“I’m all the way at ten-to-one?” Hijack says, frowning. He sounds as insulted about his standing as Tara did yesterday. For hardcore thieves, we sure are a sensitive bunch. “Are you sure you did the math right?”
“Oh, I never get the math wrong,” Lola says confidently. “I’m useless at just about everything else, but numbers I can do. Don’t ask me to explain how. My brain soaks them up and spits them back out again. Go ahead. Ask me anything. I’m really good at ratio determinations.”
Hijack doesn’t take her up on the offer. “I’d like to speak to the person in charge of those figures.”
“You just did, silly,” Lola says with a laugh. “Come on. We should head inside.”
Unless she can part crowds as easily as she can divide fractions, I don’t see how that’s happening. “Is there a line we’re supposed to get in or something?” I ask.
“Not for you. The great Penelope Blue never has to wait in line.” Lola grabs me by the hand. The grating of her palm against my cuts causes me to cringe, but her grip is as difficult to shake as her enthusiasm. “Let’s go—there’s a side way in. I’ll show you. You’re going to want to get a front row seat for this so you can see all the security protocols up close and personal. The tiara is so beautiful in person. What are you going to do with it when you steal it?”
Give it to the FBI, probably. Those greedy bastards would never let me keep my hands on something so valuable. Not that I say as much out loud. No need to give her—or Hijack—any more ideas than they already have.
“Swiss bank account,” I lie.
Lola’s side way in turns out to be a hallway used to move food and plates from the dining room to the kitchen, with one small outlet for access to the cabaret lounge. The passageway is so narrow, it’s almost impossible to notice the way it’s slightly set into the wall. I do my best not to look at Hijack as Lola shows us the trick for jimmying the door open.
“There,” she announces triumphantly as she leads us inside. “Isn’t it so much nicer this way?”
It is, but the question is a rhetorical one, and my attention is caught up in surveying my surroundings. To my surprise—and dismay—the cabaret lounge turns out to offer nothing the name suggests. Although a stage at one end indicates that the room is no stranger to theatrical exhibitions, it’s been stripped of almost all baubles and overkill in favor of stark, bare walls. To make room for the poker game, there are also several sets of bleacher-style seats flanking the room’s exterior and seven gaming tables placed at appropriate distances from one another in the center. The bleachers must have been brought in especially for the tournament, but everything else about the room is neat and serviceable and, frankly, boring.
“What’s wrong?” Hijack asks as I pause on the threshold, taking it all in with a frown.
“It’s not very glamorous, is it?” I ask. Unlike all the other parts of the ship, which teem with luxury, this room is strangely stark. “When I heard we were going to be in the cabaret lounge, I envisioned feathers and red velvet as far as the eye can see. I was expecting more…”
He laughs. “Places to hide?”
Well, yes, actually. The lounge might be disappointing from an aesthetic standpoint, but when seen though a different lens—a thief lens—everything about it makes sense. The bright lights and bare walls allow few opportunities for concealment, and the clearly marked seating arrangement means anyone wandering out of place will be noticed in an instant. The exits are also visible from almost any vantage point in the room, so there will be no sneaking in or out.
“Don’t you worry,” Lola says warmly and squeezes my arm. “If anyone can find a way to take the tiara out of here, it’s you. Of course, the room’s not very pretty, but you didn’t think Daddy would make this easy, did you?”
I’m in no position to make any guesses where that man is concerned, although I wouldn’t be surprised if murder is somewhere on his gambling cruise to-do list.
“Wait, you won’t mind if Pen takes the tiara?” Hijack looks at Lola with interest for the first time. “You want her to get it?”
“Of course I do! I’m not supposed to say so out loud, and I can’t offer any help or Daddy would just kill me, but if anyone is going to steal that diamond, I want it to be her.” She adds loyally, “And she’ll do it, too.”
“That’s not necessarily decided on yet…” I begin, but there’s no point. Hijack feigns deafness with a wide smile.
