“What happens if I press one of the leaves inside the cabinet?”
Nick set the bottle beside the glasses on top. “Probably nothing. There are a number of false leaves. What do you think you’ll find?”
She shrugged. “Dust? Or maybe—”
“Ten million dollars?”
“Would Alexei hide cash like that?”
“Cash? Doubtful. If he didn’t spend the money, it’s in a Swiss account or some other safe place.” He folded his arms. “Maybe we’ll find his bank book. Go ahead.”
She knelt on the carpet. The floor lamp cast magical shadows on the leaf design’s relief. Reaching around the bottles and decanters, she pushed one leaf and then another.
Nothing.
“Look, Nick. In the back. Isn’t that the exact pattern for the open-sesame sequence?” She lifted out two bottles and set them on the floor.
He knelt beside her, his bent thigh against hers, his dark head close. “Where?”
She inhaled his heat and sage-and-cedar scent. A vision of their entwined limbs there on the luxurious carpet rose to her mind’s eye.
Blinking it away, she traced the shapes with her index finger. “Try the same sequence.”
His bandaged thumb jutted out like an awkward beacon, but he reached in and keyed the series of leaves.
A click resounded against the dark wood. A barely visible seam that followed the design’s contours widened.
“An opening!” Vanessa whispered. Her heart raced.
“Damn, Sherlock, let’s see what’s inside.”
Chapter 6
Nick removed the remaining bottles. “You do the honors. This search was your idea.”
He watched as Vanessa pulled open the small doors. Her questing fingers closed on a thick packet.
She withdrew a letter-size manila envelope.
He gave a long, low whistle. “If this has something to do with the ten million, shouldn’t you bring in Snow or Byrne?”
“I’ll report in later,” she said, as she carried their prize to the cocktail table. “ATSA doesn’t consider having the ten million bucks in hand a priority. Otherwise, a team would’ve been prying up every board and digging up the yard.”
Nick joined her on the sofa with two filled glasses. “I see. Whether the money’s found or not has no bearing on capturing Husam Al-Din as long as he thinks I can pay him. I suppose I should be grateful they’re not destroying the property’s resale value.”
She handed him the packet. “He was your brother. You should open it.”
Damn, what new lows of deceit and greed would he find?
Catching a curious look from Vanessa, he lifted the flap’s metal tabs. He extracted a loose sheaf of papers.
The hand-numbered pages were out of order, some upside down and backwards. “Looks like he dropped them, then had to stash them in a hurry.”
Vanessa scooted closer to Nick. The touch of her small hand on his arm drained a measure of tension from him. “What are they? Can you tell?”
“It’s an inventory, computer-printed.” He began to read. “‘Sumerian white marble mask, $2,000 to C.K. Cypress-wood altar, Chinese, from Anhui province, 1750, $300,000 to D.B. Black Babylonian boundary stone, $4,000 to A.R.’”
Looking over his shoulder, she gasped in astonishment. “It’s the New Dawn sales.”
In precise columns, the page gave each item’s description and origin, a date for some, a sale price and the initials of the buyer. She was right. Not seeing the proof of Alexei’s black-market dealings had kept that crime less real. Nebulous.
Until now. A band of fury cinched his chest.
“Look on the right,” Vanessa said. “The last columns.”
One column gave the same price in the listings, but the other had a lower number.
“Double bookkeeping. So my son-of-a-bitch half brother did skim off New Dawn profits.”
“Why would he keep such exact records of stealing?”
Nick huffed a laugh. “You saw the shop books. Every detail down to the most minute. Alexei was meticulous. These secret records of his dirty deals are true to form. Even arrogant.” He thrust the papers at her. “Here. Looking at it turns my blood to lava.”
He slugged down his drink and rose to cross the room.
Behind him, he heard her leaf through the sheets. “Ottoman vases and jewelry, Assyrian plaques, Central Asian masks and statues. Pages and pages.”
