For a moment, the green, uneasy look lifts from his face. “Is he asking for me?”
“No.” I’m prepared to lie for the sake of what needs to happen, but only to a point. That point doesn’t include putting this man and my husband in the same room anytime soon. “He’s asleep.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“And he’s not feeling up to having visitors, so even when he is awake…”
“You mean he’s not feeling up to having me as a visitor.”
I take Christopher’s arm and pull him away from the door. Even in the quiet wing of a hospital, his voice is overloud and overeager, his whole body strung full of energy.
“You did shoot him,” I point out.
“I didn’t!” Then, when a nurse walks by and shushes him with a harsh glare, he amends his outburst. “Well, I did shoot him, but I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
I’m unable to keep my hostility at bay. “You accidentally pulled a gun and shot a fellow agent in the back?”
“I know how it looks.”
No, he has no idea how it looks, or he wouldn’t be standing here with me. If he had any idea what sort of revenge lay in wait for him, he’d be changing his name, his hair color, his goddamned chin in hopes that I never track him down.
“His mom has him under a careful watch, and she’s strict about who she lets in, so I don’t suggest you try.” I lead him to the elevator and push the button. Up, down, to the moon—I don’t care as long as it gets Christopher off this floor and out of Grant’s vicinity. “Did you know she’s the person who taught him how to shoot a gun? You wouldn’t think to look at her, but she carries more heat than most of the FBI agents I know, Grant included.”
It’s a lie, bald-faced and brazen, but I don’t care. Christopher is not going to creep in and finish the job.
As the elevator arrives with a cheerful chime, Christopher steps back to allow me on. Even now, slick with remorse and some unnamed motive, he’s ever the gentleman. We get on, and I press the number for the cafeteria level. That seems as good a place as any to lay out the trap I have for him.
“What’s she like?” Christopher asks suddenly.
“Grant’s mom? I just told you. She has great aim.”
He laughs uneasily and reaches up to adjust his tie in what I suspect is a nervous tic, considering he’s not wearing one. He’s in jeans and a nicely pressed shirt with a jacket over the top, almost as if he wanted to get dressed for work but forgot, halfway through, that he’s suspended.
Well, it could be a nervous tic, or it could be phenomenal acting. If this man is trying to get me to lower my guard, this would be a great way to go about it.
Too bad I have no intention of falling for it.
“No, I mean, what’s she like as a person?” he asks.
“She’s nice,” I say, answering with honesty. “Laid-back. It’s hard to get her riled up about anything, but once you do, good luck trying to get her to back down again. As soon as she commits to something, she’s immovable.”
He smiles faintly. “That sounds familiar.”
I can’t help but agree, but I press my lips in a firm line. I didn’t mean it as a compliment—it was supposed to be a warning.
I follow Christopher to the cafeteria, where he buys me a cup of coffee and a slice of chocolate cake. I accept them only because they’re put into my hands directly from the woman behind the counter.
“They took my gun and badge,” he says as soon as we’re seated, saving me the task of introducing the topic myself.
“Oh?” I can’t say I’m sad to hear about that. I don’t particularly like the idea of ending up in a hospital bed next to Grant’s.
“Yeah. I might not get them back again.”
I have a hard time mustering up the pity he’s so obviously angling for. “You fired a gun in a public place without cause and shot a man under your command,” I say. “People have a way of reacting badly to that sort of thing.”
“But you aren’t mad.” It’s more statement than question.
“I’m furious,” I respond, surprised at how calm I’m able to make myself sound. “I hope the FBI bars you from employment and makes it impossible for you to use a handgun for the rest of your life.”
He eyes me askance. “That’s fair.”
“He almost died, Christopher.”
“I know.” An expression of misery washes over him, and I don’t know where to look. As an actor, this man has some serious chops. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. More sorry than you know.”
“Is that why you came here? To apologize?” Or to finish the job you started? It’s not out of the realm of possibility—he has to know that Grant won’t stop now, that one wiped video isn’t a free pass for all his other crimes.
“I only wanted…” He takes a deep breath and cradles his head in his hands. “Just make sure he knows how sorry I am. Please? I know he has no reason to believe me, but it was never my intention to take things this far.”
I stop in the middle of lifting a bite of cake to my mouth. “This far?”
“Yeah. I should have stopped a long time ago, walked away while I still had the chance. But I kept going despite my better judgment, and now look what’s happened.”
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say or how I should react. Is he about to confess over dry cake and sour coffee?
He glances at me, sharp and earnest. “You understand, don’t you? How hard it is to step away while you’re in the thick of things? To give up when you’re so close?”
Lord help me, but I nod. This man robbed my grandmother’s friends and almost killed my husband, caused more problems in my marriage than any stranger should be allowed to, but still I nod.
Because I do get it. I do understand.
It’s wrong to break the law, and it’s wrong to take things that don’t belong to you, but when it’s the only thing you know—when it’s the only thing you have—it’s almost impossible to envision a life of anything else. It would be so easy to draw a line between me and Christopher, to point out that no matter how bad things get, I’d never hurt another human being. I’d never hurt Grant. But the reality is, I already have.
