by Nora Roberts
on yourselves.”
“To have a meeting,” Ash corrected. “One we’ve got a good chance of getting. You don’t.”
“And what do you think you’ll accomplish—if he doesn’t have the two of you disposed of on the spot? You think he’ll just turn over Maddok? He’d just hand over one of his major assets?”
“I know about men with wealth and power,” Ash said easily. “My father’s one of them. A man in Vasin’s position can always buy another asset, that’s the point, for some, of wealth and power. He wants the egg, something I have—we have,” he corrected. “Maddok’s an employee, and likely a valued one. But the egg’s worth more to him. It’s a very good deal, and he’s a businessman. He’d recognize that.”
“You really think he’d agree to a trade?”
“It’s business. And my terms don’t cost him a nickel. No employee’s indispensable, and up against the Fabergé? Yeah, she’ll come up well short.”
“You’re not cops.” Fine began ticking off negatives with her fingers. “You have no training. You have no experience. You can’t even be wired as he’d check.”
Waterstone scratched his cheek. “That could be an advantage.”
Fine stared at him. “What the fuck, Harry?”
“I’m not saying it’s a crowd-pleaser, but we can’t get near him. These two maybe can. They’re not cops, they won’t be wired. Couple of chickens to pluck, from his way of thinking, if you ask me.”
“Because they are.”
“But the chickens have the golden egg. The question is, how bad does he want it?”
“Four people are dead—including the art dealer in Florence,” Lila pointed out. “That indicates really bad on my scale. And the way she came after me? She had something to prove. Her job performance hasn’t been stellar on this assignment. Trading her for the egg seems like a deal to me.”
“Maybe a deal,” Fine agreed, “until you factor in what Maddok knows about him, what she could tell us.”
“But we’re not giving her to you,” Lila reminded her. “At least that’s what we’ll tell him.”
“Why would he believe that someone who’s never killed before intends to, and you’d go along with it?”
“He will. First, because that’s his solution to getting what he wants, and second, because Ash is pretty scary when he cuts it loose. Me?” She shrugged. “I just looked out the window. I just want it done. I’ve caught a really shiny fish here, in Ashton Archer. I want to start reaping those benefits without being worried someone wants to kill me.”
Ash cocked a brow. “Shiny fish?”
“That’s what Jai called you, and I can play on that. Rich, important name, renowned artist. A big haul for a military brat who lives in other people’s houses, and has a moderately successful young adult novel under her belt. Think what hooking up with Ashton Archer could do for my publishing career. Pretty sweet.”
He smirked at her. “You’ve been doing some thinking.”
“Trying to think like a businessman and a soulless killer. Plus, it’s all true, factually accurate. It just leaves out feelings. She doesn’t have any. He can’t have any or he wouldn’t pay her to kill people. If you don’t have feelings, you can’t understand them, can you? You get revenge, I get the shiny fish, and Vasin gets the golden egg.”
“Then what?” Fine demanded. “If you’re not dead five minutes after meeting with him—if you get that far—if he says, ‘Sure, let’s make a deal,’ then what?”
“Then we agree on when and where to make the exchange. Or for our representatives to make the exchange.” Because, Ash thought, he wanted Lila nowhere near that part. “And you take it from there. We’re just making the contact, making the deal. If he agrees, it’s conspiracy to murder on his part. And you have him with our testimony. You have her because he’ll at least pretend to deliver her. And the egg goes where it belongs. In a museum.”
“And if he doesn’t agree? If he tells you, ‘Give me the egg or I’ll have your girlfriend raped, tortured and shot in the head’?”
“As I told you, he’ll already know if he does anything to either of us, the announcement goes out publicly, and the egg moves out of his reach. Unless he plans to try to steal it from the Met. Possible,” he said before Fine could speak. “But he hasn’t tried to have any of the Imperial eggs stolen from museums or private collections.”
“That we know of.”
“Okay, that’s a factor. But it’s a hell of a lot easier, cleaner and immediate to make the deal.”
“He could threaten your family as you say he threatened Bastone’s.”
“He could, but while we’re meeting with him, my family will be inside our compound. Again, I’m making him a straightforward deal where he pays nothing for what he wants. He just trades an asset that hasn’t been paying dividends.”
“It could work,” Waterstone mused. “We’ve used civilians before.”
“Wired, protected.”
“Maybe we work something out there. We talk to Tech—see what they’ve got. See what the Feds got.”
“We’re meeting with him,” Ash pointed out. “With or without you. We’d rather with you.”
“You’re handing him two hostages,” Fine pointed out. “If you’re going to do this, you go in, she stays out.”