She paused, gave a long whistle. “Ye gods. He sold more than artifacts. There are paintings by well-known artists. Van Gogh, Hokusai, Picasso, more big names. I remember reading about a private gallery heist a few years ago in Vienna.”
He unclenched his fists and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Doesn’t surprise me. Fanatics like the New Dawn Warriors who’d murder hundreds with bombs wouldn’t quibble about stolen artwork. Apparently neither did Alexei.”
“Sale prices range from hundreds to several million. Ten million skimmed dollars might be about right.”
Nick didn’t reply, but his mind turned over the other implications of finding that damn list. He glared at the elaborate tapestry on the wall before him. At any moment it should start to smoke.
“There,” she said after a few minutes of fluttering papers. “But this isn’t everything. He had at least one more sheet. There’s no total. The last line reads, ‘converted and secured in…’ The printout stops there without the final page. As you said, in a hurry to hide it.”
He returned to stand over the low table. Shoulders knotted, he fought to contain his emotion. He accepted the bundle and scanned the last page. “No Swiss account. Alexei intended to return before leaving the country.”
“To get the money. Of course.”
He knew his avaricious half brother’s scheming mind. “What if he converted the cash to something smaller? Something he could hide easily.”
“Where could it be?”
Feeling soiled by the packet, he dropped it on the table. “My brother was nothing if not predictable. If he hid this in the house, he also hid his goods here.”
“In the house?”
He nodded. “And it’s still here.”
“He could’ve bought something small like stamps or one unique piece of art. You can check into recent big sales. The legitimate ones anyway.” She shrugged as if she saw little hope of finding any clues. Almost as an afterthought, she said, “Will you look for it?”
He sighed, troubles riding his shoulders. “I’ll have to. Now that I believe it’s here I can’t leave it to disappear or to be found by whoever buys the house.”
“If you find the money—or whatever he hid—what will you do with it?”
“The sale of this—” he indicated the house with a sweep of his arm “—and everything that was his, including the ten-million-dollar trophy, will go into a charity fund. I want no part of his damned tainted money.”
She started reinserting the transaction records into the envelope, but she looked up. “Whatever you find may not be yours to keep anyway. ATSA won’t care, but U.S. Customs might. And the IRS definitely will.”
His eyes narrowed as the implication hit him. “Customs won’t fine me for what my brother did, and the IRS doesn’t matter if the money goes into a charity fund. Alexei’s tainted money will help atone for the lives he ruined.”
He sat beside her and enfolded her soft hands in his. Her luminous green eyes invited him to trust her. For this request, he had little choice. “Vanessa, will you help me search the house for the money?”
Vanessa shimmied the opalescent white satin down her body. Smoothing it over her hips, she examined the look in the pier glass. Danielle had selected the dress for her from her own closet, saying she adored it but the style needed a wearer with cleavage. More cleavage than was fashionable.
Despite the woman’s spiteful comment, Vanessa had to admit the garment suited her. And her one feminine asset, fashionable or not. She grinned.
The cocktail dress, by a new designer named A
lba, was perfection—sleeveless, with a plunging neckline in a faux wrap bodice, and a softly draped skirt with delicate cutwork around the calf-length scalloped hem. She had strappy sandals and a necklace with a single pearl to set it off. Janine had helped her pin up her hair so the curls didn’t tumble at random, but cascaded in an elegant flow.
Elegant.
Ye gods. Her?
She gave an unladylike snort and sat at the dressing table to finish her makeup. They were to leave for the museum reception in a few minutes.
They’d spent all of Thursday and most of today in the library looking for something that might be worth ten million dollars. They’d checked through every book for hidden packages, tapped and wiggled every shelf and examined every painting and antique doodad.
They’d chatted comfortably during the dusty search. He’d related stories about growing up in different ports and his early attempts at business—selling sandwiches on the New York and London docks. She’d told him about her family, about growing up in Queens with her parents, sister and two brothers. The togetherness was easy, too easy, the kind of personal connecting that sucked her into caring about people.
