Before she bothered knocking, she checked the mailbox. Inside was a lone flyer for a gardening service running a hedge-trimming special, which wasn’t helpful. There were no excuses not to go hit up that brass knocker and meet the happy homemaker. She knocked, stood back from the door and waited.
And waited.
The curtains were closed, so there was nothing to learn from trying to peer in. She could break in easily and learn everything she needed to know before the silent alarm triggered, but she might not need to go as far as breaking a window. She still had keys. They’d been in the bottom of her bag when she’d fled, and because of the diamond-studded keychain—a gift from Cleve; stolen, of course—she’d never tossed them.
The key went into the lock without resistance, turned as if it expected her. She pushed the door and it opened smoothly, revealing the entry foyer with its honey-gold polished floorboards. They gleamed, not a scuffmark to be seen. She dragged her suitcase in and parked it. The same red alarm light blinked. Her birth date punched into the keypad disarmed it.
All of this had an eerie bad dreamlike quality about it.
The house smelled the same, floor polish and old books. Her pulse thudded. It wasn’t breaking and entering if you had the keys and codes, but it felt like it. She left the door standing open and walked into the house. First door off the wide hallway was a sitting room. Same carpet. Same lounge setting. Same tidy bookshelves with a row devoted to Tolkien. You could sell a house with its furniture and never change the locks, but would the newcomers have the same books, put them in the same place?
Directly across the hall was the study. She put her hand on the doorknob and a shiver of anticipation raced up her spine. Cleve was a lying, cheating, thieving, conniving jerkwad. This wasn’t her house anymore.
She pushed the door open and let out an involuntary shout. This was her father’s study as he’d left it, down to the vague smell of his disgusting pipe tobacco. It had been straightened up. No books stacked on the floor, no newspapers strewn about. The surface of the desk was clear of papers except for a white envelope with her name written on it.
The new cell she’d bought rang and her knees almost folded. She rumbled in her jacket pocket and answered.
“Got your new number,” Pari said. “Got good news.”
“Can I? Wait, I need to...” She needed to open more doors, race up the stairs and see if her bedroom was a study in goth punk rebellion. She needed a moment to get to the envelope, to understand what was going on here. “I’ll call you back.”
She thumbed off despite Pari’s protest and went through the rest of the house. It was clean, dust-free, sparkling in a way it had never done when she’d lived here. The broken door of the cupboard under the stairs had been repaired, a cracked tile in the kitchen backsplash replaced. The back garden was lush, green and trimmed to perfection. She took the stairs. The furniture in her father’s room was the same, but his wardrobe was empty, except for a stack of boxes labeled “personal effects.”
She hovered at the bottom of the stairs to the attic where Cleve had slept, not ready to confront that room, even though no one’s safety was compromised if she did.
Her own room was almost exactly as she’d left it, before the hurricane of abandoning it forever. The bed was made, drawers and doors were closed, whatever she’d left on the floor had been put away, and there wasn’t a speck of dust on her books or her collection of animal skulls and other knickknacks that’d been important enough to keep but not to take with her.
She sat on the bed in disbelief. If Cleve hadn’t lied about the house, maybe he’d been truthful about the rest. Maybe there was an intact bank account. It made no sense, but perhaps whatever was in the envelope would explain.
She opened it standing in the entrance foyer because nothing there spooked her, so she was standing there when the two men knocked on the door.
“Can I help you?” It was an effort to keep her voice level. They looked like cops. Feds. She could bolt, make them chase her. But they couldn’t be here for her. She pulled a document out of the envelope and scanned it. She was Aria Viola Harp and she had a right to be here because Cleve Jones had given her this house and she had its deeds in her hand.
“Agents Rickard and Choi,” said the taller of the two men, holding up a badge.
Her phone rang. She held up a finger to the agents and answered Pari’s call. “A little busy, I’ll call you back.”
“No, don’t hang up. We got him.”
She turned her body away. “Who?”
“I made a few calls, some old friends. One in particular was willing to turn on that bastard Shadow.”
“Wait.” She did the one-minute finger thing again and left the agents to walk into the kitchen. “Say that again.”
“The FBI or the CIA or Interpol or whoever it is that wants Cleve Jones the baddest got a tip-off from an old friend of a friend. They picked him up in Nagasaki.”
“What?”
“He didn’t have Celestia, but they’re holding him anyway. He’s going to prison for a fucking long time for what he did to you.”
“Ma’am.” The prettier of the two agents had come into the foyer.
“I need to...oh God.” What had she done?
“Ma’am? Is everything all right?”
She snapped, “I’ll call you back,” to Pari, turned to the agent. “What?”
He smiled, he was sexy in a very earnest Steven Yuen way, but that didn’t make her regret her tone.
“As you can see,” she pointed to her case in the hallway, “I’ve just arrived. I’m jetlagged something stupid. Whatever this is will have to wait.”
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid not.”
