie, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Our home is yours. Please, come in. We might even be able to offer you tea.”

  “That’s better,” she said but didn’t let go. “You guys packing in there?”

  “A little,” he lied. Do the katanas count?

  “How many of you?”

  “Counting me? Three.” He wished there was some way he could warn Tiffany to get out. Graff could handle himself, but neither one of them had ever wanted their younger sister to get involved in all this. Unfortunately, Tiffany made her own rules—she always had. If Tiffany had a bad first day of high school, she went ahead and tested out of the whole thing. If Tiffany wanted access to her trust fund a few years before she turned twenty-four, she starved herself until a cashier’s check was placed in her hand. And if Tiffany wanted to hack into computer databases to help them plan the perfect crimes, there was nothing he and Graff could do to stop her.

  They’d tried. And she’d somehow gotten the power company to shut down all their electricity until they caved.

  “Okay, then.” Natalie pulled closer, her breasts firm against his back as she whirled them both to face the door. He’d become little more than a human shield—and found it strangely erotic. Physical force and boobs had that kind of effect on him. “Let’s go say hello to your friends.”

  “By the way,” he couldn’t help adding, “I like your hair better this way. It suits you.”

  She paused but didn’t speak.

  “And I would have eventually known you were the woman from the other night. You smelled like strawberries then too.”

  “How cute. Is this where you tell me you love strawberries?”

&
nbsp; “No,” he said truthfully. “I’m deathly allergic.”

  Her body shook with laughter. “Thanks for the tip. But I’m not kidding—I will snap your arm if you try anything funny.”

  “I’ll try not to.” He groaned as she reached around to pull open the door. “But I feel I should warn you, I’m naturally hilarious.”

  “I can tell,” she murmured, her lips against his ear. He suppressed a shiver—of fear or excitement, he couldn’t quite say. With this woman, he suspected the two emotions were inexorably combined.

  They moved through the door as carefully as individuals in a hostage-like situation could, with plenty of noise and Asprey swearing twice. The first time was because he caught his foot on the doorframe, sending a jolt of pain down his arm. The second was because Natalie noticed the shotguns by the door and picked one up.

  Since Graff had turned his chair the other way and Tiffany was plugged into a pair of giant padded headphones, their entry went unnoticed. It didn’t help that Graff assumed everything Asprey did was a failure of epic proportions, so not even the sound of the admittedly girly squeal he let out when Natalie yanked on his arm was sufficient to pull Graff out of his belligerent funk.

  “Uh, guys?” he called when it became clear Natalie was waiting for him to say something. “Hello? We have a situation.”

  “Did you get rid of the Girl Scout?” Tiffany asked. She swiveled in her chair, her arms shooting up the moment she saw the woman with the gun.

  “Not exactly,” Asprey said.

  “What do you mean, not exactly?” His brother took his sweet-ass time getting out of the chair and turning to face them, but Asprey at least had the satisfaction of noting the exact moment when the details became clear. Graff’s face turned red, then purple, and then he moved in front of Louis, as if to shield the chair from any of the crossfire.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Graff wasn’t talking to Natalie. “You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”