Someone To Steal (6 page)

About a block on, Cain produced a single white rose, brushing the petals against her lower lip.

“Beautiful, but it’s a flower, singular. I asked for flowers. Plural.”

“You never said I had to take them in a bunch. One at a time is more fun.”

“It’s also easier than stealing a t-shirt. Anyone can snitch a single flower.” She glowered at him, holding her rose and sniffing it.

“Speaking of t-shirts, when do I get mine?” he challenged.

“When I see one I like. I’m not stealing some ugly crap just to show off. It has to be something you’ll wear, and since I’m your fake tourist girlfriend, I don’t want you embarrassing me.”

Cain slung an arm around her shoulders and kissed near her temple with a grin.

“Give me your phone,” he said. She passed him her phone.

“What are you doing with my phone?”

“I’m not going to throw it in the Thames, don’t worry. I’m taking a picture of you in London. You can send it to your neighbor. She can show it to Tico. Plus, you’ll have a photo of yourself on your first trip to the opposite side of the pond.”

Cain stepped back and looked at the phone screen to frame the shot. Smiling despite herself, Riley broke the stem off her white rose, tucked the bud behind her ear, and struck a pose. He snapped the picture, and before he handed her the phone, he texted the image to himself.

“Thanks,” she said, sending the photo to Carol with a message that she arrived safely and was having a great time. She smirked at her text, realizing it was true. She
was
having fun.

They trailed along a posh street and wound their way toward an outdoor market. Riley tied the scarf around her waist, cinching her black tunic and pivoting for Cain’s opinion. He was messaging someone on his phone and not paying attention. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.

“I saw that. Peripheral vision.”

“So what did your peripheral vision think of the scarf?”

“It’s too plain. Here.” He selected a long crinkled scarf in cherry red and reached around her, wrapping it around her waist above the purple one and knotting it. She felt her pulse kick up as he put his arms around her, even though he was just tying on a belt. Her heartbeat juddered against her rib cage and she bit her lip.

“Better.”

Annoyed that he seemed unaffected by their brief physical contact, she unwound the red scarf and dumped it back on the table, rejected. He might be her boss on this job, but he didn’t control her or her shopping decisions, she thought.

Strolling the stalls at the market while he exchanged messages on his phone, she found a secondhand coat she had to have…a knee-length purple velvet one with embroidered flowers around the hem and cuffs. She paid the bargain price and put it on, stuffing the purple scarf in the pocket. She nabbed a t-shirt for Cain, plain black, with a prominent sketch of Big Ben on the front. She joined him and handed it to him.

“Big Ben? You know that’s the name of the bell at the north end of Westminster Abbey, not the tower itself or the clock.”

“You are really tempting the no-whatever rule with that crap. I chose it because of its obvious symbolism. You know, your masculine authority.”

He stalked into a pub, and came out a minute later wearing the Big Ben shirt. “I’ll cherish it always. I’ll wear it on the beach in Belize and congratulate myself that you weren’t the death of me, kid.”  He shrugged his flannel shirt on over it like a jacket, and she rolled her eyes.

“What?” He demanded.

“Nothing. You look like 1993 in that outfit. Lose the flannel. Someone will think you’re in a grunge band from Seattle.”

He huffed. “Now I have to go to the Tate for a while. I’ll meet you back at the hotel later, okay?”

“Sure. Can I come?”

“No way.”
              “Ooooh. This is the heist, isn’t it?” Her eyes lit up.

“No. Not even for a second would I consider bringing you along.”
              “I can be your beard.”

“I don’t need a beard. I’m straight.”

“You know what I mean. Your beard. Your cover.”

“I also grow my own beard. It’s manly, in case you hadn’t noticed.” He preened, and she giggled.

“Fine. Be manly on your own. I’m shopping. You didn’t even comment on my coat.”

“It’s nice.”

“Nice? That’s damning with faint praise.”

“No, ‘fine’ is damning. Nice is…nice.”

“Nice is lame. Like your flannel shirt.”

“Like your coat?”

“No, my coat is awesome. No one would mistake me for a grunge rocker in that belt.”

“No, but they might ask if they could buy some weed off you.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“Fine is damning with faint praise,” he challenged. She blew him a kiss cheekily and turned on her heel.

“You still owe me flowers,” she tossed over her shoulder.

