“Nice, but I’m afraid she’s married.”
“How can you tell that from up here?” I rose a bit out of my chair and tried to see if there was a ring on her left hand.
“The man she’s dancing with is her husband. I went to university with him.” He gave me a grin that could go a long way toward melting a girl’s resolve. “My type runs to tall, slender blondes.”
I had to smile. “I’ll bet you spent hours in front of the mirror practicing that line.” I passed him my business card. “I never go home with men I just met, especially when I meet them in bars. It’s not personal. I’d feel the same if I knew your name. I have an aversion to torture and death, so I like to check people out before I agree to games in their personal dungeons. Are any of your former girlfriends on missing persons reports?”
He studied my card, then looked up. “James McKenzie, at your service, Miss Nelson. Unfortunately, my mother disapproved, so I had to sell my dungeon. We would have to find alternative activities.” He handed me his card. Vice President of Technology Support for the local electric company. I thought about the passwords into those control systems, and my interest escalated from mild to hot-and-bothered. Computer hackers have different emotional triggers than other women.
“Impressive, Mr. McKenzie. Is there a Mrs. McKenzie?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m single.”
I continued to look at him expectantly. Finally, he said, “I’m divorced. No kids.”
I licked the rim of my glass while holding his eyes with mine. “Give me a call sometime. Just don’t take me to the restaurant where you went tonight.”
James stood on my front porch with a corsage in his hand. The idea of me dating a real, honest-to-God corporate vice president was so absurd that I still hadn’t come to grips with it. That was our third date, and I hadn’t managed to scare him away.
I turned to my temporary roommate. “Lock it up and don’t let anyone in.”
Glenda rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. And who would I let in? The only people who ever come here is Jaaames and your father, and he has a key.”
The way she said James’s name kind of bugged me. The kid was starting to act like a smart-ass teenager sometimes. Glenda, a fifteen-year-old street kid I had sort of adopted, was staying with me while I rehabilitated my injured hand. Normally she lived at my mother’s brothel and worked in the kitchen as an apprentice. Ignoring her, I smiled at James as I stepped out onto the porch.
“You are so lovely tonight,” he said.
“Thank you. You look very nice yourself.” He was always nice to look at, with dark hair and blue eyes, a strong jaw and prominent cheekbones. When I wore flats, James and I looked each other in the eyes. His tailored suit displayed his broad shoulders and trim waist. James was more than a pretty face, though. Intelligence went along with the good looks, and his position was unusual for someone still under forty.
He added to my admiration by pinning the corsage on my dress without drawing blood.
His chauffeur drove us to the museum and let us out in front of the building before joining the rest of the drivers. I wondered what the drivers did while their lords and ladies pretentiously pranced around. Most nights I might have been tempted to find out, but the prospect of the Evelyn and Fredrick Olson show had me eager to circulate among the elites.
My parents provided me the training so I could fit in with the upper one percent, while cynically ensuring I understood why they themselves had chosen not to do so. My father had been vice president of security for one of the Fifty—the fifty largest corporations—and my mother’s father had been executive vice president of a company in the top two hundred. Such positions paid millions, along with benefits most people couldn’t imagine.
Both of my parents were elite in other ways—they were among the top criminals in the world. You didn’t find citations for that in the society pages. Mom was possibly the best computer hacker who ever lived. Dad was a cat burglar before taking a fall that left him a paraplegic. They had one child, and they trained me from the time I could first walk and talk. Officially, I owned a security consulting company, riding on my parents’ public reputations.
The fundraiser at the Royal Ontario Museum was one of the largest social occasions of the year. Knowing its importance, I’d even bought a new dress and was wearing my best jewelry. I’d put a stack of business cards in my clutch, hoping I’d have an excuse to hand them out. Legal money was the easiest, even if it was rather dull.
We were barely inside and I’d only taken one sip from my first glass of champagne when we encountered Simon and Maya Wellington. She greeted me the way one greets a close friend.
“Elizabeth. It’s so good to see you. How have you been?” Maya took me by the arm and bussed me on the cheek.
“Mrs. Wellington.” Turning to James, I said, “Mrs. Maya Wellington and her husband Simon. This is my friend James McKenzie. James is with Ontario Power. James, Mr. Wellington is chairman of Hudson Bay.”
Maya leaned closer to me and asked, “How is business?”
The question surprised me. “I’m doing okay.”
She seemed to scrutinize me. “Did you bring any business cards?”
I smiled. “As a matter of fact, I did tuck a few in my clutch.”
“Good.” The next thing I knew, Maya was pulling me around and introducing me to her friends.
“Melania, this is Elizabeth Nelson, the best security consultant in the business. You’ve heard about all the break-ins, haven’t you? I mean, the Carpenters were cleaned out, and no one heard a thing. We had Elizabeth go over our installation, and I feel so much better now.”
I handed Melania Makinin my card and smiled. I recognized her husband as president of the largest chain of clothing stores in Ontario. She had a liking for large, heavy jewelry, including some thumb-sized sapphires. I filed the information away.
