Illegal Possession (12 page)

“Well—”

She held up a hand quickly. “Please. No off-color remarks so early in the morning.”

“You started it.”

“Eat your breakfast.”

“I see you’re going to be a bossy wife.”

Troy didn’t rise to the bait. “Eat your breakfast,” she repeated calmly.

Dallas quickly discovered that she’d been pulling his leg with a vengeance, because she was a very good cook. He ended up sharing the food with her, even though she protested that she never ate very much in the morning. Then they shared a bath in the huge tub that had tempted Troy once before.

“I keep expecting a sign to flash
FASTEN SEAT BELTS
,” she said in a bemused voice.

“What?”

“Well, there are enough gadgets in this tub to fly a jet plane. This, for instance. What’s it for?”

“Bubbles.”

“Really? Let’s have some.”

Dallas started laughing. “That huge house of yours, and not a single Jacuzzi?”

“Nope. I’ve always relied on utilitarian showers.”

He watched her in fascination as she luxuriated among the bubbles and made no attempt to hide her utter enjoyment of a new experience. Dallas shook his head. “You are the oddest mixture of sophistication and innocence,” he murmured. “Just when I think you can’t surprise me, you do. I’ll never get bored growing old with you, sweetheart.”

Darkly she said, “I’m going to turn into a prune instead of growing old, because I don’t want to get out of this tub.”

He laughed again. “You can stay here only until I finish shaving; then I pull the plug.”

“I’ll fight you for it,” she declared.

A gleam was born in his eyes. “On second thought maybe I’ll wait to shave.”

“Dallas? Good heavens, that’s…that’s kinky.”

“Complaining?” he murmured.

“Hell, no…”

“Were you serious about being my backup man on the next job?” she asked quite some time later as she hung up the phone after a brief conversation with Jamie.

Dallas, sprawled out on the couch in the den, looked at her warily. “For my sins, yes.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Busy tonight?”

“I think I’ll be busy learning how to burgle tonight. Dressed all in black, I assume?”

“Uh-huh.”

He looked reflective. “I’ve always wondered about that. The dressing in black, I mean. Is it just to blend in with the darkness?”

Cheerfully she said, “It’s mostly that. Also, it tends to scare the hell out of someone to turn on a light and see a stranger dressed in black.”

Dallas frowned at her for a moment, then nodded. “I see. They’re bound to hesitate, and that gives you an edge.”

She nodded. “And time. More than once, those few seconds of astonishment have given me time to get out the window.”

“Shouldn’t the police be looking for a lady cat burglar by now? Since you’ve been seen, I mean?”

“You forget; the people I burgle don’t dare call the police. It would be a trifle awkward for them to explain that their stolen property was stolen from them.”

He grinned a little. “You have the best of things, don’t you? The police probably know what you’re doing, and they look the other way: and your victims don’t dare press charges for fear of going to jail themselves.”

Troy looked at him gravely. “You’re still not quite comfortable with what I do, are you?”

“No,” he said honestly, catching her hand and pulling her down to his side. “But I’m coming to terms with it. I know that your fee goes to charity, and God knows you aren’t in it for financial gain anyway—”

“How did you know—” Troy broke off and answered her own question ruefully. “Your little setup. Chris Jordan told you that I wanted the fee given to charity.”

“He was a bit bewildered by that,” Dallas said wryly.

“Most of my clients are,” Troy explained, “because most of them live outside this area and don’t know me socially.”

Dallas looked at her curiously. “Where’s the most distant place you’ve traveled to—uh—burgle?”

“Actually to break into a house,” she told him tranquilly, “it was South America. But I’ve done some—work in Europe and the Orient.”

“What kind of
work
?” Dallas asked in the tone of a man who wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know.

Troy patted him reassuringly on the cheek. “Don’t worry, darling; I was helping the police—” Before she could finish the sentence, Dallas had caught her in a fierce hug.

“That’s the first time you’ve called me that,” he said huskily. “And right now, I don’t care if you were helping the Mafia.”

Returning the hug with interest, she murmured absently, “The Mafia isn’t terribly interested in art objects; they’re far more intrigued by the higher-profit crimes.”