“I won’t forget,” he promised.

She glanced at her watch out of habit, as though she were timing herself. She had an idle interest in how long it would take him to hit the Tate Modern.

After a plate of chips and a browse through a bookshop that yielded a gorgeous old coffee table book on the early days of Dior, she popped back to the hotel to change for a run. When she swung open the door to their room, she found Cain wrapping a slim bronze statue in a towel.

“You’re BACK?” she gasped. “You were gone less than an hour!” She looked at her watch. “Forty-nine minutes!”

“You timed me?” he asked, bewildered.

“You hit the most visited modern art museum on the face of the Earth, nicked a bronze, and made it back to your hotel in less than an hour. That bears mentioning. Let me see it, what’d you get?” She peered into the towel. “Is it another Modigliani? It’s elongated and skinny and primitive-looking….”

“Giacometti. Another Modernist. The Ukrainian favors them. He’s had his eye on this for a while.”

“Did he ask you take it?”

“It’s on his list of desirable items. I thought it would be a nice gesture.”

“So you’re stealing on the spec? Like people who write scripts and send them to studios unsolicited?”

“Sort of.”

“Can I hold it?”

“Are you a fan?”

“No. But it’s…clandestine. Forbidden. It’s stolen art.”

“You’ve held loads of stolen jewelry.”

“That’s just diamonds and crap.”

“You are officially the first human being I’ve ever heard refer to diamonds in the same sentence as crap.”

“You get a point for not saying ‘the first woman’ and implying sexistly that all women are acquisitive.”

“Says the woman who tried to steal the diamond earrings off me.”

“Point taken.”

“Point taken. If you want to hold it, hold it.” He held out the bronze.

Riley hefted it in both hands, astonished by both its weight and its seeming unearthly slenderness, the evident frailty of the figure puzzling her. The pitted, indistinct outline was rough beneath her touch. She trailed one finger along the outstretched arm, so narrow it was nearly sharp. Staring at it hard, she recognized in a flash that the figure reminded her of Cain Booth, his lean self-containment, a lean, spare blade of a man. She handed it back to him almost reluctantly.

“It’s perfect.”

“So you are a fan.”

“I suppose I am.” She gave away only a small, enigmatic smile.

“I rather like the Modernists myself. Although I’m more of a Magritte man at heart.”

“Surrealist? The guy with the apple for a face?”

“Yes. And the champagne glass beneath a billowing cloud, and the train shooting out of a wall above a fireplace…I like the dichotomy, the challenge of looking at it and trying to puzzle out the meaning.”

“I thought it was all for shock value.”

“Nah. The Fauves were for shock value. Surrealists were about dream imagery and the life of the mind beyond reason.”

“So they were high.”

“Not always,” he conceded. “Sometimes they were drunk on the idea of their own revolutionary brilliance.”

“Aren’t we all?” she asked, leveling a challenging look at him.

She expected Cain to laugh, but her assertion was met with a sober nod. She felt a surge of triumph at being taken seriously. She reached across the wrapped statue and did what she’d longed to do since she first saw him. She pressed her hand close to his cheek, feeling the rasp of his beard against her sensitive palm. Shutting her eyes, she soaked in the texture and warmth of his skin as if memorizing him. His fingers closed around her wrist lightly and he turned toward her hand, kissing her palm.

The heat of his mouth unleashed an insistent tug of desire in her chest. Her hands and the soles of her feet tingled, her skin heated. Riley rose up on her knees on the bed and took him in her arms, embracing him for a moment before her mouth found his neck.

His brown eyes were even darker with desire. He hesitated for a long, long moment. He pressed his mouth to hers, but pulled away at last, stepping away from the bed. The distance, the air between them cooled her considerably. She sat back, dejected, trying to assume a nonchalance she was far from feeling.

“Well, if you don’t want to take me to bed, let’s get something for supper,” she said with forced brightness. “Fish and chips?”

“I think I’ll go for a run.”

“I’ll come along.”

“I wish you wouldn’t come along with me. I mean, you’re welcome to go for a run, just please take a different route. I’m running to forget you, you see. It would be awkward to have you along.”

Cain spoke so plainly of his need to resist her, of his intention to put her out of his mind that she wasn’t even insulted. His sophistication, his charm was showing, even in that stupid Big Ben shirt. She felt a rush of tenderness toward him and wanted to lay her hand on his chest fondly, but she wouldn’t allow herself. If he could resist her, she could keep from touching him, surely.

