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Contents:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Epilogue
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CHAPTER ONE
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Tess popped another chocolate into her mouth and settled lower into her bubble bath, the newest issue of Vanity Fair in hand. How she loved reading about the rich and debauched, and here, right before another story about Hollywood shenanigans, was a Tiffany ad for a mouthwatering emerald necklace and earring set. Life, she thought, didn't get much better than this: she had Debussy on the CD player, chocolates close at hand, her work, her health, and emeralds to die for. Maybe it was time to visit Tiffany's again.
She added hot water to the huge garden tub twice before she finally decided she had wrinkled enough. Besides, she was running low on chocolates. They were her one and only vice—she considered jewel theft a pleasure, not a vice—and she shamelessly indulged herself at the least provocation.
With a contented sigh for an afternoon well spent, Tess stood up, dried off, pulled on a caftan, and went to replace Debussy with Ravel on the CD player, when the doorbell rang.
She padded barefoot across the hardwood living room floor, her muscles still mush from the bath, and pulled open the door.
"You're busted, babe!"
Tess's knees nearly gave out on her. Clutching the mahogany door, she stared up at her past. "Bert?" she croaked.
Bert roared with laughter that echoed up and down the lushly carpeted outer hallway. "Oh, baby, if you could just see your face. You look like you've seen a cop!"
She felt like she'd been squashed by a Mack truck. Tess ordered herself to breathe again. "It's just that it's been seven years, Bert. I … heard you had left Australia and were working in South America."
"I'll give you my life story just as soon as you let me in."
Every synapse in her brain was frozen. In? He actually wanted to come in? "Um, sure, Bert. Of course. Sorry about that." Tess stumbled backward. She shuddered as the giant swept past her. God, he still wore the same cologne!
"Not bad," Bert said as he looked around at the Manhattan apartment's sunken living room, the eighteenth—and nineteenth-century French and English furniture, the Monet, Matisse, and Degas originals on the pale peach walls. "How'd you swing it?"
"The … uh … owners are on an extended vacation in Europe. I'm … house-sitting."
Bert's chuckle was downright affectionate. "That's my girl. You always knew how to work an angle. It looks like you've done well by yourself. I'm proud of you, babe. You were the only one of my girls who really had the gift."
"Thanks, Bert. Um … do you want a beer?"
"Now when have I ever turned down a beer? Just as long as it's none of that domestic soda pop this country calls beer," Bert said, strolling into the living room as if he owned it to sprawl on the delicate gold brocade Regency couch.
"Give me some credit," Tess said, heading for the kitchen. "Nothing but imported brew graces my fridge."
She let the kitchen door swing shut and then the spasms convulsed her. Shaking so badly she couldn't stand, she collapsed onto a white kitchen chair, wrapping her arms around herself. It didn't help. Her skin was ice. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her.
His girl.
It had been seven years since they had last worked together and Bert still considered her his girl.
And in a horrible way, wasn't that exactly what she was? Hadn't he made her the woman she was today?
The nausea overcame her and Tess dashed for the sink, praying Bert wouldn't hear the retching. She hurriedly turned the water on full blast, rinsed out her mouth, then numbly rinsed her entire face. It had never occurred to her that she would react this way to seeing Bert again.
Still shaking, she walked over to a cupboard, pulled down a beer glass, grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and slowly poured it into the glass, careful not to make a head. Bert hated waste.
Watching the beer, Tess reminded herself that she was a professional and it was time she started acting like one. She was not eighteen or fifteen or eleven anymore. Things had changed. She had changed. Bert was no longer in control of her life. Bert knew nothing about her life. He couldn't. She had been fanatically devoted to shrouding every moment of her existence these last seven years.
So why had he decided to reenter her life now?
Nothing pleasant came to mind. It never had where Bert was concerned. What did he want from her? Why had he tracked her down? Why had he suddenly appeared now? The trembling started again.
