Everybody Loves Evie

by Beth Ciotta

  Marvin chuckled in an easy manner that intimated he and Arch were friends, or at least on friendly terms. Curiosity almost bested my mortification. Almost. Cheeks flaming and bra willy-nilly, I pulled down my shirt and zipped up my pants.

  “Guess there’s not a lock you can’t crack,” Marvin said.

  “The door was open,” said Arch.

  “The new kid must’ve been in here. He’s always forgetting something—scrubbing the toilets, polishing the banisters, locking the supply closet. A good bloke but easily distracted. Spend half my days cleaning up after him.” He snorted and chuckled. “Get it?”

  Arch whispered in my ear. “As often as I can.” Eyes twinkling, he angled away, and Marvin and I got our first clear look at each other.

  “Who’s the bird?”

  “Evie,” Arch said while tucking in his shirttails.

  “Pretty bit of stuff.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping that was a compliment. I didn’t feel pretty. I felt self-conscious. Marvin, who looked to be in his sixties, wasn’t leering exactly, but he was definitely checking me out. I smoothed my passion-mussed hair from my face and hoped my long-lasting lipstick hadn’t smeared.

  “Known this boy since he was in short pants,” he told me while pushing his electric floor buffer thingy into the corner. “Started hanging around the museum when he was a kid. Inherited an appreciation for art from Bernard—along with his fine eye for women.” He clucked his tongue in wonder. “Ace always gets the pretty birds.”

  “Marvin was a good friend of my grandfather’s,” Arch said, clearing up one relationship while I pondered countless others. Exactly how many birds were we talking? Was he currently involved with any of these other women? Why hadn’t I asked? Why had I just assumed that I was special and that we were exclusive? Talk about naive. Or stupid. Just because we’d worked one sting together. Just because he’d bought me a plane ticket and said he wanted my company while he tended to his grandfather’s estate. That didn’t make me the girl of his dreams, just the girl of the moment.

  Marvin’s keen blue eyes ping-ponged from Arch to me and back. “You didn’t really get married, did you?”

  “Hell, no.” Arch glanced over his shoulder. “No offense, love.”

  “As if I’d shackle myself to you. No offense, Ace.”

  Marvin cackled.

  Arch grinned.

  I wanted to smack them both.

  “Can we talk?” the older man asked Arch.

  “Sure.”

  “In front of her?”

  “Aye.”

  That would have earned him points except they inched away and lowered their voices. I took the opportunity to reach up the back of my shirt to fasten my bra. I pretended not to listen.

  “Guess you came back to look after Bernard’s interests,” Marvin said.

  “Aye. He willed me his flat and everything inside. Spent the last week going through his belongings, yeah?” He glanced my way, his mesmerizing eyes warm with affection. “Evie’s been a big help and a pleasant distraction.”

  My heart performed gymnastics.

  “Distraction, eh?” Marvin shook his head. “I’m all for a bit of spontaneous slap and tickle, but a tumble in the museum? What if you’d been rousted by someone other than me? The last thing you need is a run-in with Scotland Yard.”

  “Dinnae think it would’ve come to that, mate.”

  “Don’t be so sure. These are tense times. Bloody terrorists. What’s this world coming to? Violence everywhere, even in our own circle. Look what happened to Bernard—God rest his soul.”

  Arch shifted his weight and looked away.

  “Didn’t see you at the funeral, son.”

  “I mourned in my own way.”

  The older man nodded. “There’s a rumor circulating about Simon the Fish.”

  “If it has anything to do with him being dead,” Arch said, “it’s fact.”

  Marvin’s nose whistled with a sigh of relief. He moved forward and clapped an arm about Arch’s shoulders. “We knew you’d see justice done. I’ll pass on the good news.”

  His words sent a chill down my spine. Even though I’d been excluded from the conversation, I knew they were talking about Arch’s grandfather, a career art forger who’d been lured out of retirement and ultimately double-crossed. I’d helped Arch perpetrate a ruse that was supposed to end with this Simon-the-murdering-Fish behind bars. Instead he’d ended up dead. Up until now, I’d blamed myself since I’d unwittingly botched the sting. If not for me, Simon wouldn’t have pulled a revolver. There wouldn’t have been a struggle that resulted in Simon being shot and Arch holding the smoking gun.

