Caught in the Act: A Jewel Heist Romance Anthology

by Ainslie Paton

  The door to the hallway flung open. Sedarno, Knoll, and the bodyguard all flicked their eyes away from Jess.

  Adam strode into the room like he owned it.

  For a moment, Jess was sure she was hallucinating, that she’d conjured him out of thin air.

  Carrying a black briefcase in one hand, a gun in the other, Adam walked until he was angled between Sedarno’s bodyguard and Jess. “I’m her partner and I have the diamonds.” He met Jess’s wide eyes briefly, did a brief scan up and down her body as if to make sure she was unharmed.

  To Sedarno, he continued. “So she has all the cards.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After a taut moment of silence, the room exploded with noise. Sedarno started laughing and gestured to his bodyguard to lower his gun. Knoll’s face turned an ugly shade of purple, “Where did you get that briefcase? Where’s Dwayne? Those are my goddamn diamonds!”

  “Are they, Maurice?” Sedarno wiped away actual tears of mirth. “Yours? I believe you emancipated them from whatever back world mine they were in, and now these folks have freed them from you.”

  Knoll’s purple face darkened as he looked between Sedarno and Adam, but he didn’t seem to know what to do.

  Adam ignored Knoll and spoke to Sedarno, his voice smooth and low. “Here’s the deal. Jess and I give you the diamonds. Right here, right now. You let us walk away. There’s no way Jess can implicate you because she herself is now involved in handing off illegally retrieved diamonds to a reputed crime boss. She doesn’t say a word about tonight, and you let her live.”

  Jess stayed silent, her eyes locked on Adam’s calm face. He had the diamonds? He could have taken them and run, but he’d stayed. He was giving them up for her. Not only that, he was putting his own life in danger to save hers.

  Man, if she lived through this, she had a lot to think about.

  Sedarno laughed again, clapped his hands together. “I must say, I like this plan quite a lot. Spunky Nancy Drew lives to play another round of golf, I get my diamonds, and Maurice still owes me another 25 mil. I accept your terms.”

  Knoll screeched. “What?”

  Sedarno shook his head. “You’ll still owe me 25 mil. You haven’t delivered me the payment you owe. I just happened to make an outside deal with these fine folks.”

  He flicked his fingers, now the third person in the room to make Knoll irrelevant.

  “Hand over the case,” he said. Adam carefully handed it to him and took a step back, careful to keep between Jess and the bodyguard.

  “I trust you used the combination I advised, Maurice?” Sedarno kept chuckling as he worked the lock.

  Knoll’s lips curled and his eyes narrowed. He suddenly looked more like a brute than a befuddled businessman.

  Even though the tide in the room seemed to be turning in her favor, Jess felt a shiver go up her spine.

  Sedarno raised the lid of the case. “Ah. Beautiful.”

  Both Adam and the bodyguard leaned forward, unable to keep from taking a peek at the dazzling pile of jewels.

  But Jess kept her eyes on Knoll’s changing face. Which is why she saw him grab the bodyguard’s gun from his limp hand.

  Which is why, when he screamed, “Those are mine!” she knew what he was going to do.

  Knoll raised the gun and pointed it at Adam.

  “No!” Just as he pulled the trigger, Jess threw herself in front of Adam.

  Something slammed into her upper body with the force of a sledgehammer. Fuck! Ow! Bam! Now, her face smacked into something: hard, stiff, fibrous. Am I on the floor?

  In the distance, she could hear Adam roaring her name. No, that couldn’t be Adam. Whoever was shouting sounded terrified.

  Warmth pooled over her then. So strange. Her temperature was all over the place. She felt cold, but her shoulder was burning. Tepid liquid was making her dress feel clingy and gross.

  Hey, there were sparkly, shiny stones all over the floor and tangled in the curls of her silly wig.

  “Pretty,” she mumbled, before the entire world went black.

