If he was right, the woman in the white bikini was a type of fixer. She didn’t commit the initial crimes. She came in after and cleaned up the mess—by any means necessary.
Ray was wrong. This was a career-making case.
Daniel kept going through all the old case files, weeding out the flotsam, and came up with at least half a dozen likely sightings. When he put pins in the relevant cities of a map, he noticed something a little odd.
All the most likely cases were in cities near large bodies of water.
6
Serin tried to summon up the right degree of enthusiasm for the food. The large mahogany table was laid out with a sumptuous array of gourmet delicacies—succulent shrimp, lobster, oysters, and other shellfish. The sushi and sashimi alone were worth thousands of dollars. But seafood was a staple of the T’Kaierian diet. She’d grown up eating fresher and more delicate morsels than this.
The penthouse and its contents were as lavish as the spread.
“This is the rarest of all sushi. Fugu,” Rainer Torsten said, winking at her as he brought the chopsticks to his lips. He popped the slice of raw fish into his mouth, closing his eyes as he chewed appreciatively.
In the week since she’d left T’Kaieri, she’d checked out Alec’s lead. The ugly toad had been bought by another collector, one who did not care about the provenance of his prizes. She hadn’t been able to learn much from him, other than he’d bought it from a new source—one recommended to him by Rainer Torsten.
The hovering waiter took the plate immediately when Rainer was finished. He was a mildly eccentric human billionaire and one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. The event was a fundraiser at his lavish Manhattan penthouse.
Serin had resurrected one of her old covers to smooth her entry into Torsten’s inner circle. Eileen Knight was a procurer for the British Museum of London. Serin couldn’t blame Rainer for his interest. Eileen was a single woman. All her covers were.
His dark eyes flicked over her, taking in her low-cut red gown and matching heels before returning to her face. All things considered, she had to give him props for not lingering on her cleavage. Most of the other men at the ball had.
He picked up another slice, offering her the potentially poisonous sushi with a flirtatious grin.
“I assure you it’s perfectly safe,” Rainer assured her when she didn’t let him feed her. “My sushi chef is the best in the States.”
“But not the world?” she teased, a corner of her mouth turned up.
“He’s an apprentice of one of Japan’s premier sushi chefs. He’s studied his craft for decades. This is a calculated risk, but you’ll be quite safe as long as I’m here.”
Serin wanted to laugh, but she had to admit Rainer was attractive. Mid-thirties at the oldest, he had made his fortune on Wall Street before leaving that rat’s nest to become an angel investor. He’d made an even bigger fortune funding a few Silicon Valley start-ups, ones with very recognizable names, even to her.
Serin hadn’t had much occasion to use computers or smartphones until recently. Electronics tended to get damaged around her, even when she didn’t carry them with her through her medium. It was the humidity. Even the new ones made to be water resistant couldn’t last around her for long.
Rainer’s appreciative gaze swept over her again, his expression downright smitten. It was by design, of course. Getting a mark or unwitting informant to fall for her was part of her modus operandi. It facilitated her entry into the circles she was forced to travel on behalf of the Mother. Her way took a little longer than her sister Diana’s punch first, ask questions later approach, but each Elemental played to their strengths. This was hers.
While necessary, a mark’s interest in her was at best an annoyance. But she was almost enjoying flirting with Rainer.
No sooner had she realized that truth, guilt flared, tightening her throat. This is about Jordan. Don’t forget that.
She bent her head and took the slice of sashimi from Rainer, chewing it with relish. Fugu poisoning deaths were rare these days. The number was in the dozens annually, but hundreds did have to seek medical attention for the blowfish toxin that made the sushi such a risk to eat.
Rainer beamed, waiting expectantly for her verdict.
“I prefer the sea urchin. That creamy umami that ends on a sharp note—it’s my favorite.”
He laughed. “You’re a connoisseur. I appreciate that.”
Serin pivoted, putting her hand behind her back and taking in the room. The other guests mingled, drinking champagne or eating tidbits from the many silver trays being passed around by the waitstaff.
“This is a beautiful apartment,” she said, glancing at him coquettishly from the corner of her eye. “But I can’t believe you keep a million-dollar collection out here in the open like this.”
He paused, a corner of his mouth lifting. “The paintings are excellent quality but not that excellent.”
“You know I wasn’t talking about the paintings.” Serin waved, indicating the priceless carved figures on the mantel. “Those are Aztec. And the bookends on the far shelf are Chinese fertility statues, very rare ones.”
Those were just a few of the priceless artifacts hidden in plain sight.
Serin wandered to a set of Persian glyphs mounted on a nearby wall. Rainer followed her like a puppy. She rewarded him with a smile.
“No famous paintings hang on your walls,” she said, pitching her voice to a throatier register than normal. “That’s most likely why most people don’t take note of the priceless artifacts all around them. The few who do notice must believe they’re reproductions… or at best, real but inexpensive pieces. They have no idea this room is filled with antiquities worth millions of dollars.”
