Always a Thief

by Kay Hooper

  Quinn laughed shortly. “For two very good reasons. Because armed robbery carries a stiffer penalty—and because I'm a lousy shot. Good enough?”

  “It's a dangerous weakness.”

  “Is it? Why?”

  “Because you can't defend yourself. Suppose, for instance, that I decided your usefulness to me had ended. After all, I'd much rather keep the Talisman emerald myself—no need to break up the collection. And I hardly need your help now that I have the proper identity codes to placate Ace for an hour or so.”

  Rather grimly, Quinn said, “I didn't give you those codes.”

  “No, you very wisely kept them to yourself.” Leo looked at him with a faint, empty smile. “But you forget, my friend—I've been doing this a long time. Longer than you, if the truth be told. I took the precaution of cultivating my own source inside the museum—though I didn't sleep with him.”

  “Who?”

  “Ken Dugan. He's such an ambitious man. So eager to please. And I'm so eminently trustworthy, of course, so respectable. I'm sure he never thought twice about leaving me alone in his office once or twice for just a few minutes while he took care of a little problem out in the museum.”

  “Let me guess. He has a lousy memory and had to write down the codes and passwords?”

  “So many people do, you know. And hide those little slips of paper in such obvious places. The codes weren't hard to find. Not hard at all.”

  Quinn took a step toward the desk but halted abruptly when Leo reached into his open desk drawer and produced a businesslike automatic.

  Morgan felt her heart stop. The gun, a shiny black thing with a long snout—a silencer, she realized dimly—seemed to her enormous. She wanted to cry out, to do something. But the harshly whispered warning echoed hollowly in her mind. No matter what you see or hear, no matter what you think is happening in that room . . . She had promised him.

  “This is not a good idea,” Quinn was saying evenly, his face expressionless.

  Leo walked around his desk, the gun fixed unwaveringly on the other man. “I beg to differ,” he said in a polite tone. “I'm not wildly enthusiastic about killing you in my own house, you understand, but it seems the best way. I don't have the time tonight to take you somewhere else, and I won't make the stupid mistake of trying to keep you alive somewhere until I can make other arrangements.”

  “I hate to sound trite, but you'll never get away with it.”

  He knows what he's doing . . . please, God, he knows what he's doing. . . .

  “Alex, you disappoint me. Of course I'll get away with it. I have so often before. And this time, since I plan to make certain the authorities believe the mysterious Quinn pulled off the robbery of the century—and then fled the country—I'll make very sure your body is never found.”

  “Oh, I couldn't possibly take the credit for something I didn't do.”

  “The one flaw in my grand design; I'd much rather take the credit myself. But you see how it is. Living right here in San Francisco, well, I just can't take the chance that any of the bright boys and girls at Interpol will link me with this particular robbery. So you'll get the kudos, I'm afraid.”

  “Leo, we can talk about this.”

  “That's the mistake the villains always make in movies and on television,” Leo mused thoughtfully. “They let their victims talk too much. Good-bye, Alex.”

  He shot Quinn three times full in the chest.

  It wasn't her promise that froze Morgan on the terrace; it was soul-deep shock and a pain so great she was literally paralyzed by it. The three shots—so soft, almost apologetic as they issued in whistling pops from the silenced gun—slammed Quinn's powerful body backward with stunning force, out of her sight when he crashed heavily to the floor, and she could only stare numbly at the place where he'd stood.

  Leo, sure of his marksmanship, didn't bother to check the fallen Quinn. Instead, he glanced at his watch, then got an extra clip for the automatic out of his desk drawer and left the room with a brisk step.

  Again, it wasn't her promise that kept Morgan still until she heard the sound of his car leaving the house; it was simply that, until the sound jarred her loose, she'd been trapped in a dark and horrible place. With a moan like that of an animal in agony, she stumbled forward, wrenched the door open, and rushed into the study.

  “Damn, that hurt.”

