Thief in the Night Pt. 03a

She dressed and he pulled an old t-shirt from the trunk and shrugged it on. "We have time before dinner. Let's stay. I want to talk."

Alarm bells rang out through her head. "We've both been skipping the gym lately. Perhaps we should head back, work out, then have dinner."

"Talk first," he said.

With a sigh she padded to a tree and sat at the roots, leaning back. "Wonderful. The worst words in any language are 'we need to talk,' you know."

He sat beside her and smiled, pulling his messy hair free and combing it with a finger. "That's why I didn't say them."

"Look, if you want to take anything said in the heat of passion literally, you're a fool and-"

"Don't."

"Pardon?"

"Lie to yourself all you want. But don't lie to me, Kerry. Do you think you're the only one overwhelmed at what we have between us? I wasn't planning on this. I have a job, which I'm good at, and I usually enjoy sport fucking, which I'm also good at. This is confusing and messy and thrilling, and not a little overwhelming."

"Bob's your uncle," she muttered. A large and growing part of her wanted to know just what he meant, just what he was feeling, but she fought it.

He laughed softly. "I can see the battle on your face. I feel the same way. All right, I'll explain my situation first, then you explain yours. Agreed?"

She nodded.

"I'm from Florida. Miami. My dad was an international lawyer, mostly helped with business deals between Puerto Rico and the U.S. and aided Cuban refugees. My mom died when I was young. I grew up the good guy, always the good guy. Good grades, played football, American football, had a steady girlfriend in high school I loved.

"She got into trouble, had to go on the run. I went to college, Northwestern. Over the years I knew I went into international law with the idea I could help her. I met a great woman in college, Sharon. She proposed to me and we were engaged exactly a month before she told me I was still in love with my high school sweetheart and left me, a mercy on us both.

"Jessie, my high school girlfriend, came back in love with a rogue DEA agent. I got embroiled. She was kidnapped and I was attacked. I shot and killed a DEA agent who was working for a drug cartel under the table. It...changed me.

"I gave Jessie and her man a new life, new identities. I set them up in a home I was renting from a friend from college who lives in the Virgin Islands now. Now Cynthia and Jon, we're good friends. She went into international law as well, criminal law, determined to help people like herself. Given the climate of the world today we set up shop in D.C.

"Since their wedding it's been casual sex for me. I don't do relationships. And then I get an interesting case in France, meet Georges, and when I tell him I need a vacation he sent me into this.

"I don't know what's really going on, here, on this caper or between us. I just know I don't want to treat this like just an augmented one night stand. You are the most beautiful, intelligent, stubborn, and infuriating woman I've ever known, and I just can't seem to get enough of you, even though you might actually hate my guts."

She was shocked by that, and winced with guilt. "I don't hate you. It's just...were this any other time in my life, I could deal with it. But this caper as you call it, it means everything to me."

"Then start there."

"I have to go back to the beginning."

"We have time."

She took a shaky breath. This was a greater deal of intimacy than she had ever known.

"My father comes from a banking family, Northern Ireland. Dad was the oldest, uncle Seamus is ten years younger. Dad was supposed to marry a girl with family ties to the Whitney-Vanderbuilts in America and the Rothschilds in Germany. But then he met mom."

She found herself smiling, remembering their stories. "Mom comes from a family with a minor title and money. Nothing like dad's had, but enough to keep up with the Joneses. Mom studied art history at the Sorbonne and since she was on the outs with her family had made money in college stealing, where she met Georges who showed her the ropes.

"It was love at first sight. Dad jilted his fiancé and married mom after knowing her a week. Both families were shocked. At first mom's were hopeful but dad's cut him off. Everyone disowned him. The only friend who would talk to him was Franklin McCall, Seamus' best friend. When that happened mom's family decided to cut her off, but she was pregnant with me.

"They set up a trust fund for me and let mom and dad have the interest. Dad invested and took McCall under his wing. But things went sour and my mom took back to second story work after I was born. Dad started drinking. Irish blood and British sensibilities," she added with a shrug.

"He was driving drunk, hit a tree, died on impact. We found out dad had debts, deep debts. Mom had to flee and with McCall's help we got to New York. Dad's family stepped in and paid and set up a trust for me, but withheld the interest.