He narrowed his eyes “You’re very good. I thought your area of expertise was the Renaissance?”
“Well, like Da Vinci, I like to dabble,” she said modestly.
Rainer shrugged. “I guess dangling the possibility of a private tour won’t get me a dinner date now? Not when you can see the bulk of my collection in this room.”
Serin crossed her arms. “I like that you live with your pieces, despite the risk. What if one of your guests bumped into a table and, God forbid, knocked over a Babylonian statue?”
He winked, gesturing at the slices of Fugu on the table. “Life is not worth living without a little risk.” He leaned closer. “I keep my favorite treasures in the bedroom if you’re interested.”
It was the invitation she’d been waiting for, but Serin knew her craft well enough to play a little hard to get. “How long have we known each other? A week?”
“It’s actually a hundred and eighty-seven hours.” Rainer’s eyes were dancing. “I used to be a math guy. I like precision.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I am curious, but what would your guests have to say if we disappeared now? This is a fundraiser for Columbia’s medical school. Don’t you have to mix and mingle? I thought events like these were all about drumming up more donations.”
He paused, leaning against the back of the roomy leather sofa in the middle of the room. “Oh, I think the school’s administrator has that aspect well in hand, but if you’d like to ensure it’s a private viewing, you can come back in an hour or so…everyone should be gone by then.”
Serin glided out to the nearby balcony, leaning against the rail. She didn’t have to strike a seductive pose. The setting and the dress did that for her.
“It’s a tempting offer, but I have to make sure this doesn’t get back to my employer. They sent me to study your collection—that’s all. Anything more would be frowned on.” She cast a questioning glance in the direction of the discreet security guard stationed across the room.
He leaned closer. “I promise we’ll be completely alone.”
She let her lips pull up into a slow smile. “Then I’ll be here.”
A few hours later, Serin tossed an unconscious Rainer on the bed, turning out the pockets of his thousand-dollar p
ants.
I should probably take these off now.
She was going to have to strip him before she left so he’d come to the conclusions she wanted him to draw. Normally, it wasn’t an issue. Generally, her marks weren’t the kind of men or women one had to feel pity for, but she could see Rainer’s aura. He was a decent man, which made this aspect of her job distasteful this time around. Later, she told herself.
There was nothing in his pockets. But there has to be a key fob.
The state-of-the-art touchscreen had a fingerprint lock, but she’d hauled an unconscious Rainer to the desk, and that had only opened the top layer of the computer’s operating system. She’d already searched all the papers in the desk. The name of Rainer’s antiquities dealer wasn’t on them.
The files in the top layer of the unlocked computer were just for show. The most Rainer could do there was browse the internet and store his photos. But long years of watching Gia at work with computers had taught her a fair amount about the new devices, and how humans like to hide their true valuables under more stringent—and hidden—security measures.
Hand on her chin, she spun on her heel, considering her surroundings. Rainer’s investment materials weren’t on the top layer of the computer. That meant he accessed the hidden layer every day for work.
And his most precious belongings are the artifacts that brought me here. One of them was hiding Rainer’s secrets.
A systematic search of the antiquities in the apartment yielded fruit. She found the fob inside a small Grecian urn near the office entrance. Rainer must have found it convenient—a place to hide it in plain sight near his desk. The urn was tall enough that few people could reach inside, let alone see something lying on the bottom.
She removed the fob, then plugged it in. Her fingers flew across the keys, trying not to touch any of them for very long. Though he could afford it, she didn’t want Rainer to have to replace it.
Unfortunately, all the effort didn’t give her the name and address of the dealer. All she had was a nickname in the signature of an old email arranging the purchase of a Sumerian tablet.
Puck.
Daniel wanted to bang his head on his desk. Though the description of the woman in the white bikini was vague, the consistency across cases was enough for his supervisor to take him seriously. However, that acceptance came just as he hit a wall in his investigation.
Although he’d been able to scrounge more witness statements matching the description he was passing around, the fight with the Devil’s Hand was the only actual footage of the woman. It was also the only evidence she was more than a bystander in any of the crimes he was investigating.
“Still at it?” Ray reeked of garlic. Daniel almost gagged, waving a file folder to get rid of the stench.
“How many times have I told you not to go to the Chinese place on the corner? Their stuff is toxic.”
His partner put a hand over his face and huffed, checking his breath. “You’re the only one who complains. I swear you have one those super sniffers.”
Daniel shrugged, brushing the comment off. His coworkers claimed he had a sixth sense where dealers had hidden their stash because he found them faster than the dogs.
He gestured to the sticky note in Ray’s hand. “What’ve you got?”
Ray flapped the note back and forth before sitting across from him. “I have the number of an embarrassed billionaire.”
Daniel frowned. “I thought it was something good.”
His partner was smirking now. “Oh, it is. My buddy Sal cashed out of the FBI. He does private security in Manhattan now. He’s all hooked up there. Anyway, he has a buddy of his own who works for that hotshot investor Rainer Torsten. Turns out his boss is laying low and licking his wounds… after a beautiful woman roofied him to get into his computer.”
