by Liz Maverick
“Thanks for going beyond the call of duty, Jane,” he said.
Was allowing her boss to quote sexy poetry and touch her body what he was referring to as “beyond the call of duty”? Or did he mean “beyond the call of duty” as in “Nice canapés. Well done!”? Or was it as simple as “Thanks for cleaning the blood off my face after someone punched me”?
“No problem, Mr. Dawes.”
“I forgot to ask about the kids. Is there still enough food for the frog?”
“Believe me, I long for the day when that frog runs out of food,” Jane said. Nice subject change.
He laughed. “Rochester?”
“Sleeping the sleep of kings on your bed.” Jane looked next to her. The dog was splayed out on his back, tummy exposed, haunches akimbo. “You know, I thought golden retrievers were a little more excitable than this.”
“He thinks he’s a cavalier,” Mr. Dawes said.
Jane grinned. “Well, he’s stopped doing the spontaneous peeing thing. I realize now that it wasn’t because he was untrained; it was because he was uncomfortable with someone he didn’t know.”
“He must be pretty comfortable now, in bed with you,” Mr. Dawes said. “I was.”
He sounded like he was smiling while he was talking. Thinking about his smile aimed in her direction made her stomach flutter; she wanted to flirt back.
Jane swallowed hard, managing to hold herself in check. “So, since I’ve already behaved like an inappropriate employee, what with the whole visit to the Amory thing, I might as well go for the brass ring. Listen, Mr. Dawes. Seeing you last night, you looked like shit. Inasmuch as somebody so inherently attractive could look like shit.”
He made a snorting sound.
Jane pressed on. “And I mean that in the nicest possible way. I’m . . . concerned.”
“Things aren’t going well at work,” he said.
“Is it something that is likely to change soon?” she asked.
“One way or the other, things will definitely change. At the moment, I’m living in limbo. That’s why I need you at the house.”
“I’m living in limbo too,” Jane said.
“Is that likely to change?” he asked.
“It will definitely change when you move home,” she said with a grin.
Silence. “I’m looking forward to that.”
“I’m still looking for permanent work, but as you might presume by my resume, I did not pick the most obvious route to survival,” Jane said.
“Do you miss working? Is it fun?” Mr. Dawes asked.
“I miss it. I miss doing art. One corner of my apartment is always an art studio.”
“So turn one corner of my apartment into an art studio.”
“No way! True art is a beautiful mess that cannot—or should not—be contained,” Jane said.
“Draw on the walls, for all I care,” he said.
“That’s a little crazy. I don’t know that my stuff would mesh with your style. I’m a maximalist.”
“I dispute that. Maybe my style could use a little of your mess.”
They both laughed.
“Let you go now, Jane.”
“Well,” Jane said to herself, staring at the dead phone. “If Mr. Dawes doesn’t mind mess . . .”
Talking to Jane put Nick in a good mood, and the last thing he wanted to do was kill the buzz. But he didn’t have much choice; Krista and Tristan were not going to be helpful with respect to Sokolov, so Maksim was his last shot.
The last time Nick started out on the B train to Brighton Beach, he’d ended up in the car trunk of one of Sokolov’s minions. This time, he borrowed a car from the Armory and drove the perimeter of Brooklyn to get to Maksim’s hood.
There, he made the rounds, hitting the jackpot at a busy basketball court where Maksim was playing street ball with a bunch of rowdies who were attempting—and failing—to school him. Nick didn’t draw attention to himself; he knew that Maksim was programmed to be vigilant, and he’d be spotted soon enough.
Maksim cursed loudly when he saw Nick, but he finished his game and then bumped fists and gulped down a half a bottle of water in one go. Then, he tucked his basketball under one arm and scooped up his ball bag with the other hand. Finally, he turned and jogged in the opposite direction.
Nick sighed. He knew better than to call Maks’s name. And he wasn’t moving too fast. Just jogging.
Okay, so . . .
Nick followed him, a beat of doubt racing through him as he saw Maks was heading for the inky opening of a tunnel.
