Cutting Loose

by Westlake, Samantha

  “Alice, then.” Eastman opened his mouth to say something else but hesitated. He looked a bit torn, like he was struggling to say his next sentence. “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “You mean the way you treated me with suspicion and threats, like I’m a criminal?”

  He bit his lip for a second as his eyes glared, swallowing whatever rough comment he had ready to fire back. “Yes, that’s what I mean,” he sighed. “Perhaps I was a bit rough in my initial treatment of you.”

  “Sounds like the kind of situation where you ought to apologize,” I said, fighting to keep a smile from pushing at my cheeks.

  He bit down harder on his lip. I could plainly see him struggling to hold back some rude comment, his better nature fighting against his natural, surly personality. There was something almost endearing about watching this big, tough, well-muscled FBI agent struggle against his own desire to be rude and offensive. He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when his eyes opened again, looking right at me. He had blue eyes, I noticed as they locked onto me. Brilliantly blue. They probably looked icy to criminals when he stared them down in an interrogation room, but they didn’t seem so bad right now. “I’m sorry for assuming the worst of you. I could make excuses, say that it’s a side effect of my job, but that doesn’t repair any damage I do when I speak without thinking. I’m sorry, and I’ll try to avoid offending you in the future.”

  I wanted to keep teasing him, but I suspected that, if I pushed things much further, he might really go ahead and arrest me. “Apology accepted,” I told him instead, smiling. “And thank you.”

  He visibly relaxed. “Yeah, it’s nothing.” Then, in an even bigger gesture, he turned his plate so I could keep stealing his chips.

  “And now,” Eastman continued as I munched away, “maybe you’d be willing to do a favor for me. Since we’ve both apologized.”

  “I didn’t apologize,” I told him through a mouthful of potato.

  “You said thank you.”

  “That’s not an apology. That’s me acknowledging your apology.”

  He turned a little purple, which I quite enjoyed. His red skin contrasted against his blond hair. “Fine. But you could still do a favor for me.”

  “Is that favor finishing the last of your sandwich?” I asked, eyeing it.

  “No. I mean, go ahead.” He watched me put half his sandwich into my mouth. “Christ, where do you put all that food?”

  “Stomach,” I said, although the words were probably incomprehensible. “What’s the favor?”

  “Right. I’m going to be continuing my surveillance of Sawyer, but I’ve got other cases, and I don’t have the full resources that I’d usually need for an op like this. So maybe you could help me out?”

  “Like I’m a spy?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, not like a spy. Like… like an informant.”

  “A rat?” I said, skepticism coloring my voice. “I don’t think that I want to betray Sawyer. Even if he might have done some of those thefts…”

  “Which he did!”

  “…I don’t think that I want to spy on him, or rat on whatever he does,” I finished.

  Eastman waved his hand. “It’s not like that. Think of it as proving his innocence, then. You keep tabs on him, which is natural since he’s hired you to be his assistant. You see that he’s not up to anything suspicious. Then, you tell me what he did, and I don’t have to worry about him doing anything suspicious, because I’ll have your word that he’s innocent.” He eyed me cannily as I realized the trap he’d set for me, a trap that I now couldn’t avoid. “And I can trust your word, can’t I?”

  “You’re evil,” I told him. “You tricked me into promising you that I was a good person, and now you’re extorting me with guilt to make me spy on Sawyer. That’s evil. I thought you’re supposed to be a good guy?”

  “I am a good guy! And Sawyer’s a bad guy! I just need to prove it!”

  After a second, Eastman realized that he’d raised his voice, that a couple other patrons of the café were staring at us. Mostly at him. “Just meet me out here for coffee breaks,” he said, dropping his voice to a mutter. “Assure me that he’s not going to pull another heist, and I’ll be happy.”

  “I don’t think I can imagine you happy,” I said.

  He looked at me like a man marching through an endless desert. “For me to be happy around you? Gonna take a distillery’s worth of alcohol.”