  **Adam would re-live those few minutes in his nightmares for years.

  ...Sedarno opening the briefcase while Knoll bellowed about the diamonds

  ...Jess screaming “No” before a strange, blasting-clicking sound

  ...a startled Sedarno dropping the briefcase, sending the diamonds all over the floor

  ...Jess flying in front of him, then falling to the floor...blood spreading from her upper chest to the pink carpet.

  Before he could do anything other than shout her name, Sedarno’s bodyguard grabbed a clutch piece from his ankle and shot Knoll in the shoulder. Knoll screamed and dropped the gun. He fell backward, bashing his head into the wall and knocking himself unconscious.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sedarno said, glaring at his bodyguard. The clutch piece had not had a suppressor attached and the shot was loud. Adam could hear murmurs and cries from the party downstairs.

  Not that he cared one fuck about that. He dropped to his knees, still frantically calling her name. “Jess! Oh my God. Jess!”

  She’d fallen on her face. Gently, he rolled her onto her back, gasping when he saw the blood on her chest and neck. “No, baby,” he whispered. “Please no.” This couldn’t be happening. He’d come up here to save her. What the fuck was she doing, jumping in front of him like that?

  He could feel a pulse in her neck, thank Christ. Her chest was rising with shallow breaths. But for how long? She needed an ambulance. She needed help.

  Sedarno knelt next to him. He gripped Jess’s shoulder to pull her closer and examine the wound. “Looks like an in and out,” he said. “She’ll probably be fine.”

  Adam cut his eyes to the man’s face. “Really?”

  “Doesn’t look like it nicked her lung,” Sedarno said. “Might fuck up her golf swing a little.”

  He turned and his eyes shot daggers at his bodyguard. “What the hell are you waiting for? Put the diamonds back in the briefcase. The cops will be here any minute.”

  As if on cue, the sounds of sirens echoed in the distance. Adam wondered if they were the cavalry Jess tried to call in earlier or if they were just responding to sounds of shots fired.

  He knelt over her again, resting his cheek against hers. “I’m here. Help is on its way.”

  Against his cheek, he felt her eyes open, felt the brush of her those thick eyelashes against his skin. It was the best damned thing he’d felt in his entire life.

  “Ow,” she said. “Wow. That hurts so much.” She exhaled and a tear ran down her face.

  His throat burned; he didn’t trust himself to speak. He just stroked her face again and again, pushing the tears away.

  “We’re gone,” Sedarno announced.

  Adam forced himself to look up. “Our deal stands?”

  Sedarno flicked a disgusted glance at the unconscious Knoll. “Yes.”

  “You know Venchetti in Miami?” Adam asked. “He’s ready for what’s in that briefcase if you want to work with him. He’ll move quickly, if you’re worried about Knoll talking to the Feds.”

  Sedarno absorbed the statement. “I know Venchetti,” he said, finally. “Thanks. But if Maurice is stupid enough to talk about me, he’ll be in even more trouble than he is now.”

  “Let’s go.” Sedarno and his bodyguard disappeared through the door. Adam wondered where their car was parked. He had no doubt they’d manage to escape, but it might be close. The sirens were very loud now. The cars couldn’t be more than a couple of blocks away.

  “You need to leave too,” Jess whispered.

  He stared at her. “How hard did you hit your head? I’m not leaving you. For God’s sake, you just jumped in front of a bullet for me.” He kissed her lips. Hard. “You took a decade off my life,
Blondie.”

  “Another one,” she demanded, wincing and smiling at the same time. He took his time with the next kiss, made it softer, sweeter. “More,” she whispered, and he kissed her again and again. He tasted tears on her lips and sent up a prayer of thanks. Christ, she could have died. He could have lost her.”Now you have to leave,” she said. “Don’t argue, Adam. I called about smuggled diamonds. You have a history with jewel theft. Sedarno’s not here. There’s a million different things Knoll could say—he could say you shot him, that you had the diamonds to begin with, anything. Leave, now!”

  She looked around wildly. “God, with the shootings, they’ll fingerprint everything. They might get yours. You need to run. Get out of town. Now.”

