Saving Mr. Perfect

by Tamara Morgan

  Riker releases a low whistle and continues perusing the collection of handcrafted porcelain doorknobs he’s ostensibly helping me select. Riker’s interest in ceramics is about equal to his interest in musical theater, which is why his presence should be setting off every alarm Tara possesses.

  Should be, but isn’t. Tara leans across him to pull out a knob in the shape of a giant squid, and he stands there, basking in the full-bodied press of her.

  “Maybe we should take up bank robbery, too,” Riker says with a laugh. He eyes me sideways, and I immediately distrust the playful look I see there. Of all his moods, playfulness is the rarest and most concerning. “What do you say, Pen? Ready to take to the skies as a tightrope walker? Think of all the ways we could expand our market.”

  “Sure thing. Let me put circus training on my to-do list for next week, right after grocery shopping.”

  “Oh, no. Not Pen.” Tara’s voice drips with faux innocence. “She doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore. Not now that she’s found true love.”

  It’s hardly a statement I can argue with—I did find true love, and I don’t do that sort of thing anymore—but I still don’t care for her implication. Retirement is a perfectly acceptable alternative to theft.

  Or it would be, if I could get used to the hollow feeling that seems to come with it.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty much useless to us these days,” Riker agrees. “She used to be game for anything, but now it’s all ‘Grant wouldn’t like that,’ and ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’”

  I open my mouth to object, as most of Riker’s ideas have never been any good, but he’s not done.

  “In fact, it’s been a lot more difficult than we thought to keep a steady influx of funds without her, if you know what I mean. Turns out she and her light fingers are damn near irreplaceable.”

  “Aw, Riker,” I say. “That’s so sweet. I had no idea—”

  “I said damn near irreplaceable.” He turns that playful gaze on Tara, and I recoil when I see not only a cunning gleam in his eye, but a carnal one, too.

  Gross. That woman once had sex with my dad. There has to be a best friend rule about that sort of thing.

  “What we need is a professional who can squeeze into tight places. Someone flexible. Someone willing. Someone who doesn’t get so unnecessarily freaked out by claustrophobia.”

  “I was never unnecessarily freaked out,” I say, stung. “That fear was highly necessary. It kept me on my game so I wouldn’t be sucked into ventilation fans and crushed by slowly moving walls.”

  I snatch the squid out of Tara’s hands and put it back on the shelf. The rational half of my brain knows that this is part of Riker’s plan B, a ritual of distraction-laden flirtation that Tara seems to be lapping up like it’s the blood of diamonds, but it hits too close to home for comfort. There are a lot of things I’m willing to overlook where Riker is concerned, but an alliance with this woman isn’t one of them.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t really squeeze.” Tara sidles closer and squeezes Riker’s arm as if to prove it, failing to note that his other hand starts snaking toward her purse in the process. “I’m more of a saunter in and out with my head held high sort of girl. You’d be surprised what you can get away with by acting like you belong somewhere. People rarely question the confident.”

  “Is that how you’ve been doing it?” I ask. The question slips out before I can help myself. “You walk into those fancy parties and pretend like you belong?”

  Although Riker shoots me a look of irritation as he’s forced to snatch his hand back, Tara just laughs.

  “Penelope is operating under the delusion that I’m the Peep-Toe Prowler,” she explains. “She’s convinced I’m the one sneaking into all those parties and stealing jewels from the wealthy. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so misguided.”

  “It’s not misguided,” I say. “It’s logic. If you’re not in New York to rake in a fortune, what’s keeping you here?”

  “You.”

  “Oh, really? You’re risking your personal freedom for the sole benefit of my sparkling company?”

  “Well, not the sole benefit. I multitask.”

  As far as I’m concerned, that’s as good as a confession.

  “I don’t know why you’re so fixated on this Prowler of yours, anyway,” Tara continues in what I can only assume is an attempt to throw me off her scent. “Does Grant share the glory if you catch the criminals for him?”

