Confidence Tricks

by Tamara Morgan

  The next room was some sort of guest bedroom, evident by the fact that there was a splash of color in there, though mostly in shades of muted gray and slate blue. No artwork, though, unless you counted the framed black-and-white photo. She peered closer and made out a signature with a pair of giant sloping As. The picture looked expensive.

  The next room was a sleek, modern-looking office furnished with a huge frosted-glass desk that probably showcased fingerprints like crazy. On the other side of the hall stood Cindy’s bedroom, which didn’t look at all like a human female lived there. Where were the discarded clothes and dirty panties balled up in a corner? Where were the spots of spilled nail polish on the carpet? How did a person move through life without making any marks?

  There wasn’t enough time to explore Cindy’s house further, so Poppy hightailed it back to the living room. Cindy stood next to the couch, a martini glass in each hand, one of them emptied almost to the bottom.

  “I guess I was thirstier than I thought,” she said, forcing a laugh and thrusting the full glass toward Poppy. “This is okay, isn’t it?”

  Poppy sipped at the drink—lime and pine trees and antiseptic, the upper-class version of gin and juice—and forced a smile. “Yes. Delicious.”

  “Oh no. I meant that I had the doorman buzz you up. You probably just wanted to drop off the wallet and go home. I sometimes forget that people—”

  “Are you kidding?” Poppy asked, taking a deep drink and smiling warmly at Cindy, trying not to notice how warmly the woman smiled back. Cindy was nice, if slightly awkward. That complicated things. “You’re doing me a favor. This is exactly what I needed. I don’t know very many people in town, and it’s nice to get away from all the unpacked boxes at home.”

  “I should give you the number to my organizer.” Cindy shot to her feet, what remained of her drink sloshing all over the floor in the process. Jasmine chose that moment to skitter around the corner of the couch, sliding in the turn with the kind of expertise it took NASCAR racers decades to perfect.

  “No, Jasmine! Bad precious!” Cindy reached for the dog, but Jasmine was too fast, angling her body to evade capture while she lapped hungrily at the mess. Cindy slipped and landed on her butt, her legs skewed in what had to be the least ladylike position she’d ever adopted in her life.

  Poppy thought about helping Cindy up, but there was such a look of misery on the woman’s face that the only thing to do was make a fake lunge for the dog and crash to the ground next to her, which she did, a telltale rip on the back of her skirt adding a splash of authenticity.

  Jasmine glanced calmly at them both and continued lapping.

  “I’m so sorry—I’m such a mess when it comes to things like this.” Cindy sniffled, struggling to right herself. Poppy put a hand on Cindy’s shoulder, refusing to let her up. The poor woman wasn’t cold or standoffish like Asprey had suggested. She was lonely.

  “You think this is bad?” Poppy giggled. “You should see what lengths Gunner will go to over a little pâté.”

  Cindy sniffled. “Really?”

  “Really,” Poppy said firmly.

  Cindy’s smile was small, tentative—but real. Poppy’s stomach twinged. Guilt. She felt it every con, even with Todd. There were a few times over dinner when she’d caught Todd staring at her—not with lust but with sadness. She didn’t blame him. No matter who you were, it would be depressing to know that you were out with a gorgeous, empty woman who only wanted you for your money.

  Cindy grabbed Poppy’s hand and gave it a squeeze, tentative but warm. “I hope you don’t think I’m a total idiot—I’m just not used to people, to women, coming over to hang out. You know, here. At my house.”

  Jasmine barked loudly, the sharp raps echoing through the apartment so that the sound magnified about ten times. No wonder Mrs. Partridge protested the noise.

  “Oh dear. How much of that did she drink?”

  Poppy looked around, her own glass now empty. “I think she polished off mine too.”

  Cindy let out a giggle before clapping a hand over her mouth, almost as if trying to press the sound back in. “Poor Jasmine has a weakness for gin.”

  Poppy got to her feet as elegantly as she could in her tight skirt, one hand holding the rip together, the other helping Cindy up. “Is Mrs. Partridge going to come yell at us?” she asked conspiratorially.

