Confidence Tricks (20 page)

“Thus the Prodigal returns.” Tiffany pushed open the back door to the hangar, watching as Asprey parked his bike and pulled the helmet off his head. They switched the license plates when on a job requiring mobility, which meant he could take the motorcycle out for regular errands like the one to Poppy’s gym with no criminal investigators being the wiser.

His feet crunched loudly on the gravel as he hung his helmet on the back peg pounded into the outer wall and stretched. He was taking his time, and Tiffany knew it.

“What happened? She skip town just like Graff said she would?”

“No. Graff was wrong.”

“Graff begs to differ,” his brother said, coming out to join Tiffany in the doorway. He bit into an oversized sandwich, chewing loud enough that he could have probably covered the sound of an airplane taking off, had the airport still been fully functional. “There’s plenty of time for her and Todd to pocket that money and run.”

Asprey was very careful to pay attention to each movement of air through his body, in his nostrils and out his mouth. He would not let Graff goad him. He would not let Graff get to him.

“The amount of planning and foresight that would have to go into a con of that magnitude wouldn’t be worth the thirty thousand,” Asprey said. “Not when we offered her two-thirds of that free and clear last week.”

“So that’s it? We trust her?” Tiffany didn’t seem too concerned one way or the other. Asprey’s indifference in general life activities was nothing compared to hers.

“Yes. Absolutely,” Asprey said, just as Graff barked out a sandwich-laden, “No.”

“Cool.” Tiffany nodded and turned back to the hangar. “I like her—and not just because she’s tough. She doesn’t ask questions or make demands. Or whine. You guys whine.”

Asprey decided to follow Tiffany’s path of retreat and brushed past his brother, allowing their shoulders to meet in a solid whump.

“Hey.” Graff grabbed him on the shoulder and squeezed. Other than a slight flare, the pain was almost gone now. “Don’t be like that. We talked about this—that woman is a professional at what she does. You don’t do two years in adult detention and walk out with pure motives. I’m just taking the necessary precautions.”

Asprey didn’t like the direction his brother was headed. “A professional at what she does? You mean robbing people of their hard-earned money, right?”

Graff maintained his grip. “Yes, there’s definitely that. But you also have to consider her methods—she knows how to use her looks to her advantage. Don’t be that guy. Don’t let your dick get in the way of what’s really important here.”

Asprey shook him off. He already felt like a dirt bag for lying to Poppy about why he’d stopped by the gym that morning. He didn’t need his brother making it any worse with flippant remarks. Graff hadn’t earned that right.

“I mean it.” Graff pointed the remains of his sandwich at him. “You might have been able to convince me that her ex-con status is a good thing, since she has a lot more at stake if we were to get caught or an anonymous tip was whispered in the right ear, but the fact remains that you aren’t in charge here.
I
am. I can’t even imagine what kind of trouble we’d be in if we let you call the shots for a change.”

That did it. Asprey whirled. “Why am I here? If I’m such a fuck-up, if I can’t even be trusted to control myself around one woman, why do you want my help getting the company back from Winston’s evil clutches?”

“Now you’re being stupid,” Graff muttered. “This is as much for you as it is for me.”

“Is it? Really? Because from where I stand, your biggest goal is to divide the family, and I put the numbers on your side.”

“It’s not dividing the family, Asp. It’s doing what needs to be done.” Fury made Graff even gruffer than usual. “Winston can’t keep stealing from innocent people under
our
name. Something has to give.”

“So turn him over to the police and let them handle it,” Asprey returned. “Besides, it’s only a matter of time before Winston discovers that we’re the ones behind all the thefts. What happens to your grand plan then?”

“He won’t figure it out.” Graff’s lips were white and tense, and he’d given up the pretense of nonchalant eating. That was Asprey’s line anyway, that of the careless rogue. “He’s a man with enemies, especially in the world of business. You know he was the one who convinced Dad to take the company deeper into the insurance side of things, and that’s not a move anyone makes without a hell of a lot of greed at his back. I could name half a dozen men who would be happy to bring him to ruin.”

“So let them.”

“No.” Graff released Asprey with a shove. “This is our responsibility. Five years he spent making those forgeries, handing off the fakes to clients and selling the real thing to God-knows-who. Jail time won’t get people their valuables back—and you know Winston would probably hire some lawyer who could get him off with a slap on the wrist. This is the best way. It’s our mess, our responsibility.”

“And it has nothing to do with you wanting control of the company, does it?” Asprey asked bitterly. He knew Graff was right, knew that at least this way they could compensate people for the damages Winston had done.

“Of course it does,” Graff said coolly. “I’m not afraid to admit that we’re the victims here too. With each successful forgery, Winston methodically chipped away at everything Dad and Grandpa and Great-Grandpa built. He also stole the Charles family legacy—and that belongs to all of us.”

Asprey threw up his hands. “And when have I ever cared about the stupid Charles family legacy?”

Graff laughed, though there was no real humor in it. Asprey couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his brother give in to real mirth. “Don’t kid yourself. You care every time you pull out your credit cards, every time you roll out of bed in the afternoon and decide you’d rather take your airplane for a spin than go to work. Maybe our motivations aren’t the same, but you need this as much as I do.”

Asprey’s chest tightened, and he stepped aside to let his brother pass him into the hangar. Experience told him not to let his brother go, that his words, which sprang more out of his deep-seated sense of self-loathing rather than any intention to hurt Asprey’s feelings, were a gateway to something more.

But he let Graff go, failing like he always did.

It was kind of his thing.

Chapter Fourteen

“Here.” Asprey extended a plastic bag, swinging it casually between his fingers. “I bought you a sock puppet.”

