by Linda Verji
“Brilliant speech, brilliant speech,” Fabián teased. “I saw Obama in you.”
“I know right?” Lee grinned. “Did you hear when I said, ‘steal our thunder’? It was inspired.”
“Pure genius, my friend.” Fabián fought to hide his grin. “Pure genius.”
“Leeeeeee,” Jodi Butler, their forty-something costume designer, sidled next to Lee. It was obvious she was already drunk by the glazed look in her eyes and the heavy alcohol-tinged smell that smacked Lee in the face when she leaned closer. “What are you doing? Why don’t you drink more?”
“I’m already drinking.” Lee pointed to his half-full glass. He tried to shift away from her but she slung her arm around his waist to keep him close to her.
“Has anyone ever told you, you have beautiful eyes?” She gazed up at him adoringly. “They’re sooo green and sooo beautiful.”
“That’s what I always tell him,” Fabián piped up.
“Don’t encourage her,” Lee warned.
“I’m just saying.” Fabián’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Your eyes are beautiful. Right, Jodi?”
But Jodi wasn’t interested in Fabián or anything he had to say. She only had eyes for Lee. Soaking him with more of her alcohol-breath, she said, “This place is noisy. Would you like to go to a quieter place?”
“Not really.” Lee pushed her arm off his torso. He tried to shift away from her but Fabián was seated too close to him. When Lee nudged Fabián to move, all his friend did was give him an evil grin and shift the wrong way, forcing Lee closer to Handsy Jodi.
Beneath his breath, Lee muttered, “I’m going to kill you when we get out of here.”
“You can certainly try.” Fabián laughed as he brought his beer-bottle to his lips for a quick gulp.
Jodi grabbed Lee’s arm to yank his attention to her. She whispered loudly, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a quieter place?”
“I’m sure.”
“Even if I offer to make it worth your while?” She tried to wink at him but it ended up as a weird face contortion that left Lee wincing.
Damn! She would regret this in the morning.
“Stop!” A sudden shout pulled Lee’s attention from Jodi’s antics to the stairs that led up to the third floor.
Just then, a tall, slender, black woman wearing a gray bomber-jacket over a black tee and black jeans and carrying a tube-like bag over one shoulder hurtled down the stairs.
“Stop.” The two men, who came rushing down the stairs behind her, yelled. “Stop.”
But the woman was as swift as a panther and quickly outpaced them as she weaved her way between tables. Unfortunately, the men’s shouts had attracted the attention of the three bouncers manning their floor.
Lee shot to his feet when he saw one of the bouncers step right in the path of the woman. He wasn’t sure whether he stood to protect the woman, to help the bouncer or to better see what was happening. Either way, the woman’s next actions froze him.
In a move that Lee had only seen done by stunt-men and in movies, the woman’s hand shot forward in a slashing motion and hit the bouncer’s throat. The bouncer staggered backwards, clasping his throat. His strangled cry echoed above the shocked gasps of the patrons. Before he could recover, she slipped past him.
When a second bouncer stepped towards her, she pulled the bag off her shoulder and smacked him in the head with it. While the bouncer was distracted by the hit, she drove him backwards with a hard, swift kick to the stomach. Her expression impassive, she slung her bag back on her shoulder.
Moses on a motorcycle! Lee’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He’d never seen a woman fight like that. His colleagues were just as surprised because most mouths were half open as they watched her come closer. The closer she got, the more beautiful Lee realized that she was. Already, she had the model-like, lanky figure going. Add in the dark chocolate smooth skin and almond-shaped eyes and they had a winner. How in the world had a beautiful woman like her become such a deadly fighter?
Along with his awe at her beauty came an odd sense of familiarity. Like he’d seen her before. Had he seen her before? No. No way. There is no way in hell he would’ve forgotten a woman like her.
Just as she was about to pass their table, the third bouncer started towards her. He was a little way ahead of her while the two suited-men who were chasing her initially were behind her. Basically, she was between them.