  “Of course not. It’s a matter of principle, that’s all.”

  “You have principles?”

  “No, but I have pride. It’s basically the same thing.”

  “I told you—she’s useless to us now,” Riker chimes in with a sad shake of his head.

  Tara clucks in sympathy, but she keeps her attention on me. “If you want my opinion, you’re going about this all wrong. If you want to find out who’s behind all these thefts, you need to get closer to the source.”

  “The source?”

  “The rich. The robbed. The Republican.” She waves her hand, as if tired of the topic already. “If it was me trying to find the culprit, I’d get on the next guest list and see for myself what’s going on behind those closed, gilded doors. A seasoned pro like you could probably pick out a thief in minutes.”

  “Right. Because an ex-jewel-thief-turned-housewife is at the top of every high-profile party invite. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

  Tara’s brow comes up in a way that would make Jordan proud. “Doesn’t your grandmother go to a lot of those functions? Strange. I’d have thought she’d be dying to show you off to her friends by now. You must be less fit for society than I thought.”

  I blink at her in bemusement, watching as she crosses the shop to investigate a dress that looks as if it’s woven from a spider’s gossamer threads. Riker goes with her, and I can’t even rouse myself long enough to warn him to stop being so heavy-handed with both his flirtation and his pickpocketing.

  Because Tara’s idea is, frankly, genius.

  Oh, she’s still my number one suspect, no question. And I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s saying all this to make a game out of me. That’s why I’m not going to stop Riker from digging around in her purse.

  She’s right, though. It wouldn’t hurt to start sniffing around the upper echelons to see what people on the inside are saying. In my experience, rich people tend to avoid authority figures just as much as poor people do—it’s usually only the middle class that has nothing to hide. Chances are they know something about the thefts they aren’t sharing with the feds.

  That would make me, granddaughter to a wealthy socialite, the ideal person to sneak in and find out what that something is.

  And the best part is that Grant can’t protest, because I’ll be doing exactly what he told me to. Just hanging out with my family and reporting back on my findings. Living the happy, carefree life of a retiree.

  “Can I help you with something?” a clerk asks, approaching me. She notices me staring at Tara and adds, “Or your friend?”

  “Oh, she’s not my friend,” I say, the words spouting unthinkingly from my lips. I can’t help it. Denying kinship with that woman is such an ingrained part of me, it functions on autopilot.

  I am, however, developing a grudging respect for the convolutions of her intellect—and an admiration for the way she wields it. She sees a problem, she finds a solution, and she puts those two things together, consequences and the feelings of other people be damned. Especially if the feelings in question are mine. I only wish I had half her resolve. The longer I spend trying to connect my problems to solutions, the more I flounder.

  “Your…sister, then?” the clerks suggests.

  I laugh out loud at that. I doubt the clerk would believe me if I told her the truth of our relationship. “She’s not that, either,” I say by way of explana
tion. “Tara defies labels, unfortunately.”

  And as I’m rapidly coming to learn, I do, too. I’m not a jewel thief anymore, and as my stalking Tara while Riker’s hand is in her purse attests, I’m not a normal person, either. I’m just this weird, useless lump of a human being who used to steal things for a living.

  I’m also a human being who needs to keep the clerk busy so Riker can finish his fishing expedition. I ask the clerk a series of pointed questions about a wooden goat sculpture, but it’s to no avail. When Riker finally removes his hand from Tara’s purse, he comes out empty, shaking his head at me with a frown.

  I bite back my disappointment. It was a long shot to think Tara walked around with stolen jewels in her purse in the first place. If she has them, they’re either well hidden or already on their way to a third-party buyer. I’m going to need to catch her in the act if I want to learn the truth.

  “You ready, Pen?” Tara calls, oblivious to our efforts.

  “Almost. Gimme a minute.” I give the clerk my brightest smile. “I’ll take the scorpion serving spoon and the glow-in-the-dark underwear, please.”