Poppy laughed. She still had on her Natalie gear, her hair pulled back in a springy blonde ponytail, matched by the tightest pair of yoga pants he’d ever seen. They were his favorite pants. They made everything bounce.

And while the bounce was good—the bounce was
great
—it couldn’t all be attributed to her attire. Natalie was a naturally springy person. He could see that now. She walked differently than Poppy, with an extra sway to her backside and a jiggle to her step not unlike that of a sorority girl. Her mannerisms were different too, her hands more fluid as she spoke, her facial expressions exaggerated to the point of cartoons. Regular Poppy was a lot more controlled, and she had an uncanny way of sizing up both a person and a room at a glance. She always positioned herself defensively when she entered a new situation, her back to the wall so she faced the exit, never quite letting her guard down around the other people in the room.

Outside, on the sidewalk where a group of teenaged skaters whizzed past, leaving the earthy scent of pot and coffee in their wake, she seemed a little more at ease. He wondered if it had anything to do with him.

He hoped so.

She peeked into the bag and smiled. “A ninja. How cute.”

“It was either that or the fairy princess.” He shrugged. “I took a stab.”

Her laughter sprang forth, both a validation and a promise. “Thank you. A girl can never have enough ninja paraphernalia.” She cast a quick glance around. “But I should probably get off the street until I get a chance to take off the Natalie gear. I don’t want to risk being seen. You parked nearby?”

“Yeah. Right there, actually.” He pointed at his motorcycle a few car lengths down, the front wheel turned into the curb.

She swiveled to face him, one of her Natalie-darkened eyebrows raised in a question. “Seriously? You drove your getaway vehicle to a centrally located public place? And you want me to hop on?”

He tossed her his extra helmet. White and baby blue and covered in dainty swirls, the helmet had originally been purchased for any female riders he might pick up along his general cruise through life. Those moments were fewer and further between than he’d hoped, although Tiffany had been grateful to use it the few times she’d been out with him. “What can I say? I like to live on the edge.”

“That’s not it,” she said, pulling the helmet over her head, expertly tucking in her ponytail and buckling the chin strap. This clearly wasn’t her first time on a bike.

“How do you figure?”

She flipped up the face guard and studied him. “You don’t live on the edge. You live in the land of privilege. You think things can’t touch you.”

He flipped her face guard back down.

He hadn’t told Graff or Tiffany about this particular errand—mostly because both of them would approve of it, assuming he meant to build trust and break down walls. Well, that was what he intended, but not in the way they would have imagined it. For the first time in months, there would be no thinking about theft or family or the next big heist. He was back to thinking about himself.

A selfish and vain bastard that might make him, but even Asprey of London closed its doors for business every now and then.

“Just hold on,” he commanded, pulling his own helmet down. He swung his leg over the motorcycle, stabilizing it while Poppy moved into place behind him. Even through the thick leather of his riding jacket and the extra one he’d brought for her, he felt a surge of pleasure at the swell of her chest against his back. She didn’t hesitate to press firmly against him, slipping her arms around his waist and tucking her hands inside the flaps of his jacket, palms flat against his stomach.

He didn’t want those hands to stop moving, could already imagine how they would feel moving lower, her long fingers swift and sure as they sought a place to land.
Ninja legs and pickpocket hands.

His groin tightened, his cock responding the only way it knew how to such an unlikely combination of attributes. It was going to be hard to concentrate on the road.

Fortunately, he found a kind of balance between speed and sensation as he started the motorcycle and turned the throttle. Women didn’t normally clamor to take place in this part of his life—they preferred the Charles family soirees or a candlelit dinner for two over a chance to zoom astride his high-speed Ducati through the city streets. The woman he’d gone to the ashram with had been like that. When the facility turned out to be a sprawling un-air-conditioned hovel on the outskirts of a slum instead of the luxury yoga retreat the brochure had led her to believe, she couldn’t pack her bags fast enough.

But he’d liked the balance between the turmoil around them and the quiet of their centuries-old courtyard. The bike, well, that wasn’t nearly as noble. Mostly he liked the way it made him feel, like he was still in touch with his admittedly juvenile, adventurous side—if only for a little while.

With every corner he took at a too-sharp turn, Poppy signaling where to go with the tap of her hand as they approached each intersection, she moved into him like someone who knew what she was doing.

That was when it hit him. Poppy was
from
the admittedly juvenile, adventurous side. Her life experiences—as a con woman, as a prisoner, as someone who looked a cheating gambler in the eye and went all in—trumped his in every way possible. There was something to respect in that. There was something to
desire
in that.

They drove for a while, much longer than he’d expected, moving south out of Seattle until they hit I-5 through a tunnel of greenery headed for the coast. The freeway winds whipped around them with a forceful, frigid hand, and it didn’t take long for his entire body to numb to the constant pressure and cold.

He welcomed the feeling. One of the reasons he loved this bike—why he missed his Cessna so much—was the way the thrill of speed soothed him. No thoughts other than what lay before him on the stretch of road entered his mind, and he didn’t have to play a role. Not son, not brother, not lover, not anything.

It was just him, and he was enough. That was a feeling he didn’t get to experience very often.

They hit Aberdeen, a small coastal logging town, as the sun began to set over Gray’s Harbor. It was one of the duller sunsets Asprey had seen in a while, dark and muted with the bulbous clouds that signaled an oncoming storm.

He thought they were headed for the city center, but Poppy gave him a few more signals, leading them past the populated area and into one of the more rural settings just north of town. The houses grew fewer and farther between, the leafy undergrowth taking over the empty spaces, until they finally stopped in front of a long, winding dirt road that led up into a wall of evergreen trees.

Poppy dismounted quickly, ripping off the helmet and shaking her head. Before Asprey could offer to help, she yanked at her wig, sending hairpins flying in all directions.