No imagination, no vision, no palate for the taste of larceny. His old man wouldn't have taken the time of day if it wasn't marked on his time sheet. And what had it gotten him but a worn-out and complaining wife, a hot box of a row house in Camden and an early grave.
To Crew's mind, his father had been a pathetic waste of life.
He'd always wanted more, and had started taking it when he crawled through his first second-story window at twelve. He boosted his first car at fourteen, but his ambitions had always run to bigger, shinier games.
He liked stealing from the rich, but there was nothing of the Robin Hood in him. He liked it simply because the rich had better things, and having them, taking them, made him feel like he was part of the cream.
He killed his first man at twenty-two, and though it had been unplanned-bad clams had sent the mark home early from the ballet-he had no aversion to stealing a life. Particularly if there was a good profit in it.
He was forty-eight years old, had a taste for French wine and Italian suits. He had a home in Westchester from which his wife had fled-taking his young son-just prior to their divorce. He also kept a luxurious apartment off Central Park where he entertained lavishly when the mood struck, a weekend home in the Hamptons and a seaside home on Grand Cayman. All of the deeds were in different names.
He'd done very well for himself by taking what belonged to others and, if he said so himself, had become a kind of connoisseur. He was selective in what he stole now, and had been for more than a decade. Art and gems were his specialties, with an occasional foray into rare stamps.
He'd had a few arrests along the way, but only one conviction-a smudge he blamed entirely on his incompetent and overpriced lawyer.
The man had paid for it, as Crew had beaten him to bloody death with a lead pipe three months after his release. But to Crew's mind those scales were hardly balanced. He'd spent twenty-six months inside, deprived of his freedom, debased and humiliated.
The idiot lawyer's death was hardly compensation.
But that had been more than twenty years ago. Though he'd been picked up for questioning a time or two since, there'd been no other arrests. The single benefit of those months in prison had been the endless time to think, to evaluate, to consider.
It wasn't enough to steal. It was essential to steal well, and to live well. So he'd studied, developed his brain and his personas. To steal successfully from the rich, it was best to become one of them. To acquire knowledge and taste, unlike the dregs who rotted behind bars.
To gain entree into society, to perhaps take a well-heeled wife at some point. Success, to his mind, wasn't climbing in second-story windows, but in directing others to do so. Others who could be manipulated, then disposed of as necessary. Because, whatever they took, at his direction, by all rights belonged exclusively to him.
He was smart, he was patient, and he was ruthless.
If he'd made a mistake along the way, it was nothing that couldn't and wouldn't be rectified. He always rectified his mistakes. The idiot lawyer, the foolish woman who'd objected to his bilking her of a few hundred thousand dollars, any number of slow-minded underlings he'd employed or associated with in the course of his career.
Big Jack O'Hara and his ridiculous sidekick Willy had been mistakes.
A misjudgment, Crew corrected as he turned the corner and started back to the hotel. They hadn't been quite as stupid as he'd assumed when he'd used them to plan out and execute the job of his lifetime. His grail, his quest. His.
How they had slipped through the trap he'd laid and gotten away with their cut before it sprang was a puzzle to him. For more than a month they'd managed to elude him. And neither had attempted to turn the take into cash-that was another surprise.
But he'd kept his nose to the ground and eventually picked up O'Hara's scent. Yet it hadn't been Jack he'd managed to track from New York to the Maryland mountains, but the foolish weasel Willy.
He shouldn't have let the little bastard see him, Crew thought now. But goddamn small towns. He hadn't expected to all but run into the man on the street. Any more than he'd expected Willy to bolt and run, a scared rabbit hopping right out and under the wheels of an oncoming car.
He'd been tempted to march through the rain, up to the bleeding mess and kick it. Millions of dollars at stake, and the idiot doesn't remember to look both ways before rushing into the street.
Then she'd come running out of that store. The pretty redhead with the shocked face. He'd seen that face before. Oh, he'd never met her, but he'd seen that face. Big Jack had photographs, and he'd loved to take them out and show them off once he had a couple of beers under his belt.
My daughter. Isn't she a beauty? Smart as a whip, too. College-educated, my Lainie.
Smart enough, Crew thought, to tuck herself into the straight life in a small town so she could fence goods, transport them, turn them over. It was a damn good con.
If Jack thought he could pass what belonged to Alex Crew to his daughter, and retire rich to Rio as he often liked to talk of doing, he was going to be surprised.
He was going to get back what belonged to him. Everything that belonged to him. And father and daughter were going to pay a heavy price.
He stepped into the lobby of the Wayfarer and had to force himself to suppress a shudder. He considered the accommodations barely tolerable. He took the stairs to his suite, put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign as he wanted to sit in the quiet while he planned his next move.