"Enough!" Tess muttered with self-disgust. She slammed a fist into her thigh. The pain was a shock, but it worked. It pushed the fear back into the recesses of her heart so she could concentrate on thinking like a rational adult, even though Bert was lounging in her living room. It was time to see what game he wanted to play now.
She carried the beer out to him, sat in the green striped brocade chair opposite him and, with enforced cheerfulness, asked what he had been up to. Bert needed no further prompting. He had always liked to talk about himself. Really, there wasn't anything else that interested him.
Leaning back in her chair, her breathing calm, her nerves taut but steady, one half of Tess's mind listened to Bert's account of the many illegal activities that had kept him happily occupied these last seven years, while the other half of her mind studied him as if her life depended on it … and perhaps it did.
It hadn't been her childish imagination, he really was huge, at least six and a half feet tall. All of the muscles were still there, but now they were covered by a layer of fat that, while not making him obese, made him seem a bit slower, a bit less sharp. Looks, however, could be deceiving where Bert was concerned. Tess had learned that lesson long ago.
His pale brown hair had thinned, disappearing completely from the top of his head. His clothes and shoes were Italian, his watch Rolex, his silk shirt open to his navel. Twenty-four-carat gold chains dangled on his massive, hairy chest. South America, as Bert's stories and his appearance informed Tess, had been good to him. But then, cocaine had done so much for so many people, why not Bert?
"So why come back to the States if South America was doing so well by you?" she asked when he paused to take a long swallow of beer.
"I was a little fish in a large, lucrative pond, babe," Bert said with a sad sigh.
"The locals took over your operation?"
"With a vengeance. But that's ancient history," Bert said, his massive hand waving away the past as if it were a dying mosquito. "I've come back to my homeland and to the best, the brightest of my girls for one final job that will set us up for life. You working on anything?"
Tess smiled. "There are some emeralds I'm considering, but they can wait. What's up?"
"It's a honey of a deal. I thought of you the minute it fell into my lap. It'll make us rich beyond even the wildest of my dreams, and I always dream big, babe."
It was, Tess thought, typical of Bert that he had not asked her about her life these last seven years. Typical that his reason for seeing her was mercenary. Typical that she was expected to eagerly launch herself into another foray against the law.
It had never been wise to disappoint Bert, so she asked about the honey of a deal.
"Ever hear of a kid named Elizabeth Cushman?" he asked and, when she shook her head, he continued. "She disappeared about twenty years ago, kidnapping, never turned up. She was the heiress to the Cushman Auction House. Ever hear of that?"
Tess crossed her legs, wholly at ease now. This was just like old times and she knew what was expected of her, how to think, how to act. "Who hasn't? They handle the best goods in the world. Lots of money, lots of prestige, lots of power, though they prefer to call it
influence."
Bert uttered what was, for him, an affectionate chuckle. "That's my girl. You got it in one. But don't forget the Farleigh necklace."
Tess's surprise and interest were genuine. "You mean these Cushmans are the Cushmans with the most valuable emerald necklace in the western world?"
"Thought that would catch your interest," Bert said with a leer. "The old Cushman patriarch died about eight months ago. His son, Elizabeth Cushman's father, killed himself about a year after Elizabeth disappeared. Couldn't handle the guilt, I suppose. You know what these snotty-nosed rich kids are like. The mother died in a riding accident a few years back and that leaves no direct heir to the Cushman millions. And we're talking hundreds of millions."
"And the Farleigh necklace."
"Exactly," Bert said, stroking his gold chains. "The grandmother is still alive and should hang on for a few more years. By all accounts she's a tough old bird. She's running things for now and trying to figure out how to pass on the empire and the Farleigh. That's where you come in. The eldest Cushman daughter always collects the Farleigh necklace on her twenty-first birthday and hands it back into the family coffers on her death. So, with my help you'll pass yourself off as the old lady's long-lost granddaughter Elizabeth and collect the Farleigh as your due."
