Chapter Four
Since pulling out her hair wouldn’t change a thing, Eve let her head drop back and stared through the sky roof of Roarke’s fancy car.
“I need to know everything.”
“And you will. I didn’t note the Venus straight off, you see. Then McNab and I got into the tablet, the inventory. Well, that was a bit of a jolt, I admit.”
“Oh, really?”
Understanding, he patted a hand on hers.
“I could hardly say: ‘Why, look here, Ian, that ivory piece the old man paid sixteen million for? Well, I had that in my hands one lovely spring night.’ Then there was the bigger jolt when I saw the Royal Suite on that list, and not in the vault. So what I’d had in my hands on a damp and windy night in London had ended here. And been taken again, in blood.”
She sat in silence a moment.
“How did you hook up with the broker?”
“One earns a reputation in certain circles. And the broker was also known to handle deals such as this professionally. He offered me the job because he believed I could manage it, and because he knew he could pay me less than others who could, as I was hungry. Not that Summerset didn’t keep my belly full, but hungry in other ways. ”
She knew what it was to be hungry, in all kinds of ways.
“And you said—how long ago?”
“I’d have been about eighteen.”
Now she had to just sit there a minute. Just sit there.
“You broke into the Tate Gallery in London and stole a bunch of jewelry worth a quarter billion when you were a teenager?”
He smiled a little as he turned to their own gates. “I was precocious. It was worth that, or about that, and it’s worth more now—today’s money—and more yet to a collector, due to history and notoriety.”
She lapsed into silence again as they drove toward the castle of a house with its scatter of lights on to guide their way into welcome. The house with towers, turrets, more rooms than she could count.
A house he’d built, very likely aided in that with some of his take from stealing the emeralds.
“How much did you get?”
“I remember very well. Ten million. Enough, more than, to change my life. I’d had solid takes before that, but nothing near as exciting, or as profitable. I did some other jobs for the broker, like the Venus, but still, for the most part, preferred finding work on my own.”
Once he pulled up, stopped the car, he shifted to her. “I can’t change who I was or am, Eve, and wouldn’t. Because here I am, with you. But I can be sorry this complicates things for you.”
He’d complicated things for her since the first instant she’d locked eyes with him.
And she couldn’t be sorry for it.
“I have to think my way through it. I’ve got to get out of this dress and these damn shoes, and think.”
Then she made herself breathe. “I knew who and what you were and are when I married you. It didn’t stop me, did it?”
“That’s a fact I’m grateful for every day.”
“But I have to think.”
She got out of the car, shoved at her hair. “There’s no reason to think what happened tonight has anything to do with…” She stopped at the door. “The broker.”
“Dead, some seven, maybe eight years now. And far too professional to steal from a client when he lived.”
“He’d have known the client.”
Roarke opened the door. “Ah, there? Maybe yes, maybe no. But as a careful man who ran his business for a few decades, I’d say he would’ve done his due diligence.
Now, the client might not be aware the broker knew, as the typical deal would be a down payment—wired from account to account, a portion of which would go to the person or the team doing the job, as down payment. Nonrefundable on all sides, that.”
He paused as she pulled off her shoes before walking up the stairs.
“When the job was done, the piece verified as authentic, another portion of the payments would be transferred. It would be up to the broker and client how to deliver the piece, and once done and authenticated, the remainder of the fees wired. And so, done.”
“The broker was in Dublin?”
“I’ll say he floated, though he came from Mayo. An international business he had. I want to say I never probed too deeply there, as he treated me fair throughout our … association. I never heard he treated anyone less than fair.”
“A sterling character.”
Roarke shrugged off the sarcasm. “In his way.”
The minute they hit the bedroom where the cat sprawled across the acre of bed, she pulled the dress over her head.
And made a sound like a woman having a very satisfying orgasm.
Then stood, lean and limber, in the tiniest excuse for a bra and briefs nearly the same color as her skin.
His lips curved. “Yet another reason to be grateful every day.”
She flicked him a look before pulling out a nightshirt. She peeled out of the underwear, then yanked on the nightshirt.
“I have to think.”
“You’ll think in your sleep, no doubt of it.
And let me add something to your thinking.
