by Julie Leto
“I know where it will lead. To heartbreak and disappointment. I’ve been through that once. I can’t survive it again.”
THE SKIN ON THE BACK of Danny’s neck prickled with warning. One last lock and he’d be in. An unexpected close call with a trio of musicians setting up in the ballroom one floor down had nearly scrapped the operation, but he’d improvised and had made it up the stairs to the third floor, where the painting was being housed. With party planners, caterers and cleaning staff traipsing through the lower innards of the house, security had been nearly nonexistent. Who’d expect someone to break in when the house was overflowing with people?
Still, something felt off. The lock was the greatest barrier so far, and for someone with less experience than him, it might have been a problem. And yet, this all seemed just a little too easy to be real.
He made short work of the security camera mounted down the hallway—one he’d determined was unmonitored—then disengaged the security alarm with the code he’d swiped from the owner’s smartphone when he’d visited the day before. With tools he never traveled without, he dispatched the keyed dead bolt and slipped inside the dark room. He flipped down the slim night-vision goggles he’d picked up in a downtown spy shop and scanned the pitch-black room. The painting was hanging on the opposite wall, farthest from the door, but he wasn’t making a move until he was sure the path to his prize was clear.
He saw nothing to indicate anyone else was in the room, but he wasn’t yet ready to move. He closed his eyes and listened intently for the hum of unexpected electronics or maybe some breathing beyond his own. His heartbeat thumped loudly, masking any warning signs. But he couldn’t wait around all night. His senses were on alert. His best bet was to get the painting and get out as soon as possible. Stealing for money was loads less stressful than stealing for the woman he loved.
He was halfway across the room when he heard it—a whisper of a click that could have been a door opening or the release of a safety on a gun. He froze in place, then with a soundless arc, dived and rolled to the corner. But his countermeasure was useless. The lights flicked on, blinding him. He tore off his goggles, and by the time he’d regained his ability to see, a man stood ten feet away from him, holding a gun.
“Danny Burnett,” the older man said genially. “Good to finally see you again.”
Danny blinked, and slowly, the man came into focus. His shaggy blond hair, streaked with gray, the goatee and thin, wire-rimmed glasses masked a weathered face whose shape and dimension Danny had seen before, but he couldn’t remember where.
Oh, crap. Had he stolen from this guy before?
“You’ve got one up on me, my friend,” Danny said with a grin. He held out his hands as he straightened, wanting the man to see he was unarmed. He hated guns, especially when the barrel of one was trained at the center of his chest.
The man smiled in return, but did not lower his weapon.
“I’m crushed,” he said, his frown exaggerated. “You don’t recognize me?”
Danny studied the face, though it was hard to tear his gaze away from the gun aimed at him. The man removed his glasses, but it didn’t help.
“Sorry,” he said, truthfully. If conjuring a name to match the face would keep him from getting shot, he sincerely wished he could.
“Maybe if I pour us some cheap tequila and order up a few Tijuana whores, your memory will be jogged?”
The Tijuana whores jibe got him. When Danny had retreated to Mexico to drown his sorrows after betraying Abby, he’d met a lot of people. For a couple of weeks, he’d hung out with an old California surfer dude who’d had a lot of pesos and didn’t mind sharing them with his inebriated new best friend. Though Danny had sworn off women—even the kind you paid for—this guy had sampled just about every pair of feminine lips on the Yucatan peninsula.
If Danny mentally shaved the beard off the guy and ditched the glasses, he could vaguely connect him with the surfer who’d financed his pity party. Danny, whose legs had started to ache from the prolonged half crouch that he’d affected out of surprise, relaxed. This guy might have a gun, but he’d been a former drinking partner. Men like that didn’t tend to shoot first and ask questions later.
“That was a fuzzy time in my life,” Danny admitted. “I don’t know if I ever caught your name back then.”