“Hey, lady, you can stop running now,” One of the suited men yelled out as they approached her with victorious smirks.
“You can’t beat us all,” the bouncer added. “And don’t think I’ll go easy on you just because you’re a woman.”
The woman’s gaze shifted from the suited men to the bouncer then back to the suited men. Then she smiled.
Lee’s heart bumped in his chest. Something about that smile told him that she was about to do something he’d remember for a lifetime. And she did. In a deft move, she vaulted onto their table. He, Fabián, Jodi and the other crew members around the table, reared back in surprise. Before anyone could stop her, she edged closer to the railing and looked down.
Lee already knew what she would see. The dance-floor down, down, down below them.
She turned back to her pursuers and gave them a cheeky salute… then she jumped.
Oh. My. God. From that height?
Was she trying to break a leg, or worse, kill herself? Sharp intakes of breath, ‘ohs’ and ‘shit’ rent the air as everyone, including Lee, moved to the railing. Lee expected to see the woman splattered on the floor below them, but there was no splatter, human or otherwise. However, a second later, he found her. She was hanging from the bottom rail. Smoothly, she used her arms to move across the railing until she got to a pillar and deftly slid down to the first-floor. Then she did the vault, swing and slide thing again to end up on the ground-floor.
Weaving her way past dancers, who knew nothing of the gymnastic feats she’d performed, she headed to the exit. No one stopped her this time.
For a moment, Lee was frozen, unable to believe what he’d just seen. Then instinct took over. He raced away from the table, past her shocked pursuers, and down the stairs. He couldn’t vault over railings or slide down pillars like Miss Beautiful and Dangerous, but, damn it, he used to run track. Within minutes, he was at the club’s exit.
The cold, night air smacked him in the face when he emerged on the street. Panting, he looked left and right, searching for the woman. All he saw was two bouncers groaning on the floor and shocked revelers asking them if they were okay.
She was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn!” Lee cussed. What he wouldn’t have given to have gotten that lady’s number.
Damn!
CHAPTER 2
A week later, A.J was still waiting for Casper to find her. Oh, he’d called a couple of times, each time almost blistering her eyes with his cussing. However, he still hadn’t shown up at her doorstep, which meant he didn’t know where she was. Frankly, it was disappointing. Her father was getting slow in his old age.
“I can’t believe you actually have your own shop,” Kelly Garner, A.J’s former cellmate, wandered around the store taking in the antique items displayed around the space. Though Kelly was as dark-skinned as A.J, she was a bit plumper and about a head shorter. Her eyebrows shot up when she picked up a terracotta sculpture of a naked woman and an elf kissing. “Well, this is racy.”
A.J, who was a few feet away, polishing a brass plate, laughed. “That’s by Nicola Sica. He was inspired by Clodion’s Nymph and Satyr Kissing.”
Kelly gave her a blank look. “Am I supposed to know who those people are?”
“Clodion’s pretty famous,” Tamsin ‘Sin’ Jacob, A.J’s other friend and also an ex-con, quipped. The pretty caramel-toned woman was seated behind the checkout counter, a hairpin in hand as she fiddled with the lock on one of the drawers. “Don’t you know him?”
“Get away from the counter, Sin.” A.J glared at her. “
There’s no money there.”
“Do you even know who Clodion is?” Kelly eyed Sin with narrowed eyes.
“No.” Sin grinned even as she continued to fiddle with the lock. “But it felt good to act like I was smarter than you for once.”
All three women laughed.
A.J hadn’t planned to make friends while in prison. She was a lone wolf by nature. But these two had attached themselves to her and before she knew it she was part of a clique. A clique. The thought alone was enough to make her shudder. But these two were good eggs… if she had to have friends, then Kelly and Sin weren’t the worst choice.
“Where did you even get the money to open this place?” Kelly asked,
“I had a little saved up.” A.J shrugged. “And I bought it before I went in.”
The plan had always been to retire from the thief game while she was still young. Three years ago, it had seemed like the perfect time. Other thieves wanted to retire with private planes, fast cars, mansions and their personal harems. A.J just wanted a little antique store of her own and to never have to worry about money.
