Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  “Callahan.” Roxanne opened the door with a baffled laugh. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Asking a beautiful woman out to dinner.” He offered the roses, then with a sweeping bow, produced a bouquet of paper flowers that bloomed from the secret pool beneath his shirt cuff.

  “Oh.” It threw her off—the charming smile, the formal greeting, the armful of fragrant rosebuds and the silly trick. The change in routine automatically triggered suspicion. “What are you up to?”

  “I told you. I’m asking you out on a date.”

  “You—” The laugh snorted out unladylike through her nose. “Right. In twenty years you’ve never asked me out on a date. What do you want?”

  It wasn’t easy to court a woman who was glaring at you out of red-rimmed and narrowed eyes. “To take you to dinner,” he said between his teeth. “Maybe for a drive afterward—somewhere we can park on the side of the road and neck.”

  “There a gas leak in your house, or what?”

  “Goddammit, Rox, will you come out with me?”

  “I can’t really. I have plans.” She did lower her head to draw in the scent of roses. Before she could fully appreciate them, she snapped her head back again. “You didn’t bring these to me because I cried, did you?”

  Jesus, she was a tough nut. “You’d think I never brought you flowers before.”

  “No, no, you did.” She held back a smile, though she was beginning to enjoy the picture emerging. “Twice. Once when you were two hours late for dinner—a dinner I’d gone to the trouble to cook.”

  “And you threw them at me.”

  “Of course. And the second time . . . Oh yes, that was when you’d broken the little porcelain box Lily had given me for Christmas. So, Callahan, what have you done this time?”

  “Nothing, unless it’s trying to be nice to an exasperating woman.”

  “Well, I’m not throwing them at you, am I?” She smiled then, and took his hand. “Come on in. We’re having dinner here.”

  “Rox, I want to be alone with you, not in a houseful of people.”

  “The houseful of people is out for the evening, and God help you, Callahan, I’m cooking.”

  “Oh.” The depth of his love was proven then and there as he summoned up a smile. “Terrific.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Let’s go into the parlor, I have something for you.”

  He nearly asked if it was a dose of bicarb, but restrained himself. “If you don’t want to go to the hassle of cooking, babe, we could send out.” He followed her into the parlor, saw the boy sitting on the edge of the couch. “Hey, slick.”

  “Hi.” Nate studied him for a long moment with a kind of absorbed intensity that made Luke want to squirm. “How come you don’t live here if you’re my daddy?”

  “I—” Rocked straight to the soul, Luke could only stare.

  “Mama said you had to go away for a long time ’cause a bad guy was after you. Did you shoot him dead?”

  “No.” He had to swallow, but couldn’t. Both his son and the woman he loved waited patiently. “I thought I might trick him instead. I don’t think I’d like shooting anybody.” Desperately out of his element, he looked at Roxanne. “Rox.” Though his eyes pleaded for help, she shook her head.

  “Sometimes stepping out cold’s the only way,” she murmured. “No rehearsal, Callahan. No script, no props.”

  “Okay.” On watery legs he walked to the couch and crouched down in front of his son. For a moment he was tossed back to his debut performance in a stuffy carnival tent. Flop sweat pooled at the base of his spine. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, or for your mother, Nate.”

  Nate’s gaze faltered. His stomach had felt funny ever since his mother had sat him down and told him he had a daddy. He didn’t know if it was good funny—the way it felt after Mouse had swung him in circles, or bad, like when he’d eaten too much candy on Halloween.

  “Maybe you couldn’t help it,” Nate murmured, pulling at the threads in the hole worn into the knee of his jeans.

  “Whether I could or not, I’m still sorry. I don’t guess you need me much, you’re pretty grown up and all. We—ah—get along okay, don’t we?”

  “Sure.” Nate poked out his bottom lip. “I guess.”

  And he’d thought Roxanne was a tough nut, Luke mused. “We could be friends if that’s okay with you. You don’t have to think of me as your father.”

  Tears swam in Nate’s eyes when he looked up again. His lips quivered and ripped right through Luke’s heart. “Don’t you want me to?”

  “Yeah.” His throat ached. His heart healed. “Yeah, I do. A lot. I mean, hey, you’re short and ugly now, but I think you’ve got potential.”

  “What’s potential?”

  “Possibilities, Nathaniel.” Gently, Luke cupped his son’s face in his hands. “Lots and lots of possibilities.”

  “Potential,” Nate repeated, and in an echo of his mother’s childhood, savored the word. His smile spread sweetly. “Bobby’s father built him a tree house. A big one.”

  “Oh-oh.” Amazed and delighted, Luke glanced back to where Roxanne still stood, holding her flowers. “The kid catches on fast.”

  “It’s that sly Irish blood. A Nouvelle is much too proud to wheedle.”

  “Wheedle, hell, it’s a smart boy who knows when to press his advantage. Right, Nate?”

  “Right.” He shrieked with pleasure when Luke swung him up. Deciding to go for the gold, he leaned close to Luke’s ear and whispered, “Can you tell Mama I should have a dog? A really big dog?”

