Billionaires Prefer Blondes (24 page)

Good. Rick had been spoiling for a fight for days. From the trash-talking going on, he was in heaven.

Moving fast, Samantha ducked into the janitor’s closet. Another, larger crate leaned against the wall, and three manila envelopes, clean, new, and clearly out of place, sat on a dusty shelf. She grabbed them, ripping the first, bulky one open. Bingo. The Cookie Lady’s diamonds. Compared to the value of the rest of the take Nicholas had planned on they were insignificant, but the Hodgeses would be happy to see them again. She’d be happy to see them back with their owners. Carefully she set the package back down in plain sight.

In the second envelope she saw photos of her talking with Nicholas in front of Rick’s building, photos of her leaving Locke’s house—nothing incriminating in itself, but thrown in with some other bits of circumstantial evidence, it would have been enough.

She tucked them into her shirt and opened the third envelope. This one contained pictures of Locke meeting with Veittreig, mostly, and a couple of photos of Nicholas with Martin. Taking a deep breath, she removed one of the ones with Martin, then replaced that envelope on the shelf. If the thieves were paranoid enough to photograph themselves taking meetings, they could live with the consequences—as long as she didn’t have to.

Rick’s phone rang again. Frowning, she answered it as
she left the closet and whistled for Stoney. They needed to get the cops here, and then clear out. “
Hola
,” she said.

“Miss…Sam?” Stillwell’s voice came.

“Hi, John. Rick’s a little busy right now,” she returned, sidestepping as Locke stumbled by, Rick on his heels. “Can he call you back?”

“If he doesn’t talk to Hoshido right now, the deal’s off. Matsuo-san thinks Rick is toying with him, and he’s getting angry.”

“Okay. Hold on a minute.” She covered the speaker with one hand. “Rick, it’s for you.”

“Take a bloody message,” he growled, blood running from his lower lip, and one sleeve ripped off his shirt.

Locke grabbed at her, and she backstepped, then kneed him in the head. He dropped with a grunt.

“It’s Stillwell. He says Matsuo thinks you’re playing him, and if you don’t take the call, you’ll lose the hotel.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do. Take the damn call.” She tossed the phone back to him.

“Bloody…” He lifted it. “What is it, John?” he snapped, shaking out his scraped right hand.

Sitting on Locke to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere, Samantha pulled her own phone out of her pocket. She dialed, lifting the phone up, then wincing as it brushed the bullet graze. “Dammit,” she muttered, switching ears. This one would probably leave a scar.

“Gorstein.”

“Hey. How’s tricks?”

“Tricks are good. I’m a big hero. Three Germans and a world-class cat burglar, previously thought dead. The guy in the street was a little hard to explain, though. And the girl
who kicked the shit out of two FBI guys. Plus one of my guys is on the way to the hospital.”

“Is Interpol talking with Martin?”

“Yep. I can’t get near any of ’em, but it sounds like he’s taking credit for shutting the Germans in the galleries.”

“Okay. Get some guys over to the warehouse at West End Avenue and West Fifty-ninth. I think they might find a couple of stolen paintings and the guy who arranged to hire the Germans.”

“We’re on our way. Are you going to be there?”

“Not if I have any s…Did you say
three
Germans?”

“Uh-huh.”

Abruptly she realized that Rick had gone silent across from her, and that she hadn’t heard from Stoney after she’d whistled for him. She lifted her head to see Nicholas Veittsreig standing by the warehouse door, a gun in his hand and Stoney kneeling at his feet.

“Hang up the phone, Sam,” he called.

Samantha closed the phone.

Tuesday, 4:55 p.m.

“Y
ou hang up, too,” Veittsreig said, swinging the gun around to aim it at Richard.

“Rick? Are you there?” Stillwell asked.

“Make the deal, John,” Richard said, and snapped the phone closed.

Rage pounded just beneath his skin, but he held himself in check. Back in the museum he’d been intent on pulling Samantha out of danger. Now, though, the man who’d tried to kill her had every ounce of his attention.

“The cops are on the way, Nicholas,” Samantha said, her voice smooth and cool.