Dallas smiled wryly at her as he sat back on the couch. “You know a lot about crime and criminals, don’t you, sweetheart?”

“The mark of a professional,” she told him solemnly, “is research.”

“And yet you’re not cynical. That’s…odd.”

Troy looked thoughtful. “Well, crime and sin have always been with us and probably always will be; the only problem I see in dealing with them is confusing the two. What I do may be a crime technically, but it isn’t a sin. I don’t feel guilty about it, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

“You’re amazing.”

She gave him a startled look.

“Really,” he insisted. “Because you know yourself the way very few people ever manage to. And because your eyes are wide open and yet you don’t hesitate to do what you can to help rather than bemoan the fact that the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.” He smiled crookedly. “I saw a poster once that ran something like:
Somebody do something! Oh…I’m somebody
. There’s no startled realization for you, Troy; you know you’re somebody, and you do something about any problem you see.”

Troy gazed at him for a moment, then slid her arms around him and hugged. Hard. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Don’t mention it,” he said huskily.

A few moments later she asked idly, “Are you sure you want to be a burglar tonight?”

“I’d consider it an honor,” he said determinedly, and Troy giggled.

“You sound like you’re going before a firing squad.”

“Visions of irate, burgled victims are dancing in my head.”

“The victim won’t be at home. That’s why Jamie called me; we’ve had our eye on this place for weeks, but the security system’s been a hard nut to crack.”

“And now?”

“We have it on the best authority that the owner’s leaving the city briefly with half his security force, and leaving the painting we want behind.”

“Whose authority?”

“His butler’s.”

Dallas choked on a laugh. “You have no scruples! What’d you do, bribe the guy?”

Troy swallowed another giggle and replied sedately, “No; Bryce got him drunk.” When Dallas choked again, she said gravely, “There’s an entire underground network of information channels through the domestic staffs in this city. It’s incredible, really. And Bryce has gotten the fine art of subtly extracting information down pat by now. He’s terrific.”

Looking toward the heavens in a plea, Dallas murmured, “She’s even corrupted her butler. The British lion is having its tail yanked by an upstart American lady cat burglar.”

“I resent that.”

“Which?”

“Upstart. The British stopped calling us Colonials that years ago.”

“Don’t you believe it.”

She giggled. “Besides, my French ancestry is awfully close to the surface, you know. And Daddy was half Irish.”

Dallas groaned. “You had to throw that into the pot. No wonder you have such a temper; if there’s a more combustible mixture than Irish and French, I don’t know what it is.”

“I do.”

“You do what?”

“Know a more combustible mixture.”

“Yeah? What?”

“A scrupulously legal but ruthless businessman and a lady cat burglar.”

“There is that.”

“Yes.”

“Wanna go up in flames?”

“I thought you’d never ask….”

For Dallas’s first active experience with her work, Troy had deliberately chosen a job promising to be one of the more difficult waiting in the wings. The inborn caution that had made her hesitate all this time wanted, not for Dallas to prove anything, but for him to understand completely and believe in what she did. She knew very well that a part of his reserve was due to the dangers involved; she also knew that if she’d been a cop or firefighter, that reserve would have been the same.

It was perhaps, she thought in amusement, a bit much to expect a man to accept amicably that his wife was a cat burglar—even a semilegitimate one. But she felt she had to try.

However, she really hadn’t planned on their first midnight expedition together turning into a comedy of errors….

“Damn.”
Troy wailed softly.

“What?” Dallas hissed as he crouched beside her outside a formidable wrought-iron fence. It was just past the witching hour of midnight.

“You’re not going to believe this.
I
don’t believe this,” she muttered. “I forgot my flashlight.”

Dallas tried to resist the temptation and failed. “You’re supposed to be the expert at this,” he pointed out maddeningly in a whisper.

She glared at him in the now-and-again cloud-shrouded moonlight. “I
am
. It’s all your fault; if you hadn’t distracted me by nibbling on my neck while I was getting the tools together—”

“With the prospect of five to ten staring me in the face, I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to nibble,” he defended himself calmly.