He wants the happy wife and the comfortable home and the neat picket fence protecting them both—but he’ll never have that unless I’m willing to change my entire worldview or cut him loose. And I tried that first one. For six whole months, I tried. My worldview, it seems, is permanently fixed.
Cutting him loose might be the only other option I have.
“Would you like to come with me to the Black and White Ball?” I ask suddenly.
Christopher blinks, understandably startled by my request. “What?”
“My grandmother got me tickets to the Black and White Ball—the one they’re holding at the Conrad Museum on Saturday. Grant was supposed to go with me, but that’s obviously not going to happen now. From what I understand, a girl can’t go to these things alone, so I’ll need a date. Would you like to be mine?”
I thought it would be difficult to get the request out, but it’s surprisingly easy. I guess that’s what happens when you have as much in common with your husband’s enemy as you do your actual husband.
“Really? You mean it?” The smile that spreads across Christopher’s face would be heartbreaking if I didn’t know the true motivation behind it. “I can’t tell you how much I’d like that.”
I know. He couldn’t get easier access to the necklace if it was handed to him on a tray. Which, in a way, is exactly what I intend to do.
“It’ll be fun,” I say and dazzle him with my brightest smile. “I still need to get a dress, and you’ll need a tuxedo, but I’m sure you won’t have any problems with that.”
“You don’t think Grant will mind?”
Oh, Grant will mind. Grant will mind so much, he might take it
upon himself to get out of bed and stop us both.
So I laugh. “I don’t know about you, but I, for one, don’t intend to tell him.”
30
THE HEIST (REPRISE)
It’s a shame Grant isn’t my date to the ball tonight, because I look freaking amazing.
I haven’t been in the right frame of mind to apologize to Tara for believing her to be the Peep-Toe Prowler all these weeks, so I passed on her offer of a dress loan, opting instead to use Jane as my guide. She was happy to take me and happier still to foot the bill, which was nice but not at all necessary.
We walked into Barneys—my choice—where she moved straight to the most beautiful dress in the place and said we were done.
“But it’s red,” I pointed out, even as I admired the slinky material. I look great in slinky. “I thought everyone was going to be in black or white. That’s what I’m supposed to wear.”
“That’s all the more reason not to, don’t you think? If I could still pull it off, I’d do it. Just imagine the looks on their faces. It’ll be fun.”
Again, I agreed. Most of the time, my goal would be to blend in the night of a big heist, to slither around like a shadow, but I need to make sure everyone sees me there—or, rather, that they see the man escorting me. Christopher Leon might be able to wipe a video feed while the FBI’s back is turned, but even he can’t change the firsthand reports of several hundred witnesses.
“It is beautiful…” I said, trailing my fingers over the fabric.
Jane was all decision. “Then this is the one you want. You’re a size four? Don’t look so surprised—your mom was, too. I was always jealous of how easy she made it look. She wore a red dress just like this to prom.”
Flustered by the reference to my mother, I accepted both the compliment and the dress.
I’m in it now as I wait for Christopher to arrive, my hair piled on top of my head and secured by about fifty bobby pins. Half of them stab my head any time I make a sudden movement, but it feels good knowing they’re there. That’s fifty lock-picking kits no one will question me having in my possession.
Plus, the coiled loops of my hair are strategically placed to hide the small transmitter behind my right ear. I’m hooked up and plugged in to an alarmingly high-tech federal communication system that Mariah and Cheryl stole from the office.
Those women had way more fun with this than national security allows.
I also have Cheryl’s letter opener strapped to one thigh and my red peep-toe heels on, but those parts go without saying. The shiv is for my safety—Cheryl insisted on it—and the shoes, while not functional, were a gift from my husband, who’s still lying in a hospital bed with his beautiful body torn open.
Forget functionality. I’m wearing the goddamned shoes.
Christopher arrives precisely on time, looking as handsome and nervous as if he’s picking me up for a real date. I can tell as soon as I open the front door that his tuxedo is one he owns, tailored to his body and pulled out for many such occasions.
He’s done this before. He does this all the time.
It’s that realization, more than the image of Grant, that has me greeting him with a semblance of calm. This is the last time Christopher Leon puts on a tux and pretends to be something he’s not.
“Oh, you look so nice!” I say in a tone that anyone who knows me would recognize as a clear and patent lie. “You FBI agents sure do clean up well.”
A dark flash fills his eyes, and I’m reminded how important it is to tread lightly. “I’m not an FBI agent tonight.”
Of course he’s not. And if all goes well, he never will be again.
“You can take the badge away from the man, but you can’t take the man away from the badge,” I say breezily. It’s true, too. I doubt even decades away from the job would force Grant to budge so much as an inch. “But let’s not think about that tonight. I’ve been cooped up inside the hospital for days. I don’t know about you, but I feel a need to stretch my wings.”
