by Selma Wolfe
All Nikki could think was that at least there was no way Ghost could fit a gun in that skintight outfit.
For some reason, she hadn’t been expecting the most notorious art thief of the century to be a woman. Had Mark? She slid a glance over to him, but Mark was staring at Ghost with a perfect expressionless poker face. Nikki was immediately jealous; she wanted to be able to do that. It would come in handy in job interviews no doubt.
If she lived long enough to go on any more, that was.
She faced forward again and did her best to give Ghost a dead-eyed stare of her own.
“At least I don’t dress like an out-of-work dominatrix,” Nikki said, because she’d never learned to keep her mouth shut.
Ghost’s green eyes flashed. She was taller than Nikki by at least four inches, skinny in a muscular way, and had thick brown hair that was scraped back into a tight ponytail. Nikki couldn’t see most of her face because it was obscured by a black balaclava with cut-outs for only her eyes and mouth, but Nikki guessed by the lines of cheekbones cutting across the fabric that Ghost would be striking without the mask.
And she didn’t have a gun, but she did have a very large knife.
After a second of silence went by Ghost rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s the best you can do? Oh no, I wear leather. I’m so very impressed with the help, Mark.”
Mark. Ghost was on a first name basis with him? Nikki struggled to keep the confusion off her face.
“I’m not interested in witty banter,” Mark’s low voice rumbled beside her. It seemed to vibrate along her bones and ease some of the fear Nikki hadn’t even realized she was feeling. “You’ve lost. It’s five against one. Give up and turn yourself in.”
Nikki could make out the curve of a smile under Ghost’s mask. “You really think I’m going to believe that?” Ghost asked. “Calling the police was never your style. You wanted it all - all the fame, all the glory. I was regretting not bringing along a gun, but since the only surprise is you, I suppose it’s not such a mistake.”
True to his word, Mark didn’t say anything back. He did pull out a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket.
“Ghost, I am putting you under citizen’s arrest for attempted burglary.” He stepped forward, the cuffs dangling from one hand.
Ghost threw her head back and laughed, a high-pitched giggle that made the hairs stand up on the back of Nikki’s neck. Then she lunged.
Mark hadn’t really expected the handcuffs to work; he wasn’t a complete idiot. But he’d forgotten just how fast Ghost was and it still caught him off guard when she lunged forward.
The smart thing to do would have been to fling himself forward and try to tackle Ghost to the ground. He might have been able to wrestle the knife out of her hand and slap the handcuffs on.
But he was acting on instinct, not logic, and Mark threw himself in front of Nikki.
It was a mistake, no doubt – the worst mistake he could have made, the one he’d told himself to avoid. In the split second that Ghost turned her head before dashing past them toward the painting, he saw those green eyes ice over and glare. Not at him. But at Nikki, who was shoving at Mark’s arm and shouting, “What are you doing? Go get her!”
So very, very not good.
Ghost ran to the painting and shoved the art restorer out of her way, though Nikki noticed from behind the cage of Mark’s body that Ghost was careful not to send the restorer tumbling into the painting. One of the security guards attempted to reach for his baton and Ghost barely looked at him before swinging out a leg to knock the man off his feet.
“Stand back!” the second security guard yelled, reaching for his club.
Nikki thought she heard a chuckle as Ghost swung up her knife. The guard was still fumbling with his grip on the club and threw it up instinctively to block the path of the blade. Ghost moved in under his guard and yanked the weapon right out of his hand.
“Amateurs,” she sniffed. “ Why do they always assign these posts to clowns that have never so much as seen The Karate Kid?”
She hurled the club with sudden violence at the guard’s head and he crumpled to the floor with a cry. Then, path totally clear, she moved back over to the painting and reached for it.
And Mark still wasn’t moving! Nikki couldn’t understand it.
“Come on,” she muttered, standing up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “What are you waiting for?”
She couldn’t see it, but she sensed the incredulous look on his face. “Mostly for her to leave,” Mark muttered back.
“Why?” Nikki demanded. “There’s two of us and one of her!”