In this situation, it was riskier than usual—for her.
But they’d barely made a dent in their search. So Nick had arranged for three of the Markos Imports staff to come on Monday to appraise and match furniture and art objects with Alexei’s meticulous legitimate inventory. The house’s contents would be eliminated from their hunt and ready for auction.
Helping him search for Alexei’s stashed fortune meant spending days and nights together. Close together. Just the intimacy she’d sworn to avoid. But she’d reminded herself ATSA wanted her to keep an eye on him.
Last night she’d accessed his laptop and read his e-mails. She’d found only legitimate business correspondence. Guilt at spying on him and her sense of duty sliced at her with opposing sharp blades.
As an ATSA officer, she was obligated to be skeptical. He was already rich and influential by any standards. Did he need the ten million? He wanted the ordeal finished. Desperately. Would he return the money to New Dawn and scotch ATSA’s trap?
And yet Nick’s avowal to fund a charity with his brother’s money had validated her sense of him as an honest man caught in a juggernaut.
Honest and more honorable than most. Fair and kind. And in his rare, lighter moments, witty and funny. Besides being attracted to him, she liked him too much for her own good, and for that of the mission. Dammit.
And tonight she’d be presented to Washington society as his fiancée. As Danielle LeBec.
Another trouble with undercover roles was separating her inner self from the role. Pretending to be cool and glamorous she could manage easily if it weren’t for Nick.
And her attraction to him.
He made this her biggest challenge.
Tonight Nick would be attentive and affectionate and too sexy for words. But not for her. For show. For “Danielle.”
Remember that.
Vanessa stood, satisfied with the final touch of mascara and pink lip gloss.
Okay, kid, you’re ready to fake it.
The listening device in her pearl earring seemed hidden by curls at her ears. She clipped the mike to her demi-bra. Snagging her tiny evening purse, she headed out the door.
Halfway down the stairs, she heard a wolf whistle.
Standing in the foyer, Nick winked at her with masculine appreciation. If she’d thought him sexy and rugged in a casual sweater with the sleeves pushed up or imposing and commanding in a business suit, in a tuxedo this man was devastating.
How could mush that used to be legs carry her the rest of the way downstairs?
The jet-black formal suit had been custom tailored for him, she was sure of it. Nothing off the rack could fit those broad shoulders so perfectly, so…so. Against his olive complexion, the white shirt was blinding. An onyx stud pinned the formal crossed collar. Smaller onyx studs ran down the shirt front and gleamed at the cuffs.
He gleamed.
His white smile and his blue, blue eyes held her in thrall—until she blinked, realizing that somehow she’d arrived at the foot of the stairs.
“No tie,” she said inanely, focusing on anything but how gorgeous he was. And how tongue-tied she was. “I’ve never seen a tux without a tie.”
“I don’t wear ties. Don’t own one.” He took her hand and guided her to pirouette.
She felt the approval of his gaze deep inside her. She swallowed. “You don’t?”
“I didn’t want to forget the blue-collar start of what became N.D.M. International. I didn’t want to put myself above my employees. And now it’s become a point of pride.”
Nearly dizzy from his nearness and her slow turn, she stopped before him. “Commendable attitude. Even in sweats, no one would mistake you for the intern or the shipping clerk.”
Nick would stand head and shoulders above anyone who might work for him. No matter what he wore, his inner presence proclaimed him the one in charge.
He tipped his head in thanks. His inky hair, still wet, shone like a midnight sea. “And tonight, honey, no one would mistake you for the cute pal or plain sister. Cinderella ready for the ball, with no ashes from the hearth.”
“Or dust from the bookshelves. Thanks, but I feel more like E.T. costumed for Halloween or a little kid playing dress-up. Not sexy or glamorous at all.” Someone was tying macrame knots inside her. She pressed a hand to her stomach.
“You are sexy and glamorous, Vanessa.” Moving so close she could feel his breath, he curled his warm hands on her shoulders, slicked a roughened palm down her arm. “Where do you get such strange ideas?”