What would the chances be of Sokolov’s men . . . nah. No way. Too coincidental. Nick entered the tunnel; Maksim led him to the two-thirds point and then tucked his body into an alcove.
Nick joined him. It was cozy, to say the least.
“Not cool, Nick,” Maksim said evenly. “You come to my house uninvited.”
“Normally, I’d apologize for the breach of etiquette, but I get the distinct sense that I’m running out of time,” Nick said, spanning his arms out in an apologetic stance. “You won’t take my calls. I’m in an awkward position.”
Maks leaned forward and spun his basketball on his index finger, sweat still streaming down his arms.
“Maks,” Nick said. “You’ve been reining Sokolov in when it comes to me. I’m not sure why, but since that’s the deal, can you give me something I can use to get out of this mess?”
“I’m trying to help extend your leash, but I can’t fix what’s broken. Only you can do that.”
Thanks, Jedi Master. Nick tried again. “You got anything for me I can at least take to Dex?”
Maks wiped a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. “Computers are not so interesting to me. I’m a field player. I got into the van. It was already chaos. I don’t know what happened to the money. Talk to Tristan.”
“He says he has no idea.”
“Maybe he’s playing stupid,” Maks said.
“Maybe.”
“K Law?”
“She approached me first—with a pretty wicked blow upside my head, I might add.”
That got Maksim laughing. “Nice,” he said.
“Go ahead and laugh,” Nick said with a grin on his face. “You’ve earned it.”
“I think so.”
“Maybe Tristan’s faking, maybe Krista. Maybe they set me up,” Nick said, going over those last few moments of the heist job one more time in his head.
Maksim studied Nick’s face. “You didn’t add me to that list.”
Nick nodded. “True. You stopped Sokolov from offing me. I don’t think that was you faking. You and I have been in this business together awhile. I don’t think you’d set me up.”
“But you couldn’t know for sure,” Maks said.
He’s testing me, Nick thought. “I can’t know anything for sure. But I choose to trust you.”
The look on Maksim’s face was not what Nick would have expected. For a moment, the big Russian looked openly surprised.
“You want to tell me why you are helping me?” Nick asked. “Or is it really that you’re just a softie?”
Maksim reverted to his usual badass demeanor. He shrugged. “You’ve always done good work. You’re . . . a fair man.”
Nick narrowed his eyes but didn’t dispute Maksim’s reasoning. That said, he also didn’t believe that was all there was to it. He didn’t want to get into Missy’s personal business, but maybe something there explained things a little better. “You’ve been talking to Missy a bit, huh? You want to tell me what that’s about?”
“Nyet,” Maks said calmly. “She’s very good. Good operative. Hopefully Rothgar appreciates that.”
Shit. Hopefully Maks wasn’t trying to recruit Missy for something. Nick wasn’t aware she’d ever gone freelance. It never even occurred to him that she would. Had it occurred to Roth?
Nick scuffed at the ground with his shoe, trying to figure out a way to say what he wanted to say without pissing off a guy who’d helped him out—and probabl
y saved his life—for what seemed like no particularly good reason. “Missy is extremely important to us,” he said quietly, looking Maks right in the eyes.
Maksim looked blank.
“She’s someone we’d all take a bullet for. Just like any other brother. But she’s tiny, you know? She’s just . . .” Okay, he was botching this. Looking at his feet wasn’t helping; Nick looked up at the sky. “I’m not trying to be sexist; I’m just saying, we worry. She’s eager to be one of the guys, but she’s just not built to take damage. Right? And we lost her brother, Apollo, so it’s doubly hard to see her out in the field. Maybe I’m making assump—”
“Maybe,” Maksim said coldly. “I think we are done here, yes?”
Nick sighed. “If you’ve got nothing on Sokolov or the twenty mil.”
Maksim stared at the ground for a moment. Then he looked up and said, “Sokolov wants to do another heist. He cannot let go of what was lost.”
