The Collector

by Nora Roberts

  Since he kept his arm around her, she sat on the couch with him while the detectives sat opposite.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Fine began.

  “I’d gone to see Julie at her gallery on my way here. Ash wanted to work on the painting this afternoon.” She settled in, told them the rest in as much detail as she could manage.

  When she produced Earl Grey, Fine looked mildly shocked. But Waterstone’s lived-in face brightened up with a blasting grin.

  “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “He’s awfully sweet.” She set him down so he could check out the area. “And my current hero. When he popped up out of my purse, it took her by surprise, gave me an opening. I knocked her down, and I ran.”

  “You never saw this associate she spoke of?” Fine gave the dog a wary look when he sniffed at the toes of her shoes.

  “No. New York traffic is another hero today. She couldn’t catch me on foot. She was wearing heels, and I got a good head start. When my brain clicked in, I headed for Luke’s bakery.”

  She glanced up with a smile as he brought in tall glasses of iced tea. “I think I was a little hysterical.”

  “No.” He passed out the glasses. “You handled it.”

  “Thanks. Then I called you, and here we are. She has long hair—shoulder-blade long. She’s about five-eight without the heels, and she doesn’t have an accent. Her cadence is a little off, but her English is good. She has green eyes, light green, and killing is what she does, for a living and for her own enjoyment.

  “But you know all this,” Lila concluded. “You know who she is.”

  “Her name is Jai Maddok. Her mother is a Chinese national, her father was British—now deceased.” Fine paused, as if considering, then continued. “She’s wanted for questioning in several countries. Assassinations and theft are her specialties. Three years ago she lured two members of MI6 who were tracking her into a trap, killed both of them. Since then, there have been a few sightings. Information on her is sketchy, but investigators who’ve been involved or studied her agree, she’s ruthless, she’s canny and she doesn’t stop until she gets what she’s after.”

  “I’d agree with all of that. But canny isn’t always sensible.” Again, Lila thought of those pale green eyes. “She’s a sociopath and a narcissist.”

  “I didn’t realize you had a degree in psychiatry.”

  Lila met Fine’s eyes coolly. “I know what I was looking at today. I got away from her because I’m not stupid, and because she was overconfident.”

  “Anyone who can take out two trained agents might be entitled to some confidence.”

  “She had time to plan,” Ash said before Lila could speak. “And that was a matter of her own survival. Add in going up against two people she probably respected, as far as skill went.”

  Lila’s lips curved as she nodded. He understood, she thought. He understood exactly what she thought, what she felt.

  “With Lila? She figured a slam dunk, and she got sloppy.”

  “Don’t count on that happening again,” Waterstone put in. “You got lucky today.”

  “I don’t count on anyone making the same mistake twice. Even myself,” Lila added.

  “Then give us the Fabergé, let us make an announcement. It’ll be out of your hands, and she won’t have any reason to go after either of you.”

  “You know that’s not true,” Lila said to Fine. “We’re loose ends she’d need to tie off. More, I insulted her today, and she won’t let that slide. If we give you the egg, the only thing she’ll need from us is the kill.”

  Waterstone edged forward on his seat, and his tone, his demeanor, took on the patience Lila imagined he tried holding on to with his two teenagers. “Lila, we can protect you. FBI, Interpol—this is now a multi-agency investigation task force.”

  “I think you could, and you would. For a while. But eventually the budget—money and man power—would kick in. She can afford to wait. How long has she been an assassin for hire?”

  “Since she was seventeen, possibly sixteen.”

  “About half her life, then.”

  “Close enough.”

  “You have details about her, information,” Ash began, “but you don’t know who she’s working for now.”

  “Not yet. We’re working on it, we have good people working on that,” Fine said briskly. “We’ll get to whoever’s paying her.”

  “Even if you did, even if you were able to get to him, it wouldn’t stop her.”

  “All the more reason you need protection.”

  “Lila and I are going away for a few days. You should come,” he said to Luke, to Julie. “We’ll talk about it.”

  “Where?” Fine demanded.

  “Italy. We’ll get out of New York for a while. If you get her while we’re gone, problem solved. I want Lila safe, Detectives. I want my life back, and I want the person responsible for Oliver and Vinnie caught and locked up. None of that happens until Jai Maddok is stopped.”