Tess's mouth fell open, and then she burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. This was just the sort of preposterous, grandiose scheme Bert would think of.
"What is this, Candid Camera?" she said.
"I have come here with a serious business proposition, Tess, and I expect you to treat it accordingly."
His voice was cold steel and Tess sobered instantly. She had the crescent scar on her right temple to remind her how dangerous it was to disobey Bert when he had that tone in his voice.
"Sorry, Bert, you just surprised me," she said in an appropriately abashed tone. "This wasn't what I was expecting. I mean, how on earth am I supposed to pass myself off as some long-dead rich kid? You and I both know my blood is the farthest thing from blue."
Bert looked her up and down, as if for the first time, inventorying her, dissecting her. Tess felt the bile rise in her throat. Then he relaxed back onto the gold couch. "Mongrels fake it all the time, babe. You'll do just fine after I've coached you. You always were the best actress of the lot. Now, I've got some pictures of this Cushman kid and her family and you've got enough resemblance to them to pass yourself off without any telltale surgery or hair dyes or contact lenses. You've got the coloring and the height and the age. You've even got that appendix scar. That's what first made me think of you. Nothing faked. I'm going to give the Cushmans the genuine article."
"After a sufficient amount of coaching," Tess said dryly.
Bert smiled with immense self-satisfaction. "I've done some digging on the Cushmans and that kid. I know stuff that, when used properly, will convince them you're Elizabeth, Then it's only a matter of getting the old lady to fork over forty-three point five million dollars' worth of necklace, we disappear like a head-on with the Bermuda Triangle, sell the necklace to a collector I know, and split the proceeds. What do you say?"
"What's the cut?"
Bert shrugged his massive shoulders. "The usual."
Tess smiled and shook her head. "Uh-uh. I'm older and wiser now, Bert, and I'll be the one in the trenches on this job. No ten-ninety split for your best girl. Let's make it fifty-fifty."
Bert's gray eyes narrowed to slate. "I don't bargain with my girls, Tess. You know that. The split is ten—ninety. Take it or leave it."
Tess was undismayed. "But I'm the good actress with the appendix scar, remember? You need me, Bert. That's why you're here."
His eyes bored into her. "Don't play games with me, little girl. I taught you everything you know. There isn't a dodge you can make that I can't see."
"True enough," Tess said quietly. "But I'm not a kid anymore, Bert. I've been independent for seven long years and, while I may not be your equal, I am no longer your … property. The way you've described this job, I'm going to be your partner. A junior partner, sure, but your partner nevertheless."
He was silent a moment. "You know," he said at last, "if you play your part well, you'll earn more than a ten-ninety split on a necklace. You'll earn an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars."
Tess ruthlessly held back her smile. She had seen this one coming from a mile off. In the six years he had owned her—and he had reminded her of that status daily—Bert had taught her almost everything she knew about being a thief and a con. But in those six years, she had also learned Bert inside and out. How lovely that she could still follow his thought processes after all these years. "You mean … keep up the con until the old lady croaks?" she said with feigned surprise.
"Exactly."
"I admit it's an intriguing idea," Tess said crossing her legs. "But what happens when I give you the necklace and go on being Elizabeth? The old lady will be sore when the Farleigh turns up missing."
"We'll replace it with a paste job."
"Okay. And what happens if you sell the necklace to your collector and a year later the old lady takes it into her head to call me a fraud and kick me out?"
"Then you're out in the cold, babe. The choice is yours: a ten-ninety split or a couple of years of hard work for the empire. Which do you want?"
"Ah, Bert, how can you ask?" Tess said with a grin. "You trained me. I think I'd make a great empress.
He smiled at her. "Didn't I say you were my best girl?"
"So, tell me how I inherit an empire."
Bert spent the next hour going over his plans for the Cushman con and Tess couldn't hold back her open admiration. He hadn't lost his touch. As farfetched as it seemed, she began to think the con really would work. And if it did, Tess suspected that Bert had no intention of settling for the Farleigh. He probably meant to walk off with a good chunk of the empire as well. Bert never took less when he could take more.
