STOLEN MOMENTS

by Michelle Martin

  Oh, her sweet expressive face. He could gaze at it forever. Let the world drop away, let him have this—her—peace. He gave himself the pleasure of sifting his fingers through her soft hair. "I'm going to prove that my brother is a thief," he replied, shuddering a little. He sighed as her hand cupped his cheek in concern. He pressed a kiss to the center of her palm and then held her hand in his. "The tape proves nothing. It doesn't matter what I know, I have to come up with the evidence to prove it to Giscard, to the police … and to my parents."

  "It sounds impossible."

  "No," he said with a sad smile. "I know how to do it."

  "Duncan?" she said tentatively. It puzzled him.

  "Yes?"

  "Something's been nagging at me."

  "What is it?"

  "Well," she said, looking anxious, "it's the whole Giscard case. The diamond robbery has always bothered me because it seemed a little too pat, a little too convenient. I mean, look at the timing: it happened right after you were hired to find me and then switched to working for me. At first I thought I was just being egocentric—you know, the-world-revolves-around-me sort of thing—but now I'm not so sure."

  "Harley, Brandon stole the diamonds. I can prove it."

  "I know. But what if the diamonds are a blind?"

  Duncan stared at her.

  "What if the diamond robbery wasn't about money?" she persisted. "What if it was about distracting you from my case?"

  "But why?" he demanded.

  Harley stopped. "I don't know."

  But he didn't hear her. Shock was rippling through him. He stared intently at a spot on the wall over her right shoulder. Brandon and Maurizio. Boyd and Maurizio. And Harley. He looked at her. "What if you aren't egocentric?" he said. "What if you've been the link from the very beginning?"

  "Yeah, but how?"

  "Money," he said, surging to his feet and beginning to pace. "With Boyd and Brandon, it's all about money. Go back to the beginning, Harley. When you walked out of the Ritz-Carlton, Boyd was upset because he couldn't get to Los Angeles on time. Ergo, he had a rendezvous, probably with one of Maurizio's West Coast operatives. He had a rendezvous to deliver whatever he'd brought into the country from your world tour." Duncan stopped. He stared at Harley as if seeing her for the first time. "You know," he said slowly, "I don't think I grasped before the full implications of Boyd's continued stay at the Ritz. You walked out on him and Boyd didn't make his Los Angeles rendezvous. Ergo, he couldn't make the rendezvous because you took with you what he was supposed to deliver to Maurizio's people. That's why he was so desperate to get you back. To get his delivery back, he had to get you back!"

  Harley was very white. "But I didn't take anything of his when I left!"

  "Yes, you did. You just didn't know it. Come on," he said, dragging her out of his office.

  Minutes later, they stood in the master bedroom of the Colangco penthouse apartment staring at the meager items Harley had placed on the king-size bed: Annie Maguire's dark blue raincoat, hat, one-size-too-big pumps, and Visa card; the beige sack dress and underwear she had worn that Sunday night; and even the pins she had used to hold the dress up above the hem of the raincoat. Her blue toothbrush and her hairbrush-and-comb set completed the gleanings.

  "It's not much," Harley said.

  "The answer is here, I know it is," Duncan said. "Let's get started."

  They slowly and methodically ripped Annie's raincoat, hat, and shoes to shreds, scanning every centimeter of material for anything the least out of place. They came up empty. They did the same to Harley's dress and underwear. Nothing. They used magnifying glasses to pore over Harley's toothbrush, hairbrush, and comb. Failure stared back at them.

  They started all over again. And then again. They found nothing.

  "Are you sure this is all you took?" Duncan asked as they sat together, tired and dispirited, on the side of the bed. "No bobby pins? No toothpaste?"

  "This is all I had with me. I swear," she said.

  He turned his head to her to say something. Then he stopped, and stared. "No, it's not," he said hoarsely. His hand reached out and grabbed the gold musical note pendant that hung from her throat. "You had this!"

  He nearly strangled her pulling the gold chain from around her neck. His fingers were trembling as he studied first the chain and then the pendant through his magnifying glass. "Ah-ah-ah," he murmured, "what have we here?"