  “Rude,” I told him, standing up. “You’re very rude. And I’m only going to come visit you on coffee breaks because I’m such an amazing person, and I want to prove to you that you were wrong to judge me. And because you’ll pay for all the coffee.”

  “And I’ll keep any mention of you out of my reports,” he fired back. “Especially your last name. No need to share who you are with anyone else.”

  The self-satisfied smile fell off my face. Apparently I hadn’t been as good at concealing my fear of being discovered as well as I’d hoped. For an instant, Eastman’s eyes were cold, assuring me that he knew exactly what I’d been hoping that he wouldn’t find out, telling me that he knew how to apply pressure to me.

  And then he blinked, and he was just a rumpled man in a suit. “You probably better get back to the Institute before Sawyer gets suspicious,” he said. He held the door open for me. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  I didn’t have a smart response. I felt his eyes watching me as I climbed the steps back to the Institute and stepped inside.

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  “I’m thinking either Chinese or Mexican for dinner tonight,” Sawyer declared in the elevator ride up to his penthouse apartment.

  I looked over at him but couldn’t muster up the energy to comment on the choice. We ended up spending nearly nine hours following Rudy around the museum, listening to his never-ending stream of ideas for how we could include every single facet of the Institute in the gala for the opening of his new exhibition. Several times, I tried to carefully bring up the issue that most of the guests wouldn’t care in the slightest about art beyond its value as an appreciating asset. I knew the kind of guests who showed up to these sorts of galas. These weren’t the art lovers, turning out to support their favorite artists. These were the power movers and shakers of the city, surrounded by hangers-on and those who either didn’t have power, or hungered for more. The place would be a sea of name-dropping and deal brokering. No one would pay the pictures on the walls any more than the occasional passing glance.

  Rudy, however, insisted that everyone would be struck dumb by the art, that they’d spend the entire evening happily examining the works of one dead artist after another. Sawyer gave me a warning glance when I started to speak up again. In the end, I just fell silent and wrote down all his outlandish suggestions.

  The elevator chimed softly as its doors opened on Sawyer’s monochrome apartment. Sawyer tossed his wool coat onto a hat-stand and headed straight for the kitchen, ahead of me.

  “What do you think?” he called from around the corner. “Dinner preference? Chimichanga or General Tso?”

  “I’m guessing that you’re not cooking,” I said, fighting the urge to flop onto one of the sofas and instead following after him into the kitchen.

  Sawyer stood behind a massive center island that looked like it had been carved from a single block of marble, both hands on the counter. A handful of takeout menus were spread on the surface in front of him. “Me? Cook?” he remarked as I came around the corner. “I’ve got plenty of talents, Pom, but slaving away in a kitchen over a hot stove is not one of them.”

  He slid a couple menus across the expanse of marble to me. I picked them up, flicked one open. “Do you just intend on ordering takeout for the rest of your life?”

  “On the contrary! I intend to meet a wonderful woman, well-fed with curves in all the right places, who would love nothing more than to spend
her time feeding me for the rest of my days.”

  “A bit sexist of you, isn’t it?” I challenged.

  He raised an eyebrow back at me. “Pom, I’m talking about hiring a cook. What sort of antiquarian ideas do you have in that cute little head of yours?”

  Devoid of a response, I stuck my tongue out at him. “I suppose I’ll take Mexican. Can I order whatever I want, or are you going to take this out of my pay?”

  “You discuss how we’re going to handle this gala over dinner, and we’ll write it off as a business expense. Now, get your order ready.” Sawyer fished his cell phone out from a pocket and tapped in his passcode. “I’m calling. It’s ringing.”

  The sandwich from this afternoon already felt like a distant memory to my grumbling stomach. I ordered nachos and chips and guacamole as an appetizer, and then got a combination burrito and enchilada plate, with sides of rice and beans. For dessert, I requested churros. Sawyer relayed these requests to the restaurant, added his own dinner preferences, and then hung up.