  Luke tilted a finger under Nate’s chin so that they grinned identical grins. “I’ll work on it. How about a hug?”

  “Okay.” Nate squeezed his arms hard around Luke’s neck. His stomach still felt funny, and the sensation had spread to his chest. But he thought it was a good feeling after all. On a sigh, he settled his head on his father’s shoulder, and accepted.

  32

  “I’m trying to concentrate.” Roxanne waved a hand over her shoulder to brush Luke back. He was breathing down her neck.

  “I’m trying to ask you out on a date.”

  “You’re certainly hung up on dates these days.” She hunched forward, adjusting the light on her father’s desk. Spread before her were the blueprints for the art gallery. They had yet to agree on a point of entry. “From the top down, Callahan. It just makes sense. The exhibit’s on the third floor, why come in on ground level and climb up?”

  “Because that way we can walk up stairs instead of dangling fifteen feet from a rope.”

  She slanted a look over her shoulder. “You’re getting old.”

  “I beg your pardon. It so happens I’m a parent now. I have to take certain precautions.”

  “The roof, Daddy Warbucks.”

  He knew it was the cleanest way, but enjoyed the debate. “We’d have to get Jake up there, too. He doesn’t like heights.”

  “So, you’ll blindfold him.” She tapped a pencil against the drawing. “Here, east window, third floor. I’m already in, twiddling my thumbs in that storeroom until deadline. I go into the surveillance room at exactly eleven seventeen, which gives me one minute, thirty seconds, and one minute, thirty seconds only, to doctor camera six before the alarm kicks in.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you handling the inside work.”

  “Don’t be such a man, Luke. You know damn well I’m better with electronics. Then I switch the surveillance tapes.” Pulling her hair back in one hand, she grinned. “I wish I could see the guard’s face when he gets a look at Mouse’s video work.”

  “Only amateurs think they have to be in on the punch line, babe.”

  “Get bent, Callahan,” she said mildly. “To continue, as long as Jake and Mouse have taken care of business, I can deal with the window from inside. In you come, my hero.” She fluttered her lashes.

  “And we have six and a half minutes to open the display, take the proper loot and replace it with our fakes.”

  “T
hen, presto! We’re out, leaving not a trace.” She ran her tongue over her top lip. “You and I will go back to our hotel room, and fuck like minks.”

  “God, I love it when you’re crude.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “We still need to refine the timing.”

  “We have a few weeks.” She stretched her arms out, then up, to link them around his neck. “And just think of all those lovely, lovely glitters. All ours, Callahan.”

  He winced, let a quiet breath out between his teeth and straightened. “That’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Rox.” He couldn’t predict how she’d react, and took the coward’s way by stalling. “Want a brandy?”

  “Sure.” She stretched again. It was nearly one in the morning. The house was quiet, the hall beyond the office dark with shadows. She thought briefly about seducing Luke on the cushy leather couch, and smiled slowly when he handed her a snifter.

  “Sure you want to talk?”

  He knew that look, that tone, and nearly escaped into it to avoid the issue. “No, but I think we have to. About the take from the auction.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “We’re not going to keep it.”

  She choked on the brandy. Luke thumped her on the back and hoped for the best. “Christ, don’t make bad jokes while I’m drinking.”

  “It’s not a joke, Rox. We’re not going to keep it.”

  She, too, knew that look, that tone. It meant Luke had made up his mind about something and was ready to battle. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s the point in taking it if we’re not going to keep it?”

  “I explained that the heist was a diversion for the Wyatt job.”

  “Of course, and a very profitable one, despite an outrageous overhead.”

  “Yes, but not monetarily. Not for us.”

  She drank more brandy, but it did little to relieve the sudden chill in her midsection. “Just what are we going to do with over two million in jewels, Callahan, jewels that are costing us approximately eighty thousand to heist?”

  “We’re going to plant them. They’re very important props for a sting I’ve been dreaming about for nearly a year.”

  “A sting.” Roxanne rose so that she could walk off her agitation and think. “Sam. You’re going to plant them on Sam. This is your justice, isn’t it?” Her eyes were hot when she turned back to him. “This is what you’d planned all along.”

  “I’ve worked on every angle of this for months. Every piece hinges on the whole of it.”

  “You’ve worked on?” A flood of betrayal threatened to swamp her. She fought it back, unsure if she could survive that kind of loss again. “That’s why you came back. To hit on Sam.”

  “You’re why I came back.” He didn’t like the chill in her voice, or the vulnerability he sensed beneath it. And he hated, really hated, explaining himself again. “I told you why I left, Rox, and I can’t take those years back. But I’m not losing you again, and I’m not taking any chances with my family.” He hesitated. She was likely to slice him into thin, jagged ribbons, but he had to tell her everything. “That’s why I went to see Wyatt before I came to New Orleans.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Baffled, she dragged a hand through her hair. “You went to see him, and you don’t consider that taking chances?”

  “I made a deal with him. I’d figured on bribing him with money. A million dollars for a few months’ time.”

