by Lori Wilde
“Excuse me,” he called out. “Can I help you?”
The feet turned to run away. Sam flung himself up the stairs in hot pursuit of the fancy shoes. The man hit the stairwell door on the sixth floor before Sam could get a good look at him. Ten seconds later he burst through the door after the guy.
The elevator doors were just closing.
The nurses in the hallway turned to stare at him.
“Shh.” One frowned. “This is a hospital.”
“Did you see who just got in the elevator?” he asked the disapproving nurse.
She shook her head.
“Never mind.” He punched the elevator button. He was probably making a much bigger deal out of this than it was. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been following him.
Question was, why?
“SO HOW WAS BUNNIE’S PARTY?” Morgan asked, slicing tomatoes for a tossed salad.
“It was okay.” Cass shredded the heart of crispy romaine lettuce.
“Okay?” Morgan put down the paring knife and swiveled around and pinned her with a look. “Bunnie’s parties are never okay. They might be crass, they might be unruly, they might be fabulous fun, but they’re never just okay.”
Cass shrugged. “More of Bunnie’s usual antics.”
“Something’s wrong.” Morgan narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Don’t lie. For one thing you never come to Connecticut during the middle of the week and out of the blue, I might add. For another thing you’ve been exceptionally quiet ever since you arrived. Cough it up, what’s wrong?”
Damn but it was inconvenient having such a perceptive older sister.
“Did you ever find out what was up with that carved box you found?” Cass asked.
“I’m not going to let you change the subject, but yes, I did. One of my customers has a background in ancient artifacts and she believes the box could be more than a thousand years old.”
“No kidding? Tell me more.” Cass propped her chin in her upturned palm while sitting cross-legged on one of Morgan’s chic modern bar stools.
Odd that her sister, with her obvious love of antiques, would decorate her own house in a neoclassic style. Then again there was more to Morgan than met the eye. For instance no one in the family could fathom why she had quit her well-paying job in the city to buy the antique shop in Connecticut five minutes from where she lived, but no one cared what Morgan did as long as she was happy.
Morgan held up a finger. “You’re not distracting me. What happened at Bunnie’s party? And don’t fib. You’re a terrible liar. Your face turns all blotchy when you lie.”
Cass touched her cheek. “Does it really?”
“Why do you think I always beat the pants off you in poker?”
“I thought it was because you were a brilliant poker player.”
“Nope, you just have a bad poker face. So no monkeying around.”
Cass reached for one of the carrot sticks she’d just peeled and crunched contentedly. “When’s Adam going to be home?”
“He called earlier and said he couldn’t make it to dinner. I’ll see him when I see him.” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but the gesture was too casual. Her sister was upset.
“I’m sorry, Morg.”
Morgan took a deep breath and smiled tightly. “Nothing to be sorry about. Can’t be helped. Business.”
Cass felt so badly for her sister she started gabbing about Bunnie’s party to get her mind off Adam’s absence. They ate at the bar, ignoring the pretty dining room table Morgan had set with china, a floral centerpiece and candles. Then her sister surprised her by opening a bottle of wine. It was unusual for Morgan to drink during the week.
“So go on. What happened with you and Sam while you were trapped in the laundry room?” Morgan poured herself a second glass of wine.
“You know, things heated up.”
“How hot?” Morgan winked.
“You’re tipsy.”
“That’s my prerogative.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“So? I’m well past twenty-one. Very well past.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what’s going on with you and Adam?”
“There’s nothing going on with me and Adam. We’re a boring old married couple. Regale me with stories of your single adventures.”
Cass was concerned, but Morgan was her big sister and she clearly did not want to talk about what was happening between her and Adam. She launched in with a few carefully chosen details about her night with Sam.
“So when are you seeing him again?” Morgan asked after she’d finished her story.
“I’m not.”
“What? You’re not seeing him again? But you just said it was the best sex you’ve had in a long time, perhaps the best sex ever and that’s a direct quote. I can’t believe you’re dumping him already. He holds the record for your shortest relationship ever.”
“I didn’t dump Sam,” Cass said quietly, toying with a mushroom on her plate. “He dumped me.”
“What?” Morgan sat up straighter and blinked at her. “No one’s ever dumped you.”
Cass clenched her jaw. She had no idea talking about it would make her feel so bad. “I really liked him a lot, you know?”
“Cass?” Morgan sobered and reached out to rub a hand along her shoulder for comfort. “Are you okay?”
“Sure, fine.” She shrugged. “He’s just a guy.”
“A jackass if you ask me. Using my baby sister for sex and then dumping her.”
“He’s not a jackass and he didn’t use me any more than I used him.”
“You really do like him.”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“This is the first time you’ve ever had your heart broken, isn’t it?”
Cass made a derisive noise. “My heart’s not broken. Heavens, no. I was just hoping for some more of that great sex.”
