by Cara Nelson
“Fine. Now get the dominoes in silence. You won’t be able to talk during the job. So no f-bombs this time.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she obeyed with a huff.
Riley hung upside down and snapped dominoes between her chopsticks with lightning dexterity, feeding them into the bowl so quickly that even Cain was satisfied with her mastery. When she was finished, she speared the chopsticks into her ponytail and did a flip off the bars, landing triumphantly beside the bowl. She flung her arms in the air and posed, chin up, grinning.
“You can shave about nine seconds off your time if you don’t prance around at the end.”
“You’re really tempting me with the no-whatever rule, so I’m going to have to rely on its stand-in now. Fuck you. I was brilliant,” she said, her glare stony. “I’m going to check on Tico and then I get lunch.” Riley took a towel and stalked out of the gym.
This was the knife he could throw, the weapon he needed. She wasn’t easily discouraged, easily broken. But he could break her, he knew. Cain also knew he probably would, before it was over with. He could live with that. He’d lived with worse, he told himself. He’d do worse still before he found some peace, although the Ukrainian told him long ago the only peace was in the grave.
Cain collected the dominoes and bowl and set them on a shelf, watching his own hands and thinking how they’d aged. Still deft, still strong, but calloused and scarred. Browned by years in the sun, but not a tremor as he placed the items on the shelf. Cain was steady as an oak, but he knew nothing lasted forever. Something about this girl—her youth, perhaps, or her ferocity—shook him unaccountably. If he let her get to him, it would tell in his hands.
Shaking himself from his reverie, Cain emerged and found Riley lying on his couch with her cat on her stomach. An empty water bottle lay discarded on the floor.
“If you want lunch, I can have something delivered.”
“I already ate some stuff,” she said, gesturing expansively toward the kitchen.
Cain opened the kitchen door gingerly and inspected the damage. On the countertop was an array of the remnants. An avocado pit, a few crackers left in a cellophane sleeve, the clear plastic wrapper off a cheese single, a scattering of walnuts. Rolling his eyes, he debated whether to make her clean it up. Sweeping the detritus into the garbage, he wiped the counter and ate a protein bar.
She scooted her feet out of the way so he could sit on the couch.
“If you’re to be an effective—partner,” he began, carefully avoiding the word ‘weapon’, “I need to know all about you. Your weaknesses. Where you’ll be a liability to me. So start talking.”
“At least I don’t have to hang upside down for this one. Wait, I don’t, do I?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I’m a licensed medical coding specialist. I’ve worked from home for the last three years, prior to which I worked at a clinic.”
“When did you start stealing?”
“Five years ago. I worked at the clinic. My dad was sick and, well, he was diabetic and he never could make himself quit smoking...once you’re hooked, it’s damn near impossible to stop. Anyway, he was in bad shape. He’d lost a leg almost up to the knee and he had to go to rehab, which is a cheerful way of saying a nursing home, to do therapy. I was really struggling to make the bills, and this bitch I worked with was flashing around her new engagement ring. She was engaged to an investment banker and kept on about how much the loose stone had been worth. I thought of the fifteen grand in debt I was on my dad’s care and how she offered to let me try it on. I just wanted to slap her.”
“So you took her ring,” Cain supplied.
“Well, yes. But first I tried it on and looked at it really closely, and then I went to the discount store and bought a crap facsimile. Right shape, right size, and I swapped it out. It was so easy. It was like I’d been doing it forever. It was such a rush. I prized the stone out using tweezers and an embroidery needle...my fence would slaughter me if I told him this story. Whenever money got tight, I’d nick something downtown at one of the department stores off some rich lady.”
“How’s your dad?”
“Still dead. He never knew, of course. But I make donations to a diabetic charity in his honor. It’s kind of to his credit that I found my true calling.”
“He’d be so proud,” Cain deadpanned.