“How far will you run?”

“I’d say it would have to be awfully far,” he said, his eyes burning.

She suppressed a smile. “You know what I appreciate?”

“What?”
              “You’re maybe the first guy I’ve ever known who didn’t tell me not to go out on my own. Like I was destined to be attacked and that I was helpless. I can’t imagine being in London with anyone else who wouldn’t say ‘don’t go running alone in a strange place’.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Kid, you’re the danger to London, not the other way around.”

The flight back to Atlanta was more relaxed, less fraught with anticipation than the trip to London had been. Riley no longer wondered if he was worthy of his legendary thief status. She no longer wondered if she could seduce him. She had answers, even if they weren’t the ones she wanted.

Riley wrapped the purple scarf around her neck, tying it elaborately according to a diagram she’d found online.

“That scarf assaults my eyes,” he remarked, looking up from his laptop.

“Then don’t look at it,” she said playfully, toying with the fringe.

“It demands attention. It screams to be looked at. It is the Tico of the scarf world.”

“Tico is not ugly!” she shot back.

“Aha! You admit the scarf is ugly!”

“No. Of course not. I know that you think it’s ugly, and you compared my precious kitty to an accessory you hate.”

“You have to admit the cat refuses to be ignored.”

“Did he give you the affectionate claws-to-the-neck maneuver?”

“I fell asleep. Apparently that’s an offense punishable by death among Tico’s people.”

“Cats are very strict, generally. If you’re unconscious when they’re hungry, you’re asking to be punished.”

Cain nodded. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars cash to put that scarf in your bag and not take it out until you get home.”

“You gave it to me!”

“It’s still extremely bright.”

“It offends you that much?”

“Yes.”

“I like it.”

              “It’s the solid color. My eyes hurt.” He glanced away as if guilty.

“Do we have a deal?”

“No. Your association with this scarf ends only with our mutual project,” she vowed.

“Then that is one thing I won’t miss at all.”

“Will you miss Tico?”
              “I will.”

“Will you miss me?”

“Beyond the telling of it, Riley,” Cain said, looking up from his screen and meeting her eyes. His gaze, serious and open, sent a sizzle through her. It was hard to tell when he was being sincere and when he was just tossing back retorts, but the silence between them held the answer.

Without another word, he returned to his work and she threaded the scarf through her fingers thoughtfully. She glanced over at him repeatedly, but he never seemed to look up.

Oo00oO

After a few days of long visits with Tico at Carol’s place, intermingled with training exercises, Riley was packed and ready for the Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian was pleased with the statue,” he told her.

“Pleased enough to let you go?”

“Hardly. I learned early on that any accomplishment only made me more valuable to him, earned me more responsibility instead of lessening my debt.”

“What exactly happened there? How do you owe this guy?”

“He caught me stealing a string of pearls with a flower pendant made of sapphires.”

“Was he, like, wearing it?”

“No. It was in his stepdaughter’s room. It belonged to his late wife.”

“He took exception to your attempt?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing in his stepdaughter’s room?”

“That isn’t a question you want an answer to.”

“Kinda what I figured. If the mom was dead and he was sniffing around the kid…”

“She was perhaps nineteen at the time.”

“Ew. Why did you target a Mafioso’s daughter?”

“Well, obviously, I didn’t know he was in the mob. I found that out rather quickly, though.”

“Gun?”

“Yes. I became his thief for hire. He persuaded me through a variety of methods over the next few days. From then on, I was his creature, taking things he specified, regardless of the risk.”

“I bet you hated that.”

“You’d win that bet.”

“So how are you going to get out? I mean, if that statue from the Tate, which by the way is all over the news, didn’t win your release…”

“A Giacometti, even a major work, isn’t worth as much to him as my services. I’ve attained numerous items for him over the years, and not all of them have been decorative.”

“Did you steal weapons?”

“No. Technology, a couple of informants.”

“You kidnapped people?”
              “I secured them. Took them to an appointed location and left.”

“Were they tortured? Killed?”

“None were killed.”

“You turned over people to their enemies to be tortured.” She felt a chill run through her at the thought of being tortured.

