by Penny McCall
His certainty, his smug belief that her choice wasn’t between right and wrong but between her father and her lover, made it easier, just slightly, for her to cross the room until she was standing beside Lucius’s chair.
And then she looked into Trip’s eyes.
chapter 24
“NORAH?” TRIP SAID.
“It has to be this way, Trip.”
“You’re choosing him? You’re choosing him and the money?”
His words, the ease with which he’d reduced her to a mercenary after everything they’d been through, cut her heart in two. She’d asked for it, but still it tore her apart.
She didn’t let it show, reaching down and slipping her hand into her father’s and squeezing it, just for a moment, before she let go again. She couldn’t afford to let him know she was shaking.
“You know he’s lying to you,” Trip said.
“I know he’s lying to you.”
“He had you kidnapped.”
“He had his reasons.”
“Yeah, fifty million of them, and they’re all more important to him than you are.”
Norah didn’t say anything.
He crossed the room and took her by the upper arms, jerking her up to her toes. “He’s using you.”
She shook him off. “He’s my father.”
Trip let her go and backed off, his face going expressionless. Except his eyes. His eyes were hot and intense, boring into hers with the kind of silent condemnation that brought the blood to her cheeks. And the iron to her spine.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping forward, almost against him, hating the relief she saw in his eyes before she took his phone and he understood that she hadn’t come to her senses. It wasn’t a momentary confusion on her part. She really had chosen a con artist and an inept burglar over him. “This is the way it has to be, Trip. They’re my family, and I haven’t had that in a really long time.”
He caught her by the wrist, a muscle in his jaw working. “Just give me two minutes,” he said, his gaze shifting to Lucius, then back. “Alone.”
She could see it in his face, the struggle between what he might have wanted, without the job, and what he had to do because of it. And then he blew out a breath and she knew he was seeing her side of it. It was about the robbery for him. It was about closing his case.
It was about family for her, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t put himself in her life. Not in that capacity.
She put her hand over his, her heart aching, her throat so tight she had to swallow before words would come out, and then all she could manage was, “No.”
If she let him get her alone, it wouldn’t matter whether she changed sides or not. Lucius would always wonder what Trip had said to her out of his earshot, and what she’d said to Trip. And no matter how much fast-talking she did, her father would never trust her. And she needed him to trust her. She was turning her back on the only man she’d ever loved, breaking her own heart. It had to count for something.
She curled her fingers around Trip’s and pulled her wrist free, very gently. He didn’t try to stop her this time, but the way he was looking at her . . .
She flipped the phone open, blinking a couple of times before she could see the buttons well enough to even speed dial.
“Whaddya want, Jones?” his handler growled by way of greeting.
“Mr. Kova . . .”
There was silence. She could almost see the man sitting back in his chair and taking stock. “Mike.”
“Mike,” she repeated. “Call off your man or you’ll never see the loot.”
“I take it this means Jones isn’t toes up.”
“No, he’s fine.” Angry, but fine.
“Okay, then I assume you know where the loot is.”
“If I even think the FBI is around, I’ll toss it into Lake Michigan.”
“You do that and—”
“What?” She turned away from Trip, away from her father. The rest of her life hinged on this phone call and she needed to concentrate. “What will you do? My dad has served his time, and the insurance companies have paid off on the claimed items.”
“How about obstruction of justice? How about possession of stolen goods? How about just pissing me off? I can make you disappear with a snap of my fingers.”
“With a documentary filmmaker watching my every move? Not to mention the university, my neighbors, my agent, and all the people who read my book and will wonder where I’ve gone.”
“Do you think that would stop the FBI?”
“Lake Michigan,” she said.
He went silent again, assessing the conviction in her voice. He must have decided there was enough because he said, “You send Jones away and who’ll have your back?”
She huffed out a slight laugh. “You and I both know that’s not why you sent Trip here.”
“It was a fringe benefit.”
“True.” She had to give him that.
“What I said still goes. How are you going to keep breathing when the treasure hunters come after you?”
She turned to meet her father’s eyes. “We’re not keeping it. Lucius wants to give it all back.”
“What will that get you?”
“Nothing, but at least the rightful owners will have their family heirlooms, and hopefully some closure.”
All she got was silence, the confused, pissed off kind, then Mike said, “Give the phone to Jones.”
Norah handed it over. He took it and turned away from her, but she didn’t need to see his face to know Mike was ordering him back to Washington.
He snapped the phone closed and spun around to confront her. “You got your way, professor.”
“You’re just angry because she won’t be your lap-dog,” Lucius said.
Trip looked at Lucius, just looked at him, and he took a step back.
Norah went over to stand with him, curling her hand into the crook of his arm.
“Is that how you feel?” Trip asked her.
“Did you really believe she’d side with someone like you over her own family?” Lucius said, emboldened by Norah’s support.
