ItTakesaThief (18 page)

Hearing the door open, Damian turned and watched Tiffany
glide toward him, once more the sinuous woman he had met in St. Anton. Like
him, she wore unrelieved black and, judging by her stormy green eyes, her mood
bordered on fury.

“Where are you going?” he asked, mesmerized by her sensuous
walk toward the outer door.

“One of us is leaving,” she said, flinging the bundle she
carried into his face.

“What are you doing?” he asked when he had fought free of
the smothering fabric. Too late he saw the weapon she held in a steady hand.

“I’m leaving.” Motioning with the gun—his own weapon—she
followed him to the bedroom. “Handcuffs, luv, one around the bedpost, the other
around your wrist.” She tossed them to him, not blinking, her expressive face
as blank as a wall.

Although he doubted she would murder him in cold blood, he
recalled the callousness with which the bank people had been dispatched and
considered his options.

“I never hurt anyone,” she said, “but if you push me, I’ll
leave you maimed.”

“Okay.” He cuffed himself and willed her to come closer so
he could grab the gun and force her to free him.

“Now these.” She tossed him a second set of cuffs and
watched him fasten his free hand to the bedpost. Leaving the Walther well out
of his reach, she checked the handcuffs. “Shame on you,” she scolded and
squeezed them until they locked. Then she patted him down until she found a set
of keys in his pocket and removed them.

“Why are you doing this, Tiffany? I have done everything to
keep—”

“To set me up.” Opening the pouch he had brought with him,
she took out a smaller bag, then turned it upside down and let the contents
spill over his chest. “I think the Santanas may find they’re missing some
emeralds.” Doing the same with the larger bag, she sneered at his startled
expression. Isabella’s Belt tumbled into his lap.

“Tiffany, I swear—”

“Don’t worry, Ian, the police you called should be here in a
little while.” She disconnected the telephone and carried it beyond his reach,
then returned to study him with a steady, condemning gaze. “I won’t give you
the satisfaction of knowing how much you’ve hurt me.”

She stalked to the open balcony door. Whirling to face him,
she threatened, “If you try to find me, Ian, I swear I’ll shatter your
kneecaps.”

He saw her gather the tattered shreds of her composure. With
a cheeky grin, she blew him a kiss and vanished through the French doors.

* * * * *

“Jesu, Damian,” Nick Troy said when he spotted Damian
handcuffed to the bed. “What the devil happened? Where’s Tiffany?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. She… Is she splattered all
over the carrera?”

“Tiffany, you mean? Splattered in the street? Of course
not.” Spotting the jewels scattered across the bed, Nick gathered them up and
stared at Damian as if one of them had lost his mind. “Lord almighty—”

“Just toss everything into the bathroom,” Damian advised
with an engaging smile for the maid nervously shadowing Nick. Her keys rattled
in her trembling hand. “Later, Nick. Tip the girl, then order up.”

“Order up? Steak? Ajiaco? I’ve a hankering for chicken stew.
Paella?”

“Scotch. A bottle—the largest they have.”

“Right.” Fishing in his pocket for a tip, Nick grinned and
backed the maid to the suite doors. “Gracias, señorita. ¿Mas tarde? Later?” He
pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, then closed the door on her.

“Now you can get me out of these damn cuffs,” Damian said
when Nick reappeared in the bedroom.

Hearing a loud tapping, he wandered back into the living
room. “Not just yet, I think,” Nick said over his shoulder. He ignored Damian’s
curses and opened the French doors. Stepping onto the narrow balcony, he
discovered a rain-drenched and shivering Tiffany.

“Hello,” he said conversationally, as if he had found her
lounging in the living room.

“The problem with dramatic exits,” she said through
chattering teeth, “is the lack of a planned escape route. I didn’t realize he’d
locked the balcony doors to the living room.”

“Why are you whispering?” he whispered.

“Because I don’t want him to know I’m still here.”

Nick frowned at her puzzling statement, but did not pretend
to misunderstand which him she referred to. “Why?”

