ItTakesaThief

by Dee Brice

  “Dios mio,” Esmeralda whispered.

  Tiffany’s fingers tightened around Damian’s like a death grip. Then they slackened.

  “Charles knew?”

  “Tiffany, dear, everyone who knew William knew his sexual preference. Charles obviously hoped—”

  “Shut up, damn it! I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. I need to believe that Charles Cartierri retained some semblance of humanity. That he didn’t want me to die the way William died.”

  “He did,” Damian said coldly. Holding himself apart, not comforting her, was the most difficult thing he had ever had to do.

  “You’re liars, all of you. You!” She pointed at Damian. “Especially you. You are a monster more wicked than even Charles could imagine.”

  “I love you, Tiffany.” He could offer that much comfort.

  “No one should have to die as William did.”

  “I love you.” Even if she didn’t hear him.

  “Damn it, I don’t deserve to die like that!”

  “I love you, Tiffany darling. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you—days before you seduced me.”

  Her gaze snapped to his face. He had a moment’s hope that humor would win her from hysterics. It slowed her down, but did not stop her.

  “I didn’t seduce you and I never slept with William! Knowing about his disease, how could I have done anything so horrible to you?”

  “I know that, Tiffany love.”

  “Damn it, Damian, I am not—”

  Damian smothered her protests with his lips. “I love you, Tiffany Foster. You are worth loving.” He kissed her once more, then asked, “Would you like to hear how Colonel Mendez discovered that Charles murdered Esmé?”

  Tiffany, her eyes glazed, shook her head, but Esmeralda nodded. James straightened in his chair, cast an anxious glance at his daughter, then slowly inclined his head in agreement. He looked, however, like a man who would snatch his child from harm at a moment’s notice.

  “Were Charles not so fastidious, he might have gotten away with murder,” Damian said. He willed Tiffany to look at him and, when she did, gave her a brief smile. “Colonel Mendez took Charles into protective custody. In the morning, after a night in a crude, and I do mean crude cell, before being released into his lawyer’s hands, Charles insisted on neatening up. Mendez was on hand when Charles claimed his belongings. When he pushed back his coat sleeves to fasten his cufflinks, Mendez noticed that Charles had several deep gouges on one hand.

  “Mendez warned Charles not to leave Cartagena, then set about finding out where Charles had been the day of Esmé’s death. In the privacy of his attorney’s office, Charles was visited by one of Bogotá’s most talented and discreet makeup artists. This expert used latex to cover Charles’ entire hand like a seamless glove.”

  “Which is why we didn’t notice anything amiss when we met the morning after Esmé’s death,” James said softly, his gray eyes reflecting first sadness, then intense anger. “Damn him. Damn the bastard!”

  “Papa, don’t,” Tiffany whispered even as she placed her hand over her father’s. Then, looking as if she would rather face a firing squad than anyone at the table, she asked, “Who fired those shots at me? Who rigged the shower here? And the star cover in London?”

  “Charles bribed a stagehand to sabotage the star cover. Emilio rigged the shower.” Esmeralda’s face was filled with disappointment at her husband’s behavior. “And he shot at you.”

  “Endangering his own grandson? What kind of monster is he?” Tiffany’s eyes blazed. She held herself rigid, as if one word more would make her strike out at whoever spoke it.

  “He was not himself, Tey Cey. Charles convinced Emilio that you spotted the fake Belt in Paris, that you came here to blackmail him into giving the real Belt to you. I know this is no excuse, but I ask you to try to forgive him.”

  Her face nearly the color of the snowy linen tablecloth, Tiffany shoved back her chair. “I’m not a saint, Señora Santana. After everything that has happened to me, to Rogelio, at your husband’s hands, I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.” Whirling, she fled.