His heated touch made her shiver. “Guys made friends with me or asked me out just to get close to my sister or to her equally beautiful friend Candice. I can’t tell you how many times I was used that way.”
“Those bums were clueless. Their loss. Glamour’s over-rated.” He reached in his pocket. “But this’ll give you an attitude adjustment. Turn around.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
She felt him fiddle with the catch on her pearl necklace. Electric awareness darted over her skin at every brush of his fingers. What was happening? Maybe she was under a spell, a Cinderella spell. She started to giggle.
Until the pearl necklace was whisked away.
And a pendant on a fine gold chain took its place, falling to the neckline’s V. Cool as ice against her skin, the gem-stone winked at her. An elusive blue fire seemed to flicker within.
“It’s a fluorescent diamond,” he said. “Rare. Glamorous.”
As big as the Capitol Building. Three carats, or more. A marquis-cut, she thought it was called. Her heart raced.
“But…but I can’t wear this,” she protested, facing him. “What if, what if something happens to it?” Unconsciously her hand pressed the gem to her breastbone as though to imprint it there permanently.
“Nothing will happen to it. And it’s insured.” His gaze hot and heavy-lidded, he lowered his head.
Ye gods, he was going to kiss her. Engaged, he’s engaged. Suspicion. Detachment… But oh, how she longed to taste those sensual, sculpted lips again.
She had only a millisecond to breathe in his woodsy scent before his mouth seared her like a lightning bolt, all molten heat and glittering danger. He kissed her with possessive power, making the blood thunder in her head and her insides start to melt.
Ending the kiss, he trailed a finger from her collarbone down the high curve of her breast to the diamond pendant.
Light splintering off the stone’s facets fractured her thoughts. She swallowed.
Mouth quirked in satisfaction, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. “Nothing is more glamorous than a diamond. When you start to feel like E.T., think of the rare stone in that privileged spot between your breasts. Wear it for me.”
When Snow deposited them at the Washington Cultural Museum, a throng of the formally d
ressed elite crowded the building’s entrance.
Nick let Vanessa precede him up the wide marble steps. He tried not to stare at the way her hips swayed beneath the shimmering white skirt. The dress was simple, the perfect showcase for the jewel inside—the woman, not the diamond.
At a landing, Vanessa paused and turned to him. Her hand darted to the pendant.
He smiled. Was she already feeling the pressure to be glamorous—something she believed she wasn’t? Touching the inner swell of her breasts, smooth and supple as a petal, and tasting her nectar-sweet mouth was glamour enough for him.
But instead of clasping the blue-hearted stone, she snaked a finger inside her bodice. “We’re here. Going inside.”
The microphone. Relief flowed into him that she’d had it off earlier. But it was on now.
And they were on.
His smile settled into a grim line.
Nick took Vanessa’s arm, and they filed to the door.
Uniformed guards checked his pockets and Vanessa’s purse. They entered the high-ceilinged great hall. Enormous banners proclaiming the museum’s major exhibits adorned the walls. A string quartet beside the buffet and bar battled with the cacophony of voices.
“I’ve never been here at night,” Vanessa said, peering up at the glass-beaded chandeliers. “The museum is stunning.”
In that slithery dress that hugged every luscious curve, she was stunning. And forgetful. Enjoying the freedom to touch her, he guided her with a hand at the warm small of her back. “I thought you’d never visited Washington before, Danielle.”
She pouted her lips, very Danielle-like. “But darling, surely I told you Adorn sent me here two years ago for a shoot at the Smithsonian. A fabulous piece comparing original fashions with retro ones.”
He tipped his head. “My apology.”
Not forgetful. Danielle had prepped her well. He hoped ATSA had prepped her even better.
Snow had informed them that ATSA security outnumbered official museum security. At least a dozen were scattered throughout the reception as guests and staff. Video cameras would monitor and record every movement, every face.
Code Name: Fiancée Page 8