  The pendant split in two on hidden hinges and revealed a small inner compartment.

  Duncan breathed out. "I love it when I'm right."

  "What is that?" Harley demanded.

  "A computer chip," he said excitedly. "It could have government secrets or high-tech secrets, something like that. Whatever is on it, it's enough to make Boyd sweat and more than enough to make Maurizio very angry that it's not already in the possession of his West Coast operation."

  "And that's why Boyd tried to get me to go back with him to the Ritz," Harley said, staring at the chip. "It was the only chance he had of getting his hands on this. How did you open the pendant?" she demanded.

  Using his thumbnail, Duncan showed her the tiny hidden catch on the back of the pendant near the right side edge.

  "But that wasn't there when I bought this," she said.

  "Then Boyd had a duplicate pendant made and switched them."

  "But why take such a chance on having me be his mule?"

  "He knew that you always wear the pendant, and he figured it was the perfect way to smuggle secrets. At least the compact ones. The band instruments and stage paraphernalia could have hidden anything larger. You really were the perfect front for his operations."

  "I think I'm going to be sick," Harley said, looking shaky.

  "Not now, my country harlot," Duncan said, pulling her to her feet. "Let's go see what's on this thing."

  It only took a few minutes to install the chip. Duncan turned his computer back on. They stared at a screen full of gibberish.

  "What happened?" Harley asked.

  Duncan leaned back in his chair, frustrated almost past bearing. Then it hit him. "It takes two to tango."

  Harley studied him a moment. "Sort of like Siamese twin computer chips?"

  "Exactly. One can't work without the other."

  "So, we've got one. Where's the…" Harley's eyes widened. "Duncan! Could Brandon have the other chip?"

  "It's more than likely," he said, fighting the nausea. All of the pieces of the puzzle were cascading into place in his brain. "Two chips, two ports of entry, two couriers. That's the thinking man's delivery system." He burst out of his chair and started pacing the office. He couldn't hold still. He didn't think he'd ever be still again. "Here's the scenario: Brandon is struck by a major case of gambling fever and ends up owing the Maurizio family big time. Naturally, they tell him to pay up or else. Brandon says he doesn't have that kind of cash, they lean hard, Brandon gets desperate. Then Angelo Maurizio steps forward and offers him a way out. All Brandon has to do is a small job for him in Florida and the debt will be wiped clean."

  "Florida?"

  "Yeah, I think so. That Miami case always bothered me. It was a real simple, by-the-book project. Normally, it would have gone to one of the junior staff, or to me, but Brandon insisted on taking it."

  Harley sat down in his chair and swiveled it around to face him as he paced. "Okay, Brandon picks up the second chip. Now what?"

  Cold perspiration was soaking through Duncan's T-shirt. "I think … I think he was supposed to fly to Los Angeles, act as Boyd's contact, and deliver the chips. He had a lot more freedom to move around than Boyd, because Boyd was micromanaging your life."

  "It seems like centuries ago," Harley said quietly.

  "Yeah," Duncan said, staring out his office windows at the pale world beyond.

  "So, Boyd has his chip, and Brandon has his chip, and everything's fine. Until I walk out of the Ritz-Carlton."

  "Boyd panics and I don't blame him," Duncan said, shaking his head. "No one messes w
ith the Maurizio family. He must have known by then that Brandon was his contact, so he does the most natural thing in the world. He calls Colangco, expecting that he'll get Brandon to help him find you. I remember how badly surprised Boyd was when I met him for our first interview. He said flat out he wanted my brother, that he was expecting my brother. Jesus, how blind can I get?"

  "As I understand it, that was the normal reaction of anyone meeting you for the first time," Harley commented.

  He almost smiled. "So, I'm a bad shock to Boyd, but I may work out. I may find you. But Boyd's taking no chances. He either finds a way to contact Brandon, or has Maurizio contact Brandon. My money's on Maurizio. All he had to do was call Brandon, say he's got a problem, issue the usual sort of threats, order him to fix the problem, and voilà! Big Brother's back in town bright and early Tuesday morning and he finds trouble waiting for him. I'm not doing what he and Boyd need me to do: I'm not returning you and your pendant to Boyd. I might still pull it off, but just to be safe, Brandon decides on a backup plan." This couldn't be happening. Brandon couldn't have been manipulating all of them from the very beginning. It was insane. "Brandon will take over Boyd's case, find you, and get you back to Boyd safe and sound. That means getting me off the case." Duncan swore softly. Not a day had gone by in the last week that Brandon hadn't tried to talk him off the case or try to convince him to return Harley to Boyd.

