Confidence Tricks (30 page)

“Mrs. Partridge? Chainsaws?” Graff scooted closer to Poppy. Asprey might as well have been out taking the dog for a walk for all anyone cared whether or not he helped.

“The ridiculously nosy neighbor. And what you’ll need to get the painting out the door. It won’t fit otherwise.”

“Is the painting really in the kitchen?” Asprey persisted. “Are you sure it was the one we want?”

She stopped sketching and stabbed her pencil his direction. “Big painting. Lots of globs. I may not have a fancy art degree, but I’m pretty sure I got the right one.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone putting millions of dollars’ worth of artwork in a kitchen before,” Asprey persisted. “Stuff like that is usually under temperature and humidity controls—not in the middle of a house’s warmest, most often used room. Even da Vinci’s Last Supper started to flake after less than twenty years because it was in such a high-traffic place. You can’t put oil-based paintings in a place like a kitchen. It’s ridiculous…”

He let the words trail off. Poppy was looking at him with a mixture of irritation and curiosity.

“Well, that’s where it is. And there’s no way to get it out the doorway—believe me. I checked while Cindy was in the bathroom.”

“Oh, yeah? You had a tape measure handy?”

“I have arms, Asprey.” She held them out. “The height of the painting is about two feet more than my arm span. The doorway is about six inches less. You do the math.”

Graff let out a chuckle designed, Asprey knew, to set up his back.
Glad someone’s enjoying this.

“Also, I asked,” she added. She cocked her head and opened her eyes wide. “Gee, Cindy, your Pollock is huge. How did you get it in here? What will you do if you move?”

“Okay,” Asprey capitulated. “I bow to your superior knowledge.”

“Thank you. I accept.”

Graff grabbed the notepad and studied it for a moment. “Well, the good news is that we don’t have to get the painting out whole. We can just cut it out and roll it up. What I’m worried about is access. How close are the neighbor’s doors?”

Poppy frowned. “That’s the other thing. She’s really close to the old woman next door—it sounds kind of like she takes care of her, sharing casseroles and Saturday nights and stuff. And the neighbor hears everything that goes on in the apartment. Especially the dog.”

“And?” Asprey prompted. Something else was bothering her.

“Well…Cindy’s a really nice woman,” she admitted. “I don’t think she has very many friends, Asprey, and she seemed kind of sad.”

“I’m not surprised. In all her carefully scheduled plans, there didn’t seem like a whole lot of girls’ nights out or hot dates listed.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You of all people should know that some women are natural loners,” he said gently.

“I don’t like it,” she repeated. She turned her attention to Graff. “I know I’m not supposed to know about the insurance stuff, but Asprey told me about the forgeries. I know the painting is fake.”

To any other person in the world, it would have looked as though Graff merely got up to stretch and consider his options. Asprey wasn’t fooled. The spring in his brother’s step was pure tension.
 

Poppy shot Asprey a brief but apologetic look. “I’m sorry to let it out like that, Asprey, but she loves that painting. The kitchen is the only personalized space in that entire apartment. She bakes in there. Lives in there, really. Taking the painting from her—even if it’s not real—is going to break her heart. There’s got to be another way.”

“Well, since you apparently know everything, you also know that she’ll get her ten million dollars back,” Graff interrupted, growling. “She’ll be fine.”

She whirled to face him, and Asprey was glad to see that her irritation landed right smack dab on his brother’s shoulders. “Did it ever occur to either of you that instead of money, the people you steal from would rather have their grandma’s cameo back? That painting was a gift from her husband. Who
died
, Graff. Ten million dollars doesn’t bring people back from the grave.”

“We would if we could, Poppy,” Asprey said gently. “But the real items are long gone. Winston sold them off years ago.”

“Asprey,” Graff warned, his meaning clear. This was the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing he’d held back from telling her. Maybe that had been a mistake—maybe it would have been better to lay it all out on the line from the very first day.
Probably not
. The truth didn’t make any difference if Poppy refused to see him as anything more than the playboy sidekick to Graff’s carefully laid plans.

Besides—no matter what else Graff and Poppy might think, he was dedicated to this job. He
did
care about the outcome, and not just because Winston had left a message that morning notifying him that Ruby had been repossessed.

“He sold them off?” Poppy echoed. “What do you mean?”

Asprey looked at his brother and shrugged.
Too late now.
“She deserves to know the whole story, Graff. She’s risking a lot for us. She might as well know why.”

“Fine. I obviously have no authority here.” Graff agreeing—it was turning out to be quite a strange day. He turned to Poppy. “About five years ago, Winston must have hit a rough financial patch, because he launched a huge forgery scam—the kind most people couldn’t imagine. Almost half of the pieces that went through Charles Appraisals and Insurance during that time were sent out to a company I’ve never heard of and can’t seem to find any information on. A front.”

“Nearest we can tell, they were the ones who forged the items for Winston,” Asprey added. They still didn’t have a ton of information, but what they did know wasn’t good. “Winston passed the forgeries on to the clients and had the fake appraisal company sell the real things—presumably on the black market—so he could pocket the money himself. And until Graff stumbled on some of the records, no one was any the wiser.”

Poppy looked back and forth between them, disbelief momentarily taking the place of her other, less Asprey-friendly emotions. “That’s huge.”

Graff tilted his head in agreement. “Which is why we would be very grateful if you helped us with the VanHuett job
without
getting emotionally attached.”

Poppy turned unnaturally still. “I don’t get emotionally attached.”

As there was no mistaking her meaning, Asprey pushed back from the table and turned, walking slowly and casually toward the stairs to the hangar apartment.

