Hot Legs

by Susan Johnson

  Her one small—very small—consolation was the collection she was working on. The paintings were gorgeous, absolute gems, and if she didn’t have to sidestep Mr. Bill all day long, she would have finished sooner. Not that she was about to admit that to Bobby. He’d been way too fucking male, assuming just because she slept with him she slept with everyone. He should talk. And bottom line, after Jay, she wasn’t likely to roll over and apologize. The way she saw it, he could apologize to her.

  Which he hadn’t.

  Not even slightly.

  When he was the one with Claire answering his phone.

  Damn, it was really too much like a replay of her life with Jay, the lousy excuses and nonapologies and I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong conversations.

  One thing she’d learned since her divorce was that she was through apologizing for no reason. As for her staying on in Houston, she did need the job, and because of that, Arthur’s tacit approval at least. She really liked her work. If Bobby Serre couldn’t understand the needs of the plebeian laboring class, that was his loss. A little spurt of that female power thingy marginally raised her spirits.

  Once she was back home, she and Liv would go out, have a few drinks, and compare notes on the deplorable lack of nice men in their world.

  A shame some of them were so well hung and knew how to use it.

  With that disquieting thought, she quickly flicked on the TV.

  Alone in bed, she didn’t dare think of Bobby Serre.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “YOU LOOK TIRED,” ARTHUR SAID, SURVEYING Bobby from across his desk.

  “No sleep does that to you. By the way, thanks for all the heavy-handed manipulating. I hope like hell you got something of value from Claire.”

  “You didn’t?” Arthur roguishly inquired.

  “In my case, it’s not possible. But you ruined my night. I hope it gets you off.”

  “It was a business arrangement.”

  “I figured. Isn’t it always? Now then, I have some information for you. Do you want the good news first or the bad?”

  “Either.” Arthur was in fine spirits. He didn’t know yet that Claire had canceled on him.

  “I found the Rubens.”

  Arthur’s face lit up. “My God, that’s unbelievable news!”

  “Brace yourself, Arthur. I found it at Sarah’s. Under the back stairs when I was playing hide-and-seek with the kids on Sunday.”

  “I don’t believe it. Are you sure?”

  “Unless Sarah has become a world-class artist overnight and by coincidence painted Isabella in the nude, I am. By the way, it was casually slipped inside a shopping bag. All twenty-two million dollars’ worth.”

  “Jesus.” Arthur slumped in his chair.

  For a fraction of a second, Bobby almost felt sorry for him. Until he remembered his conversation with Cassie last night. “The insurance people are going to want to prosecute. That’s a given. They like the headlines; it’s good for their bottom line. I don’t know how you want to handle this, but my part is over.” He stood up. “You know where to send my check.”

  “Christ, Bobby, you can’t just leave. Sarah didn’t mean it, you know she didn’t. Sarah, Paige, and I have been arguing about money lately. She must have gotten it into her head to take drastic action. Jesus, what the hell am I going to do?”

  “The justice system is outside my bailiwick. I suggest you call a lawyer.”

  “Wait, wait!” Arthur jumped up. “Don’t go! I need help! You know how these insurance companies work. You do this every day. There has to be a way out short of prosecution. This can’t go to court! She’s the mother of my child! It was some damned prank or misunderstanding! You know she wasn’t serious. Help me, please. Name your price!”

  Take back last night, Bobby wanted to say, but it was a little too late. Actually, Arthur’s machinations aside, it might have been too late the moment Bill Spencer laid eyes on Cassie.

  “Jesus, Bobby, give me some help here!” Arthur had come around from behind his desk and grabbed Bobby’s arm. “I mean it. Money’s no object. You know all the angles. Christ, there must be some way to bend the rules. If the police are brought into this . . . it’s over.” He suddenly looked old, his face ashen. “The museum can’t afford the scandal. I can’t afford the scandal. And poor Flora. God. Why did Sarah do it?”