  "What I don't get is why he chose the Giscard diamonds for a diversion," Harley said. "I mean, wasn't that a little extreme?"

  Duncan shrugged against the walls closing in on him. "Not really. I think Brandon chose that job because it was closest to hand. Any complex case would have done, but the Giscard diamonds had a lot of advantages. First, stealing them brought in both the police and Giscard, so I'd really be preoccupied and it would seem the most natural thing in the world for Brandon to step in and take over your case. Second, Dad was certain to fire me or at least suspend me when the diamonds disappeared, again putting Brandon on your case. But I think … I hope that the most important factor was that Brandon could wait until the very last minute before deciding to go ahead with the theft. If I had returned you to Boyd any time before Thursday morning, I don't think Brandon would have stolen the diamonds. But I didn't, so he did."

  "Only it was worse than that," Harley said softly, as she uncurled herself from the chair and began to walk toward him. "Wednesday night, we arranged with your father not to send me back to Boyd, and Colby agreed to let you investigate Boyd. Colby probably even called Brandon that night to tell him. The last thing Brandon wanted was to have anyone investigating Boyd. He had to stop you, Duncan."

  "Oh," Duncan said, stuffing his shaking hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

  She brushed her fingertips across his frozen face. "So Brandon steals the diamonds and the police and Giscard's men descend on you, just as planned. His problem should be solved. Only it wasn't, because your brother never expected you to fight your dad to hold on to my case, and he certainly didn't expect you to win. And I'll bet he didn't think you could come up with a decent alibi the police could substantiate."

  "No," Duncan said from somewhere within a ten-thousand-foot-deep glacier, "with what he knew of the way I used to live my life, he would have counted on my not having any reliable witnesses who could testify to my whereabouts at the time of the robbery."

  "So nothing is working," Harley said, her blue gaze warm and steady. "You're still investigating Boyd and I'm still running free."

  "And Maurizio had to be leaning hard on both Boyd and Brandon by last Friday." Duncan heard himself laugh. It sounded ugly. "Brandon has been a daily visitor, Boyd's only visitor, at the Ritz these last several days. I just assumed Dad had sent him to keep Boyd tractable. But of course they were meeting, working together, trying to find some way out of this mess."

  Harley swallowed. "Yeah. Things are going from bad to worse. You actually tell Boyd what you're up to, and I fire him, and Brandon can't get rid of you. That would make them both desperate, and I think," she said slowly, "that it might have pushed Brandon out of hiding. What if he was the one who downloaded your case files on Saturday afternoon, Duncan? He needed to find me, grab the pendant, and get rid of Boyd, but I wasn't at the Millenium anymore. I'd moved to the Loews on Saturday morning."

  "Oh, there's no doubt that was Brandon's handiwork," Duncan said bitterly.

  Harley began gnawing on her lower lip. "And what if he searched the Colangco penthouse?"

  "There's no way—"

  "He knows every minute detail of the Colangco security system," Harley ruthlessly countered, "and besides, things felt out of place to me the morning after you lured me into performing with the Rockin' Robins at Goodies. Little things, like my hairbrush, were all just a little bit … off."

  "All right," Duncan barked, and then hurriedly softened his voice. "It's possible." But it was already certain in his mind.

  The blood drained from Harley's face. "Duncan! Do you think… We've assumed it was Giscard's men who tried to grab me yesterday. But what if they were Brandon's hirelings sent to drag me back to Boyd?"

  The horror of it, the likelihood of it, was twisting in Duncan's bowels. "Not hirelings, Harley," he ground out, "muscle, probably Maurizio muscle." Rage knotted his veins, blinding him, strangling him. When he thought of what might have happened to her… In that moment, he wanted to vivisect his brother with his bare hands.

  "Duncan. Duncan!"