Once she’d decided to retire, she’d bought this one-story building and the antique shop below it from the elderly woman who owned it. She’d even gathered a collection of valuable but legal antiques of her own. If she hadn’t fallen for Casper’s ‘last score’ bullshit, she would’ve been living her dream before now.
Thankfully, her dream was still intact when she’d walked out of prison three weeks ago. June, the previous owner of this building, had died a year ago. However, she’d left explicit instructions in her will that the building and everything in it belonged to A.J. June’s relatives were as decent as she was. As soon as A.J turned up, they handed over the building without a fuss.
If A.J had to describe Warehouse 17, she’d say that it was a high-end antique shop. Everything in here was more than a hundred years old yet still looked new and valuable. The store itself was large enough that she’d sectioned off different parts of the room so she could display similar items together.
“Should I move?” Sin asked when A.J kicked her away from the checkout counter.
“Move where?” A.J asked.
“Here.” She pointed upwards, to A.J’s apartment.
A.J reared backwards as an instinctive ‘No’ rose to her lips. But Kelly beat her to it.
“Why would you do that?” Kelly, who’d recently moved in with her fiancée, Spencer, stared at Sin like she’d lost her mind.“You have my whole apartment to yourself.”
“Yeah!” Sin shrugged. “But this one’s bigger and I like sharing with someone.”
“No,” A.J said. “You’re not moving in with me.”
“Why?” Sin whined.
“Just no.” A.J had spent three years sharing her space with different women, some messier and louder than others. She wasn’t doing it again unless she had to. And in this case she didn’t have to. Besides that, she and Sin were very, very different people. She loved her friend, but the woman wouldn’t know a vacuum cleaner if it bit her in the ass and announced itself. Plus, she was too happy. Consequently, people were to drawn to her, like bees to honey. If Sin moved in, A.J’s apartment would turn into a cheerful, crowded sorority house.
The horror! Ugh!
A.J shook her head more vehemently. “Hell no!”
“You don’t have to say it like that.” Sin pouted.
“Sorry,” A.J said. In case her friend still hadn’t gotten the message, she repeated, “No.”
“We got it, A.J.” Kelly laughed. “You want to live alone.”
Sin glared at her sulkily. “I hope you get robbed.”
“Imagine that!” A.J chuckled. “A thief getting robbed.”
Her friends’ answering laughter rang in the store. About an hour later, Kelly and Sin left. Kelly was off to meet Spencer while Sin was headed to her part-time job – something about playing a fake-girlfriend to a nerd who was on his way to his high-school reunion. A.J stayed behind to man the store.
The pieces she stocked were interesting enough that several curious people walked in just on the strength of her display window. She even sold a few things.
This was a good investment. She smiled as she handed a client her receipt.
At around two p.m., her part-time store-clerk, Pete walked in for his shift. The short, chubby, pale-faced, bespectacled, young man was June’s grandson and had managed the shop before and after June’s death. He was the logical choice of employee. She still planned to hire one more assistant, but for now he would do.
“Pete, I’m heading out for a bit.” A.J grabbed her jacket. “Are you okay alone?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pete reassured her. “I’m good.”
“Mrs. Wood said she was coming back for her bust today.” A.J put on her jacket and zipped it up over her white top. “Don’t forget to pack it up for her.”
“Sure thing.” He nodded. “Are you staying out for long?”
“Not too long,” she said. “I should be back by-”
The sound of wind-chimes ringing and the door opening cut into her words. A moment later, a somewhat pudgy, white man who was one or two inches shorter than her walked into the store. Judging by the wrinkles that lined his face and the gray streaks in his black hair and goatee, most people would’ve estimated that he was in his early sixties. And they would be right. He was sixty-three.
How did A.J know his exact age? Because she knew him.
Mason Marwick. His presence here sent immediate shock ricocheting through her. What was he doing here? In this neighborhood. In her store. He was supposed to be in Arlington.
