Nora Roberts - Remember When

"That's a couple of them."

"And there's another. You're a good man. Not shiny and bright," she said, when he paused to look at her. "Which would just be irritating to someone like me, because I'd keep seeing my own reflection bounced off someone like that, and I'd always come up short. But a good man, who might bend the truth when it suits, but keeps his word when he gives it. It settles my mind on a lot of levels knowing that."

"I won't make a promise to you that I can't keep."

"You see, that's just the right thing to say."

***

While Laine and Max ate pasta in the kitchen, Alex Crew dined on rare steak accompanied by a decent cabernet in the rustic cabin he'd rented in the state park.

He didn't care for rustic, but he did appreciate the privacy. His rooms at the Wayfarer in Angel's Gap had abruptly become too warm to suit him.

Maxfield Gannon, he mused, studying Max's investigator's license while he ate.

Either a free agent out for a bounty, or a private working for the insurance company. Either way, the man was an irritant.

Killing him would have been a mistake-though he'd spent a tempting and satisfying moment considering it as he'd stood over the unconscious detective, fuming over the interruption.

But even a yahoo police force such as those fumbling around that pitiful little town would be riled to action by murder. Better for his purposes if they continued to bumble about giving parking tickets and rousting the local youth.

Better, he mused as he sipped his wine, and easier by far to have taken the irritant's identification, to have placed an anonymous call. It pleased him to think of this Maxfield Gannon trying to explain to the local law just what he'd been doing inside a closed store at three-thirty in the morning. It should have knotted things up nicely for a space of time. And no doubt it sent a very clear message to Jack O'Hara through his daughter.

But it was annoying just the same. He hadn't been able to take the time to search the premises, and he'd had to change his accommodations. That was very inconvenient.

He took out a small leather-bound notebook and made a list of these additional debits. When he caught up with O'Hara-and of course he would-he wanted to be able to detail all these offenses clearly while he tortured the location of the remaining diamonds out of him.

The way the list was mounting up, he was going to have to hurt O'Hara quite a bit. It was something to look forward to.

He could add O'Hara's daughter and the PI to his payment-due list as well. It was a bonus, in the grand scheme, for a man who equated inflicting pain with power.

He'd been quick and merciful with Myers, the greedy and idiotic gem buyer he'd employed as an inside man. But then Myers hadn't done anything more than be stupid enough to believe he was entitled to a quarter of the take. And greedy enough to meet him alone, in a closed construction site, in the middle of the night when promised a bigger cut.

Really, the man hadn't deserved to live if you thought about it.

In any case, he'd been a loose end that required snipping. The trail would have led to him eventually. He'd have bragged to someone, or would have thrown money around, squandering it on tasteless cars or women or God knew what that class of people considered desirable.

He'd blubbered and begged and sobbed like a baby when Crew held the gun to his head. Distasteful display, really, but what could one expect?

He'd also handed over the key to the mailbox locker where he'd stashed the Raggedy Andy doll with a bag of gems in its belly.

Genius, really, he had to give O'Hara credit for that little touch. Tucking millions of dollars' worth of gems into innocuous objects, objects no one would look at twice. So when the alarms went off, the building locked down, the cops swarmed, no one would consider all those pretty stones were still inside, tucked into something as innocent as a child's doll. Then it was just a matter of retrieving the extraordinary within the ordinary while the search went on elsewhere.

Yes, he could give Jack credit for that amusing detail, but that didn't negate all the debits.

They could hardly be trusted to hold millions of dollars' worth of gems for the year they'd agreed to. How could he possibly trust thieves to keep their word?

After all, he'd had no intention of keeping his.

Besides, he wanted it all. Had always intended to take it all. The others had merely been tools. When a tool had served its purpose, you discarded it.

Better, you destroyed it.

But they'd deceived him, slipped through his fingers and taken half the prize with them. And cost him weeks of time and effort. He had to worry that they'd be caught pulling one of the pitiful scams Big Jack was so fond of, and end up confessing to the heist and losing half his property.

They should be dead now. The fact that one of them continued to live, to breathe, to walk, to hide, was a personal insult. He never tolerated insults.

His plan had been simple and clean. Myers first, execution style to make it seem as if one of his gambling debts had caught up with him. Then O'Hara and Young, bumbling idiots. They should have been where he'd told them to be, but they were too stupid to follow instructions.

If they had, he'd have contacted them as he'd planned, planted seeds of worry over Myers's demise and arranged for a meet in a quiet, secluded location not unlike the one he was dining in now.

There, he could have dealt with them both with little effort as neither had the stomach to so much as carry a weapon. He'd have left enough evidence to link them to the New York job, and set the scene to look, even to the most moronic cop, like a matter of thieves falling out.

But they'd vanished on him. Scuttled his careful planning by attempting to go underground. Over a month now, it had taken over a month to finally pick up the trail and track Willy back to New York, only to miss him by inches and be forced to spend more time, more effort, more money to chase him to Maryland.

Then lose him to a traffic accident.

Shaking his head, Crew cut another bite of bloody steak. He'd never be able to collect directly from Willy now, so that account would be transferred to Big Jack-and the rest.

How to do it was the question, and the possibilities entertained him through the rest of his meal.

Did he go after the girl directly at this point, sweat her father's location and the whereabouts of the gems out of her? But if Willy had died before giving her any salient information, that would be a wasted effort.

Then there was this Maxfield Gannon to factor in. It might be wise to do a bit of research there, find out just what sort of man he was. One amenable to a bribe, perhaps? Obviously, he knew something about the girl or he wouldn't have been sneaking into her shop.

Or, and the thought struck him like an arrow in the heart, she had already cut a deal with Gannon. And that would be too bad, he thought slapping his fist on the table again and again. That would be too bad for all involved.

He wasn't going to settle for half. It was not acceptable. Therefore, he would find a way to get back the rest of his property.

The girl was the key. What she knew or didn't know was undetermined. But there was one simple fact: She was Jack's daughter, and the apple of his larcenous eye.

She was bait.

Considering this, he leaned back, tidily dabbed his mouth with his napkin.

Really, the food was better here than one might think, and the quiet was soothing.

Quiet. Private. A nice little woodland getaway. He began to smile as he indulged himself in another glass of wine. Quiet and private, with no neighbors nearby to disturb if one was to have a discussion with...

associates. A discussion that might become a bit heated.