  He forcibly pulled himself back from that murderous chasm. Harley was standing before him, her hands on his shoulders. He couldn't feel her.

  "I don't think they were sent to hurt me," she said, holding his eyes with her steady blue gaze. "They said, 'Holiday's over.' I think they were sent to return me to status quo, to Boyd, and that's all."

  Duncan made himself breathe.

  "It's ironic, isn't it?" she said softly. "If I hadn't made a break for freedom, Brandon and Boyd could have delivered the computer chips and no one would have been the wiser. You, at least, wouldn't have been suspected of the diamond robbery, because there wouldn't have been a diamond robbery." Warm blue eyes burned into the ice around his soul. "But here we are."

  Duncan took a deep breath and slowly released it. "Here we are." So, this was Hell. "I know how to prove Brandon stole the diamonds. I know how to connect Maurizio to Boyd and to Brandon. All I've got to do now is produce sufficient evidence to connect Boyd and Brandon to each other. I'll need your help, Harley."

  "Anything," she said, kissing his hot, dry eyes. "What do we do first?"

  "I have to talk to the FBI. They've been trying to hang a life sentence on Angelo Maurizio for years. They'll need to be brought up to speed on all this."

  "But Brandon—!"

  Brandon. Oh dear God, Brandon. He made himself look into her anxious blue eyes. "I'm going to tell them everything."

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  « ^ »

  She couldn't stand it anymore. It had been hours, and not a word. Harley walked down the long corridor, through Emma's empty office, and into Duncan's office. He sat in front of his computer, oblivious to the world. But she could see his pain in the taut lines of his face and the rigid way he held himself in his chair.

  "You've been at this since dawn, haven't you?" she said.

  "What?" He glanced at her. "Oh, hi, Harley. Yeah, I guess so."

  "Have you eaten?"

  "What?" Duncan said distractedly, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  "Food. You know, nourishment."

  "It's not lunchtime, is it?"

  "Duncan," Harley said gently, "it's after two o'clock. I'll order something up and you will eat it, if I have to chew it for you myself."

  He stopped and turned to her in happy surprise. "I like being fussed over!"

  Harley wanted to laugh and weep at the same time. How had he survived a lifetime's famine of simple, human consideration? "Good," she said with forced lightness, "because I like fussing o
ver you. How goes it with Brandon?"

  Duncan sighed and leaned back in his chair, half facing her. "Emma located the manufacturer of the diamond security briefcase. It's a little shop in Brussels that caters to the particular whims of certain high-class criminal types." Duncan paused. "Funny, that's the first time I've called my brother a criminal."

  Hours of worrying exploded in Harley. "Ah hell, Duncan! Why don't you just chain him to a wall and drive a couple of Mack trucks into him a few times? It would be so much more satisfying."

  "But messy," Duncan replied, turning back to the computer. "My parents value discretion above all else."

  "Ah hell," Harley muttered. He wouldn't play, he wouldn't vent, he wouldn't weep. He wouldn't even eat. She could at least do something about that. She used the conference table phone and ordered a large pizza and soft drinks.

  When their late lunch arrived, Harley physically dragged Duncan to the glass conference table, shoved him down into a chair, ordered him to eat, and stood over him to make sure he did so. His desk phone rang just as he was finishing the last of his root beer. He grabbed the handset on the second ring. "Lang."

  He hung up the phone ten seconds later. He looked like death warmed over.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "Nothing," he said, turning to her, affecting nonchalance. "That was Emma. The FBI just installed the necessary surveillance equipment in Boyd's suite while he was out making his daily call to Maurizio. Are you ready for this?"

  "Oh yeah."

  "We'll be setting up Boyd for the fall of his life," Duncan warned her.

  "Good. At the least, he's used me. At the worst, he's betrayed his own country with the secrets he's sold over the years. I want to help put him in jail."

  "And you called me lethal."

  "It's not nice to fool with the Princess of Pop," Harley said darkly, hiding her delight at his answering grin. She hadn't been certain she'd ever see him smile again. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. Oh, how she wanted to rip Brandon to shreds for what he'd done to his brother!

  But first, there was Boyd to get through.