Saving Mr. Perfect

by Tamara Morgan

  “It’s like you don’t even hear me when I speak.”

  “Oh, I hear you all right. I just don’t listen.” I cross the kitchen to where he’s standing and wrap my arms around his waist. It’s like hugging a statue—an angry statue—but I stay in place until some of the stoniness crumbles away. “I won’t do anything to jeopardize your case, I promise. I’ll spend some time with her, ask a few questions, that sort of thing. If nothing else, it’ll keep me out of trouble for a few days. Isn’t that what you want?”

  My light, teasing manner is intended to soothe the angry beast, bring out his playful side, but Grant’s reaction is oddly serious.

  “What I want, my love, is for you to be happy,” he says.

  I blink up at him, startled. “But I am happy.”

  “Are you? Are you really?”

  My arms fall from his waist, and I step back as if struck. It’s a simple question, and all it requires is a simple answer.

  Yes. Absolutely. Couldn’t be better, thanks.

  But we promised to work on that honesty thing, and it seems like cheating to give up after less than twenty-four hours. I mean, I’m not unhappy, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the life I left behind. Sometimes, I’ll see a piece of jewelry in a store window, catch sight of a gold watch glinting on someone’s wrist, and the urge to take it is so strong, it overpowers everything I know and am. I miss the plotting and planning. I miss the adrenaline high. I miss feeling like I’m good at something.

  No, scratch that. I miss feeling like I’m great at something.

  There it is, that honesty he’s asking for. It lands in the center of my chest with a soft whump.

  I was great at being a jewel thief. I was great at it and I loved it and I’d give almost anything to feel that way again. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell Grant without breaking his heart. How do you admit to your husband that the thing you gave up for him, the part of yourself you buried and tucked away in order for your marriage to work, might be the only thing in the world that makes life worth living?

  Easy. You don’t.

  “Of course I’m happy,” I say, and it sounds so convincing, I almost believe it. “I have everything a girl could ask for—food, shelter, a husband who regularly brings home doughnuts. I’m just restless, that’s all. It’s hard work, sitting at home all day while you’re out saving the world.”

  Grant’s face is back to its usual handsome, unreadable facade, so I have no idea whether or not he buys it. He does, however, unbend. “I can’t stop you from seeing Tara, but that doesn’t mean I like it,” he says.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “And I’ll have to start my own official investigation into her.”

  “Of course. But you should probably know—she said something as I was leaving, something that felt off, even for her. She wanted me to give Chris her love the next time I see him. I thought she was just pretending to know him to get under my skin—you know how she is—but she did know he was your boss.”

  He doesn’t respond. Silence isn’t my favorite reaction from Grant, so I push harder. Thinking of last night’s phone call from Christopher, of how odd it felt after spending so much time under the shadow of Simon’s hatred, I joke, “There’s not a chance he’s working with Tara, is there? Like as a double agent?”

  Grant finally reacts, and that spark of anger I saw in him before—that cold calculation as he prepared to take Christopher out—is back.

  “Write down everything she said,” he says, ripping off the list of breaking-into-the-FBI plans without even glancing at it. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  My eyes widen as he once again thrusts the pen in my hand, this time without the sense of humor.

  “Holy crap. He’s a double agent, isn’t he?”

  Instead of answering, Grant makes an urgent scribbling motion, his lips pressed together.

  With a face like that, there’s nothing left for me to do but write—and, Lord help me, give in to a surge of excitement so strong, I have to suppress a smile for fear he’ll think I’ve cracked. Forget loneliness. Forget boredom.

  My husband is in trouble, and he needs my help. It’s almost like being alive again.

  8

  GRANT

  “So, I liked meeting your wife.”

  I don’t glance away from the map of the Upper East Side I have tacked on my wall, a colorful array of pins indicating the locations of all the jewelry thefts over the past two months. We have a sophisticated computer program to look for patterns in location, but I’ve always preferred a more traditional method.

  “Strange that she’d never heard of me before, though.”

  I stay silent, hoping Christopher will take the hint and go away.

  Instead, I focus on a cluster of pins off to one side of the map, double-checking the dates as I do. Those were the sites of the first few crimes, which occurred over the span of several weeks. The thefts happen much more quickly now, which says two things: one, that the thief is gaining confidence after those initial hits, and two, that he’s much more likely to make a mistake as a result of it.

  “That’s why I was thinking it might not be a bad idea to have you two over for dinner one night. So she can get to know me better.”

  “Do you mind, Leon?” I ask, indicating my map. “There’s a jewel thief running through the streets of Manhattan. I know your social life is of paramount importance, but I, for one, would like to stop him sooner rather than later.”

  “Her.”

  I finally turn to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  He’s standing exactly as I expect him to, leaning against my desk with a fabricated air of nonchalance. His arms are crossed, and he assesses my map with a smirk, as if he can’t believe agents still rely on things like hard work and experience to solve crimes.