"McCall became mom's confidant. Somewhere along the way he'd become a thief. He always was a social climber, he and Seamus met on the playground but McCall's family is barely middle class. He was only five years younger than mom and I have to admit there have been times I wondered if they were lovers, but I doubt it.

"When I started to learn the ropes I learned from mom and McCall. She'd been depressed since dad's death and nothing cheered her up, no matter how successful we were. The night I found her dead she'd been acting strange. McCall had been staying with us. I'd been pulling most of my job in the U.S. and the FBI was closing in.

"I went out for Chinese and came back. She was in the tub, wrists slit, a bottle of sleeping pills next to her. There was a note. It said Je suis désolé."

"I'm sorry," Henry translated softly and she nodded.

"I'll come back to it in a minute. McCall offered to marry me. It was a win-win-win. He had some pull with the FBI to get them off my back. He had property in Europe and as his wife I could move operations there. And, if married. I had access to the trust fund from my father's family. So we married in a civil ceremony and left for Switzerland. The tax breaks for the wealthy are insane there.

"It wasn't a love match. I- I guess I started to feel something for him, but in my life I have only ever truly loved my parents and Georges. It was a short time later McCall told me he'd come over that night, he'd spoken to my mother while I was out waiting on vegetable kow. See, it always bothered me the suicide note was in French."

"But your mother was French."

"That's what the police reasoned. So nice and neat. She dies, the Simian dies with her. I start fresh, free of suspicion, McCall gets his hands on some of the Allen fortune...and he gets a stupid kid for a wife, a woman hungry for a father, eager to learn the ways of the underworld, who will do anything he says. Hard to pull off with a fiercely protective mother.

"Mom had to know I would find her. Suicide is often an impulse, I know, but she never, ever would have forgotten for a moment I didn't know French. She was the one who decided not to teach me. She hated France, she hated her family, and anything French meant remembering that. She never spoke it at home, not even when she dropped something on her toe. In her mind, she became American and would just yell 'motherfuck!' or otherwise curse in English. She never would have written the note in French, not knowing I would find her."

"So you suspect McCall of foul play?"

"I do. We argued, and I accused. He threw back that she was his lover, that he drove her to suicide but didn't kill her. He laughed, was proud of gaslighting her. I tried to hurt him but he got away. He left me and disappeared.

"That night I cried. I didn't cry when I found her, not at the funeral, not until that night months later. I went outside in this little unpronounceable Swiss town and dug into the earth with my bare hands until they bled. That's where my mom was, after all, even thousands of miles away I knew she was in the cold, hard ground. I swore to her I would get revenge.

"I'm not a killer, I'm not a brawler. So the best I can do is let McCall rot in prison for the rest of his life. And I will visit him, every month, remind him of what he lost until he too goes mad. But I will make sure wherever he is held they never let him kill himself, that he lives the rest of his miserable life in pain and agony."

Henry was absolutely speechless, impressed by her determination, and made a mental note to never truly piss her off. The woman held grudges on a Cecil B. Demille scale, but he couldn't fault her. Having known loss in his own life, he knew there were no words of true condolence, and merely reached out and took her hand.

"For a long time I worked on my skills. I took a lot of job for Jewish people whose family treasures had been taken by Nazis, locked forever in Swiss Banks. I retrieved them."

Now he was impressed. "You robbed Swiss banks!?"

"I said I was sharpening my skills. And then I became the Simian, drawing McCall out. For five years now we've danced around one another. This is it, my last chance to get revenge. That is what is on the line."

She finally met his eyes and saw a mix of emotions there. "It's all I've lived for since the day I made my vow. Sport-fucking, as you say, is my M.O. I don't have time for more. You're the worst kind of complication, Henry. "

"Oh?" he asked with deceptive lightness.

"You make me forget myself. I want you, almost all the goddamn time. I think about you when you're not around. I forget why I'm there. And you're obstinate, argumentative, high handed. I don't know what I feel for you, but I know I feel something, and I hate that. I can't control it, direct it, compartmentalize it. I hate that."

He smiled. "At least I'm not suffering alone."

She pulled back and smoothed her mussed hair from her face. "What the hell are we going to do?"