  Bobby was surprised he could feel sympathy for Arthur. He wasn’t a man who inspired those feelings—his entire life a paradigm for selfishness. Maybe it was the shocking change he saw, Arthur’s sudden aging as though some time machine had passed over him. Or maybe it was the fear he felt emanating from the taut grip on his arm. Or perhaps the thought of Sarah and Flora having their life taken away was the most powerful motive. “If I help you with this,” Bobby abruptly said, “I’ll need a couple things.”

  “Anything. I swear. Anything.” A spark of life revived in Arthur’s eyes. “Tell me what you want and I’ll see that you have it.”

  “Give Cassandra Hill a raise.”

  “Of course. How much?”

  That threw him for a moment, his familiarity with salaries nonexistent. “Triple it,” Bobby said, thinking of Cassie’s empty house. “And I want a contract drawn up for her that gives her a permanent position here if she wants it.”

  “She’s already guaranteed a job with the Palmer trust, but, yes, yes, I’ll have our lawyer draw up something immediately,” he quickly asserted at Bobby’s frown.

  “That’s it, then.”

  Arthur opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and shut it again.

  Bobby smiled faintly. “I don’t need your money, Arthur. Count your blessings.”

  “I will, believe me. Just tell me how to deal with this fiasco, and I’ll be eternally in your debt.”

  Bobby knew Arthur’s eternal was about as long as Claire’s, but he wasn’t looking for gratitude. He just thought Cassie should have some furniture. It was the least he could do for all—shit—he forced his mind back to the present because the sudden images flooding his mind were sexy as hell and not at all helpful. “Sit down, Arthur. Tell Emma you don’t want to be disturbed, and we’ll walk through some feasible scenarios for returning the painting. Then we’ll go see Sarah. Call her and tell her you’re coming over with some belated presents for Flora.”

  He waited while Arthur made the calls and then said, “Here’s what you have to do. We’ll need some storage area that’s rarely used and an excuse for you to come back here tonight. Nothing weird. You must work in the evenings occasionally. Christ—okay you don’t . . . tonight, however, you’ll have some emergency. A donor you have to call overseas—six times zones away—and you don’t want to call from home. Get some name from Emma; we want to make this look real.”

  Bobby kept talking, and Arthur kept nodding his head. When Bobby finally stopped laying out the drill, he said, “We’ll stop at a toy store. The visit to Sarah’s has to be as authentic as possible, too. While Flora’s opening her present, I’ll make a bathroom run, remove the painting out of the space under the stairs in the back hallway, and bring it to the car. When I return, we’ll thank Sarah for the visit and leave. You don’t want to tell her you know. You don’t want to be involved in any way. I doubt she’ll call the police and report the painting missing. And when the police question you, you know what to say.”

  “The painting was found in a storage unit. How it got there is a mystery.”

  “Why wasn’t that storage unit searched?” Bobby tipped his head.

  “It was considered much too small for the Rubens.”

  “That’s good, Arthur. No excuses. A simple answer. Don’t elaborate. Let’s go toy shopping.”

  “I’ll owe you, Bobby. I mean it sincerely.”

  Bobby had never heard that humble tone from Arthur. He wished he had a recorder so he could play it over when he needed solace for losing someone he would have preferred not losing.

  But hey, how long could their relationship have lasted, anyway? Jorge wanted
him in Bulgaria ASAP. Which reminded him—once the Rubens was back at the museum, he’d give Jorge a call. “We’ll take your car,” Bobby said to Arthur. “I don’t want Joe involved. I’ll go down, send him home, and meet you in the parking lot.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  SARAH LOOKED WARY WHEN SHE OPENED the door and saw Bobby with Arthur, but once she saw the presents in Arthur’s arms, her expression changed. “Come in. Flora’s in the playroom. She’ll be thrilled with more presents.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along,” Bobby said. “Arthur and I have an appointment afterward—one of the trustees wants to meet me. Did he say he knew my father or mother?” Bobby glanced at Arthur.

  “Your mother,” Arthur quickly replied, familiar with prevarication. “He met her in London a couple years ago apparently and was charmed.”