Beneath her, Boyden Locke groaned and tried to turn over. “Get off Mr. Locke, Sam.” Veittsreig leveled the pistol in her direction. “I thought you were in a relationship with Mr. Addison, here.”

She stood, and while Richard would have preferred that she move closer to him so he could at least offer her some measure of protection, instead she stepped sideways in the opposite direction. Strategically, it made sense to have more distance between them; the farther apart they all were, the more Veittsreig would have to divide his attention. As the resident Sir Galahad, however, he didn’t like it one bloody bit.

Locke rolled to a sitting position. “He took pictures,” he groaned, holding his forehead and gesturing at Richard with his free hand. “With his phone.”

“Toss it over here, then,” Veittsreig instructed. “Nice and easy.”

His jaw clenched, Richard tossed over his phone. Veittsreig aimed, and with a sharp crack the phone exploded. In the same instant, Walter rolled backward under the half-open warehouse door and vanished.

“Get him back!” Locke yelled, stumbling to his feet.

“What for? We have what we need.” Veittsreig looked straight at Samantha. “And what we want.” He gestured with the pistol again. “Sam and Addison, put the paintings in the back seat of the Mercedes. Now.”

“You heard him.” Locke shoved Samantha from behind.

Moving forward, she picked up one side of the crate. “Rick?”

Shifting his attention from Locke, Richard picked up the other side. “I should have killed both of them when I had the chance,” he muttered.

“Be cool, Rick,” Samantha whispered at him, covering a scowl.

“He’s going to kill you. Don’t tell me to be fucking cool.”

“He’s going to try to kill both of us.” With a heave they
shoved the crate onto the Mercedes’ back seat. “
Try
, Rick.”

“I’m armed,” he breathed in her ear as they straightened. “When I signal, get behind some cover.”

Veittsreig moved in closer. “Let’s all go get the other one. And no chatting. I might get nervous.”

Richard sensed that once he and Samantha walked into the janitor’s closet, they wouldn’t be walking out again. “You know, Veittsreig,” he said, keeping his tone even and conversational, “you have me at a fairly steep disadvantage at the moment. If you were to make a monetary demand, I would hardly be in a position to argue with you.”

“I already have twelve million dollars of yours. I’m not greedy.”

“Actually, you have a portion of twelve million. No doubt you’ll be taking a smaller cut than Locke, here.”

“We’re both happy with our agreement, Addison,” Locke countered. “Get a move on.”

“I wasn’t talking to you. If I were, I would say that I already e-mailed the phone video of you confessing to Samantha about hiring Veittsreig.” He shifted his attention to the gunman. “And since killing us now would make you the focus of a very high-profile international manhunt, you might prefer cash, instead.”

“He’s lying,” Locke sputtered.

“Oh, now
I’m
convinced,” Samantha said sarcastically. “Locke’s got way more legal resources than you, Nicky. Who do you think will spend more time in the slam? Because I’d guess y—”

A siren ripped through the rest of her speech. Veittsreig grabbed for Samantha as the metal warehouse door exploded inward, followed by the SWAT truck.
Walter
.

Richard swept forward, grabbing Veittsreig’s gun hand and twisting with all his weight and momentum. The pistol
went flying as the three of them went down in a writhing, kicking heap. Shrieking, Veittsreig snagged Samantha by the hair as she tried to roll away. She sent a hard elbow into his chin, and he let her go.

“Don’t let Locke get the gun,” Richard rasped, taking a fist to his rib cage.

Samantha was already scrambling after the weapon. So was Locke. He had the weight, but she had the speed. Sam did an absurdly graceful flip, kicking Locke in the face as she grabbed the gun in her right hand, ending on her feet with the weapon pointed about an inch from his bloody nose. “Don’t move,” she panted.

With that resolved, Richard could concentrate on the man who’d tried to kill her. He scrambled back around to one knee just in time to block a kick aimed at his face. He grabbed Veittsreig’s ankle and shoved, knocking the thief backward and swarming over him. Richard knelt hard across his chest, curled his fist, and punched.