And Aria was simply afraid. There were cops in her house. Her own alibi was tight. A lookalike girl hired to pretend to be her and play poker almost continuously in Vegas the entire time the Celestia heist went down. There were other documents in the envelope she’d not yet read, but it was already clear Cleve had told the truth about the house at least. He’d transferred its ownership to her and engaged a caretaker service to manage it during her absence.
And now he was in trouble.
She glared at the intruders. She wanted them out of her house. “What do you want?”
“I’m Agent Daniel Choi.” He held out his hand.
She let it dangle there. “I’m Aria Harp.” For the first time in a long time.
He raised an eyebrow and dropped his hand. “You live here?”
“I did.” She laughed with an edge of hysteria. She’d been scared of coming inside. Scared the house would feel oppressive, but without her father’s presence it was just a gracious old house with beautiful bones. “I might again.” Seemed inconceivable. She’d sell it. She’d have the money to pay Pari and the synthetic stone maker and no idea what she’d do with herself then.
“Do you need to sit down?”
She shook her head. Choi was looking at a shell-shocked, shaven-headed woman who’d just walked back into her childhood home and heard the love of her life was going to prison. She wasn’t at her best. “I will be when you and your friend out there get out of my house.”
“We’re looking for information on Cleve Jones. We understand he once lived here as a ward of Professor Harp.”
That wasn’t something she could deny, too many other sources could corroborate. The Harp family had hidden their crimes in plain sight. “That was a long time ago.”
“Do you mind if we take a look around?”
She folded her arms and scowled at him. “Yes, I do.”
“Are you in touch with Mr. Jones?”
“Are you in possession of the opinion I’m the helpful type? Or maybe you have a warrant?”
Choi gave a shrug, not a very agent-like gesture, but designed to disarm her. “We can
get one.”
“I haven’t had contact with Cleve in a decade. What exactly are you hoping to find?”
“Won’t know till we see it, Miss Harp.”
“Won’t be happening today then, because as I said, I’m not feeling helpful.”
Choi broke eye contact, briefly. “Did you win in Vegas?”
They’d been checking up on her. There were a million tiny things she’d done outside the law in Vegas and all up and down the country over the last ten years. She hadn’t murdered anyone or stolen their fortune or hurt their children, but she’d thieved, connived and conned her way into respectable criminality, and cops, agents, investigators of any kind were not her friends.
“What happens in Vegas—”
He cut her off. “Not if it’s something we’re interested in.” He pointed at her head. Her doppelganger hadn’t been shaved.
“I want you to leave.” She’d close up the house and disappear. Get an agent to sell it. Apart from these clowns, no one knew she’d been here and a new alias was easier to organize than the effort to outfox the law when it was on your tail. If they had enough information to convict Cleve, there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
He’d confounded her expectations ten years ago and he’d done it again.
He’d stolen Celestia from her, but in everything else he’d proven true.
Choi made a hand gesture that brought the other agent into the room. “We’re not interested in you, Ms. Harp. Bigger fish. But I wouldn’t go back to Vegas any time soon, and you might want to think about a career that doesn’t involve counting cards or hustling tourists.” He took a document from Agent Rickard’s hand, opened it and handed it to her as he stepped past.
“Stop. Wait.”
It didn’t matter what the document said, legal or otherwise, she couldn’t prevent the two men moving through the house. All she could do was follow them, through the kitchen, up the stairs, opening doors she knew had led to disused rooms ten years ago and would be just as uninteresting now.
On the second floor, Rickard gave her an amused smirk as he exited her bedroom but said nothing as he took the stairs to the attic. She followed him up, Choi coming behind. She was the filling in a law enforcement sandwich that made her feel ill. Surely Cleve would’ve cleaned this room out like he’d done her father’s. But if he hadn’t, if he’d left it much like hers had been left, there could be any number of things that could incriminate him from burglary tools to balaclavas.
She almost walked into Rickard at the top of the stairs. The attic was empty, returned to the unused storage room it’d once been, not a bed or a box to show it had once been lived in. It was also the only part of the house not kept clean. Rickard was the first to sneeze. Choi pushed past them, frowning when he walked into the middle of the space, his jacket shoulders collecting cobwebs. Whatever they’d hoped to find was long cleared away.
“What has Cleve done?”
Choi sneezed and turned back to her. “You’re not in touch with him, so why do you care?” He sneezed again.
“You busted into my house.”
“We believe Jones is responsible for the theft and sale of a famous diamond,” said Rickard.
“Really? Would that be the Sweet Celestia?”
The agents exchanged an unfathomable agent look that was bad news whatever way Aria viewed it. “What? I read the news.” The story had broken while she’d been in the air, but she’d read it in the paper left in the back of the cab she took from the airport. The Celestia had auctioned for sixty-five point two million only to be discovered as a fake.
Both agents passed her on the stairs, Rickard sneezing again and Choi tossing over his shoulder, “Stay away from Vegas, Ms. Harp.”