Trip kept his eyes on her, waiting for an answer.
Giving him one was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. “I told you how I feel,” she said in a voice that barely shook, “you just don’t want to hear it.”
He crossed his arms, not missing the fact that Bobby had come to stand behind his father and sister, the three of them forming a unit. And he was the enemy.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve turned out to be your father’s daughter.”
“I was all along,” Norah said, watching him go colder and so angry, angrier than she’d ever seen him before.
“So I’m getting sent away because I told you the truth, and you’re sticking with a man who lied and mistreated you? Hell, he had a whole other family, Norah.”
“And I’m not happy that he didn’t tell me, but we keep coming back to the same thing.”
“Family,” Trip said.
“They’re not perfect but they’re mine.”
“And I will never be.”
“No,” she said, “you never will be. You were honest about that, too.”
“Then there’s nothing left to say.” He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
And Norah watched him go, let him go, because she had to. Even though it hurt like hell.
“GOOD THING HE DIDN’T HAVE A GUN,” LUCIUS said after Trip had retrieved his things from upstairs and walked out the front door, closing it so quietly after himself Norah could still hear the click echoing in the depths of her empty heart.
“He had a gun,” she said. He just hadn’t needed it. He had other weapons at his disposal, and he’d pulled them all out. Better he’d used a real gun, she thought. Then she’d be dead instead of just wishing she were.
Lucius would figure that out. He was studying her, and he was shrewd when it came to reading people. It was what made him such an extraordinary grifter. She had an
advantage, though, a built-in smoke screen. He wanted to believe her. Just like she’d wanted to believe him.
“A man doesn’t get that angry without being there,” he said, “heart and soul.”
Just the thought of Trip’s heart was enough to have her eyes welling. “He was angry because he didn’t close his case,” she said, and made herself buy it, or at least consider the possibility. “I’m nothing more than a tool to him. I knew that going in.”
“And you played him.”
“He played himself,” she said.
“The best marks always do.”
Lucius levered himself up from his chair and hugged her. Norah closed her eyes and let the grief out, just for one second, putting it away before her father stepped back. Trip was the past; time to get the treasure disposed of and move on with her life.
“I knew you’d come around,” Lucius said when he’d stepped back.
“Start talking,” she said, “and it better be the truth, because I can still change my mind.”
“You’d give in to that government stooge?”
“No, but I’d kick you out for conning me.”
He closed down, eyes shuttered, face expressionless, and she knew she was walking a fine line. If he decided to cut her out, it meant she hurt Trip, and herself, for nothing. But then, she recalled as her father glanced toward the stairway, what he wanted was in the house. Her house. And he needed her to get it.
It allowed her to relax a little, and to remember something he’d once told her. The bigger the reward, the bigger the risk, and you had to face it like you’d already won. Any hesitation and you were lost. But she had to be herself, too, or he’d wonder at the sudden change.
“Well? I’m waiting.”
“For what, darlin’?”
“For the rest of the story. For you to tell me what’s hidden in this house.”
Lucius seated himself again, taking his time to get comfortable. Then he looked up at her, his expression innocent. “I don’t know where it is.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Lucius sighed, acting completely put-upon.
Norah paced across the room trying to get a handle on her anger. It came back with her, had her looming over her father, shaking a finger in his face. “You lied to me about everything, you cost me my job, you had me kidnapped, you made me piss off the FBI, which could land me in jail, and you think you’re going to sit there and con me?”
“No need to shout, darlin’,” Lucius said. “And watch your language.”
“I’ll use whatever language I want. And cut the darlin’ crap.”
“What do you want from me?” Lucius shot back. “I’m an old dog.”
“Well, here’s a new trick for you. It’s called the truth.”
Lucius shot to his feet, all pretense at infirmity abandoned. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“I’m your daughter. You’re not supposed to lie to me.”
Lucius shook his head. “It had to be done because of Jones.”
“No, it didn’t. You could have told me the truth and trusted me to decide what do with it. I quit my job because of you and all this”—she gestured around her—“isn’t free. So I’ll say it again, start talking.”
Lucius drew in a breath and let it out slowly, never taking his eyes from hers. “I knew the feds would be coming after me when my sentence was almost over,” he finally said. “They’d been at me on and off over the fifteen years, holding out freedom as the price of honesty.”
“Bastards,” Norah said, and meant it. Lucius was a criminal, but he was also her father, and while the FBI was only using the tools at hand, she hated that they’d tortured him like that.
“As my release date got closer, I knew they’d step up the pressure.”
“So you used the scavenger hunt.”
“I didn’t want to, dar—Norah, but I had no choice.” He held up a hand. “I know, I could have told you the truth, but you have to understand, I hadn’t talked to you in fifteen years, and I didn’t know what those people had told you.”