He needed to make contact with Laine Tavish, and should probably do so as Miles Alexander, estate jewelry broker. He studied himself in the mirror and nodded. Alexander was a fresh alias, as was the silver hair and mustache. O'Hara knew him as Martin Lyle or Gerald Benson, and would have described him as clean-shaven, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.
A flirtation might be an entree, and he did enjoy female companionship. The mutual interest in estate jewelry had been a good touch. Better to take a few days, get a feel for her before he made another move.
She hadn't hidden the cache at her house, nor had there been any safe-deposit or locker key to be found. Otherwise he and the two thugs he'd hired for the job would have found them.
It might've been rash to burgle her place in such a messy fashion, but he'd been angry and so sure she had what belonged to him. He still believed she did, or knew where to find it. The best approach was to keep it friendly, perhaps romantic.
She was here, Willy was here-even if he was dead. Could Jack O'Hara be far behind?
Satisfied with the simplicity of the plan, Crew sat in front of his laptop. He brought up several sites on estate jewelry and began to study.
***
Laine woke in lamplight and stared blankly around her bedroom. What time was it? What day was it? She scooped her hair back as she pushed herself up to peer at the clock. Eight-fifteen. It couldn't be A.M. because it was dark, so what was she doing in bed at eight at night?
On the bed, she corrected, with her chenille throw tucked around her. And Henry snoring on the floor beside the bed.
She yawned, stretched, then snapped back.
Max!
Oh my God. He'd been helping her clear out the worst of the guest room, and they'd talked about going out to dinner. Or ordering in.
What had happened then? She searched her bleary brain. He'd taken the trash downstairs-outside-and she'd come into her bedroom to freshen up and change.
She'd just sat down on the bed for a minute.
All right, she'd stretched out on the bed for a minute. Shut her eyes. Just trying to regroup.
And now she was waking up nearly three hours later. Alone.
He'd covered her up, she thought with a sappy smile as she brushed a hand over the throw. And had turned on the light so she wouldn't wake in the dark.
She started to toss the throw aside and get up, and saw the note lying on the pillow beside her.
You looked too pretty and too tired for me to play Prince Charming to your Sleeping Beau
ty. I locked up, and your fierce hound is guarding you. Get a good night's sleep. I'll call you tomorrow. Better, I'll come by and see you.
Max
"Could he be more perfect?" she asked the still snoring Henry. Lying back, she pressed the note to her breast. "You should immediately suspect perfection, but oh boy, I'm enjoying this. I'm so tired of being suspicious and cautious, and alone."
She lay there another moment, smiling to herself. Sleeping Beauty wasn't sleepy anymore. In fact, she couldn't have been more awake or alert.
"You know how long it's been since I've done something really reckless?" She drew a deep breath, let it out. "Neither do I, that's how long it's been. It's time to gamble."
She sprang up, dashed into the bathroom to start the shower. On second thought, she decided, a bubble bath was more suited to the occasion she had in mind. There was time for one, and while it ran she'd look through her choices and pick something to wear most suited for seducing Max Gannon.
She used a warm freesia scent in the tub, then spent a full twenty minutes on her makeup. It took her nearly that long to decide whether to leave her hair down or put it up. She opted for up because he hadn't seen it that way yet, and fashioned a loose updo that would tumble at the slightest provocation.
This time, she went for the obvious and the little black dress. She was grateful for the shopping spree months before with the not-yet-pregnant Jenny that had netted them both some incredible lingerie.
Then, remembering that Jenny credited her current condition to that lingerie, Laine added more condoms to the ones she'd already tucked in her purse. It brought the total up to half a dozen, a number she giddily decided was both cautious and optimistic.
She slipped a tissue-thin black cashmere cardigan, a ridiculous indulgence she didn't get to wear nearly often enough, over the dress.
Taking one last study in the mirror, she turned to every angle. "If he turns you down," she stated, "there's no hope for mankind."
She whistled for the dog to follow her downstairs. After a dash into the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine, she took Henry's leash from the hook by the back door.
"Wanna go for a ride?" she asked, a question that always sent Henry into leaps and dashes of wild glee and shuddering excitement. "You're going to Jenny's. You're going to have a sleepover, and please, God, so am I. If I don't find an outlet for all this heat, I'm going to spontaneously combust."
He raced to the car and back three times by the time she reached it and opened the door for him. He leaped in and sat grinning in the passenger seat while she strapped the seat belt over him.
"I'm not even nervous. I can't believe I'm not nervous when I haven't done this in... well, no point thinking of that," she added as she got behind the wheel. "If I think of that, I will be nervous. I really like him. It's crazy because I hardly know him, but I really like him, Henry."
Henry barked, either in understanding or in joy as she started down the lane.
