Cleo Coyle - Espresso Shot

Like a mom, I thought. It made sense, their relationship. With Breanne in control, Matt was free to extend his eternal boy status all the way to the retirement home.

“Breanne likes adventure, too,” he went on. “After fashion week was over last year in Milan, we took off, ate and drank our way across Italy from behind the wheel of a Lamborghini that some designer loaned her. We skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean at five in the morning, and then we went paragliding. Oh, man, that was such a blast.”

Matt’s expression softened. “I guess I love her for things like that, too.” A hint of a smile moved across his features. “And I guess… I guess I do love Breanne.”

“Then, uh, maybe you should marry her. But I mean really marry her, Matt. Try being a real husband for a change. That might just be an adventure, too.”

Matt studied my face. “You and I weren’t a total disaster, were we?”

“One look at our daughter will answer how I feel about that.”

Matt sighed. “Okay, Clare. I heard everything you said, and I’ll think about it…”

It was the exact same response Breanne had given me at the restaurant earlier today. I returned Matt’s smile, holding out hope that this was a sign the two really were simpatico.

“So the wedding’s on?” I pressed. “You’ll marry Breanne?”

Before Matt could answer, the phone on the nightstand warbled. I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Clare?” It was the harsh, clipped tone of a woman who wasted no time with pleasantries.

“Yes,” I said.

“I gather things didn’t go well with Nunzio, or you wouldn’t be home alone right now.”

Here we go: the return of bridezilla. “Actually, Breanne, I secured the fountain. And I’m not alone. Matt’s here.”

I heard a sharp breath on the other end of the line. She began speaking again, but I put my hand over the receiver and turned to my ex-husband.

“Listen to me, Matt, I have something important to tell you…”

I spilled the beans about Breanne being attacked in Machu Picchu ’s bathroom. Before I could get to Randall Knox or my Gordian knot of conspiracy theories, he snatched the phone from my fingers.

“Breanne, are you all right, honey? You’re not in any pain, are you? Do you want me to come over?”

I listened to Matt’s end of the conversation for the next few minutes. I heard more than one “I’m sorry” and “Your forgiven” before things got really mushy. Then I slipped out of the room, deciding to table my discussion of the Breanne-in-peril case until after I got back.

The way Matt was cooing to his fiancée, I was certain of one thing: Saturday’s wedding was definitely back on, which meant I had to get Nunzio’s fountain to the Met!

ON most evenings, taxis ran fairly regularly up Hudson Street. Chic residents of uptown neighborhoods knew downtown was the hottest Manhattan scene, so cabbies routinely spent the night transporting the clubbing set to bars and restaurants in Soho and Tribeca, then reversing course to go back uptown for a new load of trendily clothed forms to ferry.

I’d just missed one yellow cab. It swerved for the fare across the road. In the glow of the streetlamp, the silhouette of a man in a trench coat and ball cap climbed into its backseat. But another cab rolled up a moment later, and I snagged the ride.

Traffic was still pretty light, and we traveled from Greenwich Village to the Upper East Side without any major snarls. As the cab circled the block at Eighty-sixth Street and doubled back down Fifth, another taxi hugged its bumper. I saw the flash of annoyance on my driver’s face in the rearview mirror.

“Damn tailgater,” he muttered.

Soon the floodlit walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art loomed into view. Bordering Central Park, the massive museum occupied five full city blocks, its interior crammed with a stultifying array of irreplaceable artifacts. The paintings included many of the world’s masterpieces; the sculptures dated back to ancient Greece and Rome. There were historical displays of furniture, jewelry, arms and armor, vases, tapestries, photographs, ancient mummies, and even an entire Egyptian temple, removed from the banks of the Nile River and transported to the New World. Soon one more treasure would be added to that list, albeit temporarily: the Italian sculptor Nunzio’s Lover’s Spring.

By now, the museum’s visiting hours were over. But for Breanne’s wedding, I’d been given an events pass by the trustees of the museum, a pass which gave me twenty-four-hour access to a locked storage space filled with the things we’d need to cater Saturday’s reception.

I exited the taxi at the corner of Eighty-fourth Street, right in front of the manned security booth. One of the guards hurried across the broad sidewalk and helped me lift the fountain out of the trunk. While we fumbled to deploy the handle on the heavy Pullman, the cab that had been trailing mine sped around us and zoomed away.

The guard helped me roll the heavy suitcase down the steep concrete ramp and through the employees’ entrance to the second security checkpoint inside the museum. I showed the guard my pass, and he admitted me to the museum proper.

Pulling the fountain behind me, I crossed a wide loading dock and followed a gloomy hallway to the holding area. I unlocked the storage unit, rolled the fountain inside, and locked it up again. Mission accomplished!

Too bad, Nunzio. Better luck with the next barista…

My virtue secured, along with the fountain, I headed out.

It was after eleven when I left the museum and trudged up the shadowy ramp back to the street. The storm had passed, but the air was still damp, and the temperature was dropping, too. I shivered under my flimsy sweater. The wrap dress was starting to chafe, and I’d been wearing the same wedge platform sandals for ten hours now. They’d been comfortable most of the day, but by now my feet were throbbing with each step.

I waved good-bye to the guards inside the booth and walked uptown. There was an M3 East Village bus stop at the corner of Eighty-fifth Street, right in front of a fenced-in children’s playground that was part of Central Park. There was a streetlight nearby, but much of its glow was blocked by tree branches. Traffic was light on Fifth, and there wasn’t a cab in sight, so I was relieved to see a bus rolling toward me, though it was still several blocks away.

Standing in the shadows, I groped around in my purse for a Metrocard. That’s when I heard the scuff of a shoe and sensed movement behind me. Before I could react, a skeletal arm wrapped around my throat, and something hard pressed against the small of my back.

“I have a gun. Don’t make a sound, or I’ll shoot you right here.”

I recognized the rasping voice: Stuart Allerton Winslow. He stank of sweat and desperation. I glanced over my shoulder and spied unkempt hair sticking out from around the rim of a baseball cap. Though he’d ditched the trench coat, I knew he was the man in the cab, the one that followed me from the Blend to the museum. My mind was racing. Quinn had warned me the man was going to be released.

“Back up. Into the park,” Winslow said.

His hot breath hit my face, and I flinched at the whiff of onions and refried beans. Jose’s Burritos, I thought; the place was just up the block from the Blend. He must have gone straight to Hudson Street the second he regained his freedom, waiting outside my coffeehouse until I showed.

I risked a sidelong glance in the direction of the security booth, about fifty feet away. I could barely see the glow of its lights behind a screen of tree branches.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, his grip around my throat tightening.