ItTakesaThief

by Dee Brice

  “Ian.”

  As he suited action to words, she quit trying to pull away. “In the blue bedroom, I would strip away your robe and suckle your nipples.”

  “Dammit,” she protested, her robe pooling over the belt at her waist. Her nipples pearled.

  Damian pulled her across his lap, her knees straddling his hips, her nipples level with his mouth. Through his worn jeans he could feel her heat along his growing erection. Cupping her breasts, he laved each rigid peak in turn, but when his hands drifted lower, she hissed with pain.

  “Sorry,” she said, lacing her fingers in his hair and urging his face to her breasts.

  “I should not have taken advantage of you.” He pulled up her robe, then eased her from his lap. So much for pillow talk. Odd, despite his cock’s objections, his mind sighed relief. Or maybe it was the remnants of the man he had been before his brother’s murder who felt remorse for using her.

  She stood and wandered to the desk. “Who’s this? In this picture?” she asked, holding it up for his inspection.

  “That? A picture of me taken about ten years ago. Mama cannot resist peppering the palace with pictures of her progeny.”

  “No,” TC contradicted, “it isn’t you. Oh, it looks like you, but it doesn’t. I mean, there’s something about that man’s smile, the way he’s standing. He looks carefree and devil-take-the-hindmost.”

  “Ten years can change a person.”

  “I suppose so, but… Maybe you can explain why you look so much like your stepfather.”

  “You know what they say about couples who have been together a long time. They start to look like each other. It may also be true of children.”

  She flashed a bullshit gesture and opened her mouth to say the word. When he frowned, she stiffened as if expecting a painful blow. If he could not seduce her into sharing her secrets, perhaps shock would work.

  “Imagine this if you will, Tiffany,” Damian said, forestalling the questions building in her eyes. “A dark room—a very large, dark room in, say, a closed jewelry shop. A security patrolman paces the shop, his thoughts on getting home to wife and kiddies and dinner. Out of the dark, a wire rope—very thin, but unbreakable—loops over his head, settles around his neck and tightens. He raises his hands, resisting the irresistible pull of death on his neck. He struggles, stumbles, but by now he’s too weak to fight. He falls to the floor, his life ending even as his elbow shatters the glass case containing…” His hypnotic voice, along with the monstrous vision it evoked, trailed into silence until he said in a cold, uncaring tone, “Say, Isabella’s Belt. What do you think of that scenario?”

  “It’s hideous. Heinous,” she added, no hesitancy or thought in her response. “Is that what happened at the bank?” Her face blanched.

  Shrugging, he said, “I have no idea, Tiffany. I was merely conjecturing, playing the endless game writers play. You know… What if…?”

  Certain he had the answer to his unasked questions, Damian looked into Tiffany’s horror-stricken face. Thief, Tiffany Foster undoubtedly was. Murderer she probably was not. Probably.

  * * * * *

  Having tossed and turned most of the interminable night, early the next morning TC welcomed the timid knock on her bedroom door. Facing the Inquisition was easier than trying to figure out what Ian had been up to last night. But she knew fear when she felt it. She was scared spitless.

  “Come in,” she called and a maid, complete with silver salver, came into her room.

  “This just came, miss.”

  Puzzled, TC took the velvety velum envelope from the tray and nodded her thanks, dismissing the pleasant-faced young woman with a smile. Foreboding shivered down her spine. She removed the typewritten note from its elegant cocoon.

  He failed this time. Will you give Ian Soria another chance to kill you?

  Every muscle quivering with fear, TC dressed and sneaked down the servants’ stairs to a rain-threatened morning. She had shoved her passport into the back pocket of her jeans. Deep in her denim jacket pockets she carried her cell phone and a few hundred Euros. If anyone from the castle caught her leaving the grounds, she would say she was going shopping in Torquay.

