“Can I get you something?” The bartender stopped in front of her. She had dyed raven hair, pale skin and lipstick so dark it looked almost black in the dim lighting.
Although Joss wanted a quick shot of tequila, it probably wasn’t a good idea. “Just water for now, please. I’m waiting for someone.” She scanned the bar again, studying the faces of the patrons, gauging whether their interest was purely male or held something more.
“Hey you, American?” asked the ex-con in a thick accent.
Joss looked away. There were times for a polite brushoff, but this was not one of them. The last thing she wanted was for some half-crocked criminal to be coming on to her when her contact came in.
Not that her forger wasn’t a criminal, but she hoped he was a little more civilized than this.
“Hey, American,” said the ex-con, shifting closer. “A drink?”
“No thanks,” Joss muttered.
He pulled at his shirt to point to a set of Harley Davidson wings on his meaty chest. “Look, American.”
Joss put her hands on the bar and opened her mouth to reply when the bartender said something to him in Dutch that had him spitting out a curse and turning away.
“What did you say?” Joss asked.
“I told him you could date a convict in America if you wanted one.”
Joss looked at her. “Thanks. I think.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Joss checked her watch and drummed her fingers on the bar. The voice on the phone hadn’t said when her contact would appear, only for her to wait. She glanced at her watch again.
“You said you’re here to meet someone?”
Joss glanced up to see the bartender again and gave a shrug. “Yes, but I don’t know what he looks like.”
“He did not tell you it would be a man,” she returned.
Joss blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Mr. Kant. The voice on the phone. He said only for you to come here and you would be contacted. I am the contact.”
Joss stared. “I was expecting a guy,” she said finally.
“Clearly. But as you can see, your options here are limited. Now, do you want to meet our friend or don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” There was a rushing sound in her ears.
Goth Girl smiled thinly. “Good. Go outside. There is a building on the opposite corner, a dark red. Buzz 2C and you will be let in. It is the third door on the second floor.”
Joss rose to walk out when a hand clamped on her wrist. “Hey, American,” snarled the ex-con. “Too fancy?”
The bartender spoke sharply to him in Dutch. He ignored her and tugged Joss toward him. He smelled sour and sweaty.
“Let go,” Joss snapped, adrenaline flooding her system.
Across the bar, men were looking up. No one was coming to her immediate rescue, though, she saw. No one wanted to tangle with this mountain of a man. She’d have to fend for herself. Taking a breath of mixed fear and fury, Joss flattened out her hand and chopped the ex-con across the Adam’s apple, the way Bax had shown her. The edge of her stiffened hand bounced off the elastic feeling lump of his neck.
He gave a choked bellow and grabbed for his neck, releasing her.
“Hey,” the bartender cried, but Joss ignored her. Instead, she bolted for the door, slamming out into the afternoon sun.
17
THERE HAD BEEN no reason to go through the whole bar routine, Joss thought as she stomped angrily across the street to the ruddy stucco building. They knew who she was, she’d been vouched for. It was a waste of time, and an irritating one at that.
She was in a working-class neighborhood of stark, utilitarian buildings that looked like they’d seen better days. The area held none of the charm and warmth of central Amsterdam. In the doorway of the red building, the directory showed no name next to unit 2C. Joss pushed the bell.
The door buzzed immediately and she pushed it open, her pulse speeding up just a bit. The entryway smelled musty in the warmth of the summer day. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening carefully, the self-defense rod out and in her hand. When she reached the right door, she knocked.
She’d expected someone different, was her first thought as the door opened inward. Someone who looked menacing. Someone who looked more criminal. Certainly she hadn’t expected someone who looked like he could have been an eighth grade math teacher. She released the rod and brought her empty hand out of her pocket with an inner smile.
Slight and spare, he peered at her nearsightedly through thick glasses. He wore an ink-smudged blue canvas printers’ apron over a white shirt. He didn’t look like someone she’d need self-defense moves to overcome.
“I’m looking for Mr. Kant,” she said.
“Ah yes. Come in, come in.” He stepped back from the door.
It was clearly a working studio. There was a drafting board, shelves laden with inks and tools. On a solid wooden table sat a compact, old-fashioned printing press, and next to it a machine that looked very much like the perforator that she’d seen at the postal museum in Stockholm.
He smiled faintly at her inspection. “Sometimes the old tools are the best.”
Joss turned to look at him. “Old tools to make new things?”
“Indeed. So you have come from Stockholm,” he said. “What is it that you seek?”
Of course. Force her to declare herself so that if she were in law enforcement it would be entrapment. He was just doing what any smart criminal would. “I need a reproduction Post Office Mauritius pair. A very, very good pair. They should be able to pass inspection by an experienced amateur. They don’t need to convince an authenticator.”
He nodded, his dark hair gleaming under the lights. “You realize, of course, that these are the most famous stamps in all the world?”
“Yes.”