  “Excellent choices,” she agrees and leads the way to the register. That’s her first mistake—and my tenth or eleventh. I should know better than to trust a hardened thief. Tara uses the distraction I provide as an opportunity to slip a silver candlestick down the front of her dress.

  Sighing, I place a few extra bills near the cash register to cover the cost. No way am I getting felt up in a back room for this one.

  12

  GRANT

  Shooting paper targets isn’t as satisfying as shooting double-crossing federal agents, but it does the job in a pinch.

  The cavernous echo of Simon’s shots peeling off beside me come to a halt, and I glance around the partition wall to see how our results compare. As usual, they’re easy enough to distinguish. We might have trained at the same facility and taken aim at the same silhouette, but while my shots are dead center in the man’s chest, Simon has systematically outlined the shape of the man’s brain.

  He can be a bit dark sometimes, that Sterling. Anger issues, mostly.

  “You better not let the office psychologist see that. They’re already concerned with your lack of a social life.” I watch as Simon unclips the target and folds it, tucking it carefully in his messenger bag. I’ve never asked what he does with them, but Penelope likes to think he stuffs them in his mattress and floats off to bed every night on a sea of fond, bullet-fueled memories.

  “I won’t tell them if you don’t.” He indicates the earmuffs around my neck with a nod. “Another round?”

  As tempting as it is to spend the rest of my day demolishing invisible demons, I shake my head. “Can’t. I have to meet with the detail I’m putting on Lewis. Wanna guess how many of my guys volunteered for the job?”

  Simon releases a short, barking laugh. “All of them?”

  “Just about.” It was impossible to get clearance for a full team to watch Penelope’s stepmom without Christopher finding out about it, so I had to go through less formal channels. And by less formal channels, I mean I asked the small team of agents I’ve come to know and trust during my time at the Bureau. Paulie Jones, who was there at the first Christopher Leon paintball betrayal, an information technology specialist named Nathan who owes me a few favors, and a handful of other agents I know can be counted on to keep things quiet. All I had to do was say the name Tara Lewis, and the hands shot up.

  Not that I blame them. Having spent a hefty portion of my own career investigating a highly attractive jewel thief, I can understand the appeal.

  “No one volunteered to help me watch the guy Blackrock has me tailing,” Simon grumbles. “He only has one ear.”

  Considering the quality of people Penelope’s dad associates with, I don’t find this surprising. I know she looks back on the time she and her father were apart with regret, but it’s a sentiment I can’t share. Riker and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I know he did his best to keep her away from those kinds of criminals, to shield her from the less savory aspects of the world they both inhabited. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

  “What happened to the other ear?” I ask.

  “He cut it off to prove that he could.” Simon pauses. “And then he ate it.”

  I grimace. Yeah. Riker’s definitely not looking so bad these days.

  I’m in the middle of unrolling my shirtsleeves when there’s a loud outburst of voices at the door. Outbursts and shooting ranges rarely make for a happy combination, and it takes all of two seconds for Simon and me to have our stances secured, every possible angle covered as we approach to discover the cause.

  Damn, but I miss working with this guy. One more point to stack up against Christopher—anyone in a position of authority who would purposely break up a smoothly working team is an idiot. I don’t care how happy the ADD is with his performance. I’m much happier with a partner who has my back.

  As if to prove me right, we move as one around the partition, heading toward the raised voices in a semicrouch. Simon gets there a few seconds before me, giving me enough time to hear the sharp intake of his breath before I see the cause of the commotion.

  Of course. Christopher Leon, leaning on the front desk and booming at the assembled crowd as if he owns the place. Which, given his track record to date, isn’t an outrageous idea. I expect him to be pronounced president any goddamned day now.

  With considerable regret, I relax my guard.

  “Hello, Leon,” I say, fighting back a sigh. The man can’t go anywhere without making a disturbance. “Here to brush up on your target practice?”