He handed her pictures of the Cushmans so she could begin to familiarize herself with her soon-to-be family. Tomorrow, she and Bert would begin an intensive training program for her newest role. In a few weeks, she would be ready to stroll into the Cushman mansion and claim what was unrightfully hers.
"This is the one you'll have to convince," Bert said, handing her the last of the pictures.
Tess stared at a man in his mid-thirties. Thick chestnut hair brushed an Oxford shirt collar. His green eves were grim, his mouth tightly set. The sharp planes of his face denoted strength and, Tess thought, cynicism. It was just a head-and-shoulders shot, but she could easily imagine the rest of him. He would be tall and strong. Those shoulders hardly belonged to a ninety-pound weakling.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"Luke Mansfield, the Cushman family lawyer."
This surprised Tess. "Mansfield? Of Mansfield and Roper?"
"Yep."
"Oh, come on, Bert! He's just some rich kid keeping other rich kids out of jail and dallying on the side with every tall debutante in the pack."
Bert's narrowed gaze pinned her to her chair. "Don't start thinking you know more than me, little girl, and don't underestimate Mansfield. He's your worst enemy. He's tough, he's smart, and he's the one who has to believe you're Elizabeth before we're in."
Tess frowned at the picture in her hand. She had seen his name in the social columns innumerable times. How could a social butterfly threaten her? True, he didn't look like a barrel of laughs, but she figured she could handle him with both hands tied behind her back … and hopping on one foot.
"If you say so," she murmured, placing the picture on the table beside her.
"I say so and you'll know so soon enough. You seem to have forgotten some of the basic facts of life, babe." Bert's steel-gray eyes drilled into her. "You don't question my decisions, you don't second-guess me, you don't follow anyone's script but mine. Got it?"
He stood up, looming over her. God, he was a behemoth! "Got it, Bert," Tess said softly, staring up at him, feel
ing like she was eleven years old again.
When he finally left, Tess closed the door slowly behind him and turned to stare at the apartment. It looked like the rest of her world felt: tilted crazily on its axis, foreign, unreal.
It had actually happened! She was really going to work with Bert again. They weren't going to relieve Cartier of a major portion of its diamonds. They weren't going to remove a supposedly lost Rubens from the secret gallery of a private collector. They were going to con an emerald necklace from the doyenne of the western world's oldest and greatest auction house.
And she, the mongrel who didn't even know her own name, was going to become Elizabeth Cushman, a long-dead heiress with the right connections and the rarefied blue blood of New York's old money.
"Far freaking out," Tess murmured.
She walked over to the large gilt framed mirror above the marble fireplace and stared at herself. She was still five feet nothing and unbeautiful. Ah, well. Jane Cushman wasn't demanding beauty, just an heiress. Her coloring would link her to John Cushman and, while she had no physical feature that really resembled Eugenie Cushman, Tess had an abundance of strength that would more than link her by character. Then, of course, there was her appendix scar. Tess silently blessed her fishy forebears for endowing her with a malfunctional appendix. It had given her a job. The biggest job of her life.
She turned slightly, her fingers drumming on the cool pink marble of the mantel, the hardness settling in her as it always did when she began to work. True, this job in no way resembled how she had fantasized working with Bert again. But he had named the game and Tess had been waiting for years for just such a honey of a deal. She would play his game to win.
A grim smile tightened her mouth as Tess headed for the phone. Gladys and Cyril were not going to believe her luck.
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CHAPTER TWO
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"I cannot believe you're doing this!" Luke Mansfield said for the tenth time in as many minutes. "I can't believe you're making me do this! I had a deposition at nine, I have a lunch appointment at one, a hearing at three, I have to prepare for another hearing tomorrow, and what am I doing instead? Watching my oldest client go off the deep end!"
STOLEN HEARTS Page 1