She clattered down behind them. “That’s it?” If only they knew scamming tourists was part of her alibi. She got no response. That couldn’t be it. “Wait.”
She still had the envelope in her hands. She got to the kitchen and spread out the contents on the counter. The deeds, a bank statement, a key. The agents were at the front door. There was a tidy two mil in the bank a decade ago. The key would open a storage facility and unless she judged wrongly, it would be filled with rare antiquities, most of them obtained illegally.
It wasn’t the Sweet Celestia, but it was real.
Cleve had done everything right by her. She knew he’d loved her when they’d both lived in this house. He’d taken Celestia if not because he still loved her, to keep her safe. She couldn’t let him get put away for that.
“What if I could help you put Cleve away?”
That brought both agents to a stop on the front porch. Choi turned. “The same Cleve Jones you’ve had no contact with in a decade.”
She shrugged, the same way he had earlier. It wouldn’t endear her to them and it might endanger her.
She didn’t know if the word of a thief could save a thief, but she had to take the risk and try.
Chapter Ten
Cleve wasn’t ready for the boredom. It was all about the walls. Four gray ones. One had a door in it, painted gray. A single bunk attached to the wall with a thin mattress on it and an over-laundered gray sheet. He wasn’t getting past the walls anytime soon, other than to hit the commissary to eat, and to be interrogated. Again.
He’d been here three days after the flight from Japan, humiliatingly handcuffed, as if he was a truly dangerous felon, a violent stand-over man or a wannabe gangster, but it felt like thirty years. They couldn’t hold him much longer without charging him. They’d only kept him as long as they had because they deliberately bungled the paperwork knowing he’d disappear the moment he could shake the tail they’d invariably put on him.
Everyone involved knew he was guilty but it would come down to what evidence they could get that would stick. And apart from being appallingly distracted after completing the deal with Shoma in Nagasaki, Cleve had been careful, very careful, about not being sticky and having a legitimate cover story. Lessons from the professor he’d learned well.
But he should never have gotten caught in the first place. On an ordinary workday, he’d have known he was being watched. He’d have taken appropriate action to avoid being cornered, but he’d been thinking about how to track Aria, how to arrange for a majority share of the Sweet Celestia’s sale to get into her hands. Whether she’d be angry enough to stay hidden again and if there was any point opening yet another bank account in her name, hoping she’d show up to claim it.
He was thinking of how she’d made him feel when she’d gone off with that brick wall looking for sex, about how he’d have kneecapped the big guy rather than let him have her. About the savage joy he’d felt when she’d said she hated him but came on his hand, and how hard it was to leave her sleeping, knowing he might never see her again when she was all he could see when he closed his eyes.
Now he was thinking about who’d betrayed him, because despite being distracted, it was no accident he was sitting in this holding cell trying not to pine for Aria.
The bunk bed was hard and there was no pillow. Pining wasn’t for career criminals. It was probably written in the professional criminal code, fine print he’d missed. Pining is punishable by incarceration in gray-walled rooms. Once you decide on a life of dodging the law you’re disqualified from pining for a decade-old romance with a woman who spent that long staying hidden from you.
It was common sense.
It was as depressing as sleeping in your car, as finding your soul mate again after a long search and being forced to betray her.
He lapped the cell once more. It was the boredom doing this to him, making him twitchy, making him replay that short time he’d had with Aria and build it into something more than it was. It wasn’t about snapping into each other like two halves of a lethal pair of scissors, two blades sharped by the existence of the other. It wa
s basic curiosity after all the time apart and the rat in a trap game of being hunted and caught. Surely the chemistry was just a by-product of all that, not a reason to want to recut his future.
Assuming he was going to have one that wasn’t confined to gray walls.
The boredom was punctuated by an unappetizing lunch of unidentified slop, during which he kept his eyes down and his senses on high alert because a good proportion of the men in here were killers and gangsters, and then it was time for the frivolity of interrogation.
Two officers arrived to escort him to an interview room, much as they’d done every day since he’d been here.
“Gentlemen,” he said when they arrived. “Nice day for it.” He had no idea if it was raining oceans outside, but any polite conversation was good conversation.
“You can stop with the pleasant, Jones,” the grumpier of the two said. “You’re not winning any points with us.”
He held both hands up, surrender fashion. “We’re not animals, gentlemen, and I’ve got nothing against you. You’re doing your job. That’s admirable.”
“Shut up.”
“Certainly.” He did, walking quietly between the two combat-booted guards down a long gray service corridor until they gestured for him to go left instead of right, an amusing change in the routine. It took them past a number of interview rooms with glass windows. All empty of entertainment, except the next to last.
“Eyes front, walk on, Jones.”
He’d come to a dead stop based on the fact his heart seized, but a hard shove in the back made him move with what remaining electrical impulses connected to his body.
Like a chicken with his head cut off, he staggered past the window and was shoved into the empty room beyond it where his hopes for freedom, for a different future, died.
Caught in the Act: A Jewel Heist Romance Anthology Page 8