  She had directed the words to her hostess, but her gaze had fastened on Damian. His heart felt as if it was taking a nose-dive off Pico Cristobal Colon, but he surged to his feet and started after her. If he gave her time, she would shut him out of her life forever. Before he reached the door, he stopped, knowing she needed time to sort out her emotions. He could only hope she would realize how much he loved her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Later that day, wearing a black linen suit and silk shirt with a black-on-charcoal tie, Damian settled at his godfather’s desk. He had dressed in black for an unpleasant interview fast approaching. He wanted to look dangerous and intimidating. In the meantime, the even more unpleasant task of searching for further evidence of Emilio’s duplicity fell to him, a duty he was reluctant to discharge. He knew his duty, but he also sensed that Emilio’s greed went no farther than his lust for Isabella’s Belt. Damian was certain he would find no evidence of drug smuggling or gunrunning or any other more heinous crime.

  He soon swiveled the high-backed chair and stared out the windows, his view of the mountains unobstructed. He would simply sit and enjoy the bright blue sky, the jagged mountain peaks, the sense of being suspended between heaven and earth.

  At precisely the arranged moment, the intercom on Emilio’s desk buzzed. Adrenaline surged through Damian’s body. He both dreaded and welcomed this interview, this chance to avenge himself and Tiffany on the traitor who had abetted, however unknowingly, this plot to frame the woman he loved. George Fox had been cooling his heels for nearly an hour. It was time for Damian to throw the agent out of the frying pan and toast his ass in the fire.

  “Hunter,” Fox greeted. When Damian neither stood nor offered his hand, the agent blinked, then shrugged.

  “Sit, Reynard,” Damian said, his tone deliberately insulting.

  To his credit, Fox took his time removing his ever-present raincoat, folding it, then placing it over the back of a nearby chair. Only then did he sit. There was about him an Old World refinement that, despite Fox’s rumpled appearance, reminded Damian of his own grandfather.

  Steeling himself against sentimentality, Damian decided to let Fox off the hook, for the moment. Making a brief excuse for his incivility, Damian said, “Have you made the move to Lyons?”

  Fox harrumphed. “The new headquarters have no character. Glass and steel. Soulless. No—”

  “Place to smoke?” Damian suggested and shared a laugh with his companion. At last he led Fox into a discussion of their present case.

  The medical examiners finally had established the time of the bank staff deaths as between four and five p.m. Both had been subdued by a stun gun, then garroted—an act that did not necessarily require great strength, but an element of surprise. Which the stun gun provided.

  “After interviewing all bank employees and the customers who’d come in between three and five,” Fox went on, “the Paris police have a theory. They believe Mr. de la Croix accompanied his murderer to the safe deposit vault. After opening the client’s box, he left. His head cashier saw him on the main floor around four o’clock. According to his secretary, some fifteen minutes later the client demanded to see him again.”

  “Then what?” Damian asked, looking up from the timeline he was doodling on a scrap of paper.

  “Nobody seems to know exactly. The staff was involved with finishing up with customers and closing out. Being Friday before the long Easter weekend, many last minute customers went in and out.” Fox grinned briefly. “The French apparently mistrust modern technology like automated money machines.”

  “Perhaps they simply prefer human contact. An attractive teller, an exchange of pleasantries,” Damian suggested, shrugging. “The point to this being what?”

  “Nobody saw the assistant manager go down to the vault. Nobody knows why he did. Nobody saw any of them—client or employ
ees—leave the bank. Obviously, since two of them were already dead.”

  “I thought the bodies were discovered on Saturday.”

  “They were. Santana had arranged for Charles Cartierri to authenticate the Belt on Saturday when the bank was closed. I suppose because he could be sure nobody interrupted. Anyway, when nobody appeared to admit him, Cartierri called the bank president and raised holy hell. The president arrived several hours after getting the call. Which is when he and Cartierri discovered the bodies.”

  “Why the delay?” Damian doodled a hangman’s noose.

  Reynard flushed. “The Frenchman was entertaining his mistress.”

  “So, who was the client who lured de la Croix and his assistant to the vault?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “What?” Damian ground out from between clenched teeth.

  “Nobody signed in to access a box between three and five p.m. Nobody used a keycard to go out after the bank closed. I know it’s strange, but the bank requires a card to get out after-hours.” Fox drew a deep breath, then said, “Obviously your Emerald—”

  “Speaking of Emerald, how do you suppose Charles Cartierri learned about that soubriquet?”