“I’m not risking your life, Riley,” he said firmly. “Those people were turncoats. They tried to play both sides, and they lost.”

“So their lives had no value? Because they were traitors, it was okay to give them into his hands? They
deserved
it?”

“Don’t we all?”

“Probably. But I don’t want to be—to be hurt, Cain,” she said faintly.

“I won’t let you be,” he said, taking her hand.

She shuddered, a shimmer of attraction breaking through the fear that nearly had her teeth chattering. The high-stakes Ukrainian heist had seemed like a lark, a challenge in theory. Now she was heading for the moment itself, she shrank from it, a cold terror coiling in her belly. She squeezed his hand for reassurance. Cain touched her face lightly, reverently.

“Don’t think I’d sacrifice you,” he said quietly.

“I knew there was a risk. I—“

“If I thought there was any other way to free myself of this man, of the mob’s hold on me, I’d do it. I can’t do this alone. There’s a thumb drive, about the size of a domino—” he said.

“How do you know?”

“The stepdaughter. I won’t say more. If I get my hands on the flash drive, I can use it to buy my freedom.”

“What if it makes him mad? That you took some information that he wants and tried to bargain with it?”

“It’s business to him, cold and clear cut. He won’t like it, but he’ll accept it to get what he wants. I know it.”

“Where is it?”

“In a safe deposit box inside a vault.”

“I’m breaking in to a bank vault in a foreign country? Hello execution, if I get caught.”

“So don’t get caught.”

“I’ve already been caught once.”
        “Yeah, by me. I’ve been caught once, too.”

“And we all see how well that worked out for you, Cain.”

He kissed her lightly, but avoided her eyes.

Once they were on the ground in the city, he pointed out landmarks, gave her the tour of the main thoroughfare. She was trembling with nerves. He took her hand and held it. It was colder there, and she wore gloves. She regretted the loss of feeling his palm against hers, sure and strong, but she felt like her fingers would freeze if she took off the gloves. Her whole body felt cold. They stopped outside the bank, an imposing stone edifice, and she hesitated. He kissed her forehead, glanced at his phone, and walked over to a bench to sit and wait.

Riley composed herself and entered cheerfully. She muttered her few words of broken Russian and asked for a better exchange rate. Feigning confusion, she required the clerk to repeat herself five times before she asked for a manager. The polished older lady stepped forward and spoke to her in clear but accented English. Riley exchanged some money and peered at the receipt, questioning a decimal point. The manager put on her reading glasses to scrutinize the document, and Riley sneezed theatrically. Taken aback, the woman blinked, removing her spattered glasses. Riley was all apologies and produced a microfiber cloth for the woman to wipe her lenses. The manager nodded, rubbed the glasses with Riley’s cloth, and handed it back. Riley smiled with satisfaction, knowing the special microfiber had taken the woman’s fingerprints for later use. After a few pleasantries, she withdrew with thanks and rejoined Cain on the bench.

Back at the hotel, he drew a map for her. She listened as he explained how she would enter, how the fingerprints they’d lifted would get her into the outer room and how she’d remove a vent and wriggle into the air conditioning duct and drop into the vault.

“You won’t fit in the vent?” she said, finally understanding the need for her involvement.

“It’s the shoulders,” he mused wryly. She stood straighter, glad of her lithe, sinuous form.

“You’ll be in Belize before you know it,” she said, kissing his lips softly.

“Be careful in there,” he said, adjusting her earpiece meticulously.

“You’re wearing Big Ben.” She said, glimpsing the sketch of the clock tower above the zipper of his jacket.

“I thought I needed all the masculine authority I can get tonight.” Riley lifted the scarf over her head, the purple one he deplored, and draped it over his shoulder.

“For luck,” she said, and he nodded. They stared at each other, but the silence hung in the air.

With resignation, she pulled her sock hat down and turned toward the bank’s door. Cain caught her by the arm and swung her back to face him, sweeping the cap off her hair so it fell loose over his hands. He kissed her, long and slow, his mouth teasing her lips apart.

Riley whimpered as his tongue invaded her mouth and heat flooded her. Her pulse throbbed at her neck, her wrists, her breath coming hard and fast. She knotted her fingers in his jacket as if she could never bring herself to let go. As quickly as he’d seized her, he released her without a word. She felt stronger somehow, galvanized to save him, proud that she was the only one who could.