I’ll be of help here. I know what it takes to plan a job like this, and there’s no planning such a job without a client at the ready or a way to put the Suite on auction, in the underground with those who’d not only covet it but have the wherewithal to pay what I believe would rise up beyond half a billion USD. ”
“Half a fucking billion.”
“The notoriety, Eve. It’s been lost for nearly two decades. More, it’s recognizable. It’s famed. It couldn’t be fenced in ordinary ways. And it would be undeniably stupid to break it up, to pop any of the stones. The value would plummet.”
She followed all that—simple logic. But couldn’t quite just slide over the half a billion.
“He knew it was in there. He knew about the vault and he knew the emeralds were in it. How?”
“That I don’t know. But I’ll be thinking about it myself. And I’ve a few lines I can tug you can’t.”
“Other thieves.”
“And former associates. So to speak.”
He’d already removed his jacket, loosened his tie.
He came to her now, took her hands. “I never put a fistful of jewels, a painting, a piece of art however exquisite over a human life.”
“I know that. I couldn’t be here if I didn’t know that. I need to find someone who did.”
“And I’ll help in any way I can. You need some sleep, and I could do with some. I’ll wake you. Tell me when.”
He would, she thought, whatever time she said.
“Seven-thirty will do it. Enough time to write this up, set up my board, think, then get downtown to the morgue. Saturday morning, traffic shouldn’t suck too hard.”
“Half-seven then.”
She got into bed. The cat stirred himself to belly up, then curl at her back. When Roarke joined her, he drew her close, kissed her brow, her lips.
“They say it takes a thief to catch one.”
“In my world it takes a cop.”
He brushed his lips over hers again. “We’ll blend our worlds on this. We’re good at it.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Even as her mind circled, she dropped into sleep.
The next thing she knew was coffee.
The scent of it, rich and dark, sliding into her senses. And when she blinked open her eyes, there it was, strong and black, the seductive steam rising over a tall white mug.
And there he was, sitting on the side of the bed, holding it out to her.
She pulled herself up to sit, reached for the mug with both hands. The fact he wore jeans and a T-shirt threw her off.
“Where’s your suit?”
“Which one?”
“The one you’re not wearing.”
“It’s Saturday, darling.”
“It’s—right.” The first, life-altering sip woke up her brain. The second was just luxury. “We were going to sleep in, hit the gym, take a swim. We talked about maybe wandering around the street fair.”
“And seeing how many street thieves we could spot between us. Murder plays hell with even the best-laid plans.”
“Especially the victim’s. Anyway, thanks for the coffee.”
When she’d gulped it down, she handed the mug back to him, then headed into the shower to complete the process of waking up.
She’d never know how Roarke did it. Whether he bagged eight hours of sleep—rare—or two, he could get up, dress, buy a small planet, hold a virtual meeting with somebody in Mumbai, then sell the small planet he’d just bought at a profit, all before breakfast.
That alone was likely one of the reasons he’d been such a successful thief. Now, of course, she had to deal with the fact he’d been successful enough to steal a bunch of emeralds that ended up in the secret vault of a dead man.
No reason, she thought as she stepped into the drying tube, no reason at all to think that long-ago theft had any connection to last night’s theft and murder.
And still.
She grabbed a robe, this one the color of the wine she’d enjoyed the night before, and stepped out.
Roarke sat, tablet in hand, cat sprawled across his lap. Domed plates and a pot of coffee waited on the table. He glanced up, smiled at her in a way that made her regret duty called.
“Off you go now, mate.” He nudged the cat down. Galahad slid himself to the floor, stretched, stalled, then stalked away to sprawl again in a patch of sunlight.
As Eve walked over to join him, Roarke poured her more coffee.
“Okay, let’s just get this out of the way.”
“Fully awake now, are you, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah. While it’s unlikely something you stole when you were eighteen connects to the case other than the fact you’re the reason it was in the damn vault, it’s tricky.”
“It is a bit, isn’t it then?” He lifted the domes off a full Irish breakfast.
“A bit? Roarke—”
“The only person who can connect me to the Royal Suite died seven years ago in March, at the age of a hundred and six, from natural causes. I checked. Well, there’s Summerset,” Roarke added with an elegant shrug. “But I think we can be confident in his discretion.”
Since Summerset was more than Roarke’s majordomo, but the man who’d taken him in, a brutally beaten boy, and given him a home, had stood as a father, Eve couldn’t argue that one.