Dr. Lee looks at the form in alarm.
“Don’t listen to her,” Grant wheedles as he hands the doctor a pen. “She’ll do or say anything to get what she wants.”
Ha. Talk about a man willing to go to any means to achieve his ends. I don’t know how illegal it is to fake a fire at an FBI building just to harass a doctor into signing a medical release, but I can’t imagine it’s looked upon with favor. Not that he cares for any of that. I’ve never met a man so dishonorably honorable as my husband. Sure, he fights crime and locks up bad guys for a living, but you wouldn’t believe the kind of rules he breaks to do it—and without so much as a twinge of conscience.
Behold, our marriage in a nutshell.
“And he’s trying to trick you into clearing him for a job that he’s in no way, shape, or form ready for,” I reply. “Give it to me, or I’ll have to report you both.”
Grant turns on his heel to face me. “Penelope, so help me…”
I turn on my heel to face him. “Grant, so help me…”
“Maybe I should give you two a minute,” Dr. Lee says with a nervous laugh. “I get the feeling this isn’t really about a release form.”
I ignore her. This is too important to lose focus. See, three months ago, my husband was shot in the line of duty. A bullet entered his back and emerged through his abdomen, narrowly missing his spine and all major internal organs. He’s lucky to be walking—luckier still to be alive—but to hear him tell the tale, his injury is nothing more than a scratch that needs a kiss and a bandage.
The thing is, I have kissed him and I have changed his bandages—and still I’ve watched him struggle for the past ninety days to reconcile the body he once had and the one he’s stuck with now. He’s not healing the way he’s supposed to. He pushes too hard and tries to do too much. The summation of all his life goals is to get cleared to return to field duty, and he’s worked single-mindedly toward that goal since the day he was discharged from the hospital, common sense be damned.
But he’s not ready. I know it and Simon knows it and, yes, even Grant knows it. Getting him to admit that out loud, however, is an exercise in head-against-the-wall futility.
“Poke him,” I suggest with a gesture at Grant’s stomach. “Go ahead. Stick a finger out and jab him right in the scar. See what happens.”
Grant’s scowl lightens to a half smile, his lips turned up at the corners. “Is that a challenge, my love?”
Despite the fact that I would like to poke this man into full-on obedience, I can’t resist that smile or the playful way his coffee-black eyes twinkle in the flashing red alarm. There’s nothing he loves more than turning our arguments into a game. He thinks he has a better chance of winning that way.
“Sure, if you want to call it that,” I concede. “Let’s make it a challenge. If Dr. Lee pokes you as hard as she can and you don’t flinch, I’ll let you keep your stupid form.”
“And if I do flinch?”
“You don’t return here until I decide you’re ready.” I hold his gaze. “You’re not the only one who can be stubborn, you know.”
He extends a hand, holding it steady until I slip my palm against his. The rough texture of his skin is warm and familiar, as is the way he lingers over the perfunctory handshake a second too long.
“Then it’s a deal.” He turns to Dr. Lee. “You heard my wife. If you poke me and I don’t move a muscle, you can go ahead and sign the form. We’ll be on our way and won’t bother you again.”
Dr. Lee blinks at him, her green eyes owlish behind their frames. “That’s, um, not how any of this works. You guys know that, right?”
“And if he does move a muscle, you need to prescribe him at least four more weeks of physical therapy,” I counter, ignoring her. “You might also want to throw in psychological counseling, because the man clearly needs it.”
Grant takes a step my direction. “I beg your pardon,” he says, low voice grumbling. “There’s not a damn thing wrong with my brain, and there never has been. Except for maybe the day I married you.”
I match my step to his, drawing so close we’re practically chest to chest. “If that’s not clear proof you’re out of your mind, then I don’t know what is. A fire alarm, Grant? Really? Have I taught you nothing?”
As if on cue, the siren turns off, plunging the three of us into a ringing silence. I pause a moment before I move, allowing myself time to adjust to the sudden alteration in my surroundings.
“Huh,” Grant says. He casts a glance at the clock on the wall and frowns. “That didn’t take nearly as long as I wanted it to.”
“Probably because I sent Simon to go call in the false alarm,” I say and turn to the doctor. “Does this mean you’ll have time to do a full exam now? I wasn’t kidding before—he’s good at hiding it, but he’s in a lot of pain.”
“No way.” She holds up her hands. “I’m not doing anything except maybe sending you both down to psych.”
“Hey, now!” I protest. “There’s no call for drastic measures.”
“Yeah,” Grant agrees with a laugh. “I’m probably okay, but you can’t send my wife down there. She’d never make it out again.”
Grant and I turn toward the doctor as one, aligning together to defend ourselves against her. The way we conduct our marriage may be unorthodox, but there’s no denying that we work best when we work as a team.
Unfortunately, there’s no time for me to convince the doctor to perform her test after all, because Simon appears at the door, breathless and red-faced.
“Oh, good. You’re both still here.” He nods in Grant’s direction. “I was up in the section chief’s office calling off the alarm, and you’ll never guess what just got the all clear.”