“What? How he is going to get a decent team together with that shitshow on his record?” Nick laughed bitterly. “Well, he can ask, but he’s not going to get . . .” He trailed off as Maksim’s face went dark.
“Decide what you’re going to do about it, Nikolai,” Maksim said. “Because he might not ask nicely.”
Damn. Was this why Nick was still alive? Sokolov wanted to use him again?
Maksim held out his hand, his face clearly expressing the conversation was over.
Nick shook it and then watched the Russian turn and walk through the tunnel, back toward the basketball courts.
When he made it back to the Armory, it was already dark, and he’d missed yet another team meal. After scarfing down some leftovers, he found Dex in his room.
“Hey, man.” Dex pushed away from the computer on his desk. “You want to go through it again?” he asked sympathetically.
Nick nodded. “Yeah. But I’ve got nothing new to give you.”
Dex didn’t comment on what Nick felt like had to be his obvious desperation. He just logged in to the computer and tapped into the back end of the accounts Nick had been working with at the time the money disappeared. Dex knew what to do because this was, oh, maybe the fourth time Nick had asked him to do it. Dex never told him to give it up already, and for that Nick was truly grateful.
“Okay, so this is where it came in . . .” Dex hit some buttons. “And this is where you were holding it when Sokolov screwed up the system and forced a do-over.” He typed in some code and ran a report. “This shows the traffic on the account and the IP addresses involved . . .”
Nick sighed. He’d heard all this before. He waited for Dex’s next line: “And I just don’t see anything intercepting the money.”
“And I just don’t see anything intercepting the money,” Dex said.
“Somehow that sounds even worse out loud,” Nick grumbled.
“From what you’ve explained, it took you at least twenty seconds to log in again. Twenty seconds is actually a lot of time to move things around if someone’s thought things through beforehand.”
“Maks was in the van at the time and didn’t have his hands on a computer. Krista was out of the van and could have been doing anything. Tristan was in the van and at some point had his hands on a computer. The only other option is some totally random program error.”
Dex shook his head. “I’ve looked for error reports. Nothing.”
“Tristan is the weak link,” Nick said.
“And qualified to pull it off,” Dex added.
“But there’s no proof?” Nick asked, not for the first time.
“No proof. But that doesn’t mean anything; he’s an expert in electronic security. He either cleaned his tracks or didn’t do it in the first place.”
Nick didn’t answer, because Sokolov was calling him on the phone. Calling him, like he might want to check and see how his day was going or maybe invite him to a show.
Not.
“Nikolai, I miss you,” Sokolov said. “I think we should have reunion.”
Nick gritted his teeth as the Russian continued. “I have idea. New heist. Show world we can do even better. Forty million dollars.”
That’s ridiculous. And, no. At least he knew his instincts about Maksim were good. “Sokolov, I don’t think you and I have a future together.”
“You owe me job,” Sokolov said.
I’m never doing another job for you. “I can’t take a new job with the old one still open. I think Tristan may have set me up,” Nick said.
There was a silence on the other end, and then the Russian began to laugh. “You think Tristan may have set you up? You do not sound so sure. You sound like desperate man throwing friend under bus.”
“Tristan’s not my friend, and if I’m right, he deserves to be under a bus. Give me time, I’ll give you proof.”
Dex raised his eyebrows, a look of concern on his face.
“Time, time. So many demands from someone who has so little to offer. Do you want to test Sokolov’s patience? You do not have pain from looking over your shoulder all day?” the Russian asked. “Is fine for me. Fun. We see what happens. Big surprise for Nikolai. Ready or not . . .”
At which point Sokolov hung up on him, and Nick realized how irritating a habit that was.
CHAPTER 14
Once Jane had uttered the sentence “Nick Dawes was over last night and things got weird,” it took less than an hour for Ally and Cecily to show up at the penthouse.
With food on its way, along with some exotic spirits from a booze delivery service, the girls were willing to wait no longer. At least no longer than the three undersize Negronis Cecily fixed up for them at Mr. Dawes’s bar cart.