  Looking directly into Damian’s eyes, Fox said, “So that’s what this meeting’s all about.” Quirking an eyebrow, Damian shrugged. “Have you asked Cartierri?”

  “I could, but I would rather keep this between us. Unless you wish to broaden the investigation?”

  “Can you keep it quiet?” Fox challenged.

  “I think that will depend on what you tell me about your relationship with Charles Cartierri.”

  Fox nodded. After a brief hesitation he said, “School ties.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Fox raised a bushy brow and regarded Damian with a sneer. “Surely the son of the ambassador to Spain knows all about school ties. Ox-bridge, Oxford, et cetera.”

  Damian knew he had nothing to gain by mounting his high horse, but he could not resist saying, “I was tutored at home until sent to military academy. Only after that did I attend Oxford. I do, however, understand the concept of loyalty. However misplaced.”

  “Touché, Hunter. Anyway, about six years ago, around the time Ms. Cartierri married William Foster, I ran into Charles in Paris. We had a few drinks, went on to dinner, then to Charles’ hotel for a nightcap. There was a commotion in the lobby, caused mostly by the Paris police who were investigating a robbery.”

  “I think I see where this is leading. Tell me, Reynard, were you recognized there in the lobby? Or—”

  “Or did I, once enclosed in Charles’ suite, brag?” Reynard grimaced. “A little of each, I suppose. I was recognized. Unlike our school days when he treated me like shit, my host seemed impressed. Even at Eton, Cartierri was a self-centered prick, but that night he seemed almost human, as though we were equals.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “The robbery that night, the fact that I’d been hailed with respect, Cartierri’s own memories of famous thefts, the brandy… I was proud, yet humble. I told him about the rash of robberies that had occurred some five to ten years earlier, then humbly confessed that I—that we at Interpol—had never solved the crimes, had never brought Emerald to justice.”

  Damian steepled his fingers and studied Reynard for a long, silent moment. The older man looked pale and sweaty, Damian noted, wondering whether guilt or panic had brought on this reaction. A combination of both, most likely. Guilt at divulging company secrets. Panic that he might lose his pension if Damian reported the lapse to Fox’s superior.

  “That was all?” he said when he figured Reynard had sweated long enough.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did Cartierri say anything else? Infer, perhaps, that Ms. Cartierri might have committed the crimes?”

  Reynard laughed. “Good God, Hunter, why would he even think such a thing? Ms. Cartierri was barely twenty when she married William Foster. She would have been,” his expression told Damian of the calculations running through the agent’s agile mind “sixteen when she quit.”

  “Hmmm. Then why do you think Ms. Cartierri is our elusive Emerald?”

  Reynard started, clearly shocked by the sudden coldness in Damian’s voice. “Because she was in the bank the day of the theft. Because the surveillance tapes show her interest in the Luxembourg security system. It’s obvious she was making alternative plans. If she couldn’t steal the Belt from the bank, she’d steal it from the museum.”

  Fox held Damian’s gaze for several seconds, then looked down at his hands.

  “Let me suggest an alternate theory,” Damian said softly. “Charles Cartierri entered the bank during that last-minute crush on Friday. Since the bank was busy, he convinced de la Croix not to have him sign in. They went down to the vault together. When de la Croix went upstairs, Cartierri discovered the Belt was gone. Furious, he demanded the manager return. When de la Croix would not—or could not—tell Cartierri who had been in his safe deposit box, Cartierri stunned, then garroted him.”

  “You’re suggesting Cartierri intended to kill de la Croix.”

  Was that relief Damian saw on Reynard’s face? Relief he heard in the man’s voice? He would play this game of cat and mouse a little longer. It would make the denouement all the sweeter.

  “If not the bank manager, then someone else. I believe Cartierri intended to take the Belt himself, then report the theft. He even may have convinced Emilio to split the insurance money. But that was merely a side benefit to his scheme.” He studied Fox’s face. Seeing no reaction, Damian continued. “Cartierri knew James Foster had access to the safe deposit box—he’d seen the signature cards that included Sir James and Emilio. And, of course, his own. After murdering de la Croix, he began to see how everything could work in his favor. He either saw Tiffany enter the bank earlier in the day or de la Croix mentioned seeing her. And that gave Cartierri the opportunity to frame her for the theft of Isabella’s Belt and the murder he had just committed.”

