Her Last Chance

by Michele Albert

  It irritated him that she thought he’d stoop so low as to bother a grieving woman in that way, but he couldn’t entirely blame her. It would be stupid of her to assume he was offering his help with no strings attached. She was at least astute enough to know someone like him couldn’t afford to operate on such terms.

  He sat on his bed and tried to appear as nonthreatening as possible when Vanessa returned with the bucket and several towels, one of which she’d wrapped around a bag of ice cubes. She knelt and took his hand, turning it from side to side, and winced.

  “That must hurt.” The sympathy in her voice sounded genuine, and for once her touch wasn’t hesitant.

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t break any bones.” She paused. “Or at least none of your own.”

  The towel of ice was merely cool at first, but the chill soon spread and began its job of numbing his knuckles and fingers. The pain kept him occupied enough that he could ignore her nearness. He might have little interest in her sexually, but his body noticed, on a purely primitive level, that she was warm, sweet-smelling, and very female.

  “Did you take anything for the pain? I think we have a bottle of ibuprofen in one of the suitcases. I can go look if you’d like.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “Keep the towel on like this for a few minutes, then turn it over. The ice should last long enough to start to bring down the swelling. Be careful of the bag, though. I’m not sure it won’t leak.” Vanessa scooted closer, bending to check the ice, and her hair brushed along the skin of his belly. The neck of her T-shirt gaped as she did so, providing him with a tantalizing glimpse of rounded, bare breasts. When she’d put on the shorts, why hadn’t she also put on a bra?

  She realized her mistake almost at once. Her gaze flew upward, and then her cheeks flushed an even darker pink as she hastily stood and backed away.

  He didn’t bother hiding his amusement. “I appreciate the view. But not the fear—I’ve already told you I won’t touch you unless you ask. I grow tired of you looking at me like I’m going to rape you and then slit your throat. It offends me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “It’s only that I don’t know if . . . I don’t know you at all.”

  “We’ve been together for four months. Have I given you any cause to fear me?”

  “I don’t know you,” she repeated in a whisper. “Or what you’re capable of. Did you kill someone this morning?”

  Shifting the ice and towel, Rainert frowned as he considered how to answer her. “No, but I would have, had it been necessary.”

  Silence filled the small room, making the scant distance between them feel even greater. “I thought maybe it was like that,” she said. “But sometimes you do seem like such a nice, polite man.”

  “I was raised by very strict, conservative parents.” She stared at him, so plainly surprised that he added, irritably, “I do have parents like anyone else.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Stop apologizing,” he snapped, and immediately felt like an ass. Or worse, since her trembling submissiveness sometimes goaded him to lash out even more.

  An unsettling realization, even for someone like him. “Vanessa, sit down.” When she did so, eyes still downcast, he added, “I have no illusions about what I am, nor do I make excuses. No stories of childhood woes or any of that. As hard as it is for you to believe, I do this because I want to, and because I’m good at it.”

  That got her attention. “So one day you simply woke up and decided your life’s ambition was to be a common thief?”

  Her words stung, as no doubt she intended, but at least her response was preferable to apologies. “It was a gradual process, and I’m far more than a common thief. I’m a businessman with a small, select clientele, filling a very specific need.”

  Her expression remained skeptical. “So how did you end up as a not-so-common thief? It would be nice if you’d answer at least a few of my questions. I still don’t know why we’re in London, or how any of what we’re doing can be viewed as revenge, or—”

  “I told you, we’re in London because I have business to attend to. As for revenge, that’s part of why we’re here as well. A few final arrangements needed to be taken care of, but Avalon should get its first inkling of trouble in about”—he glanced at his watch—“eighteen hours.”

  Her eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”

  “Personally? Nothing. All you need to understand is that I’ll do whatever is necessary to survive.” Rainert leaned back against the headboard, stuffing the pillows behind him until he was comfortable. “Think of it as a small, quiet war that other people don’t know about, and probably wouldn’t care about if they did. On each side, every action and reaction has its consequences. For a long time, I believed it was wisest to avoid direct confrontations with Avalon, to accept the losses that came my way, along with the few opportunities to get even. Recently it’s become too difficult to continue in this manner. There is also the matter of my responsibility in Kos’s death.”

  “How? You weren’t even there and—”

  “It doesn’t matter. His people believe it was my responsibility, and they are not people I can afford to anger or offend. Consequences, you see? The two of you were stupid and greedy, and now look what has happened. I have very powerful members of both the Albanian and Greek mafia pressuring me for results, you’re a wanted fugitive, and Kos is dead. You think it was heroic that he died to give you a chance to escape, but the reality is that he’d have been far more useful to you alive.”

  “You have no idea what it was like, what had happened . . . he had no choice!”

  “I know exactly what he was thinking and the choices he had, but I can’t blame him for picking the quick and easy way out. I will never go to prison, either.”

  “Please don’t say that,” she said, all color draining from her face.