A dozen introductions later, handing out my cards like candy at Halloween, I glanced at James and found him watching Maya and me with his mouth hanging open.
“I wasn’t aware you were so socially connected,” James said as he brought me a fresh glass of champagne.
I smiled like the cat who stole the cream.
There was a stir when Fredrick Olson and his teen squeeze showed up.
“Have you heard about the Olson affair?” Maya asked me, obviously disapproving. Maya had a daughter a year older than Olson’s mistress.
“I understand it’s the celebrity divorce of the year,” I replied. I grinned at James. “Was your divorce front-page gossip?”
He shuddered. “No, thank God.”
“I don’t think you ever told me why you got divorced,” I said, baiting him. I was curious. He seemed to be too good a catch to let go.
“It’s a long story. Too long for tonight.”
About fifteen minutes later, I watched Evelyn Olson walk up to her husband. She was wearing her grandmother’s liberated necklace.
“Hello, Fredrick,” she said, loud enough to draw attention. “Is this one of your illegitimate daughters? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
He and the girl turned bright red. Both stared at the necklace, bracelet and earrings Evelyn wore.
“Tell me, darling, do you plan on coming home anytime soon? I’m thinking of redecorating. Do you think the billiards room will look good in pink?”
Several of the onlookers spit their drinks and started coughing.
“I don’t believe this,” James muttered. A lot of the men looked uncomfortable. Most of the women seemed amused, like sharks amused at a trapped sea lion.
James took my hand and turned to go someplace else. I balked.
“I’m enjoying this,” I told him. “Don’t you want to see what happens next?”
“James is rather a coward when it comes to confrontations,” a woman’s voice behind me said.
I turned to see a very pretty woman who came up to my shoulder. She had beautiful shiny brown hair, and I studied it, committing i
t to memory. The man with her looked embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as James.
“Good evening,” she said to James. “Who’s the flavor of the month?”
“Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Elizabeth Nelson.”
The grin on her face slid, and she looked at my hand as though she didn’t know what to do with it.
“Are you one of James’s old flames?” I asked, leaning closer and winking at her. “I know there must be dozens of them, but he never wants to talk about his past.”
“I’m his ex-wife,” she said with a snooty grin.
“Oh.” I looked at James, then back at her. “The one who’s an alcoholic, or the nymphomaniac?” His expression was shocked, hers was horrified.
“He’s only been married once,” she sputtered.
“I see.” I turned back to James and patted his arm. “I didn’t realize that all those stories were about the same woman. You poor dear.”
Her face turned scarlet, and she gaped at me with her mouth hanging open.
“It was so interesting to meet you,” I said with a smile. “Stop by again sometime when you can’t stay so long.” I took James’s arm and said, “Let’s go see the Cezanne they recently acquired.”
I motioned toward the glass the ex-wife held and smiled. “Go easy on that stuff tonight. You don’t want to embarrass yourself again.”
Smiling at her escort, I said, “I do admire a man who is willing to accept a woman no matter how many others she’s had. It’s so egalitarian.”
As we walked away, James said under his breath, “I don’t believe you sometimes.”
“The bitch shouldn’t have tried to embarrass me in public. If she’s always that nasty, I can see why you ditched her.”
“She can be nasty.” A slight smile crossed his face. “That was rather funny.”
“My mother taught me that when women get catty, the best strategy is to show them the size of your claws right at the beginning.”
“You don’t seem to care what you say or who you say it to.”
I gave him the smile I usually used as a warning. “You’re starting to catch on, darling.”
As we admired the Cezanne, James asked, “Do you consult to museums about their security?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you think about the security systems here? Any chance someone might steal this painting?”
I appraised him out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to be mildly curious, but nothing more.
“All the major museums have good security,” I said. “Contrary to what you see in vids, most major art thefts from museums aren’t meticulously-planned burglaries. Usually a gang pulls out some guns, takes the pieces they want, and makes their getaway while hundreds of people watch. With that many eyewitnesses, any consensus about the perpetrators’ descriptions is accidental.”
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “The vids always make it look so exotic. Elaborate plans to defeat the laser detectors, rappelling through the skylights, exact replicas of the statue they plan to steal. You know what I mean.”
I laughed. “Indeed, I do. I loved watching that sort of thing when I was growing up.” I waved my arm about me. “Do you see anywhere to hide laser detectors?” The walls were solid stone.
Then I turned back to the Cezanne. “Don’t you think it would be a little awkward climbing a rope up to the ceiling carrying that? I’ll bet the frame alone weighs twenty pounds. Much easier to haul it out the side door to a van.”
“I see what you mean. Couldn’t you cut it out of the frame?”
“Only an amateur would do that. Of course, if a collector wanted it badly enough, I’m sure he could find someone to steal it for him. Most major art thefts are done on commission, you know. That way the thief doesn’t have to worry about selling it.”
