Marilyn Pappano - Nights With A Thief

“Good luck with that. Lisette, you want to give me your address or should we meet back here at nine?”

She gave him a measuring look. Figuring he already had her address? “Here at nine.”

“I’ll bring the gear.”

“I’ll bring the coffee and the insecurities.”

He picked up the tab and got a half dozen feet away when Padma’s words finally registered. Turning back, he found Lisette watching him. “A quadcopter? Really? You flew it out?”

Her response was the unleashing of that gorgeous smile. “See you tomorrow.”

A quadcopter. Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner?

* * *

He’s cute.

As Lisette followed Padma onto their block, she tried to count how many times her bestie had pointed that out after Jack left. Padma wasn’t shy about stating her opinion often and emphatically. Jack was cute, no denying that. But hiding a tracker in her purse? He could have followed her anywhere, everywhere, to a client, to a target. How had she been so careless?

Because she’d never let her guard down while working a job. She’d never gotten close to a target before. Because she’d expected him to be unaware that he even was a target, when in reality, she was the one unaware.

No more. She would pay attention now because, clearly, Jack Sinclair was better at this game than she was.

Padma was waiting in the driveway when Lisette parked. Jack’s scoring a big one hadn’t put a damper on her good mood. She was happy and still damn near dancing. “It’s a gorgeous night, isn’t it?”

“We left ‘gorgeous’ behind twenty degrees ago.”

“How is it that I’m the one from India, and you’re the one who gets cold if a breeze blows?”

“I’ve got tropical blood in my veins, too.”

“Yes, but you never lived on the island.”

“And you never lived in India, either.” Lisette slung her purse over her shoulder, and they climbed the steps to the porch. They hadn’t gone more than a few feet when a figure stepped out of the shadows at the far end, tall and muscular.

Jack? No, the stranger’s shoulders were broader, and his hair was too dark to gleam in the ambient light. Besides, surely Jack knew after showing up at Pecos Pete’s that revealing he had her address wouldn’t be wise.

She clenched her keys tighter and stepped between the stranger and Padma, or tried to. Padma, protective friend that she was, refused to be shielded, staying at Lisette’s side, their shoulders bumping.

The pounding of her heart slowed enough to let her breathe. Padma’s cell phone screen glowed, and a glance showed that she’d keyed in 911, her finger hovering over the send button. There were lights on in all the houses around them, and she and Padma could scream as well as any gaggle of ten-year-olds. The man hadn’t made any moves toward them beyond those few steps, his hands hung at his sides, and he was wearing—She squinted in the stingy light. A suit. What kind of mugger wore a suit?

Detectives did. So did Candalaria’s security.

She wasn’t sure which she was more afraid of.

Channeling her mother, Lisette straightened her spine, lifted her chin and in Marley’s voice that brooked no argument, asked, “Who are you, and what do you want?”

The man raised both hands in front of him, indicating he was no threat. Yeah, she wasn’t buying that. “Sorry to frighten you, Ms. Malone.” He slid one hand to the inside pocket of his jacket and took a few more steps. “My name is McSwain.” He held out an ID that she couldn’t actually see until Padma used the flashlight app on her phone to show it. The picture was stern and definitely the man in front of her, and the badge was from Candalaria Inc. The museum employee IDs were different, but they shared recognizable similarities. “I’m deputy head of security for Mr. Candalaria. He sent me.”

Okay, so she wasn’t going to jail. Yet. But rather than reassure her, the words stoked her tension. Why had Candalaria sent him? Did he suspect Lisette was the one who’d taken Shepherdess and the fancy red? Was this man supposed to get a confession from her?

But if she was a suspect, Candalaria would have sent more than one of his people to interrogate and intimidate, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have trusted a task to only one man. After all, she might just be a lowly employee, but she’d bypassed a lot of his security last night.

Then the steps behind her creaked. Her head swiveled around, as did Padma’s, to find another tall, muscular man standing there. Like McSwain, he wore a dark suit, his hair was short, and he looked as if he could heave both Lisette and Padma over one shoulder without exerting himself.

She caught her breath literally, hoping the chill air would get her brain functioning, gave a choked laugh and turned back to McSwain. “Oh my God, you guys scared us! Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a woman in the dark? I could have shot you.”

She sensed rather than saw his perusal and envisioned a dry smile on his mouth. “No. You couldn’t have.”

He was right in his presumption—she’d never touched a gun in her life—but he didn’t have to be amused by the possibility. “What can I do for Mr. Candalaria?”

“You were in charge of the guest list for last night’s party, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve heard about the theft during the party?”

“Yes, of course.” Could they hear her heart thudding a thousand beats a minute or guess that a little voice in her mind was doing its best to force a scream out her mouth? “It was all anyone talked about at the museum today.”

“Mr. Candalaria would like a copy of the guest list. He was told you could provide it.”

The guest list. A sigh of relief shivered through her, loosening muscles and calming the little voice. Of course Candalaria would wonder whether the thief had been a guest at the party, or if the party had merely been a distraction that gave him access to the house. Of course he would want to know everyone who’d been invited.

And of course her name was on that list.

“He wants the list tonight. We were instructed to take you to the museum to get it. Our vehicle is just down the street.”

Lisette shifted her gaze to the quiet street. Immediately she noticed the dark SUV three doors down, its engine a low hum, its parking lights on. Go off at night with men she’d never seen before? Candalaria actually thought she would do that for the salary he paid?

You had to choose the most dangerous path to regain the statue, Marley might have scolded her.

The most dangerous path would have been trying to seduce her way to Le Mystère through Simon Toussaint. She was hoping for much better results by using Jack. Somehow, though, she hadn’t counted on Candalaria launching an investigation. Presumably, previous targets had done so, but she’d been so far off the grid that there’d been nobody to investigate.

At her side, still clutching her cell phone, Padma finally spoke up. “Don’t you have that list on your laptop, Lisette? You can email them a copy or print it and give it to them now.”

Grateful for the suggestion, Lisette smiled her friendliest smile. “I do have it here. I can save us a trip.” Without giving McSwain a chance to refuse, she walked to the door, turning her back on him long enough to slide the key into the lock even though it roused every protective instinct she had. The instant she crossed the threshold, she hit the light switch that turned on the overhead lights. There were times when the lack of illumination was comforting, but tonight the lights calmed her nerves, at least until the two men walked through the doorway and the living room shrank by half.

For two people who looked nothing alike, the men were virtually interchangeable: six feet plus a few inches, regulars at the gym, spit and polished and unremarkable. Put them on a sidewalk in the business district in the middle of the day, and they would fade into the background. It was a good quality for men who worked security.