  “A million—”

  “But he didn’t go for it,” Luke interrupted. “Or he didn’t go for that alone. So we made a deal.” Picking up his snifter, he swirled brandy, sniffed, sipped. He enjoyed this part, the way a man enjoyed contemplating a long, stimulating evening with a beautiful woman. “He agreed to give me time, until right before the election, if I came up with compromising photographs of Curtis Gunner. They’d have to be faked, of course, seeing as Gunner’s straight as an arrow. Wyatt wants papers, too, implicating Gunner in unethical business deals, and illicit relationships. All I have to do is create them, and plant them right before the voters head off to pull the lever of their choice.”

  Letting out a long breath, Roxanne lowered to the arm of the sofa. She needed the brandy now, she realized, and tilted back the snifter for a long sip. “That’s what it cost you to come back?”

  “If I didn’t agree, I can’t be sure what he might do to you, to Max, Lily, everyone I care about.” Luke’s eyes locked on hers. “And now there’s Nathaniel. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep him safe. Nothing.”

  Icy fear rippled down her spine. “He wouldn’t hurt Nate. He . . . Of course he would.” Roxanne pressed her fingers to her eyes, struggling to justify her conscience with necessity. “I know we have to do whatever needs to be done, but we’ve never hurt innocent people before. I can’t rationalize starting now. We’ll find another way.” She dropped her hands into her lap. His face was composed again, and cold. “I know we can find another way.”

  Luke was certain he’d never loved her more than he did at this moment. She was a woman who would protect what was hers, always, and never would she compromise her own code of ethics.

  “Jake’s already forging documents that I’ll plant, along with the take, in Wyatt’s safe. They won’t be quite what he’s expecting,” he added before she could protest. “The initial photos Jake’s come up with are pretty good, just need a little refining. But all in all, Wyatt looks great. There’s one in particular of him in this black leather G-string and boots that I’m real fond of.”

  “Sam? You’re doing the photographs using Sam?” Her lips started to curve, but she stopped the smile, stemmed the admiration. Damn Luke, she thought, she wasn’t through yet. “You’re double-crossing him, using his own plot to ruin him politically.”

  “Hey, I’ve got nothing against Gunner, and plenty against Wyatt. It seemed like solid gold justice to me. In addition to the photos and the documents—some of which will implicate Wyatt in a number of robberies you’ll be very familiar with—I’ve been filtering money into two accounts in Switzerland. Accounts in his name.”

  “Very clever,” she murmured. “You worked it all out. But you didn’t bother to fill me in.”

  “No, I didn’t. I wanted to make sure you were in for the long run, Roxanne. I figured the initial plan would challenge you, intrigue you. And I’d hoped by the time I told you all of it, you’d trust me. You want to be pissed because I held back on you, you’re entitled. Just as long as you’re in for that long haul.”

  She considered and realized that first hot spurt of anger had eased. Good God, she thought, she hoped she wasn’t mellowing. The problem was, she could see it from Luke’s side as well as from her own. Not only could she see it, but the simple beauty of the sting enchanted her. She couldn’t have planned it better herself.

  “From tonight, Callahan, we’re in this fifty-fifty, or there’s no deal.”

  “Aren’t you going to swear at me, call me at least one name?”

  “I’m saving it.” She lifted her glass in toast. “To Nouvelle and Callahan.”

  He tapped his glass to hers and their eyes remained on each other’s as they sipped. “Weren’t you about to seduce me before I interrupted it?”

  “As a matter of fact . . .” She set her brandy aside. “I was.”

  Luke stood beside Max’s chair, looking out of the French doors, wondering what the man saw through the glass. Was it the buildings of the Quarter, the flower-strewn balcony across Chartres, the pieces of gray sky that promised rain? Or was it something else, some long-ago memory of place and time?

  Since his relapse, Max’s mind had sunk deeper into whatever world it inhabited. He rarely spoke at all now, though he sometimes wept silently. His body was sinking as well, fading away pound by precious pound.

  The doctors spoke of plaques and tangles, those primary structural changes found in the brains of Alzheimer patients. Abnormal forms of proteins—tau proteins, B-amy-loid, substance P. They meant nothing to Luke, and he’d thought pl
aques and tangles had sounded like some sort of complex magic trick.

  He knew Roxanne had been in to say good-bye and was now down the hall with Nate, overseeing his packing for their week in D.C. Now that he had this moment alone with Max, he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “I wish you were coming with us.” Luke continued to look out the glass. It was so difficult to look at Max, at that blank expression, at the clawed fingers that worked and worked and worked as if manipulating coins. “I’d feel a lot better if I could have gone over the whole plan with you. I think you’d like the act. Drama, emotion, flair. It has it all. I’ve gone over every detail.” Hearing the echo of his mentor’s voice in his head, Luke allowed himself a smile. “I know, I know, calculate the odds, then prepare for surprises. I’m going to pay that bastard back for the five years he took from me, Max, from all of us. And I’m going to get you the stone. I’m going to put it right into your hands. If there’s any magic in it, you’ll find it.”

  Luke didn’t expect a response, but made himself crouch down.