The cabaret lounge is starting to fill by this time, the not-so-fortunate masses finding their way inside and looking around with the same air of expectation. Although a burly pair of men in dark suits stand off to one side of the stage, Peter Sanchez is nowhere in sight, and no one sees fit to enlighten us. The suspense is palpable. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone rappelled down from an overhead access panel with the tiara in hand.
I am, however, surprised to see Riker appear as if from out of nowhere, no sign of Tara in his wake. For a couple on a half-romantic, half-criminal vacation, they sure are spending a lot of time apart.
“There you are, Pen,” Riker says by way of greeting. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Why?” I ask suspiciously. “What are you plotting?”
“Shame on you,” is his easy reply. “Maybe I just wanted to escort you to the game. Your safety and comfort are, after all, the two most important things in my life.”
The left side of his mouth is turned up in an ironic smile, which I assume means that Grant asked him to make sure I got to the cabaret lounge on time. As if a few scrapes would keep me away. I paid a million bucks for this.
“Lola, have you met Riker?” I ask and perform the introductions. “I know you’re aware of him from a statistical probability standpoint, but I find he’s a lot more entertaining in the flesh. Riker, this is Peter Sanchez’s daughter, Lola.”
Riker grunts a semipolite greeting, but I get nothing out of Lola. Not a squeak, not a squeal, not a running dialogue on how incredible our chances would be if the three of us reverted back six years and joined forces once again.
“Lola?” I ask, turning.
She’s standing in the same spot as before, her lips parted and her eyes wide as she stares at Riker. At first, I think she’s frightened of him—that the chip Riker wears so proudly on his shoulder has transformed him into a beast—but then she swallows. As in, swallows, her throat working up and down as she takes in the full glory of him standing there.
I almost ruin the moment by laughing out loud, but I manage to clamp my lips shut in time. I forget, sometimes, just how attractive Riker is to someone meeting him for the first time. The heavy brows over deep-set eyes, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the dark scruff he wears mostly out of laziness… If you have a penchant for brooding masculinity, then Riker is definitely the man you want.
“Is something wrong?” Riker asks gruffly, unaware of the reaction he’s causing in that poor girl’s heart.
“No, I’m fine… You’re just so… I can’t even… Ohhh.” She gives up. “You must be the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met.”
I can’t help it—at that, the laugh escapes. Riker is good-looking, but his swaggering confidence has always come from his professional attributes, not his personal ones. He’ll sit and listen for hours as you outline all the ways his intelligence and leadership skills can’t be rivaled, but start an ode to his dreamy eyes and he’ll curse the day you were born.
“What the hell?” he demands, turning to me with an accusing stare.
“Don’t blame me,” I say, still laughing. “You’re the gorgeous one. Most people would say thank you.”
“Thank you,” he mumbles, but even his poor manners aren’t enough to keep Lola from gazing up at him with reverent, puppy-dog eyes. If I were as sensitive as Hijack and Tara, I might feel slighted at having been so easily supplanted in her esteem, but this is far too
entertaining. I wouldn’t trade Riker’s discomfort for a hundred adoring Lolas of my own.
“So all three of you know each other?” Lola asks, although she looks at Riker as she speaks. I’m not sure she’s blinked yet.
“Oh, yeah, Riker and I have known Hijack for years,” I explain. “Actually, the three of us used to indulge in a bit of light larceny together. We were kind of a crew.”
“Speaking of, you still owe me ten thousand dollars,” Hijack says to Riker.
“Like hell I do.” Riker doesn’t sound angry—he mostly seems grateful for the change of subject. “You’re the one who left us to go to Germany. As I recall, you walked out on your own two feet.”
“Yeah, but you cheated me out of my share of the Tailortown job,” Hijack says. “You were supposed to forward the money once I reached Berlin, but I never saw a penny. I could have used it, too. The exchange rate was brutal.”
I tilt my head, trying to remember. That doesn’t sound like something we would have done. Honesty among thieves and all that. “Is that true?”