  Bobby smiled. “Mother can do that.” He turned to Sarah. “She had her own PR firm in Washington for years. Where better to learn the usefulness of charm?”

  “Claire mentioned that once,” Sarah said. “By the way, she left early this morning. Some emergency in New York.” At the sudden silence, she quickly added, “Would anyone like coffee before we see Flora?”

  Bobby shook his head.

  “Nor I,” Arthur seconded, wanting nothing more than to expedite the return of the painting. “Because these presents were overlooked on Sunday, I thought Flora would rather not wait for them.”

  “She adores presents, but then what child doesn’t?” Sarah added, a note of caution still in her voice as she led them down the hallway to the playroom.

  If not for Flora’s squeals of delight as she opened the presents, the visit would have been uncomfortable. Sarah was patently tense. Every few moments she would glance apprehensively at Bobby, and now he knew why. Arthur, too, was unusually restrained. Normally one to dominate the conversation, he was practically mute.

  Taking the first opportunity to excuse himself, Bobby went to the back hallway instead of the bathroom, opened the small doorway under the stairs, and lifted out the Rubens residing in a green-striped shopping bag from the museum bookstore.

  With the sound of Flora’s new playtime piano echoing through the house, Bobby quietly opened the back door. Having purposely parked in the drive, he covered the distance to the car quickly, placed the shopping bag on the backseat of Arthur’s black Mercedes sedan, and relocked the car. Time elapsed, a minute ten. A swift trip to the bathroom to flush the toilet in the event someone was listening and moments later he returned to the playroom.

  “We should leave, Arthur, if we want to make that appointment,” Bobby suggested, standing just inside the door.

  “Of course. We don’t want to keep Chester waiting.” Arthur jumped up. “Business, business,” he murmured with a smile.

  Flora was too intent on pounding the oversize keys on the piano to take notice of the adults.

  Sarah seemed to relax the moment Bobby spoke of leaving. “Paige and I and the children are going up north tomorrow. I hope you don’t need the cabin this weekend.”

  “No, no, not at all, you go up anytime! Anytime at all!” Realizing his voice held a note of hysteria, Arthur quickly added in a slightly more normal tone, backing out of the room as he spoke, “I know the children always enjoy the lake. Call Marv Gertz and have the children’s swingset put together; I told him it would be going up as soon as the weather warmed up. Or if you’d rather wait, I mean—suit yourself, of course, but I did tell him—”

  “It was nice to see you again, Sarah,” Bobby interposed, cutting Arthur’s rambling short, quickly stepping aside before Arthur backed into him. “And you, too, Flora,” he politely added, although little Flora was doing the Shroeder thing with the piano and wouldn’t have noticed if the sky fell.

  With a wave and a smile, Bobby followed Arthur, who was practically running out of the house.

  When they reached the car, Arthur whispered, “Did you get it?” His eyes were flicking from left to right like an amateur spy in a bad movie.

  “Relax. It’s in the backseat.” Unlocking the car, Bobby tossed the keys to Arthur. “Don’t look right now, and don’t hit anything backing out of the drive. This is no time for an accident report to the police.”

  But several blocks away, Arthur pulled over to the curb and glanced over his shoulder. “Jesus. It’s really in a paper bag?” he said on a suffocated breath.

  “Yeah. I’m guessing your ex-wife has some serious issues with you.”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m also guessing you haven’t changed the security codes at the museum for a long time. And just a wild guess, but dealing with the security code and taking the painting is a two-man job. Or I should say, a two-woman job.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Uh-uh. Maybe some therapy or perhaps some restructuring of the divorce settlements would be my suggestion. For sure, change the security codes. You must have given them the numbers at some point.”

  Arthur looked sheepish. “I might have.” He exhaled. “And they’ve both been needling me about more money.”

  “And you’ve been blowing them off. A word to the wise. Call your lawyer and start a dialogue with them. Upping their support will be a lot cheaper than what I charge.”

  “As soon as I get back to the museum, I’ll call Harvey,” Arthur said, pulling away from the curb. “He can call Sarah’s and Paige’s lawyer and get the ball rolling. Next, I’ll have the codes changed.”