  I hadn’t witnessed the actual shooting because I’d been disoriented, then knocked out, but Arch had claimed self-defense. I believed him. Beckett believed him. Then again, the agent had advised Arch to disappear and lie low while he smoothed things over with the AIA.

  I’d assumed the smoothing over had more to do with Arch and Beckett acting outside of agency jurisdiction than with the actual shooting. After all, it had been, as they say in the movies, a clean kill.

  So I’d been told.

  Ugly thoughts riddled my brain, causing my neck to prickle with a nervous rash. “I can see you two have some catching up to do. Besides, I need to use the ladies’ room. Excuse me.” I stepped into the hall, desperate to purge my escalating suspicions.

  “Think she’s embarrassed, son,” I heard Marvin say behind me. “Can’t blame her. What are you now? Thirty-four?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “A bit old to be snogging in a closet. If you didn’t want to take her to Bernard’s place, you could’ve…”

  The door clicked shut. Even though I could no longer hear them, the conversation clanged in my head, especially that part about Arch’s age. “Bastard.”

  Anger propelled me down the hall. I made it halfway up a set of stairs before Arch snagged my arm. “The privy’s in the opposite direction, yeah?”

  “I’m not going to the privy.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “That’s not oot. That’s up.”

  “Then I’m going up. Please let go.” I slipped his grasp and continued on.

  “You’re pissed.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Aboot?”

  “About your age.”

  “For fuck sake, Sunshine.”

  I hit a landing and pushed through a door. I really wanted to hit and push Arch, but I wasn’t the violent type and I’d just walked into a populated gallery. Good girls don’t cause scenes. And neither do Chameleons in training. Blend, Evie, blend. I pretended interest in a painting. I pretended to be calm. “You told me you were thirty-nine.”

  “I told you what you wanted to hear.”

  “I wouldn’t have slept with you if I’d known you were six years younger than me.”

  “Aye, you would have,” he said with damnable confidence. “You just would have obsessed on it afterward.”

  We’d had this conversation before. It was part of my personal crisis. He didn’t understand my preoccupation with my age. Then again, he wasn’t an over-forty female trying to survive in a youth-obsessed industry. These days when auditioning performers, ninety-eight percent of the entertainment executives focused on youth and beauty. Talent wasn’t a requisite as much as a bonus. Michael, my ex, had told me that himself, and, as an agent who booked performers for buyers, he would know. To add injury to insult, after fifteen years of blissful—okay, amiable—marriage, he’d dumped me for a twentysomething lingerie model. So, yeah, I had a big flipping chip on my shoulder regarding age.

  I hadn’t given that obsession much thought over the past two weeks. Not being in Atlantic City and losing gigs to girls half my age and with a quarter of my experience helped. Not being around Michael and his young squeeze helped. Having sex with a charismatic hunk and learning the ins and outs of an exciting new career worked miracles.

  Now
the anxiety that had ruled my life pre-Arch was back. My jaw ached—remnants of TMJ. My skin itched—a nervous rash. Rejection had one-two punched my self-esteem. “I don’t want to go back.” I turned away from the paintings, pinpointed the nearest exit sign.

  “I said goodbye to Marvin.”

  “I’m not talking about the closet.” And I didn’t want to talk about Marvin. I didn’t want to know the connection between an art-museum janitor and an art forger. I didn’t want to know who the collective “we” was and how they’d known Arch would seek justice. Mostly because Marvin made justice sound like revenge. I didn’t want to know why Arch should be leery of Scotland Yard. Although, given his shady past, there were probably dozens of reasons. I didn’t want to know about any of that because I feared the truth was more than my squeaky-clean morals could handle.