  “You don’t even need to give them your address?” I asked.

  “They know me fairly well. They’ll be even bigger fans after tonight, given how much you ordered.” He peered at my stomach. “You sure that you don’t have a tapeworm or something?”

  “Gross,” I told him. “I’m just starving after being on my feet all day, chasing after Rudy! Are we really going to go through with all of that?”

  “He did ask for a lot,” Sawyer admitted. “We’ll likely need to pick just a few activities from his long list. As the person handling all the social aspects of this gala, it will be your job to explain to Rudy that he’s not getting most of what he wants.” He smirked at me. “Maybe try to frame it as a positive thing.”

  “That’s not what I meant to ask,” I said. “I mean, you’re actually putting on this gala?”

  “As opposed to what?”

  I felt a little uncomfortable saying it plainly, but I needed to know the truth. “As opposed to robbing the place.”

  Sawyer gasped, a little too theatrically. Placing his hand on his forehead and reeling backward was definitely overkill. “How dare you accuse me of such a horrid crime?” he cried out.

  I hit him with the rolled-up Mexican restaurant menu. “Stop being dramatic. You’re a thief! You’ve got a guy from the FBI watching you! And you’re working as an event planner for a museum full of fancy art?”

  “Who better than a reformed thief to make sure that the place isn’t vulnerable?” he countered. “And besides, you should see the prices that I’m charging Rudy for our services. That’s the real criminal aspect, right there. I’m happy to let him blather on to you about crazy ideas, as long as he’s paying me five hundred an hour to overwhelm you with suggestions!”

  That number distracted me despite my intentions to get a straight answer out of Sawyer about the thievery thing. “Five hundred?” I repeated in shock. “Who did you tell him that I am?”

  “Oh, no lies too egregious. You’re intimately familiar with high society, and along with your expertise in party planning and event hosting, you’ve got the personal connections with many of the guests that will ensure that this party remains the talk of the town for years to come.”

  “My connections,” I repeated, not liking the sound of that. Above all else, I wanted to keep a low profile. Using my ‘connections’ to boost the party would definitely get back to my family.

  Sawyer flapped a hand. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You say that, and it just seems to make my worry worse.”

  “You shouldn’t worry at all. Look, it’s easy to get all the glitterati to turn out for the party. We’ve got the guest list, so we tell the second-most-famous person that the most famous person is coming. We tell the third-most-famous person that the second-most-famous is making an appearance. And so on, right down the line. As for ensuring that the party’s a hit for years to come, there’s really no way for Rudy to verify that up front, is there? As long as the party happens at all, we’re getting our paycheck. He’s not going to come after us if there’s another party next year that makes everyone forget about ours. It’s all marketing.”

  “Sounds like lying to me,” I said, although I couldn’t deny the logic in his pragmatic approach.

  “Marketing is just lying when someone’s paying you. That makes it okay.” Sawyer winked at me. “A bit like how it’s okay to find all the weaknesses in a museum, how you’d rob it, when you’ve been hired to do security.”

  “Is that what you’ve claimed as your role?” As Rudy dragged me all over the institute and pointed out exhibits that he just had to include in the gala, I’d noticed that Sawyer kept on ducking away. He’d be gone for anywhere from a few seconds to twenty minutes before reappearing, acting like he’d been there the entire time.

  “That is my role,” he corrected. “Speak with confidence, Pom. People won’t believe you if you don’t believe in yourself.”

  He’d stepped around to the same side of the counter as me. Trying to find a distraction, I looked around at the massive kitchen.

  “I can’t believe you have all this and you don’t use it,” I said, looking from the giant six-burner gas stove to the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator, to the double oven mounted into the wall. “How much are you paying for this place?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “I don’t really keep track of money too much. Might as well enjoy it.”

  “But you aren’t using it! How are you enjoying it?”