“Then you understand that producing the type of reproduction you seek is not a simple thing. There is the ink, the paper, the gum. And there is the matter of the plate.”
“I thought the original plate for the Post Office Mauritius pair still existed.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I see you have done your homework. The owner is not, however, prepared to participate in making reproductions, even for a very handsome sum.”
And he’d probably offered that sum, from the sound of it. “So what do you do without a plate?”
“I do not need the original. I have the technology to make my own.” He opened a door and flipped on the light. The room behind it was as high-tech as the workshop was old. A large blue metal box sat on a steel table, next to a computer. Waffled tubes ran to a humming box in the corner. Power cords snaked to a wall outlet. “This is a laser etching system. I scan a photograph of the stamp and the laser produces a new plate in copper. Very high quality. Very precise.”
And undoubtedly expensive, Joss thought. “Impressive. So you can do the job, it sounds like.”
“Oh, yes.”
“How much do you want for it?”
He pressed his lips together as though he were considering a geometry problem. “It is risky, you understand.”
“Your price?” she asked with an inward sigh.
“Fourteen thousand euros.”
Fourteen thousand, she thought in shock. It was well over what the contact had told her, well over what she could afford. And well over what she had on her. “No way. That’s too high.”
“The Post Office Mauritius set is very valuable,” he countered. “Of course such a fine reproduction should be of commensurate value. I seek merely a percentage of their price at auction.”
“Your figure is higher than your broker suggested.”
“My broker is not always privy to my production costs. Developing the correct ink colors for the Post Office Mauritius set, for example, has required visits to the Stockholm Postmuseet. The papers are very specialized, and must be hand-treated to age them. Even the gums are specialized, and of course all of my printing equipment is rare and costly.”
�
��But surely you have some of these materials in house.”
“I have all of them, madame. I must recover the cost it required to amass them, though.” He looked at her placidly.
The neighborhood was not particularly nice, nor was the building, Joss thought. He might make money on his various ventures, but he wasn’t exactly prospering. It was worth taking a chance. “I’ll pay you seven thousand,” she told him.
“Ridiculous,” he blustered. “This is precision work. My price is a fraction of the cost of the real stamp.”
“I’m not getting the profit of the real stamp.”
“You will be getting something. Thirteen thousand, then.”
“Eight,” she countered.
“It is impossible to do it for that price,” he snapped.
“Then I’ll go elsewhere.” Joss turned to the door.
“There is no one else who does what I do.” He raised his voice. “You are not just buying the stamps, you are buying my skill and experience.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She laid her hand on the knob.
“All right. Twelve.”
Joss stayed in place. “Nine.” She held her breath.
“Eleven,” he demanded. “Not one euro less.”
She turned back to him, her face wiped clean of any expression of triumph. “Fine. How soon can you have them ready for me?”
“How soon do you need them?”
“Tomorrow? Thursday at the latest.”
“That’s impossible,” he exploded. “Even Thursday is just two days from now.”
“I have to have the stamps.”
“This is an art,” he protested. “It requires not just skill but time to produce a convincing reproduction.”
“And you are a skilled and experienced man. If I don’t have the forgeries by the day I need them, I may as well not have them at all, in which case I will not need your very expensive services.”
He shook his head.
Joss studied him. “I would, of course, be prepared to add an expediting charge to your fee. Say, a thousand euros?”
He gave a grudging nod. “It is possible, I suppose.”
“I thought it might be.”
“I will need a deposit before I begin work. Three thousand now, the rest when you pick up the stamps.”
“Of course,” she said smoothly. “Tomorrow at the end of the day, then?”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
JOSS HELD her cell phone to her ear and waited for the line to pick up as she walked down the avenue, headed back toward the city center.
Bax answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said.
Neither one of them considered the fact that Bax didn’t have to think twice to recognize her voice.
“How’d it go?”
“Smooth as silk.”
“No problems?”
“None,” she said, conveniently leaving out the gorilla in the bar. “He came in high but I managed to bargain him down.”
Bax laughed. “A smart shopper. So when are you going to get them?”
“Tomorrow at the end of the day, he says.” She stopped on the corner and waited for the light.
“That will be cutting it close.”
“He has to make a whole new plate. He was talking a week, I got it to two days.”
“Not bad, Chastain,” he said.
Pleasure warmed her. “I try.”
“So it’s what, two-thirty? What are you going to do in Amsterdam all by yourself for a day and a half?”
“I don’t know. Wander, I suppose. It seems like a great city,” she said, looking around. She’d come back into the city center, where the full charm of Amsterdam emerged. “I wish I had someone to play with.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
It sounded perfectly splendid, but she was learning to be responsible these days. “We probably shouldn’t spend the money.”
“True. On the other hand, there’s nothing to stop me paying my own way. I’ve done everything here I can at this point. I’m only going to be sitting around and Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities. I could be there in two or three hours.”
“You mean it?” she began. “That would be a gas. We’d have to get a hotel, of course.”