* * *
Christopher pulls his muscle car up to valet parking right on time.
Almost everything about the Conrad Museum’s exterior looks the same as it did before, save for the expensive cars spewing out well-dressed men and women and the two large, intimidating men at the door checking off the guest list. The bouncers are standard protocol at an event of this magnitude, and they’re possible to circumnavigate only by begging your grandmother to add a few fake names to the list without asking questions about it.
Of course, if you zoom out a little, things take on a more interesting light. To the left, a few feet away from an ATM machine on the side of the bank, a masked magician and his middle-aged assistant are setting up. It’s an odd time of night and an even stranger location for a street show, but people are already pausing to watch them work. Clad in crushed velvet and with a swatch of black hair—a lock of which keeps falling over his eye—the magician looks exactly like the dark, brooding sort to put on a good show.
How much magic Riker actually knows is anyone’s guess, though I suspect his fast hands will lend themselves well to the task. Not that it matters. The tricks don’t have to be good. They just have to include a few well-timed smoke bombs to guarantee obscured vision—including electronic vision—for a full thirty minutes.
Cheryl gave Riker his smoke after all.
“That’s a strange place for a street magician,” Christopher murmurs as we make our way past the pair. Riker’s mask renders him unidentifiable, and Cheryl looks like a completely different person in sequins and a long blond wig, so I’m not too worried about him making the connection.
“Isn’t it?” I ask blithely. “I wonder what made them set up there. They’re going to be in everyone’s way. People can’t even get to the ATM machine.”
I’d rather he not spend too much time questioning their presence—yet—so I wind my arm through his and steer him past the guards.
“Do you do this sort of thing often?” Christopher asks. “The high society functions, I mean?”
“I have been lately,” I say. “They’re more interesting than you think—you’d be surprised what you can get away with.”
He turns his head in sudden interest, but I catch sight of my favorite mustachioed museum curator and beeline straight for him.
“Pierre!” I say with genuine pleasure. If he looked dapper before, he’s downright quixotic now. He’s in tails—actual tails—and the bright white of the vest underneath his tuxedo jacket looks like something out of a 1920s gangster movie. He also looks like he’s in a gangster movie, but not as the guy with the tommy gun. He’s definitely the guy on the other end, nervous and trying not to show it.
Poor man. I wish I could reassure him that he has seven talented people looking out for him tonight. You couldn’t ask for a better personal security team.
“Ah, the beautiful Liliana Dupont returns,” he replies with a shake of his head. “Though I suppose it’s not fair to keep calling you that. You’re quite lovely in your own right.”
“Pierre knew my mother when they were younger,” I explain to my date. “He thinks I look like her.”
“Then she must have been very pretty,” Christopher replies with an easy promptness that robs the compliment of its value.
Pierre is wearing white gloves to match his outfit, but that’s a nonissue. A carefully disguised Oz came by to look at the contents of the first floor of the museum yesterday, and the chemical formula Jordan concocted was transferred to Pierre’s hand via handshake. After that, all Oz had to do was reach in his pocket and toy with the elevator’s remote controls, which he did before the chemical wore off. Pierre, alarmed at the malfunctioning elevator, promptly went upstairs to check on his beloved collection.
With any luck, the UV flashlight currently tucked down the front of my bra will show us not only the numbers on the keypad, but the o
rder in which they were used.
I only wish the crew had been half as inventive when it came to getting their hands on his key card. No amount of brainstorming provided a way to get that card, replicate it, and return it within the small window of time we had. And my friends’ old plan had been discarded as soon as Mariah pried it out of them.
It was Tara, of course. She would have been sent to seduce it out of him.
Since no one except Cheryl offered to step in and take her place, it’s up to me to get my hands on it tonight before I slip upstairs. I’m guessing, from the way Pierre keeps nervously patting his chest, that it’s tucked into an interior pocket.
It’s not great news. The curator is nice and all, but we’re not on such good terms that I can run my hands up his torso without giving myself away.
Pierre catches sight of another guest and goes off to greet them, so Christopher offers me his arm and escorts me toward the food tables near the back. For reasons I’m sure only my grandmother understands, they used a circus theme for the appetizers as well as the charity. The shrimp are arranged in literal rings of fire.
“Your mom must have been rich if she grew up in all this,” Christopher says as he passes over the flaming food in favor of a glass of champagne, which he gulps in one quick motion.
“Yeah, but she gave it up for love,” I say. “You have to admire her for that.”
He eyes me askance.
It’s not difficult for me to interpret that look. “My dad has money now, but it wasn’t always like that,” I say defensively. “We had our share of lean times. Besides, when he married my mom, he always planned to give up his criminal ways. He never got the chance, that’s all.”
Christopher pauses. “It takes a lot of strength to walk away like that.”
It doesn’t take strength, I want to tell him. It takes superhuman capabilities. Superhuman capabilities that I, unfortunately, don’t have. I feel more alive right now than I have in ages.
Saving Mr. Perfect Page 28