“Good luck with that,” Ash commented.
“We both go.” Lila met Fine’s eye with the same hard look she received. “Not negotiable. Plus it’s more likely he’d consider one of us a hostage, and the other—me—forced to turn over the egg if I was still outside. What have I got if my shiny fish is gutted?”
“Think of another metaphor,” Ash advised.
“He’s unlikely to agree to a meeting,” Fine pointed out. “He’s known for doing everything by remote. At best, you may end up talking to one of his lawyers or assistants.”
“My terms are set. We meet with him, or there’s no negotiation.” He glanced at his phone when it signaled. “That’s my lawyer, so we might have an answer. Give me a minute.”
Rising, he took the phone with him, walked to the other end of the living room.
“Talk him out of this.” Fine shifted that hard stare to Lila again.
“I couldn’t, and at this point I can’t try. This gives him—us—a good chance to end it. We have to end it, and it doesn’t end, not for Ash, if he doesn’t get some justice for his brother and his uncle. He’ll feel responsible for what happened to them for the rest of his life without that.”
“I don’t think you understand the risk you’re taking.”
“Detective Fine, I feel I’m taking a risk every time I walk out the door. How long could you live with that? The woman wants us dead—whether her boss does or not. I saw it, I felt it. We want a chance to live our lives, to see what happens next. That’s worth the risk.”
“Tomorrow.” Ash walked back, laid the phone on the table again. “Two o’clock, at his Long Island estate.”
“There goes Luxembourg,” Lila said, and made Ash smile at her.
“Less than twenty-four hours?” Waterstone shook his head. “That’s cutting it damn thin.”
“I think that’s part of the point, and why I agreed. It should tell him I want this done, and now.”
“He thinks you’ll ask for millions,” Lila pointed out. “What you will ask is going to take him by surprise. And it’s going to intrigue him.”
He crouched down beside her chair. “Go to the compound. Let me do this.”
She took his face in her hands. “No.”
“Argue that later,” Waterstone advised. “We’re going to talk about what you’ll do, won’t do, and if it gets that far, the where and when for the trade.” He glanced at Fine. “You better call the boss, see about a way to keep them wired in, if there is one, and how we set it up from our end.”
“I don’t like any of it.” She rose. “I like you, both of you. I wish to hell I didn’t.” She took out her phone, walked away to call her lieutenant.
She pushed out of the chair. “What do you say we just order pizza later? Pizza’s food you don’t have to think about when your brain’s tired.”
“Lila. I love you.”
She stopped, looked at him, felt that now familiar lift and squeeze of her heart. “Don’t use that to try to persuade me to stay behind. I’m not going to be stubborn, not going to wave my feminist flag—though I could. The fact that I’m going, absolutely need to go, should tell you something about what I feel for you.”
“What do you feel for me?”
“I’m figuring it out, but I know there’s no one else I’d do this for or with. No one else. Do you remember that scene from Return of the Jedi?”
“What?”
She closed her eyes. “Please don’t say you haven’t seen the movies. Everything falls apart if you haven’t seen Star Wars.”
“Sure I’ve seen the movies.”
“Thank you, God,” she murmured, opened her eyes again. “The scene,” she continued, “on the forest moon of Endor. They’ve got Leia and Han pinned down outside the storm trooper compound. It looks bad. And he glances down, she shows him her weapon, then he looks at her and says he loves her. She says—she smiles and says—‘I know.’ She didn’t say it back. Okay, she said it first in The Empire Strikes Back before Jabba the Hutt had him frozen in carbonite, but taking just that scene on Endor, it showed they were in it together—win or lose.”
“How many times have you seen those movies?”
“That’s irrelevant,” she said, a bit primly.
“That many. So you’re Princess Leia and I’m Han Solo.”
“For the purposes of this illustration. He loved her. She knew it, and vice versa. It made them both braver. It made them stronger. I feel stronger knowing you love me. I never expected to. I’m trying to get used to it—just like you asked.”
She slid her arms around him, swayed a little. “When I say it to you, you’ll know I mean it, would mean it even, maybe especially, if we were pinned down by storm troopers on the forest moon of Endor with only a single blaster between us.”
“And somehow I find that the most touching thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“The fact you do . . . I’m trying to get used to knowing you understand me, and love me anyway.”
“I’d rather be Han Solo than a shiny fish.”
She laughed, drew back to look up at him. “I’d rather be Leia than someone who’s looking to hook one. So I’m going to go back to faux painting the powder room, work with the FBI, then eat pizza. We’re leading fascinating lives right now, Ash—and yes, we want the middle part of that done and over. But I’m a big believer in making the most out of where you are while you’re there. And”—she gave him a squeeze before stepping back—“it’s going to work. Just like it worked for Leia and Han.”