  “I enjoy looking at it,” he said, stepping closer to me. He was tall enough to look down at me. He reached out with one finger, lifting my chin so I looked up at his eyes. “That’s how I deal with most aspects of my life, in fact. I find something I enjoy looking at, and then I need to have it for myself.”

  “Sounds like the sort of philosophy that can get you into a lot of trouble,” I said, looking up at him and feeling the little danger sense blinking in my head. Sawyer hadn’t really shown much interest in flirting with me – but if he decided to do so, he could prove to be devastating.

  I couldn’t deny that, by every measure, the man was insanely attractive. He had the bad boy aspect down, what with being a thief wanted by the FBI – but he’d also been the one to take me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to turn. He clearly had money, given his fancy car and penthouse apartment, but he also had the six-foot body, the dark eyes that drew me in like a fly to honey, and he moved with the light, effortless grace that promised me that he knew exactly how to use his body in the bedroom. Between his looks and his charm, I knew that, if I let him kiss me, I’d end up doing something incredibly enjoyable that I’d thoroughly regret the next morning.

  I was saved by the chime of the elevator. The Mexican place apparently hadn’t wasted any time in getting our order together and rushed over. Made sense – if Sawyer never used his kitchen, he probably ate there all the time, and I suspected that the size of the tips matched the size of his apartment.

  As we both dug into our meals, I took advantage of the chance to change the topic of conversation. “You remember that FBI agent from the restaurant when we first met?” I asked, watching carefully to see if Sawyer got unexpectedly angry.

  He nodded, not appearing too perturbed. “Sure, Eastman. What about him?”

  “I ran into him again today,” I said. “Outside the museum.”

  No explosion. That was good, I guessed. Sawyer finished chewing his bite of steak fajita, swallowed, washed it down with some water before replying. “And?”

  “And he’s watching you because he’s convinced that you’re a criminal, planning on robbing the museum.”

  I waited again. Sawyer sighed. “Look, it’s true that I’ve engaged in some rather devious dealings in the past, the kind of actions that might invite some undue attention from the FBI.”

  “Devious dealings like what?”

  He winked at me. “Only way I’m going into more detail is if I can prove that you’re n
ot wearing a wire, honey. You interested?”

  “I’ll pass,” I said. “So this thing with the museum is really above-board? Totally honest?”

  “You’ve seen the contracts, Pom. Rudy’s really the director of the Institute, and he’s made it pretty clear that there is going to be a gala, and we’ve been hired to plan it. What more can I offer you? Do you want to go rummaging through my closets to make sure I don’t have a burglar’s ski mask in there?”

  “Do you really wear one of those for stealing things?” I asked.

  “Not these days. If you get to the point where a camera gets an image of you at all, you’ve already screwed up.” Sawyer took a big bite of his next fajita, then popped a nacho into his mouth on top. “Just trust me, Alice. Focus on your job, what I hired you to do, and we’ll have no problems at all.”

  “Can I at least make one request?” I finally asked, after turning this over in my head for another couple of minutes.

  “If it’s a threesome, I need to approve the other lady.”

  I poked him with a churro. “Don’t be gross. But speaking of gross, my request is about this food.”

  “What about it?”

  “I can’t eat take-out every night,” I said.

  “You don’t seem to have had any problem putting it away,” he pointed out, nodding at my empty paper plate.

  “And if I keep eating like this, I’m going to get sick – and then I’ll be no use to you at all at the Institute,” I countered. “Just… let me cook, even! Just buy the ingredients and let me use the kitchen.”

  He eyed me cannily. “You can cook?” he asked.

  I winced, held my hand out palm down and wiggled it back and forth. “So-so?”

  He picked up a churro of his own, took a bite. “Deal. But if you produce anything inedible, take-out is the backup option.”

  “And you don’t steal anything or break any laws,” I held out.

  “Nothing above a misdemeanor. I swear on my mother’s grave.” He solemnly held up his hand in a scout’s salute.

  It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. “I’ll take it.”