“Will you please explain yourself,” Ally said, curling her legs up in the very spot where Mr. Dawes had sat eating Nana’s sandwiches.
Jane took a chair next to Cecily and casually snagged a Vogue India from the pile Ally had stacked on the coffee table. Another nice perk of Ally’s job was the month-old fashion magazines from around the world. “Last night Nick Dawes came to the house looking like somebody’s target practice. I’m sure he had a concussion. I kept waking him up every couple hours just to be sure he was okay. In the morning when I came back from running, he was gone. And now it turns out he doesn’t remember it getting . . . well, intense.”
Jane’s two friends sat up straight. “Intense?” Cecily confirmed. “Angry intense or sexy intense?”
“Definitely more sexy than angry,” Jane said, taking a sip of her drink. “He really wasn’t angry. Maybe he should have been more angry, considering how screwed up he looked.”
Ally and Cecily looked riveted. “I mean, it was no big deal,” Jane continued, waving the whole issue away with her hand so that it would look as no-big-dealish as she was claiming. “It’s just that he didn’t even remember.”
Ally looked at Jane. “How do you know he doesn’t remember?”
“Because I talked to him this morning, and he doesn’t remember. And I’m . . . well, I suppose I’m just a little . . . bothered by that, I guess. I’m feeling strangely bothered by a lot of things about Nick . . . Dawes.”
Ally snorted Negroni out her nose and Cecily full out laughed. It was getting harder to remember to call him Mr. Dawes and not Nick. Still, Jane persevered: “Maybe before I saw him rolling around all loosened up on the floor with an adorable puppy I was a little more cavalier about things. But he’s in trouble. And he can’t come home. He can’t come home and order lobster rolls and make drinks and dance around his apartment like he doesn’t have a care in the world.” She looked her friends in the eyes. “And I just don’t feel good about that. It was kind of a relief when for a second there I thought he was this sort of plastic and superficial investment guy who’d buy a puppy without acknowledging it was, you know, alive and required some inputs like food and love. I think he’s really trapped. I can tell by the way he talks on the phone. It’s between every line.”
There was a pointed pause as Ally and Cecily processed this sp
eech.
“How often do you talk to him?” Cecily asked.
Jane resolutely focused on an article about the new best way to apply blush. “I think we’ve spoken basically every day since I started. I don’t know. Time blurs. He likes to check on the kids.”
“The what?” Cecily asked.
“The kids. The fish. And Rochester. The dog. That’s what we call them.”
“Every day,” Ally said, her face the picture of disbelief. “To check on ‘the kids.’ Is he flirting with you on a semiregular, nobody’s-admitting-that’s-what-it-is basis?”
“Yeah,” Jane said.
“Has it occurred to you that maybe that means something?”
“No.”
“Seriously?” Cecily asked. “Why not?”
Jane gave up on Vogue India and traded it in for Elle Croatia. “Because men who look like models don’t date fat girls like me. They date other models.”
There was a massive silence. So massive that Jane looked up to make sure her friends were still breathing. Ally’s face looked like thunder; Cecily just looked extremely unhappy.
“You’re not fat,” Cecily said.
“Oh, come on,” Jane said, licking her index finger to get the pages to turn easier. “Ask Ally.”
Ally’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not fat. You’re plus-size. But leaving it at that isn’t saying the facts. A Mercedes is a Mercedes whether it looks like a motorcycle, a sedan, or—”
“A van,” Jane suggested.
“I know what beauty is,” Ally snapped. “I have to think about it every day at work. You have one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen.”
Jane felt a pang then. She finished Ally’s sentence in her mind: “Too bad your body is built like a boom box from the eighties.” Yeah, she’d inherited some good stuff from her parents facewise, but apparently when it was time to dole out DNA, a carb-loading football linebacker somewhere up the family tree had raised his hand.
“It doesn’t matter anyway; since we’re mostly just on the phone it’s perfect,” Jane said. “He can have his cake and eat it too, ha ha. He can talk to me but doesn’t have to see me. I’m sure after the second call, he already had me down to a size six.”