A Touch of Minx

by Suzanne Enoch

  Generally he discovered her about to do something dangerous and had to threaten or argue her into including him. This time she’d actually returned home to recruit his assistance. Yes, life was good. He glanced sideways at her. Her green eyes were unfocused, looking in the direction of the sky and probably seeing the layout of the Picaults’ house, running through the robbery, gauging how much trouble she would have finding the armor, and whether it was even actually there.

  “Do you think this is a wild goose chase?” she asked abruptly.

  He considered her question for a moment. “If you had, say, six months instead of six days to decipher who your main suspects were, how would you go about it?”

  “Well,” she began, sliding down in the seat to prop her knees against the dashboard, “I would work on tracking the thief, even though for a job pulled ten years ago it probably wouldn’t make much difference who did it.”

  “Even so, walk me through it.”

  “It would have to be an A list guy with a crew, to get in and out carrying two crates—the exact two crates and nothing else—out from under the noses of Met security, Japanese exhibit officials, and the U.S. contingent.”

  “How many A list guys with a crew are we talking about?”

  “From ten years ago? Three.” She pointed. “Make a right here.”

  “You’re pretty certain.”

  “I was fifteen, just going out on big jobs solo.” She shrugged. “I’d been learning everything I could, from anybody I could.”

  “Which three could have pulled it off, then?”

  “Gabrielle de Souza, Mick McClane, and Martin.”

  Richard nearly overshot the turn. “Your father, Martin?”

  “Yep.”

  Okay. This was about Yoritomo’s armor, not about her colorful family history. “Who did the Met job?”

  She drew a breath. “My guess would be Mick. Gabrielle mostly worked Europe, and when Martin pulled me into the Met fiasco this past spring, he was going over the blueprints as closely as everybody else. He’d never worked the Met before. I’m sure of it.”

  “Very well, now we have Mick McClane. Where do we go from there?”

  “Not to Mick, because he’s in a German prison for the next thirty-seven years. But like I said before, this had to be a commissioned job. Somebody would have had to specifically put in an order for Yoritomo’s armor and swords. And both they and Mick would be really expensive.”

  “Someone with a very large interest in Japanese antiquities, a weak moral compass, and a very large pocketbook.”

  “Exactly. And I would still guess they were East Coast–based, or Mick would have done the job in London.”

  “Who are your top three candidates, then?” he pressed, turning into the elementary school’s parking lot. “From ten years ago, of course.”

  “Since I did those four jobs for Toombs, he still makes the list. If not for the moral compass thing, I’d add you, just because of the quality of your collection. And—”

  “Thank you, I think.”

  “You’re welcome. Park up there. That’s the closest entrance to Miss Barlow’s classroom.”

  He turned up the row she indicated. “Who else?”

  “The Picaults are still there. I’ve heard their names mentioned a couple of times, so they’re not exactly straight arrows.”

  “So there’s your top three.”

  “Well, if we exclude you, I’d bet on Leland Spicer. But ten years ago I don’t think he had the spare change to afford it. I’ve gone through a list of about ten other potential buyers, but I can verify they never saw the samurai exhibit.”

  He put the car in park. “Considering, then, that we’ve eliminated me, and Spicer, and Toombs, I’d say the Picaults have that armor.”

  Samantha smiled, reaching over to touch his cheek. “You’re sweet to say so.”

  Richard pulled her closer by her jacket collar and kissed her. “I’m betting that you know what you’re doing. I know you don’t want to go back to only security installations.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He opened his door, unwilling to break the mood by considering that tonight he intended to help her find a foothold in a career undoubtedly full of danger and mayhem, and only marginally legal, if that. Keeping her wrapped in security work, though, would probably kill her—figuratively if not literally—faster than an angry homeowner.

  “The parking lot’s empty,” she noted, “so no security guys. Probably not, anyway.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Mm hm. You get Clark ready, and I’ll shut off the alarms.”

  And to think, he reflected as he lifted the back gate of the Explorer, this was the easy part of the day.

  “Remember,” Samantha said, keeping her voice calm and even despite the rush of adrenaline beginning to pump through her muscles, “just because August and Yvette are out biking doesn’t mean the household staff is gone. Especially with a dinner party set for three and a half hours from now.”

  “Hence the mustache, I assume,” Aubrey commented, adjusting the bristles of the red handlebars and goatee she’d pasted on him.

  “Don’t touch; the spirit gum’s not set yet.”

  She stuck the last bobby pin in her own hair and then bent double to pull the long black wig on over her head. As she straightened to look in the mirror she felt like Cher, but more importantly she definitely didn’t look like Sam Jellicoe. Especially with the glasses on. Pulling the hair back, she tied it into a ponytail.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever worn coveralls before,” Rick noted, emerging from his dressing closet.

  “You look good,” she decided, stifling a grin. “I can see a future for you in the carpet-and-curtain-cleaning industry.”

  “As long as we don’t actually have to do any cleaning.”

  “And watch the accent. You’re a Florida native this afternoon.”

  “Right, y’all,” he tried.