"It probably can't come to anything," she continued. "I mean, he lives in New York and I live here. But it doesn't have to come to anything, right? It doesn't have to mean undying love or lifetime commitment. It can just be lust and respect and affection and... lust. There's a whole lot of lust going on here, and there's nothing wrong with that.
"And I'm going to shut up before I find a way to talk myself out of this."
It was nearly ten by the time she pulled up in Jenny's driveway. Late, she thought. Sort of late to go knocking on a guy's hotel room door.
But just what was the proper time to go knocking on a guy's hotel room door?
Jenny was already coming out of the front door and down the walk. Laine released Henry's seat belt and waited for her friend to open the passenger door.
"Hi, Henry! There's my best guy, there he is. Vince is waiting for you."
"I owe you," Laine said as Henry raced madly for the house.
"Do not. Late date, huh?"
"Don't ask, don't tell."
Jenny leaned in as far as her belly would allow. "Are you kidding me?"
"Yes. I'll tell you everything tomorrow. Just do me one more favor?"
"Sure, what?"
"Pray, really hard, that there's something to tell."
"You got it, but the fabulous way you look, those prayers are already answered."
"Okay. Here goes."
"Go get 'em, honey." Jenny closed the door and stepped back, rubbing her belly as Laine drove away. "The guy's toast," she murmured, and went inside to play with Henry.
6.
It occurred to Laine that she looked like a woman on her way to an assignation. The little black dress, the sexy shoes, the bottle of wine tucked into the crook of her arm.
But that was okay. She was a woman on her way, she hoped, to an assignation. The man involved just didn't know it yet. And if she ran into someone she knew, so what? She was an adult, she was single and unencumbered. She was entitled to a night of healthy, no-strings sex.
But she was relieved when she crossed the lobby of the Wayfarer without seeing a familiar face. She pressed the Up button on the elevator and caught herself doing a relaxation breathing technique she'd learned in a yoga class.
She stopped.
She didn't want to relax. She could relax tomorrow. Tonight she wanted that live-wire sizzle in the blood, the tingling stomach muscles, the dance of chills and heat along the skin.
She stepped into the car when the doors opened and pressed the button for Max's floor. As her elevator doors closed, the doors on the one beside hers opened.
Alex Crew stepped out.
***
At his desk, with the TV muttering in the background for company, Max reviewed his notes and wrote up his daily report. He left out a few things, it was true. There was no point in documenting that he'd played with the dog, kissed Laine, or that he'd tucked a blanket over her then stood watching her sleep.
None of that was salient information.
He did detail the extent of the damage to her property, her actions and reactions and his opinions on what he observed to be her current lifestyle.
Simple, small-town, successful. Knowledgeable about her profession, cozily dug into her hillside home and the community.
But where had she gotten the funds to buy that home, to start up her business? The business loan and the mortgage he'd accessed-not in a strictly legal manner-didn't quite add up. She'd put down sizable deposits-more than it logically seemed possible for a young woman who'd earned a steady but unremarkable salary since college.
And still not an exorbitant amount, he reflected. Nothing showy. Nothing that hinted there was a great big money tree somewhere dripping with millions.
She drove a good, middle-of-the-road car. American made and three years old. She had some nice pieces of art and furnishings in her home, but she was in the business, so it wasn't remarkable.
Her wardrobe, what he'd seen, showed good classic taste. But it, too, wasn't exorbitant, and fit very neatly into the image of the single, successful antique merchant.
Everything about her fit that image, down to the ground.
She didn't live rich. She didn't look like an operator, and he could usually spot one. What was the point of buying a house in the woods, getting an ugly dog, opening a Main Street, U.S.A., business if it wasn't what you wanted?
A woman with her attributes could be anywhere, doing anything. Therefore, it followed that she was doing exactly what she wanted to do.
And that just didn't add up either.
He was messed up about her, that was the problem. He tipped back in his chair, stared up at the ceiling. Every time he looked at her, his brain went soft on him. There was something about that face, the voice, Jesus, the smell of her, that was making a sap out of him.
Maybe he couldn't see her as an operator because he didn't want to see her that way. He hadn't been this twisted up in a woman since... Actually, he'd never been this twisted up in a woman.
Practically then, professionall
y then, he should back off a bit on the personal contact. Whether or not she appeared to be his best conduit to Jack O'Hara, he couldn't use her if he couldn't get over her.
He could make an excuse, leave town for a few days. He could establish a base nearby where he could observe and record. And use his contacts and connections, as well as his own hacker skills, to dig deeper into the life and times of Elaine O'Hara aka Laine Tavish.
When he knew more, he'd decide how to handle her and come back. But meanwhile, he'd have to maintain some objective distance. No more dinners for two, no more spending the day with her at home, no more physical contact that couldn't lead to anything but complications.
J D Robb - Dallas 18 - Remember When Page 8