  Cindy giggled again. “Probably.”

  “Then we should go make more gimlets. You know, in case we need the liquid courage.”

  “I like that idea.”

  Their bonds of friendship now forged in the kind of steel crafted from high-priced liquor, Poppy followed Cindy to the kitchen, a huge, oversized space that was obviously where she the bulk of her living.

  She didn’t get much beyond taking in the warm tones and fresh-baked bread on the counter before she stopped, her head spinning. There, on the far side of the attached dining area, hung the world-famous painting Asprey had assured her was a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

  White canvas. Big painting. Splotches—most of them red and blobby. Even though she knew it was technically a forgery, it was the closest she had ever been to real art, the first time she’d come face-to-face with the kind of object people would risk their lives for.

  And all she could think was, ten million dollars for that?

  “How did it go?” Asprey let go of Gunner’s leash, unable to suppress a smile as he bounded across the hangar to whine and paw until Poppy lifted him up. For the entire time they’d been waiting, the dog had let out a sigh and moan every five minutes, awaiting his mistress’s return.

  “Me too, little buddy,” he’d said more than once, throwing a scrap of leftover pizza to the dog. Food was a poor substitute, and Gunner knew it. “It’s just not the same without her, is it?”

  Poppy had changed out of her Lucy Higgenbottom clothes and into her cowboy boots, this time paired with striped tights and an oversized off-the-shoulder tunic. Even though Asprey strove to be detached and uninterested, he loved that tunic, the way the slope of her shoulder was unbroken by anything but the play of light and the promise of silk against his tongue.

  She plopped to the chair opposite him, the dog in her lap, completely oblivious to the effect she had on him.

  “The painting is there,” she announced coolly, doing her best to avoid meeting Asprey’s eyes. That was her thing now. Avoidance. “But it’s inaccessible.”

  “What do you mean inaccessible?” Graff asked. He hovered behind Asprey’s chair. He’d been hovering there all day, paranoid and full of angst and driving him crazy.

  “I mean inaccessible. Stuck. Impossible to get at.”

  “What?” Graff repeated.

  Asprey twisted in his seat. “Sit, Graff, and calm down. Yelling at her isn’t going to help.”

  “He can yell,” Poppy said. “It’s better than taking nothing seriously.”

  Asprey slapped on the most dazzling smile he had in his arsenal and leaned back in his chair, nonchalant and uncaring as he had never been before, even though his heart felt like lead. After everything they’d been through, he was still a big, fat nothing in her eyes.

  “Life is so much easier when you let someone else carry the weight of the world,” he said. “You both should try it sometime.”

  As predicted, the blasé statement made Graff let out a strangled semi-roar. Poppy just narrowed her eyes and pulled out a notebook and pencil. With a deft and sure hand, she mapped out the floor plan of the apartment, pointing out key areas of interest.

  “It’s a pretty basic layout, longer than it is wide. Living space is near the entry, and most of the rooms are down a hallway to the right. To the left is the kitchen, which is where you’ll find the painting.”

  Asprey sat up. “Wait a minute—the kitchen?”

  “That’s what she said.” Graff tapped on the drawing. “There aren’t any windows in that room?”

  Poppy shook her head. “Just a tiny one above her dining area. Apparently the entir
e room was remodeled around the painting, so the only way it’s getting out of there is if you bring a chainsaw—which Mrs. Partridge will be sure and object to, I can tell you that.”

  “Mrs. Partridge? Chainsaws?” Graff scooted closer to Poppy. Asprey might as well have been out taking the dog for a walk for all anyone cared whether or not he helped.

  “The ridiculously nosy neighbor. And what you’ll need to get the painting out the door. It won’t fit otherwise.”

  “Is the painting really in the kitchen?” Asprey persisted. “Are you sure it was the one we want?”