  I mean the comment benignly enough, but he must take it as a reference to our first training exercise together, because he loses the self-satisfied smile for a fraction of a second.

  “Not today,” he says before slapping his smile back into place. “I came looking for you. There’s been a development in the case.”

  My professional interest picks up almost immediately—and not just because I left Penelope out there in the field today, lurking around with Tara and her ilk. “Has the Prowler hit again?” I ask. I shrug into my jacket. The burglaries are definitely coming faster and closer together now. “What’s the address?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Christopher says quickly. An almost guilty flush washes over him as he adds, “But the forensics report is finally in, and I thought you might want to take a look.”

  I blink at him, waiting for the rest, but apparently, that’s all he has. The desire to inform him of this great invention called the telephone—or better yet, email—is strong, but there are several people milling around the desk, watching our interaction. Despite my suspicion of the guy, I don’t want to diminish his position any more than I already have. I may not respect Christopher’s authority, but I tend to respect authority in general.

  “Did they find anything?” I ask instead.

  “Nothing conclusive, but there may be a partial fingerprint worth running.”

  One partial at a crime scene where at least a dozen people had been present is hardly a break worth getting excited over, but it’s more than we’ve had in a while. Usually, all they get is evidence of Christopher’s shoddy investigative work. The man leaves footprints everywhere. Literally.

  “All right. I’ll head in and look it over. Anything else?”

  “Oh, there’s something else,” says the agent working the front desk, a paper-pushing lackey named Justin who, by my reckoning, has never taken a day off. “You obviously didn’t notice what Christopher rolled up in.”

  “I’ll work free overtime for a month if you let me take her for a spin,” another field agent adds. “Two months if I can floor it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, but that’s when I glance out the front window and see it, double-parked on the street and
cutting off a major stream of backed-up traffic.

  To anyone else, it would be nothing more than a sweet ride, the type of car that men with big dreams and small lives buy as soon as their bank account tips into the black. To me, the ’69 Camaro SS parked a few feet away, gleaming with its sleek black body and freshly polished chrome wheels, is more.

  A hell of a lot more.

  “What is that?” I ask, even though I know down to the three-speed transmission what I’m looking at.

  Christopher’s beaming face breaks into an even bigger smile. “Do you like it? I picked her up today. You wouldn’t believe the power she’s got under that hood.”

  I would believe it if I wasn’t having such a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this man could be so cunning and so fucking stupid at the same time. A car in that condition is worth a quarter of a million dollars, and that’s a modest estimate. I used to fantasize about all the things I might have to do to come up with that exact amount of money.

  Marrying a jewel thief who I know has a secret reserve of cash she’s not telling me about wasn’t on that list, but that’s about as close as I’ve been able to get. Mostly because FBI agents don’t have that kind of income. Believe me, anyone getting into this rig for the money is setting themselves up for disappointment.

  Unless, of course, he has major income beyond what comes with the job. The guy has always worn nicer suits than any other agent, but this is a whole different playing field.

  “That’s some car,” I say neutrally.

  “Way above my pay grade, though,” Justin puts in. It’s what we’re all thinking, and we’re all grateful he’s the one to voice it. “And a pain in the ass to own unless you’re a Jersey boy like Christopher. I guess that promotion must have come with a few extra perks, huh?”

  Christopher has the decency—or stupidity—to look guilty. “Well, not exactly. I’ve been saving up for a while. I’ve wanted one ever since I was a kid.”

  I don’t move, not even to glance at Simon, who I know is paying as much attention as me. Besides my mom, he’s the only other person who knows how prominently this particular car figured in my adolescent dreams. I’ve never mentioned the vehicle to anyone else at the Bureau. Except, of course, during the Picasso college bust Christopher and I worked on a few years ago. But that had just been a throwaway line, a casual comment that could be interchanged with any number of similar ones throughout the years.