  “I was in the army a long time ago. The Bundeswehr, in my native tongue.” He didn’t speak German much anymore. Sometimes, he wondered if he would sound like a foreigner to his own family if he ever went back home. “I was trained as a sniper, and I was quite good at it. You know what a sniper does, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “Then you know I am trained to kill from a distance, in secrecy. When I did this for my country, I was rightly praised. Killing the enemy is acceptable. What I’m engaged in now is merely a different kind of war, and I am still a sniper. Only now, I use different weapons.”

  Rainert swung off the bed and headed toward the room’s small table. He’d bought a decent bottle of scotch the night before, and a bottle of wine for Vanessa, which she hadn’t yet touched. “I don’t kill needlessly, and, if I can help it, I don’t kill outsiders. It draws unwelcome attention.”

  “If you can help it? How often do you kill people? Were any of them just innocent bystanders?”

  He poured a glass of scotch before he turned back to her. “There has been . . . collateral damage. I regret it, but cannot undo what has been done.”

  “Dear God.” She looked even paler than before. “Doesn’t it bother you at all?”

  “Not really. I’ve long since crossed my Rubicon.” When she continued to stare at him blankly, he sighed and explained, “The Rubicon is a river in Italy, and when Caesar—”

  “I know what ‘crossing the Rubicon’ means,” Vanessa snapped.

  “My apologies. Most of my associates are the kind of people who wouldn’t have.”

  “Lovely. And at least now you know that I’m not an idiot—just shocked and horrified that I’ve been sharing a room with a murderer.”

  “I’m afraid you’re in no position to pick your Prince Charming,” he said, grinning. “Be happy that I don’t generally kill girls.”

  “I wish I’d died at that miserable factory with Kos.”

  “But you didn’t, so stop whining.” He refilled his glass—between the alcohol
and the ice pack, the ache was fading—and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a bath—the morning’s negotiations didn’t do much for my back, either. By the way, I’m taking you shopping before we leave London.”

  “No,” she said flatly. “I’m not going anywhere that public.”

  “You’ll go where I tell you to go, and you know it.” He closed the bathroom door.

  “Shopping for what?” she asked.

  “You need more clothes. I’m tired of you wearing my undershirts, and you need something pretty. In the right clothes and setting, you’d be attractive enough.”

  “Why, thank you.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Such a flattering compliment.”

  While he began running the bath, he heard the bedsprings creak as she flung herself down—he was getting better at prodding her out of those annoying moods. But no sooner had he relaxed in the hot water, scotch in hand, than he realized he’d forgotten something.

  “Vanessa,” he called. “Be a good girl and bring me my cigarettes and lighter. They’re on the table.”

  A loud sigh. More bedsprings creaking, then stomping footsteps. Yes indeed, he’d roused a little of her fighting spirit. He’d also pricked her feminine pride, and she’d go shopping with him, if only to prove that he was wrong and she was more than “attractive enough.”

  The footsteps closed in on the bathroom door. “Are you decent?”

  “Haven’t been in a very long time,” Rainert said, drily. “I’d mock your American prudishness, but you’re British, and I believe that’s even worse.”

  “This, coming from a German? Everybody knows Germans are repressed.”

  “I thought that was the Russians.”

  “Close enough. Same geographically frigid north.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was trying to get back at him in her own way, or if she truly couldn’t handle the sight of a naked man in a bathtub. “So you’re saying only the sun-baked Italians, French, and Spaniards get to claim the passionate reputation?”

  “And Greeks and Albanians.”

  Obviously she’d never been in Madrid in August; it was too damn hot for sex. “Vanessa, bring me my fucking cigarettes.”

  She obeyed, tight-lipped, and slapped the package and lighter down on the bathtub’s edge, avoiding looking at him. “It’s a filthy habit.”

  “First you mock my virility and now you nag at me like a wife. How domestic of you,” he said coldly.

  Instead of hastily retreating, as he’d expected, she sat on the toilet seat.

  “What now?” he asked, reaching for the lighter.

  “I do think you’re a very handsome man.”

  He stared at her a moment, brow arched, before lighting up. “Why, Vanessa, I’m almost flattered.”

  “Don’t do that . . . I’m serious. I wanted to make it clear that I’m not totally self-absorbed and blinded by my troubles. You have been rather decent to me, all things considered, and I am grateful.”

  “Is there a point to this? Because I want to sit in my bath and drink and smoke in peace.”

  “I can’t repay you for the trouble you’ve gone to on my behalf. We both know that. Even though I don’t want to have sex with you, if it’s the only way I can make good on my debts, I wish you’d simply say so. Stop trying to be nice to me and buying me things, pretending like you care.”

  Rainert took a long drag, then blew out the smoke slowly, letting the silence lengthen between them. She shifted uncomfortably, gaze darting toward him but still unable to look directly at him.

  “I need a new shirt, and you need new clothes. You also need to get out of this room, which is why I’m going to take you out to dinner after I buy you a pretty dress. That is the extent of my ulterior motives.”

  “Are you telling me the truth? Really?” she asked after a moment, eyes narrowing. “I know I can be somewhat naïve, but—”

  “I don’t want to fuck you,” he said, as bluntly as he could, and was amazed all over again by how she blushed because he’d offended her good-girl sensibilities. That someone like her had ended up with someone like him boggled the mind. “But if you throw yourself at me in bed tonight, I can’t say that I’d kick you out.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  He sighed. “If you’re not going to join me in the bath and share a drink or a smoke, then get out. I need to be alone now.”