As Veittsreig grunted, his eyes rolling back in his head, Rick pulled the Glock from his pocket. Breathing hard, he cocked it and jammed the muzzle into the thief’s mouth.

“Rick!”

“You were going to kill her,” he growled, his hands shaking. No one got to take Samantha away from him. No one. “Get up.”

He stood, hauling Veittsreig up by the shirt, the gun still jammed between his teeth. “You blackmailed her into working with you, and then you tried to kill her when she outsmarted you.”

“Rick, stop!”

Dimly he heard more sirens, official ones this time, approaching the warehouse. Walter was wrapping duct tape liberally around Locke’s arms and legs. Rick returned his
gaze to Veittsreig, studying the fear in his nearly colorless eyes.

“Do you know the American saying,” he murmured, removing the muzzle and backing away a few inches, “how does it go? Oh, yes. Payback’s a bitch.”

He pulled the trigger.

Samantha screamed as Nicholas reeled backward, stumbling to the floor.
Dear God, dear God
. Then he rolled onto his hands and knees, and she could breathe again. He doubled over, clutching the side of his head.

“You shot my ear off!”

“Only part of it,” Rick said dismissively, and pocketed the pistol again.

She stood gaping as Rick approached her and carefully took the other gun from her hand. For a second she’d forgotten that she held it. He ejected the magazine and the bullet waiting in the chamber, then walked over and placed everything on the hood of the Mercedes.

“I thought…” she muttered, and couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I nearly did,” he returned, his gaze still hard and set.

Samantha swept forward and threw her arms around him. In all of her nightmare scenarios, she was the one who went too far and drove Rick away. It had never been Rick who’d made the mistake. And he nearly had. Christ. He’d nearly murdered a man because that man had tried to hurt her.

His arms closed around her, hard and warm. And safe. For her, always safe.

“Are you staying for this?” he murmured into her hair. “It’s not just Gorstein about to drive through the front door.”

“I have to,” she returned, pretending that now she wasn’t shaking in her boots. Guns were one thing. Interpol and the FBI—they scared her.

“You don’t have to.”

“I do. Even a superhero like you couldn’t have done all this single-handedly.”

Stoney trotted by. “You two be the white hats, then. I’m outta here. I’ll call you tonight, baby.” With that he climbed over the wreckage of the door and headed toward the docks and the river.

Twenty seconds later the first police car rolled in. It wasn’t Gorstein. “Hands up, everybody!” the cop yelled, more uniforms fanning out behind him.

Rick released her, spreading his arms. “We’re the ones who called you,” he said in his perfectly calm, ultra-charming British accent.

“Let me see your hands until we get this straightened out,” the officer amended.

Two others hauled the moaning Nicholas to his feet. “He shot me!” Veittsreig gasped, trying to hold his damaged ear while the cops tried just as hard to frisk him.

Guns lifted again in Rick’s direction.
Shit
. If he hadn’t been disheveled, dirty, and bloody, the superior British thing probably would have worked.

“And he stole my painting!” Locke sputtered from the duct tape mess Stoney had left him in.

“Where’s the gun, fella?”

Rick had enough brains not to move. “In my right front jacket pocket,” he said, still cool.

They swarmed over him. For a moment Samantha realized how…helpless Rick must have felt when he saw her being handcuffed. He kept his gaze on her while they jostled him around, as though they were as significant as bugs and he was more concerned with willing her not to do anything stupid.

She wanted to do something stupid. With all the cops’ attention on Rick, she could have grabbed a gun, hustled him
into a car, and been gone. Concentrating on breathing, her own hands clenched, she stood back and watched as they pulled his hands behind his back and put on the cuffs.

“Ms. J.”

At the sound of Gorstein’s familiar voice, she could have fainted with relief—if she’d been the fainting type. Man, life had become screwy, if she was happy to see a cop. “Gorstein, get them off Rick, will you?”

He walked into the warehouse, a dozen FBI and Interpol officers flanking him. “Gentlemen, this is Samantha Jellicoe,” he said, “the one who called to tip me off about this location.”

“Jellicoe,” one of the Interpol guys, a stocky Italian, said. “His daughter?”