“The truth,” she said simply. It was all they’d needed. “But the truth is rarely black and white.”
Her father smiled hugely. “Now that’s my girl talking.”
“I’d prefer to do some more listening.”
Lucius twisted around to look at Bobby, still standing behind him. He hadn’t made a peep since he’d taken up his post at Lucius’s back, but he’d taken in every word.
“Son, could you give us some privacy?”
“But—”
“Robert.”
“Wait,” Norah said to Bobby.
He turned back at the door to the parlor. He wasn’t meeting her eyes.
“I wish I’d known,” she said. “I could have helped you in school.”
“I won’t be needing school,” he said. “That was just a . . .” He looked at his father.
“Cover story,” Lucius supplied.
“Cover story,” he repeated. “We’re going to be rich . . . aren’t we?”
“Of course, son,” Lucius said. “Run along. I’ll call you when it’s time.”
Bobby smiled and left without a backward glance.
“He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s a good boy,” Lucius said.
Norah nodded, thinking tool was a pretty apt description. But then, in her father’s world everyone was a tool. And once a tool’s usefulness had been exhausted, it was discarded.
The FBI worked the same way. Both of them claimed to be doing the right thing. Both of them had ulterior motives that weren’t so pure.
Norah just wanted to get her life back. Even if she had to spend it alone.
“It’s just you and me, Dad,” she said, choosing the familiar term of address deliberately. “Tell me the rest.”
Lucius went to the small dry bar and poured a shot of Jameson’s into a crystal tumbler. He slammed it back, then poured two fingers more and went back to his chair. He started to talk, without any prodding this time, unless she counted the whiskey he sipped to loosen his tongue as he revealed the final points of his plan, which was ingenious, actually, so ingenious she didn’t have any trouble being impressed, and letting him see it.
When he was finished, she said, “You know that’s not going to work anymore. Trip is gone but the FBI will be watching both of us. We’re going to need another plan.”
“And you’re going to tell me I should allow you to make the decisions.”
“You’ve been out of circulation for fifteen years. Is there any other choice?”
Lucius tossed back the rest of his whiskey. “No,” he said. But he didn’t like it.
Neither did Norah, but she couldn’t turn back now.
chapter 25
NORAH SPENT THE NIGHT ON HER LAPTOP. SHE opened a brand-new e-mail address in her father’s name and set about making arrangements for the rest of the loot. It was pathetically easy. She felt like hell the entire time, and not just because she didn’t sleep. Because she was going to be alone, again. She’d been alone for fifteen years, no family, no partner of significance, since Raymond Kline had been little more than occasional company for dinner. Being alone hadn’t really been so bad. Problem was, now she knew what she’d been missing.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what she was doing, she reminded herself as she punched the alarm code into the keypad by her front door and let herself out. She closed the door silently behind herself and turned, stopping in her tracks to stare at the person standing on the sidewalk outside her wrought iron fence.
She stood there a second, caught between what waited for her at the curb and what she’d left inside. It didn’t take much thinking to convince her that going forward was still the right course.
She went down the steps and along the paved walkway, stopping inside her front gate where she still felt safe. She wasn’t completely stupid.
“Myra,” she said, looking up and down the street, empty and dark except for
the streetlights. The night was clear, but the stars couldn’t penetrate Chicago’s ambient haze of light, even at four a.m. “Is Bobby with you?”
“No,” Myra said, wringing her hands. “He’s home, sleeping. He believes Lucius, but I know better. You and I know better, Norah.”
“Lucius is a con artist.”
“Yes. He lies for a living.”
“You lied, Myra. To my mother.”
“I didn’t even know your mother.”
“You knew Lucius was married.”
Norah hadn’t been sure until that moment, but when Myra looked away, she knew she was right. “You lied to me. You’ve been lying since the day we met.”
“No, I—”
“Either tell me the truth or save your breath.”
Myra curled her hands around the wrought iron gate bars. “I met your father—”
“The last couple of years are all I want to hear about,” Norah said, resisting the urge to vomit. “I’ll assume you convinced me to write a book so you could insinuate yourself into my life, hoping to have an inside track on the loot.”
“Well . . . yes. Lucius still had a couple of years in prison when I came to work at the college.”
“On purpose. So you could meet me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just get Bobby to find out where the loot was?”
“I had no idea he was in contact with Lucius,” Myra said, “and I never expected your book to take off like it did.”
“That’s flattering.”
“Really, Norah, you’re not exactly . . . You teach psychology, and the biggest challenge your students face is staying awake in your lectures.”
Norah felt her face flush, but she had to admit it was true. Facing a classroom full of staring faces made her feel like she had to deliver information without any embellishment or humor. Writing was a whole other feeling. She wrote as if she were talking to a friend, sharing personal experiences and laughing over them. “Glad to surprise you,” was all she said.