“Sure.” There was tapping in the background.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going online to get a ticket and a hotel. How would you like to stay on the Gentlemen’s Canal?”
“I don’t know, would you have to be a gentlemen when we’re there?”
“I suspect there’s some waffle room.” He clicked keys some more. “Okay, we’ve got a room in the Huygens House, on the Herengracht.” He spelled it for her.
“I was thinking somewhere cheap out by the airport. We’re spending twelve thousand on the forgeries.”
“This one’s on me,” he told her.
“Bax, you can’t blow your money right and left like that.”
“I’m not blowing it. Consider it a barter agreement. My flight gets in at 7:00 p.m., so I can probably be there by eight. I expect to find you in bed, naked, when I get there.”
One corner of her mouth tugged up into a smile. “If you play your cards right.” She sobered. “Of course, we do have one problem. What if you get followed?”
Bax’s only response was a snort.
“Okay, forget that question.”
“Good. I’ll call you from the airport.”
“I’ll drag you to do tourist things,” she warned him.
“I live for the Anne Frank House,” he told her.
She disconnected with a foolish smile on her face. He was flying in to see her. He could have stayed in Stockholm but he wasn’t. He was coming over to be with her.
BAX SAT in the back of the cab, watching the gabled buildings of Amsterdam pass by as they headed to the hotel. And to Joss. He’d seen her only that morning, so why was it that it felt like it had been days?
The decision to head to Amsterdam had been sheer impulse, an impulse that made him a little nervous now. One minute, they’d been talking about the case. The next, he’d been on a plane headed south over the Baltic.
Not because staying in Stockholm would have left him at loose ends, necessarily, he thought as the car stopped.
He was perfectly happy prowling the city on his own. It was just that being with Joss would give him a chance to keep an eye on her, to be around in case of trouble. And being in Amsterdam would be no hardship—it was his favorite city in all of Europe. He wasn’t getting in over his head with her. He was too smart for that. This was just a little bonus.
He got out of the cab, slinging his satchel over his shoulder, a little rush of expectation running through him. He bounded up the steps to the front door of the little hotel. He knew where he was going. Nodding at the proprietor, he didn’t stop but climbed the steps to the second floor, looking for the room Joss had described to him over his mobile phone as he’d walked through the airport.
And then he was at the door and she was flowing into his arms, all silky, fragrant and soft against him. She wasn’t a creature of his imagination anymore. She was here, safe in his arms. And for a moment he didn’t let himself think about anything, she was all he wanted.
Dropping his satchel, Bax kicked the door closed with one foot and lifted her in his arms. “I thought I told you to be naked,” he growled against her neck, then kissed the sweet rises of her breasts.
“Forgive me, master,” she said, flipping open the towel she’d wrapped around herself to shield herself from prying eyes.
He knew the way desire for her could tear at him. Day after day, over and over he still got the slow thud of arousal in his blood every time he looked at her, driving him to bury himself in the tight heat of her body. At this moment, though, he wanted only to hold her, to feel her warm and close against him. Clothes were an impediment, a barrier that he dispensed with impatiently.
And then he buried his face in her neck and hel
d on for all he was worth.
The need, when it came, was slow, gentle. It wasn’t about the wild rush they usually encountered but a tenderness he hadn’t known he had a capacity for. It was a coming together more than just a coming, and when he slid inside her and he heard her soft sigh, it was as though all the disconnected parts of his world made sense.
And as they rocked together, it was the gathering connection that bound them gently.
JOSS SAT on the bed, her legs folded, turning a euro coin over idly in her hands. Lovemaking, a romantic walk down the canals to dinner and now, a quiet evening. She felt lazy and satisfied as a tabby cat with a dish of cream.
All was right in her world. They were getting the forgeries, they had a meet planned with Silverhielm just three days away. Things were coming to a head. Soon, if all went well, they’d be getting the stamp and everything would be back in place. She could return to San Francisco, her grandfather could come home without facing ruin.
And Bax would fly off to Copenhagen.
A shiver of cold whisked through her and she blinked. Having him here, now, next to her felt so right. The hours before he’d arrived, she’d drifted around the streets and canals of Amsterdam. She’d taken in the sights, but it had all felt empty. It wasn’t the same without someone to enjoy it with. It wasn’t the same without Bax, his wry humor, his seemingly endless store of knowledge.
It wasn’t the same without the feel of his hand in hers.
Knowing he was on his way had made it easier. In a week or two, she wouldn’t have that. In a week or two, they’d go from essentially living together to leading separate lives.
It wasn’t a surprise. That had been the plan from the beginning. She’d known she’d have to do it.
She couldn’t imagine it.
Joss swallowed, shaking her head blindly. And the sudden knowledge snaked through her. This couldn’t be. Surely she was smarter than that. She couldn’t have been this foolish, she, who’d always skimmed blithely through relationships without so much as a bobble. She who’d always held the upper hand. She couldn’t have been foolish enough to fall in love.
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