  Dropping to her knees beside him, Morgan stared incredulously as he sat up, pulling his gloves off and probing his chest with a tender and cautious touch. He wasn't even pale.

  “You're alive,” she said.

  “Of course I'm alive, Morgana. I never make the same mistake twice.” He pulled the neckline of his black sweater down several inches, revealing the fine but exceptionally strong mesh of a bullet-proof vest. “I've been wearing this thing every night since the bastard shot me the first time. Had the devil of a time hiding it from you that first night at your apartment. Thank God you decided to take a shower before things got intense.”

  “You're alive,” she said again.

  “Like being kicked by a mule,” he grumbled, getting somewhat stiffly to his feet. Then he reached down, took her icy hands in his, and pulled her up into his arms.

  She was crying, Morgan realized, clinging to him.

  “I'm sorry, sweet,” he said huskily, holding her very tightly. “I thought he'd probably do that, but there wasn't time to warn you. I'm sorry. . . .”

  She could feel where the bullets had struck him, the brutal indentations on the armor plating in the vest, and it was several minutes before she could even begin to stop shaking. He stroked her back gently, murmuring to her, and when she finally lifted a tearstained face from his chest, he rubbed at the wetness with his fingers and kissed her. As usual, when he did that, all she could feel or think about was how much she loved him and how much she wanted him.

  Then, with a sigh, he said, “I hate to repeat myself, but what the hell were you doing here tonight?”

  Morgan sniffed as she looked up at him. “I thought if I could figure it out, then Leo probably could—and then he'd know it was a trap.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “Who you really are.”

  Quinn looked at her with a smile playing around his mouth, then shook his head a little as if in wonder. “You're a remarkable woman, Morgana.”

  She sniffed again and rubbed her nose with the back of one hand. “Yeah, right.”

  He gave her his handkerchief. “Use this.”

  “Thank you.”

  While she blew her nose and wiped away the last traces of tears, Quinn stepped to the desk and used Leo's phone to place a call. “He's on his way, Jared,” he reported. “No, he thinks he killed me. I'll be black and blue tomorrow, but that's all. Yeah. Okay, we'll be there shortly.”

  Jared must have asked who “we” was, Morgan decided, because Quinn winced and murmured, “Well, Morgan's here.” Then he jerked the receiver away from his ear—and she could hear unidentifiable sputtering sounds.

  Without putting the phone back to his ear, Quinn merely dropped it onto its cradle. “He's going to kill me,” he said with a sigh.

  “If he hasn't by now,” Morgan told her beloved, “then he never will. But you'd try the patience of a saint, Alex.”

  “I would? Shall we count up how many times you've gone charging into danger, sweet?”

  Morgan dismissed that with a wave of his handkerchief. “What I want to know is—what happens next? Leo's on his way to the museum and . . .”

  Quinn rested a hip on the corner of Leo's desk and answered obediently. “And—he'll find what he expects to find. That the gas canisters his so-called repairman slipped into the air-conditioning system have laid out all the guards.”

  “Not really?”

  “No, Wolfe got the canisters out after the guy left earlier tonight.”

  “So the guards are just playing unconscious?”

  “The regular guards are. The extra ones and all the cops are placed at strategic p
oints throughout the museum. Seems they got a tip that someone was going to try to break in, and after finding gas canisters in the air system, they decided not to take any foolish chances.”

  Morgan eyed him. “I see.”

  “Yes. So Leo—Nightshade—will cut the museum's electricity, which seems easy enough. He will then call Ace Security and, using all the proper codes and identity numbers, tell them that the system's going to be off-line for about an hour. Which will give him plenty of time to steal everything except the fillings in the guards' teeth.”

  “He thinks.”

  “Right. In reality, he'll never get near anything of value, because of a number of very conscious guards and a rather clever little welcome mat Storm designed into an internal security system that Leo knows nothing about.”

  “But, if he cuts the power—”

  “The secondary system has its own power supply; it's ingeniously hidden in the subbasement, and he couldn't find it even with a map.”