“I can hear the two of you hissing like geese over there,” Ghost called without moving her head to look around at them. “Whatever could you be plotting? Nothing stupid, I assume.”
Then she turned to stare straight at Nikki. Her eyes looked like shark eyes, cold and dead. “Faint hope, I know,” Ghost said.
Nikki suppressed a shiver.
She moved out from behind Mark and walked purposefully toward Ghost, ordering her limbs not to shake. Mark shot out a hand to grab her arm, but Nikki dodged away from his grasp and kept walking.
“Like Mark said, you’re under citizen’s arrest,” Nikki said doggedly. Ghost hadn’t even touched the painting yet. Maybe there was a way to save this yet. She didn’t want that beautiful painting to be harmed or taken away. Maybe she was a little bit in shock. “And Mark might not like the police, but I do. I called them. They’re on their way.”
She didn’t have handcuffs or a weapon or even the muscle to put up a fight against Ghost. Nikki stopped a few paces away from Ghost and stood there, empty-handed and uncertain of anything except the fact that she needed to do the right thing.
Ghost’s eyes narrowed into slits. Though it was meant to look menacing, Nikki sort of preferred it to the zombie eyes from before. “Did you really?” Ghost asked in a singsong lilt and yeesh, did she take classes in being scary as hell, because she was very good at it.
Nikki swallowed hard. “I did,” she said, and was proud when her voice didn’t waver.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Nikki tried frantically to think of something to do but came up dry. A life of small towns and art school offered no help. Heck, she didn’t even watch cop shows in her spare time. Nikki swallowed again and tried to think of something convincing to say about the value of publicly displayed art and the virtues of not stealing stuff.
Without warning Ghost sprinted forward.
The thief grabbed Nikki’s wrist with one hand and raised her knife in the other.
Before Nikki could do anything but squeak out a wordless expression of fear, Mark charged forward out of nowhere and slammed into Ghost, breaking her hold on Nikki’s wrist and throwing all three of them to the floor. Nikki flipped back onto her front and gulped in air. Mark shoved himself to his knees beside her. Ghost grappled with her knife, trying to get to her feet and keep it in front of her at the same time.
“Police!” a muffled voice shouted through the door. “Open up!”
Nikki’s first instinct was to collapse in relief, but instead she forced herself to get back on her feet, using Mark’s shoulder to push herself up. Mark gave her an exasperated look from below that clearly said why can’t you just sit down and shut up and followed suit.
“Why are you doing this?” Nikki demanded as the police continued to pound on the door and Ghost frantically looked between the entrance and the painting.
“Money, darling. It was always about the money.” Ghost gave Mark a pointed look, though Nikki couldn’t understand what the point was.
Mark scowled and strode toward the easel, the painting, and Ghost.
“You’re not taking this painting,” Mark said. He crossed his arms and stood firmly in front of The Olive Trees. The shouts on the other side of the door reached a fever pitch. “The cops are gonna be in this room in thirty seconds, and if you’re smart you’ll drop the knife for plausible deniability.”
“Is that right?” Ghost smiled underneath the mask. She shifted her posture almost imperceptibly away from the door, toward Mark.
She raised the knife and leapt forward.
CHAPTER FIVE
The glint of light off Ghost’s blade reflected into Mark’s eyes. His muscles tensed but there was nowhere to go. If he went forward, he’d run straight into Ghost. If he went back, he’d fall over the easel. Either side was well within the reach of Ghost’s knife.
Something slammed into him from the left and Mark went sprawling across the museum floor, his foot just barely missing the easel that The Olive Trees was propped up on. His side jarred as he hit and Mark rolled over onto his back with a wince.
A warm weight landed on top of him. Mark instinctively wrapped his arms around the person and held them down.
“Let go, let go!” Nikki said in a rush, her blonde hair tumbling around her face as she stared at him with huge eyes. He obeyed immediately, and Nikki shoved herself upright. Mark watched in total disbelief as she turned to face Ghost and placed a foot on either side of Mark’s legs, hovering over him protectively.