  She stopped sketching and stabbed her pencil his direction. “Big painting. Lots of globs. I may not have a fancy art degree, but I’m pretty sure I got the right one.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone putting millions of dollars’ worth of artwork in a kitchen before,” Asprey persisted. “Stuff like that is usually under temperature and humidity controls—not in the middle of a house’s warmest, most often used room. Even da Vinci’s Last Supper started to flake after less than twenty years because it was in such a high-traffic place. You can’t put oil-based paintings in a place like a kitchen. It’s ridiculous…”

  He let the words trail off. Poppy was looking at him with a mixture of irritation and curiosity.

  “Well, that’s where it is. And there’s no way to get it out the doorway—believe me. I checked while Cindy was in the bathroom.”

  “Oh, yeah? You had a tape measure handy?”

  “I have arms, Asprey.” She held them out. “The height of the painting is about two feet more than my arm span. The doorway is about six inches less. You do the math.”

  Graff let out a chuckle designed, Asprey knew, to set up his back. Glad someone’s enjoying this.

  “Also, I asked,” she added. She cocked her head and opened her eyes wide. “Gee, Cindy, your Pollock is huge. How did you get it in here? What will you do if you move?”

  “Okay,” Asprey capitulated. “I bow to your superior knowledge.”

  “Thank you. I accept.”

  Graff grabbed the notepad and studied it for a moment. “Well, the good news is that we don’t have to get the painting out whole. We can just cut it out and roll it up. What I’m worried about is access. How close are the neighbor’s doors?”

  Poppy frowned. “That’s the other thing. She’s really close to the old woman next door—it sounds kind of like she takes care of her, sharing casseroles and Saturday nights and stuff. And the neighbor hears everything that goes on in the apartment. Especially the dog.”

  “And?” Asprey prompted. Something else was bothering her.

  “Well…Cindy’s a really nice woman,” she admitted. “I don’t think she has very many friends, Asprey, and she seemed kind of sad.”

  “I’m not surprised. In all her carefully scheduled plans, there didn’t seem like a whole lot of girls’ nights out or hot dates listed.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You of all people should know that some women are natural loners,” he said gently.

  “I don’t like it,” she repeated. She turned her attention to Graff. “I know I’m not supposed to know about the insurance stuff, but Asprey told me about the forgeries. I know the painting is fake.”

  To any other person in the world, it would have looked as though Graff merely got up to stretch and consider his options. Asprey wasn’t fooled. The spring in his brother’s step was pure tension.

  Poppy shot Asprey a brief but apologetic look. “I’m sorry to let it out like that, Asprey, but she loves that painting. The kitchen is the only personalized space in that entire apartment. She bakes in there. Lives in there, really. Taking the painting from her—even if it’s not real—is going to break her heart. There’s got to be another way.”

  “Well, since you apparently know everything, you also know that she’ll get her ten million dollars back,” Graff interrupted, growling. “She’ll be fine.”

  She whirled to face him, and Asprey was glad to see that her irritation landed right smack dab on his brother’s shoulders. “Did it ever occur to either of you that instead of money, the people you steal from would rather have their grandma’s cameo back? That painting was a gift from her husband. Who died, Graff. Ten million dollars doesn’t bring people back from the grave.”

  “We would if we could, Poppy,” Asprey said gently. “But the real items are long gone. Winston sold them off years ago.”

  “Asprey,” Graff warned, his meaning clear. This was the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing he’d held back from telling her. Maybe that had been a mistake—maybe it would have been better to lay it all out on the line from the very first day. Probably not. The truth didn’t make any difference if Poppy refused to see him as anything more than the playboy sidekick to Graff’s carefully laid plans.

  Besides—no matter what else Graff and Poppy might think, he was dedicated to this job. He did care about the outcome, and not just because Winston had left a message that morning notifying him that Ruby had been repossessed.

  “He sold them off?” Poppy echoed. “What do you mean?”

  Asprey looked at his brother and shrugged. Too late now. “She deserves to know the whole story, Graff. She’s risking a lot for us. She might as well know why.”

  “Fine. I obviously have no authority here.” Graff agreeing—it was turning out to be quite a strange day. He turned to Poppy. “About five years ago, Winston must have hit a rough financial patch, because he launched a huge forgery scam—the kind most people couldn’t imagine. Almost half of the pieces that went through Charles Appraisals and Insurance during that time were sent out to a company I’ve never heard of and can’t seem to find any information on. A front.”