  It wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad. As Stoney walked over to hand him his black curly wig, she studied the body language between the two of them. No, they weren’t friends, but they didn’t hate each other, either. That was something, she supposed.

  “Why can’t Aubrey have the Shirley Temple hair, and I’ll be the redhead?”

  “Because curly hair looks just dreadful on me,” Aubrey drawled.

  “May I point out that this isn’t a fashion show?” Stoney said, tugging the front of Rick’s wig forward another quarter inch. “You guys are just lucky I had three sets of coveralls and wigs handy. Sam didn’t give me much notice.”

  “And hats. Don’t forget those.” She looked down at the name tag embroidered on her chest. “A. Ramirez. I’m Alice, I think.”

  “P. Humphreys? I don’t suppose I could be Pierre.” Aubrey angled his hat a little to the left.

  “Paul,” she decided.

  “And what is the C in C. Daltrey?” Rick asked. “And please don’t say Chuck.”

  “No, I don’t think you could pull off a Chuck,” she agreed. “Charles, though. You could be a Charles if you had to, couldn’t you?”

  “A British Charles, yes. A Florida Charles, I’m not so certain.”

  “Try it again, Charles.”

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Hey, call me Charles, y’all.”

  “Is that how I sound?” Aubrey asked. “Because it’s not very suave, which is how I’ve been picturing myself all these years.”

  They were both being laid back, or pretending to be, but she could hear the tension in both of their voices. Aubrey’s especially. He’d done himself proud during the lunch with Toombs and then the house tour, though, so she wasn’t too worried. He’d carry his weight.

  “Be a little less suave right now, if you can, Aubrey. Your voice is pretty recognizable.”

  “Heck, little darlin’, I’ll hick it up if y’all want me to.”

  Stoney rubbed his hand across his eyes. “We’re doomed.”

  She walked over
and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad you came back yesterday, so you could help me with this. It would have been a lot harder to pull off without your gear and the van.”

  “Yeah, well, I wish I’d come back two days ago, so I could have talked you out of this.”

  Two days ago they’d thought the break-in at Toombs’s would have been the end of this. She pushed away the image of that creepy room again, and of the idea that she’d be sharing a rather intimate dinner with Wild Bill in just a couple of hours.

  She needed to focus now, and not just for her sake; Rick had done this kind of thing a couple of times, but not a straight-up fake out. Aubrey was a total newbie, and he would follow her lead. So for now it was loose so he wouldn’t get overstressed. In the van she’d sober them up and go over the details again.

  “Everybody ready?” she asked, settling the Wayne’s C & F Cleaners hat so it rode low over her eyes. The glasses obstructed her peripheral vision a little, but since this wasn’t a stealth job, it didn’t matter. The disguise was more important today—for all of them.

  Rick nodded, while Aubrey gave her an overly enthusiastic thumbs up. Stoney rolled his eyes, but followed them out to where he’d parked the Wayne’s van on the front drive. Since there was no Wayne’s C & F Cleaners in actuality, she could only hope that none of his contacts had used the same ruse to break any major laws. He’d said they were clean, from an old movie prop place, but that didn’t mean somebody else hadn’t had the same idea first.

  While Aubrey climbed into the back of the van, Rick caught her elbow. “You’re certain about this?” he murmured. “We can still call Frank.”

  “For what? Castillo can’t do anything. They’ve had the armor long enough now that it’s legal. Going in and getting it is technically against the law. So are you certain you want to be involved with this? You have a lot to lose if it goes south.”

  “I have a lot more to lose if I don’t go in.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m crazy, but I wouldn’t think any less of you if you decided you didn’t want to break the law with me today.”

  He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “This might be breaking the law, but it’s for a good cause. And in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.”

  Mm. Kisses before a B and E were so…intoxicating. Samantha gazed at him for a moment in his unglamourous costume and dopey hair, then shook herself. Focus, dammit. “You’re driving, curly,” she said, tossing him the key as she climbed into the passenger side.

  As they headed out, she picked up the clipboard of work orders she and Stoney had put together. A couple of adjustments to the Picault job, and she would have figured it was legitimate herself, if she hadn’t had an exceptionally paranoid and suspicious nature.

  She glanced back at Aubrey to see him fiddling with his goatee. Total weirdness. In her entire cat burglary career she’d worked with a crew maybe half a dozen times, and here she was, leading two amateurs right through the front door, letting everyone in the house see them, and coming out with stolen goods. Hopefully.

  “Okay, guys. Let’s go over this one more time,” she said, mentally crossing her fingers, her toes, her eyes, anything that could be crossed. For somebody who’d never had much use for luck, she was definitely counting on it today.

  Chapter 25

  Sunday, 5:33 p.m.

  “How did you do that?” Richard asked, a half-dozen hoses over his shoulder as he followed Aubrey and Samantha into the Picaults’ dining room. “You got us in here faster than you can pick a lock.”

  “I can pick a lock much faster than that,” Samantha returned in a low voice, still using the light Cuban accent she’d adopted for the afternoon. She sounded remarkably like Reinaldo, but then that was probably where she’d picked it up. “I just did the usual. Had Stoney call here fifteen minutes ago and tell them we were on the way, running ahead of schedule, then threatened to just go on to the next job if they didn’t let us in. We are working on a damn Sunday to catch up on appointments, after all.”