  “B-but how? She’d gone to the bank in the morning. How could he make it seem she’d come back?”

  “I do not think he got that far. I think the assistant manager came down to tell them that the bank was closing. When he saw his superior on the floor, Cartierri had no choice. He killed him too. One more murder to tally against Tiffany.”

  “That’s a lot of conjecture, Hunter. Can you prove any of it?”

  “I believe I can. For one thing, Tiffany was at the Luxembourg museum when the murders occurred. You saw those tapes yourself. You also saw how people reacted to her—despite her frumpy attire.” Fox grunted. “She caused the same stir at the bank when she visited in the morning. Even in the afternoon crush, I believe she would have gotten the same reaction. Customers and tellers would have noticed her.”

  “Wasn’t Cartierri caught on tape when he came in? When he left?” Fox leaned forward in his chair, seeming fully committed to solving the crime.

  “No. For some reason yet to be discovered, all the bank’s security cameras failed around three that afternoon. With the long weekend…” Damian shrugged, leaving Fox to draw his own conclusions. But that failure might explain the anomaly Nadim mentioned to Tiffany. Just how her friend had gotten the information, Damian refused to consider. One Interpol leak was all he could handle just now.

  “Which gives Cartierri plausible denial. Nobody can prove he was in the bank.”

  “True. Except for one small mistake.” He let the pause lengthen until Fox demanded to know what the mistake was. “Cartierri had a key to the bank’s back door. A key de la Croix always carried. A key no one else had, except the bank president.”

  Fox snorted. “Dumb bastard. Why didn’t he just throw it away?”

  Again Damian shrugged. “Perhaps he planned to plant it the same way he had his wife plant Emilio’s emeralds. Another strike against Tiffany. But I have an even better theory.” Fox rested his elbows on his knees, his gaze sharp on Damian’s face. “Did you know the Belt was a fake, Reynard?�
��

  “Of course not. How would I?”

  Damian shrugged. “I thought Charles Cartierri told you. He said he did.”

  “He’s lying.”

  Damian stared until Fox sat back, his gaze shifting to his now clenched hands. When he opened his fists, Damian figured the agent had sweated long enough. “May I use you as a sounding board?”

  “Can I stop you?” When Damian remained silent, Reynard shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “When you met Charles Cartierri in Paris all those years ago, he told you his daughter was Interpol’s ‘Emerald’.”

  “Why would—”

  “Since Tiffany was a minor and all the records had been sealed, he knew you could do nothing with the information Also, since there was no physical evidence to tie her to the thefts, he was assured you could not reopen the cases. Unless another theft occurred—one with the same modus operandi as the others—Interpol would not involve itself. Hence the recent theft at the Georges Cinq.” Damian paused long enough to make Fox sweat. “But that theft was insignificant when you discovered Isabella’s Belt had been stolen.” Damian expected some blustering, but Reynard said nothing. “You went to the Banque de Medellin in order to take the Belt before Cartierri could authenticate it on Saturday. When you discovered the safe deposit box empty, you figured your partner had cut you out of the insurance fraud scam. Furious, you saw a way to turn the table, make it appear Cartierri had stolen the Belt himself. You summoned the bank manager to the vault, stunned, then garroted him. When de la Croix’s assistant found you with his manager’s body, you had to kill him as well.”

  “Interesting theory. Not provable, but interesting.”

  “Oh?” Damian arched one eyebrow.

  “For one thing, why would I take a garrote with me?”

  “Because you knew the theft had occurred on Thursday, the first day you visited the vault. You went back on Friday, murdered de la Croix with the express intent to frame Charles Cartierri. You could not resist telling him though, could you? Flaunting your cleverness. And now that you had the upper hand, you could bleed him dry. When you told him, he convinced you both of you could go free. That is when you agreed to frame Tiffany for your crimes. Yours and Cartierri’s crimes.”