“Of course it is,” Riker says. “Don’t you remember? He left before we finished the job. We were a man short, and you had to spend four extra hours hiding in the luggage compartment of that Greyhound bus to make up for it.”
“Oh, yeah!” I snap my fingers. I do remember that. In our lengthy past, Riker and I have pulled so many jobs that most of them are a blur, but the unpleasant memories associated with that one linger. The plan had been for Hijack to “borrow” the bus while it was at the depot, thereby circumnavigating the usual route and driver to cut four hours off the drive. We’d gotten a hot tip on a passenger who didn’t trust the TSA to turn a blind eye to the quantity of stolen Rolexes in his checked bags, so he traveled by bus rather than plane. All I had to do was squeeze into a suitcase stowed underneath, slip out while the bus was moving, take the watches, and crawl back in until we arrived at our destination.
We still pulled off the job without Hijack’s help, but we’d had to rely on the regular driver and route, so the trip proceeded at its usual pace instead.
Which was slow. Very, very slow.
“I can’t believe I forgot about that,” I say. “I got a cramp in my leg about two hours in and had to sit there in agony until we finally arrived at our destination. Now that I think about it, it was my idea not to send you anything. I considered it recompense for my pain and suffering.”
“The going rate for a leg cramp is ten thousand dollars?” Hijack asks.
“It was a really bad one.”
At the sound of my vehemence, Hijack just laughs and shakes his head. “That’s what I get for trusting a pair of thieves like you two. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Wow. You guys really do go a long way back, huh?” Lola asks. “That must be nice, having friends with so much history together.”
Nice doesn’t even begin to describe the complex relationship I share with each of these men, but I hate to dispel her illusions. Especially when she follows up by saying, “I don’t have any friends—not real ones, anyway.”
I pat her hand. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Well, I did have one once.” She wrinkles her nose, remembering. “It was this girl I used to play with when I was younger. Her dad worked for my mine, so she came over all the time. We had so much fun together. We’d dress up and splash in the fountain and share all our secrets. Regular kid stuff, you know? But our fathers got into an argument over money one day. Hers made the mistake of threatening mine and…”
I watch, horrified, as Lola gives a sad shake of her head.
“Of course I couldn’t play with her after that. You know how it goes, Penelope. Daddy offered to get me a new friend, but I was afraid she’d have to leave, too, so I asked for a horse instead. I named him Boxcar Billie.”
My first reaction is to take that poor, traumatized girl to my bosom and emphatically claim that the experiences of all criminal princesses are not the same, but a strange glint in Riker’s eyes forestalls me.
“Did you just say Boxcar Billie?” he asks.
She nods, her long curls bobbing and eyes shining as she basks in the full force of Riker’s attention.
“Boxcar Billie, as in the Thoroughbred racehorse?”
She nods again.
“Boxcar Billie, as in the freak surprise winner of the Triple Crown?”
“Oh, do you know him?” Lola claps her hands together, delighted. “He doesn’t run much these days. Daddy wanted to sell him after he injured his knee, but I begged him to let me keep him. He lives at our place in Almería now, but I don’t get to see him nearly as much as I’d like. He was always such a sweet horse.”
“I know him,” Riker says darkly. “I lost a hundred thousand dollars on that fucking horse.”
“So did a lot of people,” Lola confesses, laughing. I expect her to shrink from the vitriol in Riker’s eyes, but she remains blissfully unaware of it. “It’s how I got so interested in gambling odds in the first place. In fact, I’m using the binomial distribution for horse racing to determine the standard deviations for the tiara betting pool.” She releases a wistful sigh. “Poor Bernadette.”
“I thought you said the horse was named Billie?” Hijack asks, blinking in confusion.
“Bernadette was obviously her friend’s name,” I explain. Honestly, are these guys even listening? “And don’t worry, Lola. You’re not as alone as you think. You can count yourself among friends here.”