  Morgan drew a breath. “Then you've got him. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “If he never gets near anything of value, then you won't be able to get him for anything except breaking and entering, will you?”

  Quinn smiled. “Morgana, all we want is enough probable cause to search this place—something we couldn't get before, because he hadn't put a foot wrong. Breaking into the museum tonight will make the police rather anxious to find out if he might have a few secrets hidden here—which he certainly has. In addition to the safe behind that painting over there, he's got a concealed vault below our feet, and it's stuffed with priceless things, virtually all of which were stolen.”

  “You know this because you've seen it?”

  “Yes. He doesn't know I have, mind you. I checked out the house thoroughly one night while he was . . . otherwise occupied.”

  “Something else the police will never know?”

  “I certainly hope so. Leo's also still using the same gun that killed at least two of his previous victims, something a ballistics test should easily prove. Plus he has a few other guns on the premises that will have to be tested. And, if that isn't enough, the police will also find the Carstairs diamonds here.”

  Morgan found herself smiling back at him. “You were going to get him one way or another, weren't you?”

  “One way or another,” he agreed. Then his smile faded. “He killed a lot of people, Morgana. And what he meant to do tonight is going to deeply hurt someone who called him friend.”

  “Max.”

  Quinn nodded and got off the desk. “Max. Now—why don't we get going? We don't want to miss the final curtain.”

  They didn't, but as the virtual end of a rather famous career, Nightshade's final curtain was rather tame—and peculiarly apt. The “welcome mat” Storm had cleverly designed had turned a short and unassuming corridor on the first floor of the museum into a literal cage. Perfectly ordinary and innocent whenever the primary security system was in operation, the activation of the secondary system meant that the slightest weight on pressure plates triggered steel grates to drop from the ceiling at either end of the corridor.

  Morgan was astonished; she had no idea that Storm had taken old equipment meant to close off various corridors and had wired in sophisticated electronics to create a cage.

  And in that cage, Leo Cassady had no choice but to drop his gun and surrender to the police and guards waiting for him. He was very calm about it, obviously thinking they couldn't hang much of a charge on him. Until he caught a glimpse of Quinn, that is, when he was being led through the lobby. Then it must have occurred to him that there was much more to this than he had thought, because he went white.

  Quinn, the black costume and bullet-proof vest having been swiftly exchanged for dark slacks and a casual denim shirt he'd had in his car, gazed at Leo with the cool satisfaction of a man who has seen a difficult job completed smoothly.

  Leo didn't comment to or about Quinn, perhaps already considering how best to structure his defense in the coming courtroom battle and saving his knowledge of the other man's activities for that. But when the police led him past Max, he paused to look up at the other man.

  Leo's hard mouth twisted just a bit, but his voice was steady and without much expression when he said, “If you'd only left the collection in the vaults, everything would have been fine. But you had to display it.” Then, calmly, he added, “It wasn't personal, Max.”

  “You're wrong, Leo.” Max's deep, soft voice held both pain and loathing. “It was—and is—very personal.”

  Leo glanced at the other faces around Max. Quinn was calm; Wolfe grimly pleased; Jared expressionless. Storm was obviously satisfied that her trap had worked. Even Ken Dugan and his assistant, Chloe, were there, both clearly shocked and Chloe more than a little bewildered.

  And Morgan, who had thought she had known Leo, stood in front of Quinn. Both his arms were around her, and she leaned back against him as she met Leo's gaze with all the steadiness she could muster. She thought she probably looked as unhappy as Max obviously was; her intellect told her this man was evil, but she couldn't help remembering all the times he had made her laugh. She didn't understand how it was possible for him to be the man she had known—and a ruthless thief and murderer.

  Then, in a moment that clearly revealed the streak of cruelty in his nature, Leo glanced at Quinn, then said softly to Morgan, “You don't know what he is.”

  She felt Quinn stiffen behind her, but Morgan never took her eyes off the handcuffed man. Just as softly, she said, “No, Leo. You don't know what he is.”