One of them knew what was going on here and how to deal with it, and it wasn’t Nikki. She needed protection so much more than Mark did, and yet she was standing there trying to defend him, determined in spite of everything.
Before Mark had done more than push one foot up against the floor there was an almighty bang and the door flew open. The museum employees seemed to find their feet again in an instant and streaked toward it.
“Freeze! Police!” a cop yelled, her gun drawn and ready. Three more officers fanned out behind her, forming a half-circle in front of the door to block Ghost from the exit, and for a second it really looked like they had her.
Ghost turned her head to stare directly at Nikki with dark, icy eyes. Mark had a mad urge to shout; to draw her attention away from Nikki.
“I’ll remember you,” Ghost told Nikki. “I’ll be coming for you.”
Without warning she grabbed the easel with one hand and threw the whole thing, painting and all, at the police officers. With the other hand she hurled the knife at Nikki.
Mark lunged up and tackled Nikki like a linebacker, no time for niceties. White-hot pain seared across his shoulder before they went right back down on the floor again. They had spent altogether too much time on the ground today, he thought absently.
Nikki rolled and Mark bit his lip to hold back a grunt, trying to keep his shoulder from hitting the floor. He was pretty sure it was hurt but he didn’t know how badly yet.
The cops clearly had some idea that the painting was valuable, and they moved to avoid being hit by it while tracking the painting. The one to the right ran forward and tried to grab the painting before it hit the ground. It didn’t entirely work, and Mark felt a flash of panic on behalf of the masterpiece.
Ghost took advantage of the opportunity to dodge around the middle cop and streak past the three of them for the exit. She vanished past the doorway almost before the cops even realized she had gone – she hadn’t gotten any slower since Mark had seen her last, that was for sure. The police shouted at the thief to halt and ran through the exit after her, but Mark knew that it was already too late. Ghost had an opening and no doubt a backup plan already in mind. She was gone.
“Oh God,” Nikki said next to him. Her pale, horrified face moved into his field of vision. “You’re bleeding.”
“Damn,” Mark said, feeling a little light-headed but mostly relieved. Nikki was completely intact and he probably wasn’t bleeding out. He was gonna call this one a win. “I hate it when that happens.”
Ghost was gone and Nikki was safe and his shoulder really hurt quite a lot. So Mark felt justified in telling sensible logic to screw right off. He reached out with his good arm - which still hurt, but everything hurt, so what the hell - and wrapped it firmly around Nikki’s waist. She allowed him to draw her close with a faint, worried smile.
“Good job,” he told her.
Nikki rolled her eyes in the process of leaning over and gingerly pulling his jacket away to examine the wound. “You’re hurt, Ghost’s gone, and the painting got repurposed as a throw rug. That’s not even my best work.”
“You didn’t get injured or dead,” Mark pointed out. “That counts. Gold stars all round.”
He winced as Nikki poked around what felt like the inside of his bicep. “That is less than pleasant.”
“You’re telling me. And you’re not even looking at it,” Nikki said, staring at his shoulder with rapt attention. “It’s bleeding a lot and I can see stuff I probably shouldn’t, but I’m pretty sure you’re not dying. You’re definitely gonna need stitches though.”
“I can do those on my…” Mark trailed off as the police barged back in the room, empty-handed and looking distinctly irritated.
The officer in charge made a gesture to one of the others that clearly meant call an ambulance for this fool. The cop at the back pulled out a phone and started barking orders into it.
“I’m going to have a lot of questions for you eventually, but first off I’d like to know what the two of you are doing here in my crime scene, getting injured.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at them.
Nikki opened her mouth to answer. Mark opened his mouth to make a smart-ass comment.
Before either of them could get the words out, the service door they’d entered through banged open. The cops whirled around, but it was only a short, overweight security guard puffing through the doorway, looking like he’d run here and it had been painful.
“Rob!” Nikki called out happily. Mark turned to blink at her. What the hell?
The security guard beamed from ear to ear and jogged over to them.