“Yeah, it’s like having a priest in the family,” she shot back. “Once I started working from home, I found my marks through the society pages...if there was a fashion show or a museum exhibit opening gala or something, I’d research who was coming. Their major jewelry’s pretty well documented online. It’s easier to hit the hotel in-room safes or search the handbag left lying out on the hotel bed. I’ve scored a lot of diamond earrings that way. Women take them off at events and stow them in a purse, and voila! Easy mark. Just wait till they have a spa appointment. I call to confirm their appointment time for a pedicure, and the receptionist always corrects me like, oh, no I’m afraid we only have Mrs. Willenbrandt booked for a body wrap at eleven, do you want to add a nail service?” She chuckled.
“You’re awfully proud of stealing from people,” Cain observed.
“Yep,” she said simply, stroking the cat on her stomach. “It’s fun, stops me from getting bored.”
“Personal life. I know dad’s dead. What about Mom?”
“No idea. She took off when I was little. No brothers or sisters.”
“Boyfriend? Fiancé? Husband? Ex-husband?”
“No to all four.”
“Last serious relationship?”
“About two years ago, there was this guy I met at the library. Total hipster, tortoise rim glasses, skinny jeans, vintage leather jacket. We lasted a couple of months. I couldn’t stand him going on about Proust. Excuse me, Prrrrooosht.“ She corrected the pronunciation with a giggle.
“Did he know about your hobby?”
“’Course not. We ate Chinese food and had sex. I think we went to a movie once. Maybe we just watched Netflix. I don’t remember.”
“Not much for human intimacy, I see.”
“I’m close to my neighbor, Carol. She doesn’t know about the jewelry, obviously, but I tell her crap I’m transcribing and she makes me try new herbal teas and stuff. We have lunch every week.”
“So that’s your only enduring relationship?”
“No. There’s Tico,” Riley said. “How about you?”
“I already know about me. It’s irrelevant. I need to learn about you. What kind of men are you attracted to?”
She side-eyed him. “Like I said, hipsters. Pretentious, scrawny guys who are smarter than me. The kind with impractical advanced degrees and an encyclopedic knowledge of some obscure jazz band or something.”
“Okay. So you have a type. It’s unlikely anyone on the Ukrainian’s payroll would fit that description very well. Still, it would be wise to suspect anyone who falls into your path and is unusually charming or interested in you.”
“Don’t stress. I don’t go for the alpha-male type. So you and the entire Ukrainian mafia are safe from my advances,” she deadpanned.
“I for one will sleep more soundly with that knowledge,” he said dryly. “What about interests?”
“Jewelry. My cat. Reality TV. Fashion magazines, especially designer handbags. I’m a whore for Tory Burch.”
“So you steal earrings and buy purses with the cash flow?”
“Not just purses. Sometimes shoes. Vacations. Charitable giving. Pad the retirement accounts,” she said with a smile of satisfaction.
“Ambitions?”
“The Carmen Lucia ruby from the Smithsonian. Some rich guy donated it in memory of his wife. Twenty-three carats of Burmese perfection. I have a picture of it set as the wallpaper on my laptop. It would knock your eyes right out. Clear crimson...it’s—”
“Gemstone porn?”
“Exactly. I may need a cigarette.”
“I thought your dad w
as a diabetic who smoked.”
“I was following the metaphor, Cain. Try to keep up.”
“I’ve seen the Carmen Lucia. Have you visited it? Paid your respects?”
“I never went to the Smithsonian. I’m afraid I’d be overcome and try to break the glass and get to the ring. I want it that much.”
“I don’t think even you could get into the Smithsonian, Riley. Any ambitions apart form that one impossible heist?”
“I thought I’d like to go to Morocco next year. Maybe move out of the city someday, get a house with a hot tub.”
“Fantastic. No plans to go out in a blaze of glory? Go down in history for botching a heist so badly that everyone died a painful death?”
“Uh, no. Fiery death isn’t my scene, Cain. Why?”
“You wouldn’t be the first associate I’ve discovered to have suicide fantasies.”