  Adam’s heart flipped over. The woman took a shot intended for him and now she was trying to save him—again. “No. Jess, I’m not leaving you here, lying and bleeding on the floor. Forget it.”

  “You saved my life,” she said. “You gave up Tony’s future for me.” She raised a bloody hand to his face. “Leave.” When he didn’t move, she started to cry. “Adam, please.”

  He couldn’t take more of her tears. “Jesus, don’t cry,” he begged.

  “Then go,” she commanded.

  “No,” he said softly. He just...refused. Come what may, he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to go to the hospital with her, laugh with her while she ate Jello. Bring her silly crap from the gift shop. Take her home to her apartment when she felt better.

  But she was right. If he stuck around, he needed to be careful. With his record, he was just too damn convenient of a scapegoat for Knoll. Well, careful he could do. He was excellent at careful.

  Bottom line? There was no way he was leaving her.

  He heard the cops pounding on the door downstairs, heard frantic partygoers mention the gunshots upstairs. He thought quickly, retracing his every movement. “I didn’t touch anything in this room except you, and I didn’t leave prints on the door handle. Knoll isn’t going to make any sort of statement until he’s had medical treatment and consulted a lawyer—and I’ll be out of plain sight by then.”

  But right now, he kissed her again. “Adam,” she whispered, her eyes misting with pain. “Are you sure?”

  Oh yeah, he was sure. “Relax, sweetheart. I’m just a concerned partygoer who found you in this condition and insisted on riding with you in the ambulance.”

  She closed her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if she was still with him or not. He leaned over and put his lips to her ear. “I love you, Jess.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two months later.

  Jess paced on the back porch of the rented cottage. The sunset view of the Wisconsin lake was as stunning as ever, but right now she couldn’t even see the pink and orange sky. Adam would be arriving any minute.

  She should be over these butterflies, shouldn’t she? After all, they’d spent most of June and July practically living together in a place smaller than her Chicago apartment. Shouldn’t she be, oh, used to him by now? Enough so that she didn’t moon like a lovesick teenager when he went away for a few days?

  Yes, she should. But apparently her heart and body were unaware of how mature adult women were supposed to grow accustomed to the men in their lives. He’d been gone for three days and she felt like she hadn’t seen him in three months.

  The irony was that she’d been the one to force him to go visit Tony in prison. She’d insisted and pestered and pummeled him with logic. “He gets out in September. It’s best to know now if he actually resents you or if he’ll want a relationship.”

  Adam finally gave in with a long-suffering, dramatic sigh, but it didn’t hide the fear in his eyes. She’d grabbed his hand and winked. “I’ll bet you five bucks he cries like a baby the minute he sees you. Tears of joy, all the way.”

  Last night, her phone rang from a private number and she answered on the first ring. Adam’s husky voice filled her ear. “I owe you five bucks,” he whispered. “He never blamed me. This whole time he’s been blaming himself, thinking I hated him.”

  Jess rolled her eyes to the heavens. Men. After some manly throat clearing, Adam laughed. “Thanks for making me go, Blondie. Yet another reason we’re so good together—you have a surprising talent for removing my head from my ass.”

  She’d simply laughed with him then, just happy the reunion with his beloved uncle had gone so well. But part of her wanted to linger on the point. Yes, we’re so good together. What does that mean for next week?

  Because next week, they were leaving Wisconsin. The owners of the cottage were arriving to spend the final month of the summer on the lake, and she and Adam needed to re-enter the “real world.”

  Not that she even knew what her real world was anymore.

  Knoll’s arrest and Jess’s exoneration had been pretty big news in Chicago. Together, the documentation Jess created detailing Knoll’s operation along with several diamonds Sedarno’s bodyguard didn’t have time to collect, allowed the DA to build a solid case. Knoll was arrested in the hospital and was now apparently working on a plea deal.