He stood and held his hand to her. Uncertain she gave hers and he hoisted her up, only to take her place leaning against the tree. He guided her to sit between his legs, back to his front, and held her tight. "We do this: we steal the diamond, we frame McCall, we put him away for life. Then you and I go somewhere where we can be ourselves. A vacation. We get to know each other, see if what we're feeling is real, take it one day at a time, all right?"

"Shit." She felt tears gathering and Kerry could no more have stopped than then she could have lassoed the moon. "When I turn McCall in I can't ever see you again."

"Why not?"

She hadn't meant to say it, didn't want to, but now she felt she had to. "The only way to make sure McCall goes down is to turn him over to Interpol. And the deal I cut is I stop thieving. McCall goes to prison, Georges is left alone, and I start over. I'll be working for them, but everything from this life has to stay behind."

He was silent for a moment and she held back the sobs even as the tears fell. She felt weak and stupid and in her shame did all she could to hide her turmoil, but the tears still fell.

"I can help you. I did it for Cynthia and Jon. They didn't even have to leave the U.S. I know how to help you start over."

She laughed bitterly. "And do what!? I'm too old to go back to college, and all I know how to do is steal. I'm good at it, the best, but I have no other life skills."

"Damn it, Kerry, you're smart. I looked into you, all right? I knew about the deal with Interpol and I've been working over in my mind how to get out of it. You know jewels, you know art. You could work in a gallery or a jewelry store until we can figure out how to get your trust funds to roll over."

"No! I won't touch them. They're dirty, money given to me in the hopes I would turn my back on my parents and come into the folds. I want nothing to do with them. I have my own money. My lifestyle, my operations, everything is paid for by money I earned."

"Fair enough, sweetheart." He kissed her temple and set his chin atop her head. "But even rolling over the money you've earned can take a year or two. You have marketable skills. Hell, you could even advise people on security. Michel has been doing some of that but can't keep up with the demand, Cynthia has him working overtime on some recent cases."

"Don't call me endearments. Henry, this is foolish. I disappear and the deal fails. McCall has names they want. There's only a small pool of clients. I work for private collectors who try to legally buy something and when they can't, hire me. McCall works for shadowy criminals. I have to give Interpol the Night Hawk and his four latest buyers, mostly tied up in South American drug cartels. If I disappear, his bargaining chip is the list of clients he's cultivated. I can't walk away from that and let him go free, only to become hunted by Interpol again."

"I will call you anything I like, sugar tits or sweetheart. And you can complain and slap me all you like, but damn it, it feels right."

"Call me sugar tits and I'll unman you while you sleep."

"Fair enough, sweetheart. Look, there's a way. Let's see this through. I'll ask Cynthia to come here once you're with Interpol, see what she can do. Will you at least let me do that?"

By the time his partner got there she'd be long gone, so she agreed simply to placate him. They cuddled a little while longer and she wiped away her tears, then it was time to head back.

They found Billy in the room and he attacked Kerry for a cigarette as they came in. She passed him one and tossed her hat, glasses, and purse on the credenza. "What's wrong?"

"McCall slipped me. Danny found me, we were fooling around, then McCall disappeared off the property. Danny was as surprised as I was. We actually had a fight, he accused you two of foul play."

"Not us," Henry said.

"Not my style. If I wanted McCall dead I'd just let you lure him into the woods, Billy."

"I know. Anyway, looks like my information pipeline has dried up as well as my sex life. So keep the boning to a minimum you two, it's just cruel."

"Billy, don't kid. You know every gay or bi waiter in this joint and come midnight you'll be on one like white on rice."

"Fair enough, but a steady fuck is so much better than a soulless fuck. Don't even try to argue that point, kids. Still, where did McCall go?"

"Probably meeting his buyers."

Henry shook his head at her. "Why not tell Danny then?"

"Because he knows Danny is under the spell of the sex sorcerer?" She jerked her head towards Billy.

"Hmm, I like that, may I put it on my calling card? Anyway, help me check the security footage, see if I missed anything."

"I'm on it," Henry said. He glanced to Kerry with a small smile. "Better start getting dressed for dinner...sweetheart."

Billy stared at her. "Come on! No throwing a pillow or calling him names? Jesus, man, do you have a chocolate flavored cock?"

"Only on Tuesdays. Cue up the footage."