“You won’t have . . . What was her weapon again?”
“I can see you need a Star Wars marathon evening, as a refresher. A blaster.”
“You won’t have one of those.”
“I have something else she had. I have good instincts, and I have my own Han Solo.”
He let her go because part of him thought she was right. They’d be stronger together. Thinking of that, of her, he went up to his studio to finish her portrait.
Lila made a point of going to the gallery the next morning. Ash insisted on going with her, then peeled off to give her and Julie time alone in Julie’s office.
“You’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear.”
“Probably. Ash is going to the bakery to talk to Luke. You’re my closest friend in the world, so I need to tell you, and I need to ask you.”
“You’re going to see Vasin.”
“Today.”
“Today? But it’s too fast.” Alarmed, she reached out, grabbed Lila’s hands. “You can’t be ready. You can’t—”
“It’s all set. Let me explain.”
She took Julie through all the steps, the plans, the fail-safe options.
“Lila, I wish you wouldn’t do this. I wish you’d go, just go with Ash anywhere, even if it meant I’d never see you again. I know you won’t. I know you, and know you can’t, but I wish you would.”
“I thought about it. I really thought about it last night. Middle of the night, going over and over everything in my head. And because I tried to find a way to do it, I realized it had stopped being about sex and fun and affection. I guess it never was just about that. But wherever we went, it would still be a kind of house arrest. We’d never be really sure, really safe.”
“But more sure. More safe.”
“I don’t think so. I started playing what if. What if when she can’t find us, she goes after our family? Our friends? She could find my parents, Julie, hurt them. She could hurt you. I can’t live with those what ifs.”
“I know you can’t, but I can wish you would.”
“We’re working with the police, the FBI. We’ll have these awesome micro-recorders. Plus, the biggest plus, Ash is offering him exactly what he wants. There’s no reason to hurt us if we’re agreeing to give him what he wants. All we have to do is convince him to make the deal. Then we walk away and the police take over.”
“You can’t believe it’ll be that simple. You can’t think this is some sort of adventure.”
“Not an adventure, a necessary and calculated step. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s worth the risk, Julie, to have a real life again. It’s worth the risk so the next time my head won’t turn off in the middle of the night, it’s because I’m thinking about what I want with Ash. What I can give, what I can take.”
“Do you love him?”
“He thinks I do.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I think I do. And wow.” She rubbed her knuckles between her breasts. “That’s a lot to think for me. But I don’t know what that means for either of us until this is over. And it’s going to be over. Then I’m going to help you plan your wedding to your once-and-future husband. I’m going to figure out my own life. I’m going to finish this book all the way instead of essentially.”
“What time today?”
“We’re meeting him at two. Julie, I believe we’re going to go there, make the deal, walk out, just the way I explained it. But if something goes wrong, I wrote a letter to my parents. It’s in my travel kit, in the top right drawer of Ash’s dresser. I need you to get it to them.”
“Don’t even think that.” Grabbing Lila’s hands, she squeezed hard enough to hurt. “Don’t.”
“I have to think. I don’t believe, but I have to think. I let a lot of things slide with my parents the last few years. And these last few weeks with Ash have made me think about that, realize that. I want them to know I love them. What I believe I’m going to do is go out there, take a week, ask Ash if he wants to meet them, which is a big, giant step for me. I believe I’m going to take it. I believe I want to take it. If something happens, I need them to know that.”
“You’re going to take Ash to meet them, and tell them you love them yourself.”
“I believe that, but I have to think. And I’m asking you to make sure they know in case of the what if.”
“There won’t be a what if.” Eyes shimmering, Julie pressed her lips together hard. “But yes, I promise. Whatever you need.”
“Thanks. It takes a weight off. The other thing is the book. I’d like a couple more weeks to shine it up, but if something happens . . .” She took a flash drive out of her pocket. “I made a copy for you to take to my editor.”
“God, Lila.
”
“You’re the only one I can ask, or would ask. I need to know you’ll do those two things for me. Then I can just put them away, and I can just believe you’re never going to have to do them anyway.”
Julie pressed her fingers to her eyes a moment, struggled until she found her control. “You can count on me. You won’t have to, but you can count on me.”
“That’s all I need. Let’s have a celebration dinner tomorrow night, the four of us. Tonight’s going to be too crazy, I think.”
Nodding quickly, Julie grabbed tissues out of the box on her desk. “Now you’re talking.”