The man smiled. His teeth were so straight and white, Danny figured he’d paid a price equivalent to the cost of Abby’s painting just for dental work. But it was the sharp eyes, in contrast to the aging body, that had Danny on alert, his arms slightly spread, hands splayed.
“Whatever name I gave you probably wasn’t real anyway,” the old man admitted, crossing over to a desk that was set up with several decanters of liquids that ranged from clear to golden to caramelized brown. “At the time, I wanted to know you, but not the other way around.”
“And that’s different now?”
Danny’s gaze darted toward the window. He’d scoped out the building thoroughly and knew that a tall elm reached well beyond the third floor. The branches had been cut about five feet away from the house. For this reason, he’d opted not to use that means to enter the room where the painting was displayed, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t use it as a possible escape route if he failed to talk his way out of whatever trap he’d fallen into.
Because that’s what this was—a trap. The ease of Danny’s access had been calculated by the man standing across from him with a gun. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to lure Danny into an isolated room on the third floor.
The question was, why?
“Things have changed drastically in the past five years, Danny. For both of us, I expect. Look at you. You’re sober, practicing your trade again. Back in bed with the woman who broke your heart—or did you break hers? I was never sure on that point.”
Danny didn’t answer. He and Abby had both done a little breaking and a lot of hurting. But it sure as hell wasn’t any of this jerk’s business.
“And you have brothers!” he went on. “Two of them, each more different from you than the other. One a respected art expert and auction-house owner. The other, a decorated FBI agent. Who would have guessed that the man I met when he was sleeping in sawdust would experience such a series of life changes over such a short period of time? I mean, it all really started to change for you after your father died, didn’t it? I can’t help but wonder what’s behind that sudden alteration of fortunes.”
Danny made a quick and nonthreatening gesture toward the gun. “Funny, but I’m not feeling particularly fortunate at the moment.”
“Don’t worry about this,” he said. “I just happen to know how slippery you are. The gun will simply ensure that you stay to hear what I have to say.”
“I’m listening,” Danny said. “But it would be polite if you offered me a drink. Maybe a chair. That name I don’t remember.”
The man nodded, poured a finger of what Danny assumed was Scotch into a glass and held it out to him. He considered rushing the guy and disarming him, but for the moment, it was in his best interests to keep him talking. If this guy had manipulated the situation enough to get him here, he needed to know why.
Clearly, the painting was not the old man’s priority. In the few minutes since he’d turned on the lights, he hadn’t looked at the portrait once. He’d used it as bait—his true prize was Danny.
Danny grabbed a chair from the massive desk and sat as far away from the mystery man and the gun as he could. He perched on the edge of the leather cushion, but didn’t take a drink.
“Comfy?”
“Not particularly. I’d like to take that painting and go. It’s not yours. I mean, technically. It belongs to Abigail Albertini, but clearly you know that and used the information to lure me here.”
“I did indeed.”
“But you still haven’t told me your name.”
“No, I haven’t, but you’ve broken into my house.”
His eyes widened as he waited for Danny to react to h
is declaration. “So you’re Harris Liebe.” Since he’d never heard the name before he’d taken this job for Abby, Danny shrugged his shoulders. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
Harris narrowed his gaze. “It should, after the years of bad luck your family has brought to mine. It’s a name you won’t forget, once I tell you the whole sordid tale.”
Danny glanced down at his glass. He knew it was smarter to stay clearheaded when dealing with an armed megalomaniac, but the whole situation made him extremely thirsty.
“You do realize you sound like some kind of master villain, right?” he asked. “And if you’re casting me in the role of superhero, buddy, you’ve got the wrong guy.”
The man laughed, but had the decency to make the sound a low chuckle rather than a maniacal cackle.
“But you are the descendant of a hero, are you not? That, sir, is why we’re here.”
14
THIS WAS ABOUT THE RING?
