Chapter Thirteen
Kingston
I ’m aware her bringing up the lead was nothing more than a way to get out of the kiss last night, and I’m glad.
At least, I think I’m glad. Because who knows where that stupid drinking game I came up with might have led if I hadn’t gotten distracted by her.
It’s still raining the next evening when I stare up at her apartment.
This isn’t part of her plan, but fuck that.
I ring her buzzer and it takes a while before she buzzes me in without asking who it is.
That tells me she knows it’s me. She’s probably got security up the wazoo. That means she’s got reasons to watch things closely, or she’s got a secret room packed full of jewels and treasures from many heists.
Though the pirate booty room appeals to a part of me I didn’t know existed, I’m betting it’s the former.
She leans against her open door when I arrive on her floor. Sadie’s arms are crossed. Her expression might well be a universe from the woman I kissed and who kissed me last night, and I’m glad. I think.
Glad because it shouldn’t have happened. I had too many drinks and let my guard down. Glad because kissing her is disturbing in the most lose yourself, lead into the best sex ever, and more kind of way. It’s the more part that worries me.
Yet I want more.
“We’re meeting later, not now.” Her voice is cool and calm.
“You follow me last night, drop a bombshell, and then walk away,” I say, coming in close because I want to shake that cool and calm right out of her and bring about the high stakes buzz of awareness that’s inside me to her.
Something I suspect is there. Hidden away.
“I said what I needed to say.”
“Right before you ran off.” I deliberately drop my gaze to her pretty mouth. “Like a scared child.”
“I didn’t run.” She turns and steps inside and I follow, closing the door behind me. The rain hits the window opposite and a trickle of water runs down my nape. Serves me right standing outside without an umbrella.
I lean against the door, my hands in my jacket pockets as I contemplate her. She really is beautiful, the dark hair of her pixie cut curling in the dampness, her eyes big and blazing now, even if her expression is one of placid disinterest.
I’m giving her room to move, to get some rope, to step into the untested darkness I can feel beckoning at the edges.
She takes the bait and storms up to me, stopping short of me touching her even though I make no move to do so. “I didn’t run. I said what I came to say and I left. There’s a difference.”
“After we kissed.”
“So?”
I consider her gauntlet. “So,” I say, “I guess I’m curious why you didn’t tell me you got a lead that the tiara was going to be fenced, as you put it.”
“I did.”
“Not straight away.”
She offers me a tight smile. “I got distracted.”
“Well,” I say softly, “that’s good to know.”
Sadie spins away from me and goes over to a small desk and toys with her phone. She sighs. “I’ve been waiting on word, confirmation on this so-called sale.”
I straighten and cross to her. “You don’t think it’s for sale?”
“I didn’t say that. My gut instinct is whoever is supposedly behind this is merely trying to whip up interest in it.”
She watches me and a coldness spreads. “You’re waiting for me to finger point at you? Like a double bluff?”
“Are you going to do that?”
Am I? It’s not really something I’ve thought about beyond the bare bones. Is she capable of it? Absolutely. Would she fuck me over? That I don’t know. “Call the cops? No.”
The words are out and she nods. “It could be me behind all this, pulling some kind of double bluff con.”
“You could. I’m sure you’re capable of it.”
Her phone lights up. And she reads whatever comes up and puts it down. “I think this is a way for someone to get information and garner interest. Like I said.”
“Then maybe we need to find out more.”
“Maybe we do.” Her gaze melds with mine. “That was word it’s on. How do you feel about Coney Island?”
I just smile.
It’s cold out at the old beachside crumbling attractions that must have been something back in the day. Now things are old and tired and gaudy.
But there’s something about Coney at night during the off-season that gives it something. If I were a romantic, I’d say it added to the tarnished aesthetic that gives it character. But it’s just old and empty.
Mostly empty.
I’m curious about where this is headed. Sadie told me some things on the trip here, in some old car she claims she borrowed.
We’re in an arcade that’s closed for the off-season. It’s dark and cold and perfect for sitting close to share body warmth.
“This isn’t very exciting,” she says.
I cast her a long look. “I don’t know. I can think of ways to make it exciting.”
“We don’t like each other.”
“Who said anything about like, Sadie?” But I don’t say anything more.
She doesn’t fidget, though the tightness to her hands says she wants to. “As I said, this isn’t actually going to be a sale. They usually happen one of two ways; someone has stolen for another person, has a buyer in mind. Or…there’s going to be a big thing made of it.”
And she’s leaning toward the second. “So the latter it is.”
“Probably.” She shifts, and her breath puffs out in a wispy cloud of vapor. “This could take a while.”
“Tonight?”
She shrugs. “That, too.”
I consider her words. Across the street is a bar. It’s tiny, dank-looking and not like Ruby’s that is the star of Coney Island. We’re off a Surf Avenue side street, and though we’re still in Brooklyn and people live and play and work in the area, we might well be transported somewhere else for the whole desolate feel it all has.
Time’s running slowly out. I know that. We’re not that far in, but four weeks isn’t long. “You worried about me?”
Sadie doesn’t look at me as she smiles. “I’m worried I won’t get paid.”
“Your larcenous, greedy heart appeals to a man like me, so be careful.”
“You don’t believe in love, Kingston, I’m safe.”
I laugh. “Neither do you, and who said anything about love?”