“Well, if it’s not your heart, then it’s just a bruised ego. Sam Mason will forever be the one who got away and that’s why you’re feeling blue. Your pride took a ding. No biggie. You’ll bounce back.”
“Yeah,” Cass echoed. “I’ll bounce right back, no problem.”
And then she ducked her head.
Just in case her blotchy face gave her away.
12
“MAIL CALL.” The kid from the mailroom dropped the morning’s correspondence into Cass’s box, and then disappeared down the hall.
Feeling decidedly lackluster after taking the early train in from Connecticut, Cass drained her triple latte. Her head throbbed dully and her eyes were dry. After their second helping of chicken Marsala, Adam had called again telling Morgan that he was going to miss the last train, so he was just going to get a room at the Hilton for the night.
Following that news flash, she and Morgan had proceeded to polish off a second bottle of wine. They’d had a grand time getting plastered and trash-talking the male species in general and Adam and Sam in particular. They’d bonded like they hadn’t bonded in a long time.
But this morning they’d both paid for it.
Cass swallowed back three aspirins and massaged her temples. Okay. She was officially over Sam Mason. Time to tackle the day.
She reached for the stack of mail and leafed through it. Promo ops, follow-ups to previous correspondence, requests for information. Nothing interesting enough to snap her from her gloomy mood.
Then she found the package.
It was a white, padded, five-by-seven envelope addressed to her personally, not the PR department. But no return address.
Hmm.
She picked up the letter opener, slit the package and dumped the contents onto her desktop.
Out fell a royal-blue velvet pouch and a note printed in block script on high-quality paper.
You like to play games? Remember button, button, who’s got the button? This is a new version called White Star, White S
tar, who’s got the White Star? Is it you? Game on.
A shiver gripped her. What the hell was this? Could the White Star actually be in that bag?
With nervous fingers she dropped the note, yanked open the gathered tie of the pouch and dumped the contents into her palm.
But the White Star wasn’t there.
Rather, it was an odd assortment of expensive jewelry. A four-carat diamond engagement ring. Sapphire earrings. An onyx brooch. A ruby ankle bracelet. Pearl necklace.
She picked up the pearls and rubbed them against her teeth. Natural, not cultured.
What was this all about?
She picked up the note and read it all the way through again, but it made no more sense the second time than it had the first. Where had these jewels come from? And who’d sent them to her?
Checking the envelope’s postmark, she discovered it had been mailed in Manhattan at 8:30 a.m. on the day she’d bumped into Sam at Precinct 39.
“Wow,” said waifish Mystique, who’d drifted in through the open door. “Whose stones?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Mystique picked up a diamond-and-sapphire necklace. “This looks like the one Zoey Zander used to wear.”
“You knew Zoey Zander?”
“Sure. She used to come to all the fashion shows. Had a thing for models.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“Too bad she’s dead,” Mystique said.
“Yeah, too bad.”
The minute Mystique wandered out of the office, Cass picked up the jewelry and held each piece to the light. They winked and sparkled and shone brightly.
Was she actually looking at jewels stolen from the Stanhope auction house?
She knew only one way to find out for sure.
Call Sam.
THE MINUTE SAM ENTERED the Isaac Vincent building, he tensed. Partially in memory of his last momentous visit here, but mostly over the fact that he was about to come face to face with Cass again after giving her the brush-off two days earlier.
He wasn’t prepared.
You’re here for the job. He told himself. Just do your job.
It sounded so damned reasonable in theory.
But in reality the minute Sam laid eyes on her, his heart started beating in a crazy, hapless rhythm.
The door to her office stood open. Cass was seated behind her desk, her hair anchored on top of her head with a pencil. She turned and leaned over to pull out the drawer of the file cabinet behind her.
Light from the window—that infamous window he’d crawled out of to rescue her off the ledge—fell across her cheek, casting her face in soft shadows. Today she was wearing her Hermès scarf as a belt, accentuating her narrow waist. The nape of her neck was exposed and the shoulder of her powder-blue dress had slipped down just enough for him to see the strap of a powder-blue bra. But even in spite of that irregular display of lingerie, she looked regal, studious and perfectly contained, as if no one or nothing could touch her inner tranquility.
He caught his breath, stunned by her beauty. Bewildered by the way she made him feel inside.
When he’d first met her he’d thought her shallow and spoiled and far too sophisticated for a guy like him. He’d grossly underestimated her. She was as sharp as they came and beneath that sophisticated exterior lurked a girl-next-door wholesomeness that had gotten lost under the expensive shoes and fancy scarves and the crush of socialite parties.
Question was, how lost had she become? In order to support her lavish lifestyle had she turned to thievery? Had her values become that twisted? He didn’t want to believe it, but he was a cop.
And she was his prime suspect.
He gulped and lightly rapped his knuckles against her door. “Knock, knock,” he said.
Cass raised her head and the wary expression on her face sent an arrow through his heart.