Underneath his gloves, Danny could practically feel the gold band constrict even tighter around his finger. This was what he got for having family ties, for thinking, for even a minute, that having a history that dated back to the 1800s was kind of cool. He’d been better off when he was anonymous, a man with a cache of names at his disposal. Even his “real” name, Daniel Burnett, wasn’t entirely legit. He shared no ties with the Burnetts any longer beyond Lucy, who’d stopped being Lucy Burnett months ago.
Danny had been slow to warm up to the idea of being a Murrieta, but learning about his father and his brothers had not been as insignificant as he’d pretended. The idea of having men who shared his blood watching his back appealed to him. He sure as hell could have used both of them right about now.
But they weren’t coming to his rescue. Danny would have to talk his way out of what should have been a quick and easy operation to retrieve Abby’s painting. But then again, nothing associated with Abby was ever easy, was it?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man smirked. “You know about your relationship to Joaquin Murrieta because I told you.”
Danny clicked his tongue. “If you expect me to recall anything you said to me in Mexico—”
“Not in Mexico—in your jail cell,” he replied. “Of course, I didn’t deliver the message myself. Perhaps my associate, Mr. Jimmy the Rim, did not outline the true significance of your family’s legacy and how it intertwines with mine. But I imagine that since your release, you and your brothers have talked about it extensively.”
“You almost had me railroaded for murder!”
Liebe waved his hand dismissively. “Mr. Rim can be a little enthusiastic with his work. The manufactured evidence against you disappeared because I wanted it to. Despite your family’s felonious history, I saw no need to incarcerate you in the long term for a crime you did not commit.”
“Wait,” Danny said. “Are you talking about all that crap about me being related to some Chilean street thug named…Juan? Or was it…Joaquin? But what the hell does that family legend have to do with my arrest? Or you? Or even more important, that?”
He hooked his thumb at the painting, but Harris didn’t follow the direction of his gesture. He focused on Danny, his eyes locked and intense while he tried to figure out if Danny’s proclaimed ignorance was real. One thing was for sure—if Harris knew the details of the Murrieta connection to the legendary bandit made famous by books and movies and television shows, then he must have gotten close to someone in the family.
Alex still had mixed feelings about the bandit blood running through his veins. Even Michael, in the middle of an FBI investigation that centered on a madman’s obsession with the caped crusader of colonial California, had kept his personal connection on the down-low. So how could this guy possibly know?
Unless…
“You knew Ramon.”
Harris grinned. “If you mean your biological father, Ramon Murrieta, then yes. We did business over the years. We shared an interest in the old mission era of California. I was particularly interested in cavalry pieces. My family, you see, played a large role in the protection of the missions and villages in the area. Ramon tracked down quite a few swords and uniforms for me over the years. An interesting man, your father. More than worthy of the legacy left to him by the notorious bandit.”
For the first time since Danny had learned about his so-called family history, he wished he knew more about Joaquin than just his somewhat unbelievable connection to the fictional Zorro. It made for a great story, but anyone could have scratched a Z into the center of the ring’s stone.
It was harder, however, to argue with the documentation Alex had shown him and the journal he’d peeked at while holed up with Michael in New Orleans. Still, he didn’t know much about the details. He’d always preferred to live in the moment and leave the historical context of the art he stole to people like Lucy or Alex. But he’d seen enough of the movies to know that in the Zorro milieu, the army officers garrisoned in places like San Diego and San Luis Obispo were, to the masked bandit, the enemy.
Clearly, this guy was following in their footsteps.
“He’s dead, you know.”
“Ramon? Yes, I attended his funeral. Shame you weren’t there.”
“Families are complicated,” Danny replied coolly. If the guy was trying to play him emotionally, he was barking up the wrong tree. His non-relationship with his father hadn’t been an issue for years.
This guy, on the other hand, seemed to be holding tight to a family grudge that had lasted centuries.