  Before stepping out from under the portico, she glanced around. In the short time they’d been together, TC had learned that Ian was an early riser and liked his breakfast early as well. She risked peeking into the family breakfast room. Finding it empty, she drew a deep breath for courage and stepped onto the gravel path as if she hadn’t a care in the world. What felt like an eternity later, she rounded a curve in the driveway that hid her even from the highest castle battlements. Whipping her cell phone from her pocket, she fumbled through a number she knew by heart.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered, hating the choking sensation that clogged her throat. “Thank God, you’re there! Where are you exactly?” she asked before the rich baritone could regale her with Nadim’s usual nonsense. “Me? I’m in Torquay. Is there an airport nearby? I can’t risk the train. If I miss it, I’ll be stuck here. You’ll what? Where? No, Nadim, you can’t land at Hunter Hall!

  “Yes. All right. I’ll hide in the maze until I hear the helicopter.” Swallowing audibly she whispered, “Thank you. And, please, hurry.”

  Trying to maintain an air of nonchalance, TC headed back up the gravel driveway and ambled toward the maze that sat at the farthest edge of the lawn. At least Nadim would have plenty of room to land his newest toy.

  “Good morning, Miss Tiffany.”

  “TC, hi.”

  Oh, damn! The twins.

  “Hey,” TC said, her smile feeling easy, natural, despite her inner turmoil. She found it impossible to greet the girls coolly. Peace wore her usual jodhpurs, teal blouse and boots spit-polished to a mirror shine. Adeen had abandoned her black leather pants in favor of jeans, a red chambray shirt and Western boots.

  “We’re off for our morning ride,” Adeen said.

  “Will you join us?” Peace asked, glancing sideways at her sister, then back at TC with a matching hopeful look.

  “Thanks, but some other time, okay?” At their crestfallen expressions, TC spread her hands in apology. “I’m still a little sore from my fall. I need a little more downtime.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see,” TC said, hating to lie to them, but reluctant to promise. She had no intention of being anywhere near Hunter Hall in the morning.

  They backed away, their eyes looking as sad as those of chastised puppies. TC tried to smile but, failing miserably, waved goodbye. Tears stinging her eyes, she could only pray they might someday forgive her for betraying their budding friendship.

  She heard a distant rumble and looked skyward, expecting to see lightning follow thunder. If she hadn’t realized her mistake, she might have revealed Nadim’s attempt to rescue her. She pulled up her jacket hood as if a deluge was about to descend and sprinted for the maze.

  Hidden from the Hall by the lush privet hedge, she watched as the leaves of ancient oaks began to quiver. When they shook like a tornado was about to strike, she left her refuge. Spying Ian rushing from the breakfast room, TC sprinted across the lawn, reached out for Nadim’s hand and vaulted into the hovering ‘copter.

  Landing on her belly, she felt as if her heart was breaking. She would never forget the twins’ offer of friendship or Mark and Margreta’s welcoming acceptance of her, battered face and all. And, God help her, she might never recover from caring about a man who wanted to kill her.

  * * * * *

  He failed this time, Damian read, smoothing out the crumpled note Tiffany apparently had tossed into the wastepaper basket before she left her room early this morning. Will you give Ian Soria another chance to kill you?

  Well, now he knew why he had had a helicopter landing on the lawn shortly after dawn. Returning to the house in a red fugue, he discovered that a maid had delivered an envelope to Tiffany’s room as soon as she’d called down for coffee. The missive apparently had arrived with the milk delivery.r />
  Bloody hell! The woman believed he had tried to murder her.

  He had not, but, according to George Fox, somebody had. The star cover, normally rigged so that an actor standing on a small dais beneath the stage could rap the underside and burst from the floor like a star, had been sabotaged. The mechanism had been reversed so that the slightest pressure from above had caused it to collapse inward. The platform, usually raised to prevent a serious fall if the cover of segmented India rubber degraded, had been lowered to its deepest level under the stage.

  Tiffany had been lucky to escape with only a few abrasions, caused when she tried to break her fall by grabbing the wooden framework. She had reaped an overabundance of bruises on her belly and face. She easily could have broken both her legs and her lovely neck, but apparently she had had the good sense to relax as she fell to the bottom. And the two-by-four she had slammed into had been sawed—which probably had saved her life. It gave way when she hit it.