“Sam.” Her voice was cool as spring water. “Please, come in.”
He crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him, wishing he could scoop her into his arms and kiss her. All the while knowing it would solve nothing.
The emotion, the tension, their undeniable chemistry electrified the air. He could see the finest tremor of her upraised chin. His own jaw was clenched so it wouldn’t quiver and give him away.
His shoes trod heavily against the floor. His breath was reedy. Her gaze was fixed on his and he noticed her pupils widened as he neared.
Was it from guilt?
Or attraction?
When he reached her desk, he saw the royal blue velvet pouch sitting in the center. His eyes went to the bag, then back to her face.
“These the jewels?”
She nodded.
He pulled a pair of white latex gloves from his pocket, put them on and then gingerly picked up the pouch. He took out the jewels one by one and studied them closely.
“These are the pieces taken from the Stanhope robbery.” He nodded. “Except for the White Star amulet. This was all you found in the package?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the packaging it came in?”
She handed him the padded envelope. Her expression never changed, but her gaze kept going to his face, searching for some sign of emotion, some giveaway as to what he was feeling.
He could see the longing in her eyes and his heart slashed in two. He wanted to tell her that he cared about her. That the past weekend they’d shared together had meant a lot to him. That he wished things were different.
But they weren’t different and he could not say those things. He could not make promises he could not keep. Sam studied the envelope as if his life depended on it and when he’d finished with it, he slipped the package in an evidence bag along with the jewels.
“Let me see the note.”
She handed him the piece of notepaper and their fingers brushed slightly. Even through his latex glove, even that brief, fleeting touch, undid him. He inhaled. He had to keep himself closed off, show no emotion. If she had any inkling into how he really felt about her, he was screwed.
“‘You like to play games?’” he read. “What do you suppose he means by that?”
“Or she,” Cass said. “The letter writer could be a woman.”
He knew that all too well. “Block print, dark lines suggests a masculine hand, but we’ll have a handwriting expert go over it.”
“Why would the thief send me the jewels? It makes no sense.”
Unless, in your remorse, you sent them to yourself.
“Maybe the thief is an admirer.”
“Possibly.”
They watched each other warily, playing a dangerous game of their own. Both dancing around what was really on their minds, what they really wanted to say but could not.
“But he or she, whatever the case may be, still has the White Star.”
“Or so we’re to assume.”
“Okay, let’s look at this rationally,” Sam said, deciding that he was going to pretend for the moment that he was one hundred percent certain Cass was not involved in either the Stanhope robbery or the Blueblood Burglaries.
“I’m listening.” She leaned back in her chair.
Sam paced. “He sends you jewelry that’s worth somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars. That’s not chump change.”
“Agreed.” Her eyes stayed on him as he walked back and forth, back and forth across her small space.
“From what we can glean from the description of the White Star found in the auction house catalog, the amulet itself has no intrinsic value. The ivory, gold and carnelian that make up the White Star have a market value of about a hundred dollars. But the book you brought me indicates there’s more to the amulet than meets the eye. I’m sending the book out to be translated, but I have a suspicion that to the right collector, the White Star would be priceless.”
“Maybe,” Cass said, “the White Star was the real target all along. Maybe the other items were just taken to throw the NYPD off the scent.”
“You got me.” She looked so completely guileless. How he wanted to believe that it was not an act.
“‘White Star, White Star, who’s got the White Star? Is it you?’” he read. “‘Game on.’”
“That makes it sound as if he believes I have the White Star and maybe he’s wanting to exchange the other jewelry for the amulet.”
“Then why not just say that? Why the riddle?”
“I don’t know.”
Something nagged at Sam. He was missing something here. Something important. But he couldn’t think what it was. Not with Cass sitting there, watching him, breathing so sweetly, her chest rising and falling to the rhythm that matched his fevered heartbeat.
His gaze fell to her lips.
She caught the shift and smiled, just barely but enough for him to know their private game was up. He had to get out of here. Now. Before he threw caution to the wind, destroyed all the evidence and begged her to run away with him to some distant tropical isle.
CASS HAD BEEN MISERABLE all day and it wasn’t just from the hangover.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the cold, methodical way Sam had come into her office, taken her statement, confiscated the jewels, grilled her as if she’d stolen the White Star and then turned around and walked back out again as if nothing had ever happened between them.
Any lingering hopes she’d been clinging to that he would change his mind about pursuing a relationship with her vanished.
He was finished. The unforgiving look in his eyes spoke the truth.
He wasn’t interested.
Fine. Okay. She got it.
So why couldn’t she let go?
It wasn’t like her to cling. She prided herself on her spontaneous, fun-loving nature and her live-for-today outlook.
And as she stood in the subway, waiting for her stop, a stunning realization hit her. All her life she’d taken the hit-and-run approach to relationships. Perhaps that was even why she had such a fixation on shoes.