I cast a stern look at Hijack and Riker, hoping they’ll chime in and support her, but they refuse to acknowledge me. Hijack is busy gazing around the room with the shrewd eye of an appraiser, and Riker is still glowering over his lost investment. Lola’s going to have a heck of a time getting him to notice her now. If there’s one thing Riker likes less than youthful admirers, it’s losing that kind of money on a fluke.
In the end, it doesn’t matter, because Lola takes my offer of friendship as gospel. With a squeal of delight, she wraps her arms around me and squeezes so tight, I can barely breathe.
“Oh, Penelope, you have no idea how much that means to me. It’s perfect. You won’t be scared of Daddy, and your father wouldn’t make the mistake of arguing with him over something as silly as money. You don’t know how much I’ve dreamed of this day.”
I swallow uneasily. In all honesty, I’m terrified of Daddy, and there’s no telling what my father will do when it comes to money. And I’m hardly the ideal confidante for this sweet, trusting girl—especially once you consider the fact that my FBI agent husband is somehow tangled up with her father.
“Yes, well,” I say and attempt a smile, “don’t pin too many of your hopes and dreams on me, Lola. I’m just another thief.”
“You’re not just a thief,” she replies happily. “You’re my friend.”
There’s not a whole lot I can do to dispel her joy after that, so I don’t try. I don’t have to. The entire room stops talking and buzzing as the figure of Peter Sanchez walks out onto the empty stage with a black box under his arm, the two guards flanking him.
Lola squeals again, thus confirming my suspicion that the box contains the tiara. I’d like to play it cool and pretend I’m used to seeing two-hundred-carat diamonds in real life. But like everyone else in the room, my attention is fixated on that tidy black cube.
“First, I’d like to thank you all for participating in the Luxor Tournament.” Peter’s voice is as soft and mild as it was last night, but there’s no need for him to raise it or resort to a microphone. We’re all hanging on his every word. “I had a long speech prepared to welcome you on board the Shady Lady and to outline the tournament rules, but my daughter urged me to throw it out. The last thing anyone wants is to hear an old man ramble about things like seating arrangements and punishments that will be meted out for anyone caught cheating. According to her, the only thing you rea
lly care about is the tiara. Lola, are you out there?”
Lola laughs and raises her hand. “Yes, Daddy. I’m here.”
“Excellent. Would you mind joining me on stage?”
“Oh!” she says, eyes wide. She casts me an anxious look before returning her attention to her father. “I didn’t know you needed my help.”
“My beautiful daughter, everyone,” Peter says. “Can we give a round of applause to get her up here?”
The crowd obliges him in that request, mostly because they’re growing tense at the fanfare. Few things are more frightening than impatient thieves. I swear, if Peter opens that box and someone has stolen the tiara, he’s likely to have a mutiny on his hands.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Hijacks asks me in a whisper, his head tilted toward mine as we watch the crowd part for Lola’s small form. “Did you know anything about this ahead of time?”
“Of course not,” I whisper back. “Why would I?”
He eyes me sideways. “Just a hunch.”
There’s no time for me to ask what he means, because Peter chooses that moment to hand Lola the box.
“I thought about letting one of my exalted guests do the honors,” he says in his mild way, “but you’re an untrustworthy, thieving group, the lot of you. Besides, there’s no better person to show this beauty off than my beloved daughter. Go ahead, Lola. Open it. Try it on so everyone can get a glimpse.”
I don’t pay nearly as much attention to Lola as I should as she lifts the lid off the box and pulls out the tiara, but I can hardly be blamed for human nature. Later, I might remember how her hands shook as she reached for the diamond or the mute, bewildered plea she cast my way, but for now, all I feel is anticipation.
Anticipation and then, when the tiara is pulled out of the box and placed on top of Lola’s shining black curls, full-on laughter.
“You’re kidding, right?” I ask, doing a poor job of stifling my giggles. People around me are starting to stare. “We paid a million dollars for a chance at that monstrosity?”
Seeking Mr. Wrong Page 11