  He and the stage manager had found her in a graceful heap, all of her confined on a two-foot square piece of plywood. Even the trapeze artists Damian knew could not have managed such an artistic landing, especially not in the dark, in unknown surroundings.

  Gymnastics, she had told him when they returned to the Savoy, had taught her how to avoid serious injury from a fall. But she had winced when he ran his fingertips down her naked arms. And, too afraid of hurting her, he had not held her while she slept.

  Had she set up the accident herself to gain his sympathy? he wondered, but immediately rejected the idea. Whoever had rigged that star cover had needed time to do the work. Tiffany had not been out of Damian’s sight for more than ten minutes all that day. Somebody else had tampered with the mechanism. Somebody who knew they would be at the theater that night, who knew they would be on the stage. Who? Who could know and gain access to the theater between the evening performance and their on-stage tour?

  Glancing at his bedside telephone, he recalled Tiffany’s phone in her suite at the Savoy, the one he had so cleverly had bugged. He knew of one person who could have known—George Fox. Damian would deal with Reynard later. First he had to find out where Tiffany had gone. And who the hell had helped her get away.

  He packed her clothes, then went to tell his family he was returning to London.

  * * * * *

  “Now, my jewel, you will tell me why I had to rescue you from Hunter Hall.” Nadim Al Bandin popped a grape into his mouth and leaned against the gem-bright pillows strewn over his divan. “And why you look as if a horse trampled you.”

  Mimicking his lazy attitude, TC inhaled the rich aroma of Turkish coffee, sipped and sighed her pleasure at the sinful chocolate taste. “I’ll tell you. Right after you tell me how you happened to be nearby just when I needed you.”

  His hand over his heart as if she had wounded him, he said, “My jewel, Allah told me of your distress.”

  “And informed you where to find me. Allah even told you to bring your helicopter to a relatively obscure village in Devonshire. How clever of Allah. Or should I thank Hassan?”

  His manservant seemed always to know where all Nadim’s friends were at any given moment. While she resented anyone keeping track of her, at this moment she was glad.

  “As I do, my friend Hassan worries about you.”

  “And in this instance, and this instance only, I appreciate your concern. But you haven’t answered my question.”

  “You didn’t ask a question. You demanded.”

  “Forgive me, Your Royal Highness. I forgot to bow at the feet of your princely-ness, Nadim Al Bandin of Kratzistan.” She touched her chest, her lips, her forehead by way of a formal, if mocking, greeting.

  “Sarcasm does not become you, Tiffany, my jewel.”

  At the use of her given name, TC narrowed her eyes and debated how much she should tell him. Hell, Nadim probably knew more about the theft of Isabella’s Belt than she did. Assuming, of course, he hadn’t stolen it himself. She’d never proven him guilty of any crime, especially not murder, but she suspected him of many things. Stealing being the least of them. He reminded her of Cary Grant, especially in It Takes a Thief. Always around when valuables went missing. Always suave, charming and…there when she needed him. If he hadn’t stolen Isabella’s Belt himself, he must think she had and would lead him to it.

  “You heard about the theft, of course,” she temporized.

  “Both of them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The theft at the Banque de Medellin and the…red herring at the Georges Cinq.”

  “Oh yes. I had forgotten about the Georges Cinq.” The English tabloids had speculated the theft was the work of a well-known cat burglar with a penchant for emeralds.

  “Not bloody likely,” Nadim muttered. Clearing his throat, he said, “What do you make of them?”

  She answered without thinking. “Somebody really has it in for me.”

  Before she could blink, his demeanor changed. Muscles tensing, he sprang across the space dividing them and grabbed her shoulders. “Tell me. Now.”

  Editing mentally at a furious pace, unwilling to reveal what she knew even to a friend, TC told him what she deemed necessary. When she finished he released her. She rubbed her upper arms, suspecting his fingers had given her bruises new bruises.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

  “I always suspected you hedged your religious bets.” Her voice sounded carefree, but the huge lump in her stomach told a different tale. Emeralds stolen from the Georges Cinq. Isabella’s Belt with its enormous emerald cabochon also stolen.