  “The parlor’s just across the hallway,” the frazzled housekeeper said, gesturing. “And you promised to be out of here by seven. We need to set the room for a dinner party.”

  “No problem, ma’am,” Aubrey returned in a more restrained drawl than he generally used. “We’ll set out the driers while we do the parlor.”

  “Thank you. Just hurry.”

  “Poor thing,” Samantha murmured, following the woman to the door and shutting it behind her. “This is not going to be a good day for her.”

  Richard glanced at Samantha as she pulled the small vacuum cleaner out of the larger canister and plugged it in. The housekeeper would probably lose her employment, and Samantha knew that just as well as he did. She might not like killing bugs, but some of the things she was comfortable with made him uneasy.

  “Ready?” she mouthed, looking from Aubrey to him.

  He nodded, and she turned on the vacuum. For something so small it was surprisingly loud, but he supposed that was the point. She’d decided the armor was either in the ground floor conservatory, or in the basement where she figured they kept the rest of their larger pieces, though how she’d eliminated the rest of the house he had no idea. A thief thing, most likely. Even if she had a good idea where the armor was, however, getting to it was another issue.

  “Okay,” she said, motioning them closer. “You guys keep up the conversation in here. Football, or something. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Even if you find it, how are you going to get sixty pounds of armor and two swords back in here?” Richard asked.

  “Piece by piece.” With a swift grin she returned to the door, cracked it open, then slipped through and shut it again.

  “Amazing,” Aubrey said, pushing the vacuum around. According to Samantha, clean vacuum marks did wonders for making people believe you’d done what you said you were going to.

  Bloody fearless, she was. And he was inside somebody else’s dining room, cleaning. He had people do that for him at his own house, and yet there he was, dusting curtains. “Who’s playing tonight?”

  “Uh, Oakland and somebody. The Bills, maybe.”

  “So you don’t follow the sport, either.”

  “I’ve tried.” Pendleton grinned. “You’d think a fellow like me would enjoy watching sweaty men crash into each other and slap each other’s bottoms.”

  “Not necessarily,” Richard muttered, most of his attention attuned to any sounds beyond that door—as if he could hear anything over that bloody vacuum cleaner.

  “No?”

  “I happen to think that you’re not precisely what you imply you are.”

  The door cracked open. “There’s no way the Raiders can rely on their running game,” Pendleton contributed, shifting a chair for effect.

  The housekeeper stuck her head in. “Where’s the other one? Alice?”

  “At the truck,” Richard answered in the drawl he’d been practicing.

  The door shut again. “Speaking of not being what we say we are, Charles, you should unlatch the big canister,” Aubrey said.

  “Right.” He mentally shook himself. Just because he was nervous about the woman who’d vanished somewhere into a strange house probably owned by thieves didn’t mean he needed to start a discussion about pretenses and motivations. Aubrey was sticking his neck out today, too, and for less reason than he or Samantha had. “Thanks, Paul.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He knew the drill; whatever else might be going on, they needed to keep up the pretense that they’d started out with. And so he had to stay right there. Dammit, he wanted to be where Samantha was, to watch her back if nothing else.

  The door opened again. “How did Madden even coach without a monitor to scribble on?” he ventured.

  “Good one, curly,” Samantha said, slipping back into the dining room and once again shutting the door.

  “Did you find it?”

  Her smile could li
ght up all of darkness. “Oh, yeah,” she said softly. “But I could use your help.”

  Why did it feel like he lived to hear her say things like that? “Where to?”

  “Paul, can you handle it in here for a minute? Charles’s schedule tomorrow is messed up, and dispatch wants to clear it up with him.”

  “I’m good, Alice. This room is surprisingly not clean.”

  “All the better for us.”

  Richard fell in behind her as she ducked back out of the room and into the hallway. Putting a hand to her lips, she gestured toward the stairs, where she could hear a female conversation about an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. They continued toward the rear of the house, then through a door and down a narrow, shabbier staircase. The old servants’ section of the house, no doubt.

  At the bottom of the stairs she stopped him again and listened for a minute with her ear against a plain white door. Then she turned the latch and pushed it open. “Ta da,” she said softly.

  Seven full pieces of samurai armor stood at attention in front of him, arranged on metal frames in various battle stances. They were all magnificent, even to his jaded and experienced eyes.

  “This was just sitting down here?”

  “Well, if you call something that’s double padlocked and secured in an alarmed, temperature-controlled room just sitting, then yes.”

  And she’d gotten through all that in about five minutes. “How did you know it was down here? You couldn’t have spent much time searching.”

  “Come on. How many flimsy old doors at the bottom of plaster-peeling staircases are double padlocked and alarmed?”

  She was leaving something out, but they didn’t have time to debate her considerable skills at the moment. He took only a brief look around before he walked up to the armor in the center. It looked just like the photos Samantha had gotten from Viscanti.

  Along the back wall a small but period-appropriate collection of swords, shoes, knives, bridles, and saddles were grouped behind each of the samurai. “Wow,” he said quietly.