“No way,” Grant says, his eyes lighting from within. “They actually approved it?”
“I’ve got the paperwork signed, sealed, and delivered.” Simon rubs his hands together. “Complete that release form, doc, and let my man get back to the field. We’ve got work to do.”
“Simon!” I cry. I thought he was supposed to be on my side.
“Sorry, Blue,” he says, sounding like the least apologetic man of all time. “But you’re going to want to get in on this one too. Leon called an emergency meeting up in his office. If all goes according to plan, you two ship out Monday.”
2
THE MISSION
As it turns out, Dr. Lee can be persuaded to sign a release form without the requisite medical evaluation. One quick phone call upstairs, and Grant is suddenly fit to return to duty, no questions asked.
“But what about the Hippocratic oath?” I demand. “What about the fact that he pulled a fire alarm to avoid his appointment today?”
“You don’t have proof that was me,” Grant points out.
“And he did pass the physical test last week,” Simon adds.
“Sorry, but this one’s over my head,” Dr. Lee says with a hunched shrug. She’s the only one in the room to sympathize with my plight, but even she’s unmovable. “Hippocrates has nothing on the director of the FBI.”
I swear, I’d be amused at how quickly they all turned if I wasn’t so outraged. For these people, the job always comes first.
I treat both men to a barrage of insults on their intelligence and dubious moral code until we make it back up to their floor. I continue as they lead the way to the office of Christopher Leon, Grant’s half brother and the agent who currently heads up their department. I especially don’t stop when we’re all seated at the table and the proposed mission is finally laid out before me.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I cry. “No way. It’s a death trap. It’s not happening.”
“Penelope, I don’t think you understand—” Christopher begins. His booming voice is cut short by an almost imperceptible shake of Grant’s head. Even though Christopher is technically Grant’s superior, he’s not h
is equal in terms of either experience or wisdom, so he has a tendency to defer to my husband’s wishes.
It’s part of what makes my attempt to slow Grant down so difficult. Few people are willing or able to stand up to the full weight of his charisma—Christopher included.
“But if she’ll just hear us out, I know she’ll come around,” Christopher protests. “She must have misunderstood the details.”
“As she is neither an idiot nor a child, she understood just fine.” I push back from the table. “Thank you for inviting me, gentlemen, but you’re clearly deluded—every last one of you. The answer is no.”
I doubt many people have said no quite so forcefully when confronted with Grant Emerson, Simon Sterling, and Christopher Leon, their massive shoulders crowded in a row, but I’m not scared of them. I’ve faced firing squads of this caliber plenty of times before. In fact, I’ve faced this particular firing squad more times than I care to count.
“But Penelope—” Christopher begins again, his voice even louder this time.
In case it wasn’t obvious, there’s a strong family tendency toward obstinacy running through his and Grant’s shared bloodline. The two men might not have grown up together, their father the sort to stick around only long enough to leave his DNA behind, but their ability to hold fast to one dogged path is nothing short of miraculous. And annoying.
“We aren’t asking you to play in the poker game,” Christopher says. “We only want you to be on the boat where it will take place.”
The specs for the game he’s talking about are spread out on the table in front of me, glossy page after glossy page of carefully snapped photos arranged like a brochure meant, I assume, to entice me. Most of the photos are of a cruise ship gilded to the hulls and equipped with every modern convenience known to mankind.
According to Team Shoulders over there, it’s the site of an upcoming poker tournament between some of the most cunning card players in the world. And by cunning card players, I of course mean criminals. Known criminals, suspected criminals, criminals who are wanted in every single one of our world’s one hundred and ninety-six countries…the stack of dossiers in my hands reads like Facebook for Felons. For one full week, they’re going to gather and mingle and cheat at poker together.
On its own, I have no objections to all of this. I like ocean views and I like people who break the law, and if you’re going to hold a giant illegal poker game, why wouldn’t you put it on what amounts to a floating casino?
Unfortunately, few things are as simple as they seem—especially where the FBI is involved. According to the ridiculous plan they’ve been putting together behind my back, they’d like to send someone undercover on that boat. More specifically, they’d like to send my husband undercover on that boat.
Alone. Without backup. Protected by no one but me and anyone from my team I can convince to come along.
“We’ve looked at every scenario, but nothing else is viable,” Christopher continues. I’d say he’s being purposefully obtuse, but I’m never quite sure with that man. “It’s a small ship and everyone buying a ticket is being thoroughly vetted ahead of time, so there’s no way we can land a full team without detection. It’s going to be a stretch just to get Grant on board.”
I throw my hands up in annoyance. “Of course it is. In case you weren’t aware, criminals don’t enjoy having their illegal activities monitored by the feds. We’re picky about that sort of thing.”
“But, Penelope—”
“Enough!” I cry. “It’ll never work. Even if I could convince my team to hop aboard the—what, Shady Lady?—there’s not going to be much we can do to protect Grant out there on open water. We’re thieves, not thugs. Have you asked my dad’s opinion?”