  “You called the Peep-Toe Prowler a him,” he says. “According to our profiler, there’s a ninety percent chance we’re dealing with a female thief. Everything about the way she selects her targets—”

  “Or the way he selects his targets,” I interject, unwilling to play along.

  “But the shoes,” Christopher says. “You can’t forget those. Between that and the profiler, you still think it might be a man?”

  “I think it’s a distinct possibility. The peep-toes could have easily been thrown in to divert suspicion.” I allow my gaze to meet his, though I’m careful to keep the accusation out of it. It’s one thing to suspect your direct superior of double-dealing; it’s another to outright charge him with it. My suspicions are too new—and too dangerous—to be mishandled.

  “The thief is getting overconfident,” I add, watching carefully for his response. “According to those same profilers, that’s a male trait, not a female one. And he’s moving from private residences to public venues, which makes me think he’s working his way up to a larger heist.”

  “Really? How do you tell all that from a map?” Christopher pushes himself off the desk and joins me, his earlier conceit replaced by a note of earnest interest. He studies my pins and lines and theorized escape routes with a wrinkle in his brow. “What are you seeing here that I’m not?”

  I sigh. The last thing I should have to explain to someone who is technically my boss is the basics of investigation. And the last thing I want to explain to someone who might be playing for both sides is how I plan to catch him.

  But he’s so damn persistent, so damn eager all the time. I can’t decide if he’s the trickiest criminal I’ve ever been up against—barring one very important woman in my life—or if he really is as stupid as he seems.

  “Look, it’s not that complicated,” I say, giving in. It’s not as if this stuff is top secret. Any agent in the place could tell him the same thing. “See how he started with one or two smaller jobs, all in private homes and with plenty of time between them?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah.”

  “He was testing the field, pushing his boundaries. He’d steal something, wait a few days to see where suspicion fell, and then, when it didn’t land on him, try again in a flashier, higher-risk setting. That means he’s getting bolder. And he’ll keep getting bolder until something or someone gets in his way. Most criminals are like toddlers that way.”

  Christopher shifts slightly, as if feeling the insult. Good.

  But then he asks, “And that’s something only male thieves do? Penelope didn’t work that way?”

  I stiffen. It’s not something only male thieves do, and stereotypes of this kind can derail an investigation faster than cross-contamination in the lab, but I want him to know that I’m looking beyond the shoes—that I’m casting my net wide enough that even he could get tangled in it.

  “I mean, she obviously operated on a higher level than our Peep-Toe Prowler, but generally speaking?” he adds.

  Generally speaking, Penelope Blue is one of the best thieves this country has ever seen, and no one will ever come close to pulling off the kinds of jobs she did with the same savoir faire. But in a specific sense, no one—and I mean no one—is allowed to say that but me.

  “My wife has nothing to do with this case.”

  “Of course,” he says quickly. “I only meant hypothetically.”

  I refuse to dignify that with a response. Thanks to my involvement with the Blue case over the years, most of the agents I work with are aware of my wife’s notoriety. They’re also aware that it’s a circumstance I neither regret nor care to discuss. Penelope’s ability to break into the FBI building and run circles around every last one of them is my favorite thing about her.

  It’s also the thing that could land her in uncomfortably hot water, even if she refuses to see it.

  Especially now that Christopher Leon has been put in charge of this case. It defies all reason and logic, but everything always has where he’s concerned. He’s the agent who gets regularly promoted despite a shocking lack of insight or skill. He’s the agent who can shoot a partner in the back only to turn around and receive congratulations on his execution. He’s also the agent who somehow gets Simon pulled off the Peep-Toe Prowler case so he can work by my side instead.

  Either someone is pulling some serious strings for this guy, or his bumbling inefficacy is a cover for a deeper game—a game not dissimilar from the type Tara Lewis enjoys playing. Penelope’s information about her stepmother’s possible ties to Christopher has turned everything I know about this case upside down. After all, a guy like this shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a crime scene, let alone be running one.

  Yet here we are. Once again.

  “You know, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get her insight,” Christopher says, his voice even. “Strictly as a consultant, you understand. I’d love to hear her thoughts about who might be behind all this.”

  “No.” I can’t temper the vehement protest that leaves my lips.

  “It wouldn’t have to be a formal agreement or anything. Like I said, I could have the two of you over for dinner one night…”

  “She’s really busy right now,” I lie, and I feel a pang of guilt for how easily it comes out. Penelope would love a chance to sit opposite this man and try to trip him up. I can envision it already—she’d wear her peep-toe shoes and probably slip out during dessert to crawl up the fire escape and ransack his bedroom. She’d be good at it, too. “Another time.”

  Christopher hesitates, as if unsure whether it’s safe to continue along these lines. It’s not, but I go ahead and let him speak anyway. Maybe he’ll dig his own grave and make this easy on all of us.

  “I think it’s great, what she’s done,” he says carefully. “What you’ve both done.”

  The words are out before I can stop them. “Not as great as it would be if you brought her in, though, huh?”