“Hi, Mr. M,” Pete greeted him.
“Hello, Pete,” the older man greeted before turning to A.J with a toothy grin. “Well, hello there.”
“Hello.” Knowing that he didn’t even know who she was, A.J forced a smile. “Welcome to Warehouse Seventeen.”
“Warehouse Seventeen, huh?” Mason chuckled as he strolled towards her. “Great name.”
“We tried.” A.J was trying so hard to keep her smile intact that it felt like her face was about to break. “What can we help you with today?”
“Just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.” Once he was close to her, Mason held out his hand. “I’m Mason Marwick. I own the shop right across from you.”
“Ah! The furniture store?” A.J asked even as tension tightened her stomach muscles.
With a grin, Mason nodded.
A.J’s tension increased. If Mason owned a place in this neighborhood, did that mean that Lee was around here somewhere? If he was, was she supposed to be happy or nervous? Both?
Her smile was even more forced as she accepted Mason’s vigorous handshake. “I’m A.J. It’s great to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Mason’s gaze swept around the store. “This place is so different from when June ran it.”
“Different in a good way?” A.J asked.
“Different in a good way.” Mason nodded. “You have some amazing stuff in h-”
He suddenly stopped speaking. His eyes widened as they zeroed in on a romantic landscape painting that was displayed prominently above the checkout counter. “Is that a Samuel Hurst?”
“It is.” A.J wasn’t sure what was more surprising; that Mason was in her store or that he knew about one of the forgotten black painters of the nineteenth century. “You know Samuel Hurst?”
“Of course I know Samuel Hurst.” Mason edged closer to the painting to examine it. His eyes still wide with awe, he asked, “How much for it?”
A.J winced. “I’m sorry, that’s not for sale.”
“It’s not.” Disappointment flashed in his expression.
“No.” A.J rushed to add. “But I’ve got other paintings that are just as good and might interest you.”
A few people walked into the shop while she showed Mason around, but fortunately, she had Pete. A.J wanted to ask Mason so many questions as they walked around her store, but she knew she couldn’t without
revealing her identity. Mason, on the other hand, had no problems asking questions. Fortunately, all his questions were about her antiques.
When he wasn’t examining the pieces she showed him, he was giving her advice about how to run a business in their neighborhood. He threw in some marketing advice and gave her the down-low about their neighbors.
He said, “You need to be careful with Susan, the lady who owns the bakery next-door.”
“Oh?” A.J arched her eyebrows.
“She’ll act all sweet and nice when she comes in here then grill you about your personal life. But once she’s out of here, all your personal business will be out there too.”
A.J winced. “That bad?”
“That bad.” Mason nodded. “Don’t tell her anything you don’t want people knowing.”
“Noted and appreciated.” A.J smiled. It was good to know that time hadn’t changed Mason. He was still a good guy, looking out for everyone around him.
When Mason stopped in front of a toddler-height, marble sculpture of several children rolled up in a ball, she explained, “This was done by a Romanian sculptor called Ion Popp in 1908. I got it from his great-granddaughter.”
“I haven’t heard of him.” Mason examined the sculpture. “But this is… thought provoking.”
He was so into the sculpture that he eventually bought it despite its eyebrow raising price. “I can’t take it with me right now, but I’ll drop by for it in the morning.”
A.J smiled. “That works for us too, since we have to buff it up a little then pack it.”
“Great.” Mason grinned. “And don’t be shy about crossing the street to my store. My furniture is probably a little too ‘new’ for you, but it’s not so bad.”
“I don’t mind new stuff.” A.J laughed. “I’m actually redecorating my apartment so you might find me haunting your store sooner rather than later.”
“Can’t wait.” Mason beamed. “The best part is if you want to make it yourself or restore some of your stuff, I’ve got a pretty big workshop you can use. Plus, I offer DIY Woodwork workshops every Tuesday and Thursday for anyone who wants to learn wood-stuff.”
“Don’t think I won’t take you on that offer,” A.J joked, earning a booming laugh from Mason.