Let Poppy and Graff debate the merits of crime and the drawbacks of human emotion. Let them make lists of all the reasons why a guy like Asprey—who
did
get emotionally attached—wasn’t suited for that particular line of work, why he wasn’t suited for any line of work except self-indulgence and profligacy. He didn’t need to sit there and hear that conversation again.

Once had been more than enough.

Chapter Twenty-One

Poppy dangled her shoe from her toe, trying her best to look playful and interested in Todd’s running dialogue on a racecar that had recently lost him quite a bit of money. Apparently, he blamed a bookie for misunderstanding his bet, his hands flying as he explained the delicacy of long odds.

“Are we going anywhere today, doll? Like…lunch?” She scanned the kitchen for signs of lunch being made, ordered or even thought of. Her stomach growled at the lack of anything edible in sight. She’d rushed from the gym, where she’d spent the morning teaching two yoga classes and one self-defense aerobics class, for this supposed date. If Todd didn’t stop talking about the benefits of deep braking and provide her with a meal, she was not going to be responsible for blowing this entire operation with one swift kick to the kneecap.

Todd shook his head. “I ate at the club.”

She paused, waiting for the rest of the statement, but nothing came. The man’s interest was definitely on its way out—he wasn’t even willing to
feed
her anymore. “What was your mother like, I wonder?”

“My mother?” Todd’s neck did a full swivel her direction. “What do you mean?”

Poppy swallowed a sigh. “Nothing. I just find parental history interesting, that’s all. How it is a person becomes the way they are… I bet your mom was really pretty, wasn’t she?”

Todd must have partially gotten the hint because he stood, grabbed a sparkling water from his refrigerator and offered it to her.
Better than nothing.
“She was beautiful.”

He let the statement sit there, and Poppy thought it would be an easy jump to finish the rest of the description. Beautiful, expensive and most likely not around much.

She knew guys like Todd—had grown up with guys like Todd. They were the ones who lived with single mothers and their endless string of boyfriends, who felt the only way they could compete for her attention was with either money or meanness. Some boys became overachievers and opted for both.

Todd was one of them.

“Speaking of families,” he said, inserting a casual note into his voice. “I got a call from Drago. The game’s been moved to tonight.”

Aha.
That was the real reason they weren’t going out. He wanted to discuss the poker game. The plan was to end things this evening. They’d increased the buy-in so that Todd would arrive with at least a hundred grand in tow. As before, they’d lull him into a belief he was doing well, only to start hitting hard as the night wore on. As soon as they had their take, Poppy planned on starting an argument with him to end the game.

By the time he left, Todd Kennick would be broke and alone.
Just like Grandma Jean.

“Ohh, that’s good.” She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his midsection. It was hard not to make the comparison between that embrace and the ones she’d lately shared with Asprey. It wasn’t just their physiques that were different—it was the way two bodies molded together.

Natalie, with her mile-high breasts and tight clothes, would have felt awkward pushed up against anyone, let alone a man who never appeared to be at ease in his own skin. But Poppy, naked Poppy, stripped-down Poppy—she seemed to melt into Asprey’s arms without even trying.

She pulled away. That was a bad comparison to make. She wasn’t going to end up in any man’s arms.

“It’s good, it’s good.” Todd grabbed his comb from his back pocket and ran it through his hair. “But I need to make some, ah, arrangements with my money guy.”

His money guy? Todd wasn’t doing as well as she’d thought lately if he had to scramble to come up with the hundred grand. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” he rushed. “But you know guys like this. They upped the stakes a little, made it clear this is a private game. They’re part of a rough crowd, Natalie. A man has to be able to handle himself.”

He really
was
nervous. “You’ll be great, doll,” she said, her tone low and soothing. “As long as you have me with you, there’s nothing to be worried about. Those guys are like brothers to me.”

For the first time since she’d forced their meeting, Todd looked at her with wariness. Gone was the greedy glint in his eyes. Nowhere to be seen were those initial throes of lust. He looked kind of like that little boy who was still working so hard to impress his mother.

Bam.
There was her con guilt again. These jobs were always so much easier when her marks didn’t let those rare glimpses of humanity through.

So she did the only thing she could in a situation like this—closed her eyes and thought of Grandma Jean. Almost as much as she wished she’d been able to say good-bye to the old woman, Poppy wanted to know why she’d trusted a man like Todd with her money.

She had a few guesses as to her grandmother’s motivations, not the least of which was the promise of a quick payout.
Like grandmother, like granddaughter.
They were the type of people who always looked for a shortcut, always wanted to get more for less. Bargain shoppers with criminal intentions.

Not at all like Asprey. Of all the information thrown at her over the past few days, Poppy could process only one thing: he wasn’t really a thief. Those fleeting, criminal ties that bound the two of them existed only in her imagination.

The glitz and glamour of his high-brow life, the art museum in his name and the trips to Bali—that was his world. Not the art and jewelry thefts. Not the underworld poker. He righted the world’s wrongs, made up for Winston’s criminal activities, gave people their money back because it was the right thing to do.

He’s one of the good guys.

And Poppy, who in all this time was only out to get her own money back from Todd, was not.

“I can call them right now and cancel.” She looked at Todd, her guilt still in place but with a firm set to her jaw all the same. She’d already invested the time and energy and heartbreak.
Once a thief, always a thief.
“Don’t you worry, I can take care of this for you. Those boys won’t think any less of you for having a change of heart. I’ll make sure of it.”

As expected, Todd’s pride shot straight up his spine, and he loomed close. “I can take care of this myself,” he muttered. “I don’t need you getting in there and messing things up.”

“Sure thing,” she cooed. Whatever it was going to take. Less than twenty-four hours and she’d be done with this man for good. “Why don’t I go get myself freshened up for this evening and let you handle your business?”