Her cheeks darken, but her smile doesn’t waver. “Just making sure you’re not going to fall for me. I’m not sure I’ve got the time to chase you away, stomp your heart to pieces.”
I laugh again, delighted. If she keeps going, I might really end up liking her. “That sounds a lot like commitment.”
“And you’re sounding like you lost your mind.” She slides a look at me. “If it’s the latter—with the tiara—it really could take longer than four weeks.”
“By setting up a big sale, you mean?”
“Gathering all the potentials together, yeah. You tease it out, let the word spread. Honestly, if it was the former, I’d have heard something solid long before all this, that the most expensive Sinclair piece was wanted.” She pauses, like there’s other things on her mind. “Both could work on similar lines, but…”
“If it was the former, someone would have contacted you to steal it, you mean?”
She shakes her head. “Maybe if there was someone out there with that kind of hard on for it making the rounds. No, I just mean I’d have heard the moment it was gone and I haven’t. That’s why I think the fencing is a lie and someone is trying to orchestrate some kind of big auction.”
I let what she’s saying and not saying wash through me.
Like the fact someone would have had to know where it was. “Let’s say this was some kind of opportunistic robbery. There’s no police report I’m aware of.”
“There isn’t one I’m aware of either.”
We look at each other. “Inside job?”
“You tell me. And while you’re at it, if it is, as in someone from the inner circle and not a thief who’s worked this from the moment the Sinclair ring confirmed the existence of the rest of the jewels, who do you think stands the most to gain?”
“I don’t know.”
And I don’t. Because this is more than just standing to gain with making money, this has the potential of bringing down the Sinclair family company. There are no stipulations about it being stolen, just it needs to be there on my birthday.
It’s convoluted, stupid, and regardless of what it could be worth, this tiara is fast becoming something complicated and maybe only worth selling.
Once I find out the value.
“We should have brought popcorn.”
“To watch people go in and out of a bar?” Sadie asks.
I half smile. “I’ve seen slower foreign art films that make even less sense.”
“Philistine.”
She shivers and I shift my chair closer. The darkness in here is broken only by the light from outside. The rain has stopped for now, but I could sit with her, doing nothing for a long time and I suspect it would be by far the most exciting and interesting thing I’d done in a while.
“So, apart from your winning personality, Sadie, why don’t you have friends?”
“I have friends,” she says. “And I didn’t have to buy them, like you.”
My smile grows. “You were young when your father went to prison.”
“If you want to have sex again, I’d stop this line of questions.”
“Is that you propositioning me?”
“Threatening.”
“Pity,” I mutter. “I could do with a distraction from all this bullshit of mother shaped suspicions and manipulative ghostly hands from the great beyond.”
“What’s your plan?”
This time I don’t pretend to misunderstand. “The same. Get the tiara back, stop the damn company from being dissolved and…” I stop. “But getting it back is the goal. Where is this lead?”
“I told you, this is some kind of meeting. I was told here, and I’m not sure who will turn up. Or even if this is going to happen. That’s why I wanted to meet you tonight. Later. After I did this.”
“And let you get in on the action?” I ask, trying not to shiver. It’s cold and my hair is still damp. Still, a few heated moments with Sadie would make me forget all about that.
What am I even thinking? I might want her, but it’s a terrible idea. One I keep veering right back into.
Sadie gives me a steady, long look and it’s colder than the air. “If you think that’s my plan, you’re an idiot. There are much easier ways to make money, and all of them far more pleasant. After all, they wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”
I just start laughing and I shake my head. “Who told you?”
“My ex.”
My laughter dies. I don’t like the scrape against bones her words have. “Close?”
“Yes. And it’s not what you think. Damon heard word, that’s all.”
I go to say something when she grabs my arm, sending sparks shooting through me.
“That’s him,” she says.
I look over and an unassuming man in a worn coat and balding head steps into the bar. “Who is it?”
“Saul Weathers. He’s a liaison, usually between buyers and sellers. But sometimes he whips up interest.”
“How do you know the difference?”
“You don’t.” She settles back, looking down at her hand and snatching it back. “Not until invites are handed out.”
Fuck this shit. I’m ready to go in there when she’s no longer pretending to be relaxed. The door opens and this Saul comes out of the bar and Sadie’s sitting forward, everything in her vibrating with tension. “Or he does this.”
“What?”
“He’s going to make a deal.”
We follow. It’s not too far, Sheepshead Bay, this time a small apartment. Sadie tells me to wait here in the damn car, but I’m doing nothing of the sort.
“This is stupid, Kingston,” she says.
I hook her arm through mine, hauling her close. “Yes, it is. Very much so. But sometimes you have to be stupid.”
“You don’t have a plan—”
“Do you? Other than more watching, waiting, doing nothing at all?”
She tries to tug her arm free, but I close my fingers over hers, holding her there. “I know what I’m doing—”
Sadie stops and turns into me, pressing up and throwing her arms around me, tugging my head down to hers. “Be quiet, they’re coming out.”
I want to kiss her again. All my resolve melts into nothing and the urge beats like a drum in my veins.
“Damn, this is about a painting.”
I realize they’re talking, but I don’t hear a thing about a painting. They’re discussing the weather and temperatures. Code. I’d bet my ass on it.
The two men part and Saul heads our way. I brush my mouth against Sadie’s. “Go with it.” And spin her into him.
I hope like hell she gets what I’m doing.
Or else Sinclair’s might be about to go down the tubes.
Because of me.