  Keane Tyler gestured slightly to the police officers on either side of Leo, and said, “Get him out of here.” When the handcuffed thief was led away, Keane said, “I'm sorry, Max.”

  “So am I,” Max responded.

  “I won't need any of you at the station tonight. Paperwork should keep us up until dawn, but there's no reason the rest of you need to lose any more sleep.”

  “Paperwork,” his partner, Gillian, said with a sigh. “Great. Not that it won't be a pleasure to book that slimy bastard.”

  They followed their fellow officers from the museum.

  And Chloe, sounding as bewildered as she looked, said, “I hope nobody expects me to go back to bed!”

  Since Max had managed to get a reliable electrician to come to the museum in the middle of the night and reestablish power to the security system, they didn't have to remain there for long, but it was still after three A.M. when the museum was finally locked up again, regular guards in place. Ken and Chloe left for home, with the young woman still murmuring something about how it would be impossible for her to sleep.

  None of the others was particularly sleepy either, and most had questions, so Max suggested they return to his and Dinah's apartment for coffee and explanations.

  However, the first explanation, the one Morgan had figured out on her own, was waiting for them at the apartment, clearly and justly incensed at having been persuaded by her eldest son to wait tamely for their return.

  “As if I couldn't be trusted,” she said in annoyance.

  “Mother, we've been over this,” Max said patiently. “And I explained all the reasons.”

  “The principal reason being that you didn't want me seen,” Elizabeth Sabin sniffed, unconvinced. She was a delicate woman, still incredibly beautiful in her sixties, with a figure many a much younger woman would have envied and gleaming fair hair a lovely shade between gold and silver. She also bore a striking resemblance to Quinn—which was explained when he caught her up in an enthusiastic bear hug.

  “Mother, how long have you been here?”

  “Since yesterday,” she replied, returning the hug and kissing him. “I saw Max, of course, and Wolfe last night, but they thought I shouldn't call you or Jared until this thing you're all involved in was over. I gather it is? Alex, have you lost weight?”

  “Pounds,” he confirmed cheerfully, and caught Morgan's hand to draw her forward. “Meet the rea
son.”

  He followed that blithe comment with a more reasonable introduction, and Morgan found herself gazing into the warmly sparkling green eyes of the mother of four of the most remarkable men she'd ever known. Since that was what Morgan had finally realized earlier in the night, she wasn't surprised—but she was still a bit dazed.

  “Half brothers, all of you,” she murmured to Quinn a couple of minutes later when they gave way for Jared to greet his mother. “Different fathers, different last names, different lives. But the same mother. The same blood.”

  Leading her to a comfortable chair in the huge sunken living room, Quinn said, “How did you figure that out, by the way? You hadn't met Mother, according to Max.”

  “No, but I'd seen her picture; he has it here in his study.” She shook her head and settled onto the arm of the chair when he would have put her somewhere else, adding in a murmur, “I won't be able to think if I sit on your lap.”

  His eyes gleamed at her. “That's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me, sweet.”

  “Mmm. Anyway, in the museum today—I mean yesterday—I was looking at the four of you, and I realized it was the first time I'd seen you all together in the same room. I think I knew then, subconsciously, but it didn't really hit me until later.”

  “That I looked more like Max's mother than he did?”

  “Something like that. You were talking to Max, and Jared was talking to Wolfe . . . and there was something about the way you all stood, or the way the light was hitting you. . . . A bell went off in my mind. Later, when I realized, I remembered seeing Elizabeth's picture here, and I thought either Leo or Ken might have too; they've both been here. I knew Max and Wolfe were half brothers, and I knew their mother had been married several times, so it was at least possible. Nightshade, he might think of it, might have even seen her photograph here. It scared the hell out of me.”

  “When did you know Leo was Nightshade?”

  “When I went out looking for you. I did—used—tapped into—that thing between us. That connection. And it was really strong this time. I could almost see Leo, and I knew without a doubt that's where you were.”