Chapter 3
I thought about that conversation concerning art thefts a week later when my friend Wil called from Chicago. Wilbur Wilberforce was the Deputy Director of Security for the North American Chamber of Commerce. The big corporations all had their own security forces, but they paid into a pool to fund the local police, whose major functions were to deal with traffic, and keep the lower classes from causing disturbances that disrupted the upper classes and their businesses.
The Chamber acted to mediate disputes between businesses and deal with security issues that extended beyond a single corporation’s affairs. I hadn’t seen Wil since we worked together in Toronto on a case involving a particularly lethal new street drug.
“Are you busy?” Wil asked when I answered the phone.
“Not at all. Are you in town?” I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to get involved with him, but any woman who didn’t get excited thinking about him hadn’t met him.
“I meant busy as in business busy.”
“Oh.” I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Nothing going on at the moment. Why?”
“The Art Institute wants to hire a consultant to evaluate their security. Interested?”
I didn’t have to think twice. The Art Institute of Chicago was the foremost museum in North America, maybe in the world.
“You’re kidding, right? Of course, I’m interested.”
“Can you fly down here by Wednesday?”
“Absolutely. Do you have a recommendation as to a hotel?”
“The Institute will take care of it. Just let me know when you’ll be flying in.”
After we hung up and I finished dancing a jig all over the house, I called my dad and told him.
“You’re going to work with me on this, aren’t you?” I pleaded. “This is way larger and more high profile than anything I’ve ever done.” Dad had trained me in security systems, and he’d probably forgotten more than I would ever know. A gig at a museum like that could either make your reputation or ruin it.
“Of course. I’m a little surprised. The big security companies usually get that kind of job.”
“I think it’s Wil,” I answered. “The museum didn’t contact me directly.”
“I hope he keeps it on a professional level,” Dad said. “He doesn’t expect anything in exchange, does he?”
I couldn’t imagine what. It wouldn’t have taken a million-credit contract to convince me to let him in my pants.
“I don’t think so, Dad. Anything he might want from me he could probably get with dinner and a couple of drinks.”
“Too much information,” Dad said.
“Then don’t bring up that kind of topic.”
“Touché. Call me if you need to, and don’t sign any contracts before I review them.”
Glenda couldn’t stay at my place alone. She was fifteen and really needed a structured environment. Truth be told, more structure than she probably got living with me. I told her to pack up, and Mom sent a car to take her home. Glenda had been a huge help, but it was nice to have my space back. I’d been living alone for seven years and didn’t realize how set in my ways I’d become.
Dad and I spent a day going over publically available information about the museum. Two hundred years before, it was considered one of the top two or three museums in North America, but as Manhattan and Washington were threatened by the rising oceans, curators began seeking dryer and safer places for their most important works. New museums were built in alternative locations, and major museums in places such as Chicago and Toronto were expanded.
The inundation of Montreal caused most of the museums there to move their collections to Toronto. The Art Institute of Chicago grew over time to more than a million square feet to accommodate the art from museums in New York, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia.
The sad part was the many masterpieces that weren’t moved to safer places in time. At first, cities built seawalls and moved their collections to new facilities on higher ground. Then, on a single day, all those great seaport cities in the old United States disappeared in nuclear fire, along with the great cities and museums
of London, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Rome.
The facility in Chicago was massive, and at any given time, at least two-thirds of the art was in climate-controlled storage. Those areas were the most susceptible to the type of burglary James envisioned. The major trick for a thief there would be gaining access to the warehouse and inventory records. If you couldn’t find a treasure, you couldn’t steal it.
Dad drove me to the airport. I hadn’t flown enough for it to become routine or boring for me, so I still felt a bit of excitement getting ready to board a plane for the seventeenth time in my life. Airplanes were one of the few machines still fueled by petroleum, which made flying wildly expensive. If I’d been paying my own way to Chicago, I probably would have booked an electric train, which would have taken fifteen hours but been a lot cheaper and safer. At least a dozen jets a year crashed because they got caught in storms too strong for them to navigate.
Wil met me at the airport in Chicago. He wasn’t difficult to spot, his shaved bronze head sticking up above the crowd. I could have found him by simply following the line of sight of every woman between fourteen and eighty-four. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t a vid star. Men who looked like that didn’t need any acting talent.
To my surprise, embarrassment, and immense pleasure, he caught me up with his hands around my waist, swung me around, and enveloped me in a hug. “Libby! It’s so good to see you. How was the flight?”
“It was okay.” I looked around. Based on people’s expressions, I guessed that half of the women in the place hated me. I took solace in knowing I was probably the only person in the place, other than Wil and the security guards, who was armed, so I could fend off any jealous attacks. I couldn’t figure out why a man who could have any woman he wanted, sometimes acted as if he wanted me. Or maybe he made all women feel that way.
Wil drove an expensive hybrid hydrogen-cell-and-electric European sports car when I met him in Toronto. In Chicago, he escorted me to a sedan that cost even more. I let him put my check-in bags in the trunk, but I didn’t want him to feel the weight of my carry-on bag.
Chameleon Uncovered (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 2) Page 2