One-handed, Harris poured a measure of what looked like brandy into a snifter. If not for the barrel of the gun pointed in his direction, Danny might have rolled his eyes at the scene the man had crafted. It was straight out of one of the movies that might have starred his ancestor—the hero trapped while the villain takes his time sipping spirits and preparing to deliver a monologue that explains the intricacies of his evil plot.
Danny might as well play along.
“I don’t understand how your business relationship with my father relates to the painting, which is the reason I’m here.”
“Ah, yes” the man said. “The grand gesture behind your thievery—to steal back the prize for your lady love. To right the wrong you perpetrated against her. To protect her family from the scandal of her grand mother’s naughty notoriety. To restore her faith in you, even though you’re a man in whom faith is usually wasted.”
Clearly, this guy kept his ear to a lot of keyholes.
“Did you practice that speech? It was good. Really. A little old-world. Maybe missing a cackle at the end, but still very effective. I’m impressed.”
Harris bent his head in a slight bow, unabashed by Danny’s backhanded compliments. “I confess, I’ve run a few of these conversations through my mind prior to our meeting again.”
“That’s a hell of a hobby.”
“More like a family legacy. Your great-great-great-great-great grandfather might have been the bandit who inspired Zorro, but my ancestor was famous, as well. Captain Harrison Love.”
“Who?”
“Captain Harrison Love,” he repeated, his tone measured. “Surely you’ve learned enough about Joaquin to have heard about his nemesis, as well. He was the army officer who caught your dirty, thieving forebear, cut off his head and displayed it in a jar to remind other would-be heroes what would happen if they challenged his authority.”
Danny’s brain clicked. Harris Liebe. Captain Harrison Love. Liebe meant love in German. This couldn’t be a coincidence that the man who was about to expose Abby’s painting was tied to some distant relative of the man who’d reportedly been Danny’s ancestor’s personal pain in the ass.
He didn’t know much about Joaquin Murrieta, but he knew about the head-in-the-jar story. Some parts of the legend were kind of hard to ignore.
“So what? You want to cut my head off and keep it in a jar?”
Harris Liebe sipped his brandy. “Don’t be ri
diculous. If I’d wanted to cut your head off, I would have done so in Mexico. You wouldn’t have felt a thing and no one would have looked twice.”
“I assume we didn’t meet accidentally in that cantina, then.”
“Hardly. I’ve wanted the Murrieta ring for many years. Took me a while to track it down and ingratiate myself into Ramon’s life. Unfortunately, no matter how many trinkets I purchased from his auction house, he wouldn’t part with it. I would have stolen it from him, but the man never took it off, and unlike the notorious captain, I find the removal of appendages disgusting.”
Danny breathed a little easier. The thought had crossed his mind that this whack-job might try to slice off a digit if he learned that Danny had the ring on underneath his gloves.
“That’s very human of you,” Danny said. “But you realize that Captain Love cut off the wrong guy’s head, right? That’s fairly embarrassing.”
Harris’s eyes flared and he slammed his hand onto the desk. “The captain’s mistake cost him his career. He captured a man wearing Joaquin’s ring and assumed it was the bandit. He only found out he was wrong when Joaquin stole it back. Though he continued to proclaim he had the bandit’s head in the jar, his superiors knew better. He was reduced to running a virtual sideshow.”
“That sucked for him, but what does it have to do with you hundreds of years later? You’re clearly doing well for yourself. Money. Connections. Exquisite taste in art. I don’t get why you want some piece of crap ring with a scratch on the emerald.”
“So you’ve seen it?”
The hunger in the man’s gaze was a little more than unnerving.
“Yeah,” Danny said with a shrug. “Michael has it. And I guarantee, he’s not going to give it up.”
“He has to.”
“Why?”
Harris poked his free hand into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. He tossed it to Danny, who caught it. Inside were several platinum credit cards under various names, a healthy amount of cash and a picture.
One picture. The old man standing at the entrance to the University of Chicago with a teenage boy who had the same piercing blue eyes as his grandfather.