"All right. Last I saw him was ten this morning."

Kerry took a shower and dressed quickly. When she emerged they were so engrossed they didn't see her slip from the room. If McCall was gone, she was safe, and she didn't trust the room to be bug-free so she went down to the pool, usually empty.

It was free of guests who seemed to be either readying for the grand dinner or crowded into the lounges drinking and gaming. She slid out her phone and pressed the first speed dial preset.

"Allo Allo."

"Georges, it's me. McCall's buyers, where are they?"

"Hang on a minute, mon chere, let me get my old bones to my computer. How are tricks?"

"McCall gave us the slip, even his own assistant. He's been acting strangely and I need to know what game he's playing."

"All right. Well Ramirez is still in Caracas, Santiago is in Costa Rica, Schultz is in Buenos Ares, and Gutierrez is on holiday in Jamaica at the moment. Perhaps he went into town to have a phone conference."

"He's been gone eight and half hours now, and we found his tech partner, Mary McDougal. Henry was with her while I did a plant, so we know he wasn't meeting her."

"He was- oh."

"Yes." She let him sweat, let him think his little attempt at matchmaking wasn't a flaming success.

"Let me dig deeper. By tomorrow I'll know if there are any of their proxies near you. I'll call first thing in the morning."

"Good. I need to know."

"How has McCall been acting strangely?"

"Smug, lording it over me there is something I don't know."

"Head games. He never was that smart."

"All right, I have to get to dinner. Call me when you know."

"And call if you need anything. Do tell Billy I say hello."

"Got it. Love you."

"Love you too. Good night."

She hung up when footfalls jerked her attention. Pierre stood there, looking exhausted. For a moment she swore she saw wariness in his dark gaze but then he smiled and was every inch the gigolo destroying the family about to sell off their last possessions in desperation.

"Good evening, madam. What brings you here?"

She remembered to force an American accent. "Private phone call. I should get back to my husband. See you at dinner?"

He stopped her with a light hand on her arm. "What kind of a woman flirts with me so openly, then runs from me?"

"One who was confused about how she felt about her husband."

"And now you know?"

"I know, oh I know." She slipped past him but his voice stopped her at the door.

"Did I hear you with an accent before?"

She school her face and turned. "Acoustics. Even now it makes your accent much more Bretonese than Parisian."

Damn it, she had to stay clear of Pierre. Something was off there, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps Roger had gotten to him and he was now an Interpol spy.

She wouldn't put it past him.

***

She tried calling Roger in the bathroom after dinner. Billy was out keeping an eye on McCall who had returned for dessert and listening to security guards for protocol and band information. Later, lying in bed with Henry in their robes, for once she didn't feel the mad need to ride him to oblivion.

Seated behind her he tightened his arm. "You're tense."

"McCall is up to something and until I know what I can't relax. And cuddling with you makes me feel nervous, I'm not used to being so small next to a man."

"And I'm not so used to such a tall woman. Want to be the big spoon?"

"You'd let me?"

Sometimes it's nice to be the small one."

She laughed at that and he joined her mirth, but they didn't move.

"Kerry, tomorrow we can find out what Mary knows and we'll know for certain. My guess is he drove four hours to make a call, half an hour on the phone, four hours back. He did make dinner, albeit late."

Where McCall had glared daggers at her while he chatted up a young couple from Brazil, good potential targets for a future job. "You're probably right. So much is on the line."

"You won't fail. I'm here with you, every step of the way. So is Billy."

"But I trust Billy to know if it goes south to get out of Dodge. But you? Henry, you stand to lose so much involved with me."

"I'm a big boy, let me worry about myself. You just stick to your guns."

She turned, facing him, and offered a small smile. "I'm not used to having someone at my back."

He raised a blond eyebrow. "Really? What about Georges?"

"He's a fence, I'm a thief. If it goes south and I end up in prison he'll back off, then start working on a prison break."

He smiled. "I think you underestimate him."

"Perhaps, but I can't work in the field of guessing, I need solid ground to stand on."

"Well, I guess that's me. Let's get some sleep. McCall gets up early and I promised to join the golfing excursion he joined."

"You golf?"

"I'm a corporate lawyer for all intents and purposes, of course I do. It's not my favorite thing."