  Adam stayed completely out of the madness, much to her relief. As soon as she recovered from the surgery on her shoulder, she’d escaped north with him to this remote idyll. Her family thought she was with girlfriends, recovering from the trauma.

  Of course, her father did leave her a voicemail every three days wondering when she was going back to work. She got quite a lot of work-related voicemails she didn’t want to listen to: the University, begging her to take Seymour’s job; two recruiting firms who could immediately place her in brand-name corporate positions; the FBI, wondering if she’d ever considered their Cyber Division.

  Strange, how she was postponing making a career decision when getting her life back had been her only priority for the better part of a year.

  But that was before him. Before he changed everything.

  “I love you, Jess.” She remembered his words clearly. He said it just as she fainted after getting shot. But he hadn’t said it since. He showed her—every day with his words and actions, every night with his lips and his body. She knew he loved her as much as she loved him. They just didn’t say the words.

  She knew why. They didn’t speak of love because they didn’t know what came next. She didn’t hide her job offers from Adam. On the contrary, he helped her debate the pros and cons of each one. And he didn’t hide the planning of his next job from her. When they left Wisconsin next week, he was going out to California wine country to do reconnaissance on his next jewelry theft, a gig that would involve a lot of role-playing. She’d even helped him pick out clothing for his disguise, for God’s sake.

  No, they didn’t have secrets from one another anymore. They just didn’t have a future together either.

  She heard the distinctive crunching sound of wheels on gravel. Was that a car in the driveway? Jess raced through the cottage and burst out the front door, a wide grin on her face and her heart pounding in her throat. Oh. No, it wasn’t him. Just the neighbors from up the road driving in to town.

  Jess sank to the front steps, embarrassed at how excited she’d been in that instant, terrified at the sinking disappointment that followed when it wasn’t him. She glanced down at her watch, calculating the drive time from the Madison airport...yet again. Where the hell was he?

  Ugh, was this a sneak-preview as to how she’d spend her days after next week? Would she work crazy hours at some fancy job that didn’t excite her? All the while pining for a man who was off on fascinating escapades without her?

  “Hell no,” she murmured.

  The wheels in her brain finally turned fast enough to find a solution to this situation—a wonderful solution. A faint smile formed on her lips as she turned on her heel and went inside to find her laptop. She and Adam had a lot to talk about.

  **As he
turned the car onto the lane of their rented cottage, Adam stuffed the expensive speeding ticket into the glove compartment. He’d been a little too anxious to get back, and the cop was unimpressed with true love as a reason to go 90 in a 45 mph zone. Stupid. But that’s what a few days without Jess did to him. Turned him reckless when his whole existence depended on being careful.

  These two months had been the happiest time in his life. They never stopped talking, never stopped laughing. They teased and challenged each other. They made love all night long.

  She couldn’t seriously think it was ending next week, could she?

  As he put the car into park, Jess rushed out the front door and beamed at him. He felt the answering smile bloom over his face, accompanied by a sharp twist in his chest. Suddenly, the answer was as clear and obvious as the day was long: He was going to convince her to come with him. Sure, she wanted a new job, but maybe she could start her own business. One that would allow for a lot of flexibility and travel.

  He climbed out of the car and Jess threw herself into his arms, almost before he had them open. For a long moment he didn’t speak. He just held her tightly against him, breathed in the lilac and vanilla scents of her hair, and savored the feeling of coming home.

  When she finally pulled back to look him in the eyes, she said, “Adam, I’ve been thinking.”

  Her tone had all the gravity of a serious announcement, and his stomach sank. Had she decided on one of the jobs? She swallowed and opened her mouth to continue.

  No. Not until he said his piece first. “I love you,” he blurted.

  Jess blinked and jerked backward. “I love you too,” she whispered.

  Adam drew a shaky breath. “I know we haven’t talked about staying together, but I want to. Being apart isn’t right for either of us. Let’s figure out a way to live our lives together.”

  Jess’s eyes filled until they overflowed. Wiping them away, she sniffled a bit, but her voice was strong and teasing. “Way ahead of you.”