It took all of her guts to nod. “My dad called to tell me he’d been working on a big case,” she improvised, “and to say that he thought Rick Addison’s painting might be here. When I heard on the news about the thing at the museum, I thought we should get here to make sure nobody got away with the Hogarth.”

“I followed her here,” Locke said loudly, as cops exchanged the duct tape for handcuffs. “I only wanted my Picasso back, and she and Addison tried to kill me, for God’s sake.”

“Let’s get Mr. Addison and Mr. Locke out of those handcuffs,” Gorstein said, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “We’ll take everybody down to the station and get statements.”

Surprised, Samantha jabbed a finger at Locke. “He planned this whole thing!”

Gorstein edged closer to her, as Rick reached her other side. “Do you have any proof?” he muttered.

She glanced from the remains of Rick’s phone to his
scratched, bloody face. He subtly shook his head.
Dammit
. The thing about e-mailing the video out had been a bluff. “The photos,” she said abruptly, remembering. “In a manila envelope in the closet there. They show him with that guy,” she continued, gesturing at Nicholas. “He’s the one who pulled the museum robbery. According to my dad.”

Locke kept proclaiming his innocence as they led him out of the warehouse. Gorstein seemed content to let Interpol take custody of Veittsreig, but his expression wasn’t all that happy as he looked at her.

“What?” she muttered. “You’re a big hero, aren’t you?”

“You made a hell of a mess at the museum,” he grunted. “Smoke grenades, cut wiring, bullet holes, the—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective,” Rick interrupted, gently taking her hand in his. “We were at home until we saw the news and got the call from Samantha’s father.”

“Right. Okay, you two can ride with me, but we are going to the station, and I am going to get sworn statements.”

“They’ll be identical to what we just told you,” Rick said, “but of course we’re happy to cooperate.”

“I can hardly wait to see how all this plays out.” Gorstein pulled out his toothpick, flicked it aside, and replaced it with a fresh one from his pocket. “This should be really interesting.”

Three hours later, Gorstein came back into the conference room where they’d stashed her and Rick. Apparently when Sir Galahad entered into the equation, the little room with the barred windows wasn’t good enough. Phil Ripton had joined them better than an hour ago, but he’d mostly been relegated to keeping the FBI from trying to identify her as the suspect who’d roughed up several officers in the museum.
Billionaires might like blondes, but she was glad to have her regular auburn hair showing again.

“How are you holding up?” the detective asked, setting a cold can of Diet Coke in front of Samantha. It was the third one he’d provided; apparently it was his way of demonstrating gratitude.

“I’d be holding up better with a pizza,” Samantha returned. However grateful he might be,
she’d
feel more comfortable once they were out of the police station. Her cheek stung, and both she and Rick needed a shower. Preferably together.

“I think we’re finished.” Gorstein took the seat beside Ripton. “Mr. Veittsreig’s out of the hospital and on his way to the FBI office. The other three Germans and your dad are already there.”

“What kind of statement did Martin give?” she asked carefully.

That had been the hardest part of all this; she’d stopped him, put him in a position where it would be to his benefit to do the right thing. She couldn’t
make
him cooperate, though. He had to do that on his own. And he had to decide how much he wanted to tell the authorities about her involvement in all this.

“I don’t know all that much about it,” the detective returned. “The FBI’s pulling rank. But I do know that he says he tried to get hold of his contact to let him know that robbery had been moved up by three days, but Veittsreig was keeping too close an eye on him. That’s why he went through you.”

Okay. She could live with that. Rick, though, tightened his grip on her fingers. He’d held her hand all evening. And independent as she considered herself, she was glad for the support and the contact. It had been a very long day. They both had the bruises to prove it.

“That is the extent of Samantha’s involvement, yes?” he said.

“For now, yes.”

“Not good enough.”

“All this just landed on my lap yesterday, Mr. Addison. And excuse me, but my priority is making damn sure that the crew who tried to rob my museum in my town goes to prison for a long time. If Martin Jellicoe can get me that, then I’ll do everything I can to see to it that Ms. J.’s out of it.”