“No desire to strap dynamite to my chest. Check that one off the list of things to panic about. What else you want to know?”
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
“I’m allergic to blueberries. That’s really all I can think of. Oh, and my favorite color’s navy blue. I like winter because of hot chocolate and down comforters. I don’t like olives or soy sauce or colored diamonds. I don’t care how valuable they are; they don’t impress me. Real diamonds should look like what they are. They should be white, with maximum scintillation,” she finished.
A smile tugged at Cain’s lips.
“So, more dominoes or do you have other types of torture in store for me?”
“Confined spaces are next. Go get in the cabinet under the sink.”
“The hell?”
“Go in the kitchen, get in the cabinet, and I’ll lock it. We’ll see how long it takes you to get out.”
“What? In the dark, all crammed in? What kind of tools do I get?”
“Zero. Nothing that isn’t presently on you,” Cain said.
He ushered the protesting cat burglar into the under sink cabinet that usually housed drain cleaner and dish soap. He locked the cabinet with the key provided by the previous owners who kept their cleaners locked away from the toddlers. It was the first time he’d found a use for a locking kitchen cabinet. She curled in obediently, her mutinous glare belying her cooperation. A few scratches, a grunt, some bumping around, and the cabinet fell silent.
Within minutes, before he even finished checking the markets on his phone, the cabinet doors crashed open with a thud.
“What did you use?”
“First I tried the zipper pull from my hoodie, bending it to try to pick the lock. Then I pulled the drawstring out of my pants, but that was useless. Then I just reared back and kicked the shit out of the door, and that broke the lock.”
Cain smiled. “Sometimes subtlety isn’t everything I suppose.”
“Now, it’s my turn,” Riley said cheerfully. “I’ve decided we’re going to throw a towel over the creepy green face painting and cook dinner together. I’m starving.”
“You scavenged enough food for a herd of wildebeests a couple of hours ago.”
“Confined spaces make me hungry. Plus, I hung upside down forever picking up dominoes for a control freak.”
“What are we cooking?” he asked, letting her jab slide. “I’m not entirely certain I have any food left.”
“Let’s see what you have.” She sprang into action, rifling through cupboards voraciously while her cat followed her, yowling. Cain dropped into a chair, muttering to himself about Belize and rum and not a sound besides the wind off the water. No hyper cat burglars, no bipolar rescue kittens, no chopsticks, no shapely thighs…just retirement.
Riley dropped an armload of food on the counter.
“Mind if I use this stuff? I mean, I need food. I’m still all traumatized from when you waved that gun in my face last night.”
“You mean when you broke into my home to steal my possessions. So sorry about startling you,” Cain replied dryly.
“The gun wasn’t even loaded. The little holes were empty,” she countered.
“I don’t need a gun to be deadly,” he said, taking an onion from the counter and stripping the papery outside away.
Riley put water on to boil for the pasta. She passed him a knife from the block, and he set to chopping with the speed and force of a machine gun’s report. He finished on the onion and started chopping crisp red peppers. When her elbow bumped a tomato, he caught it with a flick of his wrist almost before she realized she’d knocked it off. He had an assassin’s reflexes, she thought, and her mind wandered back to the scar on his side, the seductive curve of his crooked grin, the way the rasp of his beard would feel against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
When they’d combined the ingredients and put the sauce on to simmer, he brought her a glass with two fingers of amber liquid glinting through the cut crystal. He raised his own glass in salute.
“You were remarkable today. I thought last night that you were nothing but a hot shot kid. When I’m wrong, I admit it. You have the nerves and the precision to pull this off.”
“Thanks,” she said, feeling color rise to her cheeks at the unexpected compliment. Riley sipped the scotch, its burn curling through her tired limbs. Cain stepped closer, pushed a lock of hair behind her ear in a disturbingly intimate gesture.
“I wanted you in Costa Rica. I just couldn’t afford the distraction,” he admitted.