  “Nearest we can tell, they were the ones who forged the items for Winston,” Asprey added. They still didn’t have a ton of information, but what they did know wasn’t good. “Winston passed the forgeries on to the clients and had the fake appraisal company sell the real things—presumably on the black market—so he could pocket the money himself. And until Graff stumbled on some of the records, no one was any the wiser.”

  Poppy looked back and forth between them, disbelief momentarily taking the place of her other, less Asprey-friendly emotions. “That’s huge.”

  Graff tilted his head in agreement. “Which is why we would be very grateful if you helped us with the VanHuett job without getting emotionally attached.”

  Poppy turned unnaturally still. “I don’t get emotionally attached.”

  As there was no mistaking her meaning, Asprey pushed back from the table and turned, walking slowly and casually toward the stairs to the hangar apartment.

  Let Poppy and Graff debate the merits of crime and the drawbacks of human emotion. Let them make lists of all the reasons why a guy like Asprey—who did get emotionally attached—wasn’t suited for that particular line of work, why he wasn’t suited for any line of work except self-indulgence and profligacy. He didn’t need to sit there and hear that conversation again.

  Once had been more than enough.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Poppy dangled her shoe from her toe, trying her best to look playful and interested in Todd’s running dialogue on a racecar that had recently lost him quite a bit of money. Apparently, he blamed a bookie for misunderstanding his bet, his hands flying as he explained the delicacy of long odds.

  “Are we going anywhere today, doll? Like…lunch?” She scanned the kitchen for signs of lunch being made, ordered or even thought of. Her stomach growled at the lack of anything edible in sight. She’d rushed from the gym, where she’d spent the morning teaching two yoga classes and one self-defense aerobics class, for this supposed date. If Todd didn’t stop talking about the benefits of deep braking and provide her with a meal, she was not going to be responsible for blowing this entire operation with one swift kick to the kneecap.

  Todd shook his head. “I ate at the club.”

  She paused, waiting for the rest of the state
ment, but nothing came. The man’s interest was definitely on its way out—he wasn’t even willing to feed her anymore. “What was your mother like, I wonder?”

  “My mother?” Todd’s neck did a full swivel her direction. “What do you mean?”

  Poppy swallowed a sigh. “Nothing. I just find parental history interesting, that’s all. How it is a person becomes the way they are… I bet your mom was really pretty, wasn’t she?”

  Todd must have partially gotten the hint because he stood, grabbed a sparkling water from his refrigerator and offered it to her. Better than nothing. “She was beautiful.”

  He let the statement sit there, and Poppy thought it would be an easy jump to finish the rest of the description. Beautiful, expensive and most likely not around much.

  She knew guys like Todd—had grown up with guys like Todd. They were the ones who lived with single mothers and their endless string of boyfriends, who felt the only way they could compete for her attention was with either money or meanness. Some boys became overachievers and opted for both.

  Todd was one of them.

  “Speaking of families,” he said, inserting a casual note into his voice. “I got a call from Drago. The game’s been moved to tonight.”

  Aha. That was the real reason they weren’t going out. He wanted to discuss the poker game. The plan was to end things this evening. They’d increased the buy-in so that Todd would arrive with at least a hundred grand in tow. As before, they’d lull him into a belief he was doing well, only to start hitting hard as the night wore on. As soon as they had their take, Poppy planned on starting an argument with him to end the game.

  By the time he left, Todd Kennick would be broke and alone. Just like Grandma Jean.

  “Ohh, that’s good.” She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his midsection. It was hard not to make the comparison between that embrace and the ones she’d lately shared with Asprey. It wasn’t just their physiques that were different—it was the way two bodies molded together.

  Natalie, with her mile-high breasts and tight clothes, would have felt awkward pushed up against anyone, let alone a man who never appeared to be at ease in his own skin. But Poppy, naked Poppy, stripped-down Poppy—she seemed to melt into Asprey’s arms without even trying.