  This time she left, quietly shutting the door behind her.

  Women—nothing but trouble. Too bad he couldn’t live without them.

  Chapter Eight

  Wednesday morning, Philadelphia

  Vincent arrived at work very early—if he couldn’t sleep, he might as well work—and with a few hours to kill before Champion and Stone opened, he loaded the gallery’s security data from the day of the investigation. He followed the activity from the moment Arnetta walked through the front door to her discovery of the decoy helmet.

  A customer was already waiting when Arnetta arrived: the businesswoman from the day before, who’d lost a watch and came back to look for it in the gallery. He’d already recorded all this in his notes, and he watched as the two women hunted through the rooms, Arnetta even getting on her hands and knees.

  On his second viewing, as he switched between feeds, he noticed another woman leaving the gallery and couldn’t remember if he’d marked down her arrival time.

  Vincent switched over to the front door camera to pinpoint when the second woman had walked into the gallery, but he couldn’t find her. What the hell? Unless she’d climbed through a window or slipped in the locked and secured back door, there was no other way inside except through the front—and the camera couldn’t have missed her.

  As understanding gelled, crystal clear, he muttered, “I’ll be damned.”

  Now he had a fair-haired businessman in a gray suit who’d walked in but never out and a brunette in a black skirt and red shirt who’d walked out but never in. It raised an interesting if far-fetched possibility: what if the woman in the red shirt was Gray Suit?

  Hell, why not? Nothing in this case made any sense, and thieves often relied on disguises and wigs.

  Enthusiasm rejuvenated, Vincent quickly made screen captures of the woman in the red shirt, then hunted through the piles on his desk for the images of Gray Suit that he’d printed yesterday. Security cameras didn’t provide the sharpest images, and the woman’s face was obscured by her hair. He didn’t have a real clear image of Gray Suit, either, but he looked taller than the woman, much taller than an average woman. Nothing hinted that Gray Suit was anything but male, though there wasn’t enough clarity to make out any beard stubble.

  A man could pass for a woman—and vice versa.

  Vincent sat back, frowning. This could be a case of one person masquerading as a man and a woman, or it might be a male and female team, maybe even more than two people.

  Suddenly he wanted very much to know what Claudia had turned up—if she wasn’t just jerking him around.

  The time she’d set to meet with him was hours away, and there was no guarantee she’d even show, so he left a message for her at the hotel.

  She didn’t call back before he left for Champion and Stone. After he talked with Arnetta, he’d spend the rest of the day calling the detectives on all the other cases, sorting through security data for them, and looking for visitors and customers who miraculously appeared and disappeared—and maybe even changed gender.

  At two o’clock, Claudia went to meet Digger Brody at Rittenhouse Square, a short distance from her hotel and a very public place, crawling with tourists and local law enforcement. To blend with the tourists and the office worker crowd, she wore a loosely tailored jacket and pants in tan linen with a hot pink shell. Given the heat, a tee and shorts would’ve been preferable, but it was easier to hide a shoulder harness under a suit jacket. In such a public place, though, Brody would probably make more of an effort to mind his manners. Since she’d already paid him once, he had a good reason to keep their a
ppointment, but after waiting nearly a half hour she had to admit he was a no-show.

  Standing next to the whimsical frog sculpture, hands on hips, Claudia tapped her foot impatiently. Why had Brody passed up the chance to make a little easy money? He wasn’t the type to be scared off by crowds, especially since he’d suggested this spot.

  Narrowing her eyes behind her sunglasses, Claudia took a closer look around. If he didn’t show, it was because either he wasn’t able to or he intended to set her up.

  Surrounded by so many people, she had no way to tell if anyone was watching her. She tried the callback number on her cell phone to see if she could raise Brody, but it turned out he’d called from a pay phone.

  Irritated and overheated, Claudia headed toward her new rental, keeping alert to any hint of trouble. A drawback to having exhibitionist quirks was that she liked to stand out. She’d chosen her outfit because it wouldn’t hinder her if she had to run or duck, but it wasn’t totally low-key. A man staring at her could mean he liked how the deep V-neck of the shirt displayed her cleavage, or it could mean he was memorizing her face to shoot her later.

  Great. Now all she had to show for her efforts was vague information about a woman sneaking around Champion and Stone’s Dumpster at some ungodly hour of the morning, and, worse, she’d paid some loser a grand for it.

  If it weren’t for her pride, she’d call Ben and ask him to pull her out, leave this freakin’ mess to Vincent to sort out.

  As she got into her car, she checked her watch. She had hours yet before she met with Vincent—if he showed up; maybe it would be her day for men leaving her high and dry—and that worked out perfectly. She wanted to check the layouts at both of the Philly galleries that had been robbed.

  As she drove to the Alliance, she kept an eye on her mirrors for any tail that wasn’t the black SUV she already knew originated with Vincent, but she didn’t spot anything suspicious. Not even the SUV—and what was up with that? The SUV had been such a nuisance, and all of a sudden it just stopped?