Troy ignored that. “I don’t suppose you brought a flashlight?”

“Sorry.”

“Fine pair of thieves we are,” she grumbled, glancing at her watch and waiting for Jamie to signal that the electrified fence had been switched off.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Business mogul caught hobnobbing with lady cat burglar: film at eleven.”

“Cute.”

“Don’t worry; it’ll be a first offense.”

“Oh, great.”

Troy fought back a giggle, reminding herself sternly that they were here to do a job. The Handie-Talkie clipped to her belt buzzed softly, and she thumbed on the mike.

“It’s off,” Jamie announced, still sounding amused—as he had ever since they’d gone over the plans at Dallas’s house. “
Bon voyage
, you two.”

Dallas grimaced as she responded with a soft “Okay” and replaced the device on her belt. “Does he have to sound so damn cheerful?” he muttered.

“He thinks it’s funny that scrupulously legal Dallas Cameron is about to break into a house,” Troy murmured.

Remaining heroically silent, Dallas gave her a boost over the fence, holding his breath until she had successfully negotiated the spikes and now-dead electrified wire at the top.

Troy, safely on the inside, watched him as he leaped easily and caught the base of two spikes, pulling himself up and over with an admirable economy of movement. As he landed with a soft thud beside her, she said approvingly, “You did that very well. A born thief.”

He swatted her on the fanny. “Any more editorial comments and I’m going to get violent,” he warned.

She sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have invited you along: you’re spoiling the party.”

“Shall we get this over with, please?”

The first electronic camera was encountered about a hundred yards into the enclosure, sobering them both. It was panning back and forth slowly, like all the cameras around the perimeter of the place, calling for split-second timing in getting past undetected. Careful planning paid off; they got through, Troy thought, with at least an even chance of not having been seen.

Once past two layers—fence and cameras—of outer security, they encountered the final layer outside the house. And it was one that Dallas had not been looking forward to.

The dogs.

Never one to wait for trouble to find her, Troy halted at the edge of the trees bordering the yard and pulled a high-frequency whistle from her belt. “I hope we have the right frequency,” she muttered.

“You mean you’re not sure?” Dallas asked in alarm.

“Everything in life’s a gamble.”

“I don’t find that very comforting.”

Troy blew through the whistle, adding calmly,

“Not being reckless to the point of insanity, however, I took the precaution of making friends with these two a couple of weeks ago. Let’s hope they remember me.”

The dogs came bounding up seconds later. They were large, lean, and appeared as hostile as Dobermans were reputed to be. They were wearing spiked collars, and announced their presence with rumbling growls.

“Hi, guys,” Troy said cheerfully, stepping forward into the yard.

Dallas stepped forward also, irresistibly reminded of the night they’d met and the bored Doberman that had given him a bad moment while Troy had clung to the wall. These two animals were the opposite of bored: they were both alert and sniffed suspiciously at the two intruders strolling casually toward the house.

“Heel,” Troy said firmly, making a slight motion with one hand as she continued walking.

The dogs immediately took up position on either side of her, pacing along silently.

Dallas glanced down at the dog between him and Troy. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but they accepted us awfully quickly.”

“Be thankful they’re guard dogs and not attack dogs,” she murmured. “The latter don’t obey anyone but their handlers.”

Suddenly conscious of the silent yard and darkened house, Dallas lowered his voice. “I’m glad—believe me. Now, are you sure that the security guards aren’t on tonight?”

“Reasonably.”

“Troy—”

“I’m sure, I’m sure. The security guards went with the owner, his wife, and her diamonds. They’ll only be gone one night, and he’s depending on the dogs, the house’s electronic security system, and the perimeter cameras—which are tied in to TV sets in the gatehouse down there by the road. The single guard monitoring the sets is a mystery buff, and he picked up a nice, thick, bloodcurdling paperback this afternoon on his way to work.” She sent Dallas an amused look.

“Satisfied?”

“With your preparation—certainly,” he responded promptly. “It’s all the unknown factors—like sheer bad luck—that worry me.”