  Bottom line—I wasn’t okay with what Arch and his grandfather used to do. I wasn’t okay with his past, because his past was full of deceit. I’d fallen for the new Arch. The man who used his intelligence and experience to bring down the bad guys. After meeting Marvin, I wasn’t sure that Arch had forfeited his old lifestyle. Obviously he hadn’t cut ties with old cronies. Not that I intended to kiss off my entertainment friends when I started with Chameleon. I couldn’t imagine life without my best buds. Then again, Nicole and Jayne weren’t criminals.

  “Keep clenching your teeth like that,” Arch said, “and your jaw’s going to lock.”

  I hoped not, but it was possible. It had happened before, and he’d witnessed an episode firsthand. TMJ was stress-related. I needed to relax. “I’m fine,” I said, even as I felt a twinge of pain. Chill, Evie, chill.

  “You said you didn’t want to go back,” he said as we breached the main doors. “Back where?”

  “To where I was. What I was.”

  He lit a cigarette—amazing how he made a nasty habit look sexy—and walked beside me in silence as I headed toward Leicester Square. Probably trying to get a bead on my mind-set. Welcome to the club.

  Though it was early spring, there was a blustery nip in the air. At least it wasn’t raining. Although it was damp and gray. All I needed to augment my dismal mood was a blanket of London’s famous fog. Hands stuffed in my coat pockets, I breezed past the discount ticket booth and cut through the heart of the theater district. I saw the play and movie marquees, heard music from a nearby dance club. I imagined countless singers, musicians, actors and dancers warming up for a night’s performance. My old life. My stomach spasmed just thinking about my washed-up career. “I have to move on.”

  “You need to slow down and talk plainly, yeah?” He nabbed my elbow and pulled me onto a park bench.

  I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “What?”

  “Us.”

  He blew out a stream of smoke. “Because I’m a few years younger than you?”

  “Six years younger. And, no, that’s not the reason, though it doesn’t help.”

  “Because I lied aboot my age?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I could name a million reasons.”

  He crushed out the cigarette. “Name one.”

  “Milo Beckett hired me.”

  No reaction.

  “I’m going to work full-time for Chameleon.”

  He looked at me, expressionless.

  He was good at that, not telegraphing his thoughts and emotions. Still…“I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You think I’m not cut out for it. That I’m too nice.”

  “There is that.”

  “I’m capable of fighting my nature. I’m capable of change. I have changed.”

  “You’d never survive in my world, Evie. You feel too deeply.”

  “What world are we talking about, Ace? Your old world or your new world?”

  “One and the same, yeah?”

  “No. Smoke and mirrors. Confidence games. I get that similarity. What I don’t get is your inability to differentiate between conning innocent people and conning people who prey on the innocent. Your past grifts were for personal gain at someone else’s expense. Chameleon grifts are for the greater good.”

  “You can’t cheat an honest man, and I never conned anyone who couldn’t afford the loss.”

  He didn’t sound or look angry, but my internal radar blipped. I’m pretty sure I’d just insulted him. There was always a calm before Arch’s storm. “The difference between a scam artist and a scum artist, huh?”

  “Aye.”

  Night and day to him. Bad versus evil to me. He was right. I’d never cut it as an honest-to-gosh grifter. Guilt would eat me alive or land me in jail. But those same morals, coupled with my artistic nature, told me I was a born Chameleon. They conned cons. Entrapped sociopaths through elaborate and sometimes not-so-elaborate schemes. Smoke and mirrors. Deceiving for the greater good. I wouldn’t feel guilty about duping scum artists. I’d feel like a superhero.

  “After a devastating divorce and a year of celibacy, I’ve rediscovered passion, thanks to you. Now I need purpose. A new goal—because I’m not going to invest in plastic surgery, BOTOX injections and a lifetime supply of diet pills just so I can perform in the casinos.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I’m a decent singer and dancer and a damn good actress.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Those acting skills, along with my excellent memory and a talent for sleight of hand make me perfect for Chameleon. I can tap dance with the best of them. All I need is to learn the steps. You’ve been teaching me the basics. You’ve seen me in action. You know I can do this.”