  His startled eyes meet mine, but I don’t give anything away. I don’t even blink. Of all the tricks I’ve developed over the years, wiping my face of emotion is the one that most often comes in handy. You’d be surprised what people admit to when they don’t know what you’re thinking.

  My wife, for example, says more to me when she’s curled up in a ball on the other side of the couch, leafing listlessly through a magazine, than she does during a dozen conversations about our plans for the future. According to what comes out of her mouth, she’s happy, she’s fine, she’s living the dream. According to the way her eyes take on a distant wistfulness when she thinks I’m not looking, I know she’s lying.

  The problem, you see, is that I knew her when she was happy.

  The Penelope Blue of a few years ago was a bright, brilliant, buoyant creature. She’d rob a man blind and then laugh in his face when he got upset about it. She’d turn a corner and disappear, only to show up again scaling a building ten miles away. She’d amass a small fortune and then walk around in the same black leggings she wore ragged, as if she had five dollars in her pocket instead of five million. She was a thief and a rogue, and she had a brass-faced audacity that should have made her a villain.

  But she’s not. She’s one of the best people I know, but men like Christopher would be much happier seeing her behind bars.

  Over my dead body.

  “Look, I’m sorry you don’t want to work with me, but if you have a problem with it, you’ll have to take it up with the associate deputy director,” Christopher blusters. “He’s the one who gave the orders, not me. And he happens to like the way I’m handling things so far.”

  Which probably means the ADD is in his back pocket on top of everything else. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “So if you’d like to change your mind about bringing your wife in to consult on this case…”

  No. I most definitely do not. It pains me to keep her at an arm’s length like this, to ask her to subdue the natural spirit that could have her skewering a man like Christopher Leon for breakfast and making a meal of his bones, but I don’t know what else to do. Her safety comes first—before my own career, even before our marriage. It has to.

  Penelope is too good at what she does. And Christopher, unfortunately, seems to know it.

  “I could force you to bring her in, you know,” he adds, his voice low. “All it would take is one phone call.”

  I snap. One of the things I’ve always prided myself on is my ability to maintain an implacable calm in the face of danger, but that was when the danger only extended to me. I’m quickly coming to learn that my own safety means nothing compared to hers.

  I thought, the day I married Penelope Blue, that I was protecting her. Unfortunately, I’m only just now starting to realize that I may have done her a disservice by slipping that ring on her finger. Every day she comes under the attention of men like Christopher, the target on her back gets a little bit bigger, a little more obvious.

  And it’s my fault. I’m the one who brought her into this. I’m the one who put that target on her back in the first place.

  “You are not to go anywhere near my wife, do you understand?” I warn. “Believe me when I say you don’t want to find out what will happen if you so much as touch a hair on her head.”

  I draw forward, not stopping until my toes touch Christopher’s, until he can feel the anger coming off of me in waves. Penelope would hate to hear me laying decrees on her behalf, hate even more to know that I’m cutting off her opportunity to interfere at its source.

  To protect her means I have to keep killing that sparkle in her eyes, day by day. And be know that there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  It’s her life or her happiness. Our life or her happiness.

  “I didn’t say—” Christopher begins.

  “You said enough. You might have been able to steal my partner away from this case, and that’s fine, but I will do everything in my power to make sure you can never touch Penelope Blue.”

&
nbsp; I expect him to push back, to force the issue, but all he does is draw a deep breath and step down.

  “She could prove helpful, Emerson. That’s all I’m saying.” Christopher waits a moment before adding, “She was a thief, after all.”

  Yeah, well, if Tara’s insinuations are to be believed, you might be one, too, I think, deliberately turning my back on him and returning my attention to the map. At least Penelope never tried to hide it.

  9

  THE CREW

  “I come bearing good news. Grant doesn’t think I’m the Peep-Toe Prowler after all.”

  The chorus of groans that greets me at the door to Jordan’s apartment is offered in a perfect pitch of exasperation. Without waiting to hear what I have to say in my defense, my three best friends scramble to their feet, knocking aside a set of blueprints as they do. Even from this distance, I can make out the plans and access points to an unmarked building.

  Oh, man. I love unmarked buildings. They’re my favorite kind.

  “What are we breaking into?” I peer closer to see if I can discern the details, but Riker inserts himself between me and the table before I have a chance. He’s not a large man, but he jolts around to make himself appear bigger, like a crow protecting its nest. I can’t see around him. “Would you please stop moving for a second? I just want to take a peek.”

  “No way, Pen,” he says as Jordan rolls up the plans. “We don’t want you giving your husband any funny ideas.”

  His words sting the tender area where my pride used to be. “Come on. I’m not going to tell Grant anything.”

  “We talked about this. Plausible deniability, remember?”

  I remember, all right. It’s the same conversation I had with my father yesterday and with Grant this morning. No one wants to talk to the monkey in the middle for fear she’ll give something away to the other side. Considering that I have given something away and that I’m currently operating as a not-exactly-sanctioned-but-not-not-sanctioned operative investigating my stepmother, I can maybe see their point.