“Would this beautiful girl be a stacked African-American with legs for days and a penchant for disappearing?”
“Yes and no. The physical description was spot on, but the woman’s accent was British. She was posing as an antiquities dealer.”
Interesting. The other guests at the Reaper’s compound described her as an American. Apparently, his girl was a chameleon. “What did she get?”
“They haven’t narrowed it down yet. The girl knew all about Torsten’s antiquities, and she could put big price tags on all them. According to the security guy, she could put any of those in her pocket to sell on the black market, but everything was accounted for.”
Daniel tapped his pen on his desk. “She could have swapped them for fakes.”
“That’s what I said, but apparently this Rainer is an expert—he says he could tell the difference. All she did was access his computer. His best guess is some competitor paid her to break into his files to find out what projects he was going to fund. Maybe they thought they could get rich investing in the same stuff.”
There were too many holes in that explanation. “If that were true, why would she leave traces on his computer? She’s too good for that. And why wouldn’t she nick some antique to make it appear as if that was what she was after the whole time? Now the fancy investor gets to rethink his strategy. Wouldn’t she assume he’ll change what projects he chooses to fund?”
“You’re still betting this girl is smart instead of just muscle behind a pretty face.” Ray lifted a picture of the woman fighting in the alley from Daniel’s desk. Her foot was poised inches from a biker’s head.
He wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. I think there’s more to this Torsten situation. Any way you can get me a meeting with him?”
Ray stood. “I’ll check with Sal and see if he can set it up.” He started to walk away before doubling back. “I almost forgot the best part. Torsten has a clear memory of letting her into the apartment. Then she kissed him, and he was out. He thinks she may have worn drugged lipstick. Can you believe that?”
Daniel laughed. “It’s like something out of a spy movie. Let me know when the meet is set. I want to see Torsten as soon as possible.”
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.
Rainer Torsten steepled his fingers under his chin, drumming them together. “You heard me.”
He leaned back in the chair. Daniel was sitting across from the richest man he’d ever met, on the top floor of new office building downtown.
“I will see what I can do, but are you certain she can’t profit from anything she found in your files?”
Torsten shook his blond head. “I’m between projects now. I had a few prospects under consideration, but none of them were truly viable. I am entertaining new offers, of course, but there’s really nothing on the table that anyone could jump on for profit.”
“And there was nothing else? No bank account numbers?”
“I have a keystroke program installed as a security measure. Eileen, as she called herself, ignored all my investment files.”
Daniel blinked. “Then what was she after?”
“She zeroed in on some of my email correspondence. She stopped searching after reading some messages from an art dealer named Puck.”
“An art dealer?” It sounded like a dead end, but his spider-sense was tingling. This was the right track. He was sure of it.
Daniel ended the meeting shortly afterward, texting Ray with a request to run Puck down.
His partner called him back right away. “Now we’re chasing down art dealers?”
Daniel laughed. “It’s who she’s after, so it’s who I’m after.”
“So your meeting with the rich guy went well?”
He hailed a cab. “It did. And get this…Torsten doesn’t want to press charges. In fact, he had a message.”
“For who?”
“For the girl who called herself Eileen—my ass-kicking biker-beating suspect. He wanted me to tell her that he’d forgive everything if she would just change her mind about dinner.”
7
Serin jumped back as the pipe swung through the air, the swooshing sound more like a flute tha
n the hiss of a deadly weapon. It sliced through the drizzle of rain like a knife.
Pivoting, she feinted right, narrowly avoiding the second assailant’s punch.
This is just my luck, running into a neo-Nazi parade while on the job.
“I don’t have time for this.”
Sprinting a few steps, she leapt, executing a parkour-perfect cat-back vault off the nearby wall, higher than most humans could jump without a big running start.
She landed on the burly human’s back, grabbing his hair and punching down to break his nose.
He instantly crashed to the ground like a huge tree felled in the woods. Her feet landed lightly on either side of his head. Glaring at his slack-jawed accomplice, she repeated herself.
“I said, I don’t have time for this.”
She advanced on the second overweight neo-Nazi, letting the unearthly glow of the Mother’s gift show through her eyes. To him, it would appear as if they started glowing a brilliant azure, the color of the ocean around T’Kaieri.
In reality, this was the true color of her eyes. It had been since she’d been chosen. Gia called it a special quirk of the Mother’s gift. It manifested a little differently in all her sisters. Serin had to make an effort to mute the luminescence of her eyes or risk complicating her day-to-day work among humans. Except when she needed to make a point…
The fat man dropped the pipe. He turned, running away as fast as his legs could carry him. Behind her, the other man groaned.
Turning her attention to him, she strolled over, her head craning to read all of his visible tattoos. Like the runner, this one was also a fan of the swastika, a sacred symbol perverted to another end.
“Care to tell me what you meant by jumping me just now?”
The man hissed, spitting at her. Since he was still lying on his back, the dollop of spit landed on his own face.
The Elementals Collection Page 62