  Looking up at the darkening sky, he dragged both hands over his head and laughed low. “Bloody hell.”

  “What?”

  “All this week I thought I was educating you so that you wouldnae fall prey to another scam.”

  This wasn’t news to me. While sightseeing on St. Thomas, I’d fallen for a street hustle. As a result, Arch had designated himself my mentor. In a world where a sucker is born every minute, he’d declared me a grifter’s dream. Gullible and trusting. Easily persuaded and deceived. If I learned how the grifts work, I’d spot them coming a mile away.

  “In truth, I gave you a crash course so that you could impress Beckett when you reported for your first day.” He angled and regarded me with an amused expression. “You snowed me, Sunshine.”

  “You think I manipulated you?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  My stomach clenched.

  “When did Beckett hire you?”

  “The day I woke up in the hospital.”

  “Ten days ago. Yet I’m just hearing aboot it.”

  I wet my lips, scratched my neck. “I tried to tell you at the airport, before we all flew out of La Romana. You cut me off and…” I blew out a breath. “I was going to tell you first thing when you picked me up at Heathrow, but you distracted me and…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, the days just sort of whizzed by and the right moment never…”

  “Uh-huh. You didnae tell me Beckett hired you because you were afraid I wouldnae approve. You worried I’d stop teaching you the basics, yeah?”

  “No.”

  He stilled my nervous scratching.

  “Maybe.” My brain acknowledged the ugly truth. “Oh, God, Arch. I used you.”

  “Dinnae look so stricken, love. I’m impressed.”

  “I manipulated you.”

  “I didnae feel a thing. Either I’m slipping or you’re gifted. A bit of both, I imagine.” He clasped my hand and skimmed his thumb over my knuckles. “Beckett has a brilliant eye for talent. He’s also obsessed with his work. If he hired you, it’s because he believes you’re a valuable asset to the team.”

  My heart pounded. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Arch’s touch or Beckett’s belief. Probably both. “What do you think?”

  His mouth quirked. “I think you’
ve changed.”

  I took that as a compliment. Three weeks ago, my self-esteem had been at an all time low, but instead of sticking my head in the sand, I’d taken a walk on the wild side. For the first time in years I felt genuinely motivated and happy. Well, except for now. Just now I felt ill. “I hope you don’t think I slept with you just to learn your secrets.”

  “You slept with me because you wanted me, yeah?”

  I rolled my eyes, but it was true. “Please don’t make me say it out loud. Your ego is scary big enough.”

  He smiled, that ornery smile that made the back of my knees sweat. Great. “You once said that mixing business with pleasure is messy.”

  “Aye.”

  “Beckett said the same thing.”

  “He would.” The grin broadened. “So you’re breaking off with me, yeah?”

  “We’d have to be in a relationship to break up. You don’t do relationships, remember?”

  “That bang-on memory of yours is going to bite me in the arse one day.”

  I forced a smile of my own. “Maybe it’ll save your ass.”

  He laughed. “Maybe.”

  I marveled at my sudden calm. Another talent of Arch’s: obliterating my frustrations. “So you’re okay with me working for Chameleon?”

  “Not my call, Sunshine.”

  I frowned. “You’re not okay with it.”

  “I’m okay with you.”

  The man talked in circles, but I was used to it. So had my ex. “What about the not-having-sex part?”

  “Are you sure you’re not breaking off with me? That sounded a wee bit like the ‘can we still be friends’ speech, yeah?” He squeezed my hand and smiled. “We don’t have to shag to get on.”

  I scrunched my brow. “The least you could do is sound disappointed.”

  “Didnae say I wouldnae miss it.” He kissed me then. Slow. Deep.

  Heat spiraled through my system. I dug to the center of my soul not to feel anything other than lust. Lust I could manage. Anything deeper was dangerous. Loving a man like Arch was insane. First, he was too young for me. Second, what if he’d plotted to kill Simon the Fish from the get-go? Third, he’d once told me I couldn’t believe anything he said. One way or another, the man would mangle my heart.