  “We need your contact information in Italy, when you’re going, when you plan on coming back.”

  “I’ll get you all of it,” Ash agreed.

  “We’re not looking to make your job harder,” Lila told them.

  Fine leveled a look. “Maybe not, but you’re not making it any easier.”

  Lila brooded about it after the detectives left.

  “What are we supposed to do? Go off somewhere and hide until they find her and put her away—which nobody’s had a lot of luck doing for over a decade? We didn’t start this, or ask for it. I looked out the window. You opened a letter from your brother.”

  “If hiding would take care of it, I’d do everything I could to make you hide. But . . .” Ash came back from locking the door, sat beside her again. “You were right when you said she could—and likely would—just wait. If she goes under now, there’s no telling when and where she’ll come at you again.”

  “Or you.”

  “Or me. So, Italy.”

  “Italy,” Lila agreed, then looked over at Julie and Luke. “Can you go?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about taking any time off right now. I’d love to,” Julie added. “But I don’t know what we’d do.”

  “Cover more ground,” Ash pointed out. “Four of us instead of two. And after today, I don’t want Lila to go anywhere alone. Being able to handle yourself,” he added to forestall her, “doesn’t mean you always have to.”

  “Safety in numbers. I could probably work something out,” Luke considered. Then he caught Ash’s eye, read the message—Need some help here—nodded slightly. “Yeah, I can work it out. Julie?”

  “I could morph it into a business thing. Visit some galleries, scope out some of the sidewalk artists. I’ll talk to the owners, play it that way, and since I’m coming off a couple of major sales, I think they’ll go for it.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Lila turned to Ash. “What do you mean you’ll take care of the rest?”

  “We have to get there, stay somewhere, get around once we’re there. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Why you?”

  He put a hand over hers. “My brother.”

  Hard to argue with the simplicity and sincerity of that, she decided, and turned her hand under his to twine fingers. “Okay, but I’m the one who contacted Antonia Bastone. I’ll take care of that.”

  “Which means?”

  “When we get there, stay somewhere, get around somehow, it would be helpful to have some entrée into the Bastone villa. I’ll take care of that.”

  “I bet you can.”

  “Count on it.”

  “Looks like we’re going along for the ride. I need to get back,” Luke said, “unless you need me.”

  “I’ve got it from here.” Ash skimmed a hand down Lila’s hair as he rose. “Thanks. For all of it.”

  “I’d say anytime, but I hope I don’t end up stanching your lady’s wounds again a
nytime soon.”

  “You did it so well.” Rising, Lila stepped over to hug him. “If I ever need wound stanching by a calm, efficient hand, I know just where to go.”

  “Stay away from crazy women with knives.” He gave her a light kiss, exchanged another silent message with Ash over the top of her head. “I’ll take you back,” Luke told Julie. “And come get you when you’re done for the day.”

  She stood, angled her head. “Are you my bodyguard?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “I’m fine with that.” She went over to Lila, hugged her again. “Be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  “And do something you excel at. Pack light. We’ll shop in Italy.” She turned to Ash, hugged him in turn. “You watch out for her, whether she wants you to or not.”

  “Already there.”

  She pointed at Lila as she and Luke walked to the door. “I’ll call you later.”

  Lila waited for Ash to set the locks again. “I’m not reckless.”

  “No. Tendencies toward risk taking aren’t necessarily reckless. And tendencies to take care of details aren’t necessarily controlling.”

  “Hmm. It can seem that way to someone used to taking care of her own details.”

  “Probably, just the way for someone used to taking his own risks, having someone determined to take them with him might seem reckless.”

  “That’s a little bit of a dilemma.”

  “It could be, but we have a bigger one.” He crossed to her, laid a hand lightly on her injured side. “Right now, my priority is seeing this never happens again. The way to that is finding the way to put Jai Maddok behind bars.”

  “And the way to that may be in Italy.”

  “That’s the plan. If I’d known this would happen, you’d be hurt, I’d never have approached you at the police station. But I’d have thought of you. Because even with everything that was going on, you got in my head. First look.”

  “And if I’d known this would happen, all of this, I’d have come after you.”

  “But you’re not reckless.”

  “Some things are worth the risk. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next chapter, Ash, so I want to keep going until I find out.”

  “So do I.” But he was thinking of her. Just of her.