“Do you have time to be distracted now?” She offered.
“Now less than ever, alas,” he said with regret, stepping back and sipping his drink.
“Then tell me something. What is it you want so badly?”
“Badly enough to resist you, you mean?” he said. “I want out of the game. I want to retire to Belize and enjoy the sun and the ocean breeze and the weird sense of peace I’ll get from not constantly expecting to be tortured and killed.”
“You make this penthouse seem so uncomfortable. From what I can see, you’ve got a pretty sweet set-up.”
“You pull off this job, and I’ll deed the apartment over to you,” he said without hesitation.
“I don’t want your apartment. I like mine. But thanks.”
“So you steal diamonds but you’re not into money? I’m puzzled.”
“Oh, I like to preserve the mystery, you know,” she said coyly, finishing her drink. “I love pretty things, but I don’t want a mansion. As far as the theft…I like…the underground of it, you know? I like how I operate under the radar and I don’t arouse any suspicion. Conspicuous consumption might stir up the wrong kind of notice.”
“Still afraid of being caught?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Trust me, there are worse things than being caught by the cops.”
“Were you ever arrested, though?”
“Yeah. Up in Canada, early in my career. I got away on a technicality, or I might still be there.”
“Were you scared?”
“No. You have to keep your head about you, kid. Panic, and you’ve turned it into a Russian tragedy after all.”
“Great advice. I’ll try to remember it the next time some guy holds an unloaded gun to my head.”
He stirred his drink with a hint of what almost looked like embarrassment. “You handled yourself very well.”
“Since I’ve earned your respect and an apology, how about the earrings?”
“How about no. They’re being auctioned off in a couple of days.”
“I want the earrings.”
“How about if things work out, I’ll buy them back for you?” he offered grudgingly.
“How about you just buy them from the estate and claim they have sentimental value? We’re talking about your freedom here. Isn’t it worth a couple of diamonds?”
“A couple? Try fifty-six flawless stones per earring.”
“You can afford it.”
“Fine,” he said. “Whatever.”
Riley set her glass rebelliously on the Louis Quatorze
and braced her hands on the arms of his chair, looming over him in the gathering darkness. Dipping her face toward his, she rubbed her lips against his mouth and whispered, “Don’t ‘whatever’ me. You can say ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘no, ma’am’ or ‘you’re fucking brilliant’, but not ‘whatever’.”
She felt Cain’s mouth curve into a smile as he took the kiss, parting her lips and pulling her across his lap.
Riley shuddered at the touch of his tongue, the deft, measured way he doled out electric shocks of pleasure that had her winding her arms around his. When he raised his head, he said in a low voice, “You’re fucking brilliant.”
She rose shakily to her feet and resumed her place on the couch beside Tico, who was now apparently allowed on the expensive furniture.
“So do I get the earrings?”
“If I get my freedom. If not, they go down with the ship, so to speak.”
“So you’ll just wear them yourself, I suppose.”
“The perfect accessory for my beachwear in Belize,” he said.
“I don’t think you can pull off that look, Cain.”
“You’d be surprised what I can manage.”
“I’m very difficult to shock, Sensei. While I appreciate the obvious Zen of your decision to lock me in a cabinet and make me pick up dominos with chopsticks, I’m going to need some information about the job.”
“You know everything you need to, more probably. I’ve told you I work for the Ukrainian and that I’m trying to pull a heist to buy back my freedom. That’s more than enough to get you killed should the crisis arise.”
“Remind me again what I get out of this deal?”
“Money.”
“What?”
“I’m setting up a trust for you. You’ll be paid a reasonable fee whether the job succeeds or not.”
“I don’t want your money,” she grumbled uncomfortably.
“You’re providing a necessary service at considerable risk. There is no reason for you to have to do medical coding with the particular skill set you’ve developed.”
“I’m not doing this for money.”
“Then why are you doing it? You’re not under any threat. Admittedly I used an unloaded gun for coercion…”