“I got your message. Sorry it wasn’t me on duty, but you know how the powers that be get about this stuff. Didn’t think it was real; thought you were a loony basket; you know the drill.”
Mark craned his neck to look at Nikki, who was nodding solemnly and smiling with real affection. “Oh, of course,” she agreed.
The man beamed at Nikki again. He looked like he did that a lot. He was at least 50 and balding, but Mark still hated the man a little.
“Aw shoot,” the quiet police officer said suddenly, his voice echoing from all the way back by the door. He had the Van Gogh painting clutched in his hands. He was holding it carefully by the edges of the frame, but it made no difference. There was a huge hole ripped into the center of the priceless painting. The cop stared down at it and then looked up at the crowd with a dismal expression that mirrored the way Mark felt.
In spite of the fact that Nikki was kneeling beside him healthy and whole, he couldn’t help feeling like he’d failed the world a little. If he had to choose between Nikki and The Olive Trees, there was no choice. But now something else that was precious and beautiful was ruined, because Mark hadn’t been able to stop Ghost.
“What a shame,” Nikki said cheerfully. Mark looked around and saw that she was flat-out grinning. That was weird. And the portly security guard was grinning back at Nikki conspiratorially, which was both weird and annoying.
“Glad I listened to you, that I am!” Rob-the-guard chuckled. “Or we’d have a big ol’ hole in one of my personal favorite paintings. That’d be a real shame, it sure would.”
Mark frowned. He looked at the painting. He looked at the police officers, who appeared to be just as puzzled as he was. He looked at Nikki and Rob, who were still grinning like maniacs. “Sorry, what?”
“I did an internship at the MoMA, back in undergrad,” Nikki explained, trying to keep the smugness out of her voice. She was pretty sure she was failing. “I, uh, I got lost a time or two…”
“I found her wandering around the arches at 8:00 at night, skulking around like a burglar. Thought about thwapping her over the head with my baton, but she looked like a lost little kitten with those big eyes. So I escorted her on upstairs, and kept an eye out after that,” Rob volunteered. He
grinned at the male cops and winked at the female one. They all looked a bit lost. Rob sometimes had that effect on people.
“What time did you get off work?” Mark asked Nikki, the corner of his mouth starting to curl up, of course zeroing in on the one thing she’d hoped everyone would miss.
“It’s not important.” Nikki coughed. “But 4:00.”
Mark grinned.
“Anyway,” she emphasized, “when I realized that Ghost was coming, I figured the best thing to do would be to get The Olive Trees out of there. I still had Rob’s number, so I called him up and asked if he could do something.”
Rob hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants and leaned back, looking mightily pleased with himself. “Turns out I could! I’ve been here at the MoMA a long time, you know. Why, I was here way back when…”
Nikki coughed, trying to head that reminiscence off at the pass. She’d heard it before a time or thirty. “Yep! Rob’s got all the influence you could ever need.” Rob beamed; she mentally patted herself on the back in relief. “So he replaced the painting with a fake.”
Mark straightened up next to her with a hiss and a wince, jostling her a bit with his elbow as he fought to get upright without jarring his shoulder. Nikki immediately dropped her train of thought and put a hand around his back to help him up.
She still had yet to process that Mark had taken that bleeding wound to the shoulder for her. The terror of that moment when the knife hurtled toward her was still fresh in her mind. She shrank away from the recollection. There was no relief from it, because almost as soon as Mark had pulled her away she’d heard a horrible ripping sound - probably more fabric than skin, but the noise still stuck in her ears - and seen pain ripple across Mark’s face before he bit it back. After that there had just been the mindless terror of not knowing how badly Mark was hurt until she’d investigated for herself and seen that the bloody wound wasn’t life threatening.
Either Mark was used to these sorts of things or he had a high pain tolerance, because his expression barely changed as he got back to his feet, bringing Nikki with him. She tried to make things easier for him but wasn’t sure if she was helping more than she was hurting. It didn’t really matter though, because she couldn’t seem to stop herself from trying. She wanted to cling to the warmth of Mark’s body and reassure herself that he was still standing, metaphorically and literally.