  “I’ll trade Brooklyn for Italy, let you handle the details and I’ll get us the Bastone connection. And we’ll take the rest as it comes.”

  “That works. Are you up for sitting for me?”

  “That’s why I’m here. The rest was a detour.”

  “Then let’s get started.”

  She walked over, picked up the dog. “He goes where I go.”

  “After today, I wouldn’t argue with that.”

  He blocked it out when he painted. She could see it, the way everything focused on the work. The sweep or swirl of his brush, the angle of his head, the firm stance of his legs. At one point he clamped one brush between his teeth, wielded another, mixing, blending paint on his palette.

  She wanted to ask how he knew which brush to use, how he decided on that or the mix of colors. Was it a learned technique or did it all come from the belly? Just a knowing.

  But she thought when a man looked that intense, when he could peer into her as if he could see every secret she had—had ever had, ever would have—silence served them both.

  Besides, he rarely said a word while the music thumped, and his hand swept or arrowed into the canvas for some minute detail.

  And for a time that green laser of a gaze focused solely on the canvas. She thought he’d forgotten she was there. Just an image to create, just colors, textures, shape.

  Then his eyes locked on hers again, held, held until she swore the breath just left her body. One hot, vibrant moment before he trained his attention on the canvas again.

  He was, she thought, an emotional roller coaster. She had to remind herself she liked fast, wild rides—but a man who could leave you breathless without a word, without a touch, held formidable power. Did he know what he did to her, the way her heart bounced around in her chest, the nerves he had racing over her skin?

  They were lovers now, and she’d always been comfortable with the physical. But this emotional whirlwind was new, and heady, and just a little unnerving.

  Just as her arms began to tremble, the dog woke, whined and pranced over to her.

  “Don’t,” he snapped when she started to lower her arms.

  “Ash, my arms weigh a ton each, and the dog wants to go out.”

  “Just hold it, another minute. A minute.”

  The dog whined; her arms trembled. His brush moved in long, slow strokes.

  “Okay. All right.” He stepped back, eyes narrowed, brows drawn to study the day’s work. “Okay.”

  Lila scooped up the dog, rubbed aching shoulders. “Can I see?”

  “It’s you.” With a shrug, he stepped to a worktable, began to clean his brushes.

  He had her body, the long flow of the dress, the flirtation of the underskirts. She could see the outline where her arms would be, her face, but he’d yet to paint those in. Just the lines of her, the angles, one exposed leg with the foot lifted onto her toes.

  “I could be anyone.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “The Headless Gypsy.”

  “I’ll get to it.”

  He’d done some of the background—the orange and gold of the campfire, the billow of smoke behind her, a section of star-slashed sky. He wouldn’t need her for that, she realized.

  “Why do you wait to paint the face?”

  “Your face,” he corrected. “Because it’s the most important. The lines, the colors, the curve of your arms—they’re important, they all say something. But your face will say it all.”

  “What will it say?”

  “We’ll find out. You can go ahead and change, and you can grab something from the dressing room if you want to replace your shirt. I’ll take the dog out. I need to toss a few things together, then we can go back. I’ll stay tonight.”

  “Just like that?”

  The faintest flicker of annoyance ran over his face. “We’ve crossed that point, Lila. If you want to backtrack you can tell me to sleep in one of the other bedrooms. I won’t, I’ll seduce you, but you can tell me.”

  Since she couldn’t decide if his matter-of-fact tone was irritating or exciting, she left it alone, walked back to the dressing room.

  She considered her options, settled on a mint-green tank, studied her bandaged graze before she put it on. And then studied her face.

  What would it say? she wondered. Did he already know? Was he waiting? She wished he’d painted it so she could know what he saw when he looked at her.

  How could she settle in, settle down without the answers? How could she until she knew how it all worked—how he really worked?

  She took down the dramatic makeup wondering why she’d bothered with it since her canvas face remained a blank. He’d probably have some artistic reason she needed to be fully in this character he envisioned.

  Seduction? she thought. No, she didn’t want to be seduced. That implied an imbalance of power, a kind of involuntary yielding. But he was right, they’d crossed that line—and both knew she wanted him to stay with her, to be with her.

  Posing for him had left her feeling edgy, she admitted. Better to put that aside, as God knew there were bigger things to feel edgy over.