  Somebody was out to get her.

  Chapter Five

  “The row,” Mrs. Paddington had confided to Nick Troy, Damian’s contact in Interpol’s Research Division, “began as soon as Charles Cartierri entered Sir James’ office.”

  Damian shut off the agent’s tape recorder, then looked up at the baby-faced thirty-year-old. Nick Troy’s appearance made women of all ages spill their innermost thoughts and dreams at the flick of an eyelash. Neatly groomed and scrubbed to a cherubic innocence, he had the open look of a man worthy of trust. Wide blue eyes promised any secret would be held safe forever, which, given the man’s occupation, was 180 degrees from the truth.

  Damian, still irritated at discovering Tiffany had fled Devonshire, Hunter Hall and him, had been unable to get more than monosyllabic answers about “TC” from grandmotherly Sarah Paddington and had returned to his London flat in a fit of rage. Nick had Sarah chattering like a magpie in less than half an hour. Unfortunately, since the walls of Sir James’ office effectively prevented her hearing anything but disjointed shouts, the information was useless.

  “I do not know how you do it,” Damian groused while smiling at the younger man.

  “It’s easy,” Nick countered, helping himself to another buttery crumpet from the tea tray on Damian’s coffee table. “I don’t behave like a bear with a burr up its butt and I don’t look like a thug.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Besides, old friend, we British don’t really trust foreigners.” Nick laughed at Damian’s injured expression. “That intriguing accent you inherited from your lovely Spanish mama may sit well with the beauteous Tiffany Cartierri, but it puts off—”

  “Who?”

  “Your bird. The girl who stormed out of Sir James’ offices and into your arms. Tiffany Cartierri. Charles Cartierri’s daughter and Sir James Foster’s daughter-in-law. Changed her name when she went to live with Sir James’ family as a teenager. She’s a widow, by the way. William Foster died about a year ago. You should listen to the rest of the tape.”

  “Later,” Damian muttered, his stomach clenching. She had lied to him, he thought bitterly. He should have asked how her marriage had gained her husband access to Charles Cartierri’s world. He had not, too concerned with her feelings. If he remained on this case he needed to steel his heart against her.

  Even though he had sensed it, he had let her get away with lying. Instead of as
king her questions as he should have, he had let her lead him around by his prick. Let her beguile him until he forgot his mission. Aside from that, George Fox had failed to unearth the relationships, had instead encrypted a clean slate for TC, as she called herself, and everyone associated with her. Carter, the name she had registered under at the Savoy, was close enough to Cartierri. A thorough search of Interpol’s soundex files should have brought her real name to light. And he, Damian, should have gotten a look at her passport instead of behaving like a rank rookie. His brother would never let his feelings interfere with his job.

  But Michael had let feelings get in the way. And that had cost him his life.

  Throwing off distracting memories of his brother, he said, “Do you know where Ms. Cartierri is now?”

  “Lunching at Sir James’ with her father and Sir James. They don’t get along, in case you’re interested.”

  “They?”

  “Father and daughter. Half an hour in each other’s presence and World War III breaks out.”

  “And her relationship with Sir James?”

  “Thick as thieves,” Nick answered, opening his briefcase and laying a thick file on Damian’s cherry wood escritoire. “Reads like one of those glitzy novels. This is the only copy, by the way, and I covered the electronic trail.”

  That might explain why George Fox had failed to unearth anything, Damian thought, his instincts not appeased by this morsel of comfort. “Covering was unnecessary.”

  “Oh?” Nick asked, blond brows arching toward his sun-streaked hair. “It seems more a personal matter than agency.”

  “It is not,” Damian snapped, then grimaced an apology. “More coffee?”

  “No thanks. I’ll leave you to your reading.” Stopping at the door, the slim young man turned to fire a parting salvo. “There’s something you should know. Something I’ll be forced to pass over to Police Coordination Division.” Nick hesitated and looked as if he wanted to scuff his toes on Damian’s carpet.

  “Out with it, Nick. You and I have no secrets.”

  “Not usually, but this is one I should keep—except I don’t believe it’s true.”