“We tried.” Simon casts a sideways glance at Grant. “He hasn’t proven himself to be particularly helpful.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“No, not ominous.” Christopher stumbles over his words in his rush to reassure me. “He’s planning on attending the cruise to try and win the tournament for himself. He felt a federal presence would interfere with his plans. He suggested we, ah, abandon the project.”
I laugh out loud at that. In other words, my dad told them exactly how high they could stick their interfering badges.
“He’s not wrong,” I point out. “One whiff of the men in black, and everyone on that ship will jump overboard. Either that or they’ll shoot Grant and leave his body for the sharks. Why do you want to go so bad? You can hardly arrest everyone on the Shady Lady. It says here the boat holds six hundred people.”
“I don’t plan on arresting anyone, actually.” Grant leans across the table and pushes one of the dossiers at me. The name at the top reads Johnny Francis, and there’s a list of suspected crimes underneath that makes my head swirl—armed robbery, extortion, racketeering. The list is impressive enough on its own, but in the place where there’s supposed to be a picture, there’s a question mark instead. “All we want is to track down a potential contact. We got a tip that he’s going to surface for a chance at winning the tournament. I want to be there in case he does.”
“Who is he?”
Simon snorts his disgust. “You don’t know who Johnny Francis is?”
The name, I’ll admit, is familiar, but so are a lot of the people Grant arrests. It doesn’t mean anything. Just because I once belonged to the union, I’m not automatically plugged in to every bad guy out there. That’s like assuming all plumbers know each other.
I glare. “You don’t either, or you’d have a picture of him.”
Grant laughs. “She’s got you there, Sterling.” To me, he adds, “Unfortunately, most of what we know at this point is speculation. We’ve been trying to get eyes on this guy for three years, but he’s not easy to find. Even though he knows everyone, no one seems to know him. He has no associates and no aliases that we’re aware of. He’s a ghost. This poker game might be our only way of putting a face to the name.”
I’m still not buying it. “So, you want to go undercover at an elite illegal poker game in hopes this Johnny Francis character will sit down next to you and introduce himself?”
“Well, no,” Simon admits. “But between Emerson, you, and any other members of your team you can convince to come along, we can narrow the pool of potential candidates. You guys can ask questions and move around in ways we can’t.”
He has a point. I might not be as firmly rooted in the criminal world as, say, Johnny Francis, but the name Penelope Blue means something. I hate to brag, but I’m kind of famous.
“I should also mention that you’ll need to find your own way on board,” Christopher says. “That includes making contact and covering the entrance fee. There can’t be any ties back to us or Grant’s safety will be compromised.”
“Gee. How enticing. How much does a ticket aboard this ship of fools cost?”
“To attend as a spectator? I’m not sure. But the buy-in to play is set at an even million.”
A million dollars? “Are you kidding?” I ask as my gaze skims from one determined male face to another. “What prize are they offering for that price tag? A trip to the moon?”
Grant is the first to respond. He lifts a hand to his mouth and emits a sound that goes something like, “D*coughcough*monds.”
My incredulity morphs instantly to interest. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”
“D*coughcough*monds,” he repeats, fake cough less pronounced this time.
“Okay.” I sit up straighter and fold my hands on top of the table. “I’m listening. You may proceed.”
Grant’s chuckle, deep and rich, fills the room. “I told you we should lead with that.”
I ignore his gentle mockery, directing my attention to Christopher and Simon instead. “What kind of diamonds are we talking? I want specifics—cut, weight, quality. Leave nothing out.”
“Calling them diamonds might be misleading,” Simon says. “There’s only a single gem in the center of the tiara.”
My pulse picks up. I can think of a few tiaras of that design. “Go on,” I urge.
“There are also a few sapphires affixed to the setting, which I believe is solid gold. The scrollwork is—”
I hold up one hand, stopping him short. “Say no more. It’s the Luxor Tiara, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Simon’s brows come up in mild surprise. “How did you know?”
Because I’m an intelligent woman with eyes in her head and carbon in her blood, that’s how. Even though I’ve never seen the Luxor Tiara in person, I can fully picture the two-hundred-carat diamond in its center, the relative size of an egg.
I’m starting to feel dizzy, though I can’t tell if that’s caused by outrage or interest. Most likely it’s the second. Luxor and tiara were the first words I spoke out loud. I drew pictures of myself wearing that tiara in elementary school. My dad had a mobile of it hanging over my crib.
Okay, so that’s not strictly true, but I can remember drifting off to sleep at night with my dad sitting by my side as he recited a list of the most valuable pieces of jewelry in the world. We weren’t a Goodnight, Moon sort of family, and my father isn’t the greatest storyteller, so recitations of this sort were common. I could still probably name the estimated value of all the crown jewels in descending order.
The Luxor Tiara isn’t one of the crown jewels—at least, not for a crown that has any real claim to it. Although it once belonged to Spain, it’s most famous for having been lost and buried deep under the Caribbean for most of its history, nestled alongside pirate plunder in shimmering shades of silver and gold. Recovered by treasure hunters in the early eighties, its ownership has been disputed ever since it hit dry land. Governments want it, museums want it, archaeological experts want it, and most important, jewel thieves want it.
Saving Mr. Perfect Page 34