  “Good. You wouldn’t want a repeat of this little disaster. Although I’d be very careful about pissing off your ex-wives.”

  “They should be warned about the consequences,” Arthur grimly muttered, pugnacious once again, having overcome the specter of personal and professional ruin.

  “Rein it in, Arthur. You can’t speak of the theft to either of them. Understand? You’d be an accomplice, and you don’t want that. Let it ride.”

  “I suppose I don’t have a choice,” Arthur testily acknowledged.

  “Not really. We’re agreed then?” Bobby waited for the requisite nod so Arthur couldn’t say he’d never heard the conversation. “Fine. Now the painting stays in your car until tonight, when we’ll transfer it to the storage locker. The locker you’ll have opened tomorrow—why?” Bobby prompted.

  “To bring up the Chinese jade stored there,” Arthur recited.

  “And why do you want the Chinese jade?”

  “To inventory what we have against the Walker accounts recently sent to me by the family.”

  “Those were sent to you directly?”

  Arthur nodded, giving the agreed-upon answer. “Emma opened the envelope, but she didn’t study the accounts. That was up to me.”

  “Okay, we’re good to go then. Drop me off downtown. I’ll meet you back at the museum at closing time. And keep an eye on your car. This wouldn’t be a good time for a casual auto theft.”

  “I’ll leave it in the valet zone. No one will touch it within sight of the front entrance.”

  Bobby checked his watch. “By evening your troubles will be over.”

  “Thanks, Bobby. I really mean it.”

  “You’re welcome, Arthur.” Bobby grinned. “And my bank account thanks you, too.”

  * * *

  BUT THE NEXT day, after the Rubens was safely rediscovered and Arthur had dealt with the police, Bobby made a short detour on his way to the airport.

  He left the cab waiting at the curb outside Sarah’s house.

  When Sarah came to the door in response to his knock, she cast a furtive look around to see that he was alone and then blurted out like every amateur thief he’d ever known, “You found it, didn’t you?”

  “Sarah!” a voice from behind her exclaimed. “Keep your mouth shut!”

  Paige came up behind Sarah, a scowl on her face. “What do you want?”

  “I’d just like to let you know the alarm codes have been changed at the museum in case Arthur forgets to mention it.”

  “Ohmygod,”
Sarah gasped.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Paige coolly remarked.

  “Just a general FYI, nothing personal. You two have a great day.” And turning away, Bobby walked back down the sidewalk to his waiting cab.

  Knowing Arthur wasn’t allowed to bring up the subject, he’d thought he’d give warning to Arthur’s two exes—in his capacity as a professional bounty hunter, of course. Just some general information for the usual suspects on his list, he’d say, if anyone ever questioned his stopping by.

  He had to admit, deep down, he even understood why the ladies copped the painting—acting out their frustration and anger with Arthur, finding a way to embarrass and humiliate him. Those motivations were probably more appropriate for a therapist’s couch, though. But hell, he knew about anger and getting even. He could even sympathize with Sarah and Paige, to a point. Arthur could be impossible to deal with. It was his way or the highway. At least his exes had Arthur’s attention now, and hopefully the lawyers could iron out all the money issues. But he sure hoped they weren’t stupid enough to try it again. Next time, he might not be around.

  As for his anger, he was going to get as far away as he could from the woman who engendered those unwanted feelings.

  And with luck and enough distance, hopefully they’d fade away.

  And if they didn’t, he’d find some appropriate diversion.

  That had always worked in the past.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  CASSIE HAD HEARD THE BOMBSHELL NEWS OF the Ruben’s recovery while in Houston. That meant Bobby Serre would no doubt be gone when she returned to Minneapolis. Bingo there, she discovered on arriving at the museum. Emma gave her all the details in the coffee room, where she’d stopped for a little extra caffeine fortification. Not that Bobby’s leaving was a huge surprise after her last phone conversation with him. Still, there was a blunt finality to it now. He was really, truly gone.