“Why?” she shrieked-whispered. “Because he’s responsible for
the attempts on my life! Look, I realize he’s a friend of yours, but I don’t
trust him.” She strode into the half-bath and returned with a hand towel
pressed to her face.

“Nick, I’m dying in here,” Damian shouted from the bedroom.

“Better him than me,” Tiffany mumbled. She raised her head
and fixed Nick with a speculative glare. “Can I trust you? Probably not, but
I’m out of handcuffs. Would you mind getting my luggage from the bedroom?”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll go somewhere safe. And we’ll talk.”

“About what?” he said, sounding damn close to fearful.

“About you. About me.”

“About Da— About Ian?”

She grinned. Nick shivered.

“Most especially about Ian.”

* * * * *

Trailing Tiffany to a table in a dark corner of the hotel
bar, Nick forced himself to survey the few customers rather than the
tantalizing sway of her hips. Had he accompanied any other woman who looked
like a kitten rescued at the last minute from drowning, he would have worried
about being tossed out on his butt. But, with a walk like hers, Nick was more
concerned about protecting them both from the men who were staring at her while
dismissing him with a sneer. Sometimes, he thought with an inward groan,
looking harmless put him at a disadvantage. He could only hope this wasn’t one
of those times.

When they were seated, both with their backs to the wall so
they could see the entire room, Nick gave the waitress their order and glanced
at his companion. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked weary,
unable to cope with whatever misfortune fate threw at her.

“Do you have identification?” she asked once the waitress
had delivered their drinks—a beer for him, Irish coffee for her—and had gone.

“Pardon?”

“Do you have any form of identification that proves you’re
Nick Troy and that you work for…whoever you work for?”

“Y-yes. Do you want to see it?” he said, unable to keep
incredulity from his voice. He was support, not a field agent who wouldn’t
carry identification while undercover.

“Yes. You can pretend you’re showing me pictures of the wife
and kids, if you like.” She grinned, briefly looking like her usual self. “I
promise to ooh and ahh at the appropriate time.”

“That isn’t necessary,” he said, nonetheless relieved that
the other patrons had turned their attention elsewhere. He withdrew his wallet,
showed Tiffany his badge and his photo-identification card, then put everything
back in his pocket.

“Ian doesn’t carry identification,” she said, wrapping her
fingers around her drink as if warming her hands. “Oh, he has a driver’s
license and a passport, but he doesn’t carry a badge like you do.”

“Why would he?” Nick had a sinking feeling in the pit of his
stomach. He had no idea where this conversation was going, nor did he have the
foggiest notion of how to gain control.

“Ian said he sometimes works for Interpol.”

“Did he?” Nick was shocked into saying. Hunter must have
been desperate to intimate so much to their primary suspect. Desperate or a
fool.

“But he can’t prove it.”

Choosing his words with care, Nick said, “Agents working
undercover don’t carry the kind of identification that would give them away if
someone searched their wallets.”

“So, Ian does work for Interpol.”

“I’m not saying that.” Feeling as if he were choking, Nick
loosened his tie and prayed that Damian would come charging in to rescue him.
Then Nick remembered that his friend was indisposed, trapped on the bed by his
dead brother’s handcuffs. Nick wanted to run, convinced Damian would kill
him—or worse!—once he got free.

“Then he doesn’t.”

“Pardon?”

“Then Ian doesn’t work for Interpol?”

“Why do you want to know?”

At that, she seemed to lose all control. Whispering
furiously, she said, “Because he’s trying to kill me. Because I want you to
take me into protective custody. Because I stole Isabella’s Belt.” Holding out
her hands, her wrists together, she demanded, “Cuff me, Troy.”

Nick burst out laughing.

* * * * *

“Where the hell have you been?” Damian shouted when Nick
reappeared several hours later.

“With Tiffany,” Nick said calmly, freeing Damian’s hands.

Damian sprang to his feet, then fell back with a groan.
Fiery needles pierced his legs and feet. His wrists ached and his head felt
like a hundred miners were pounding his brain with picks.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“Somewhere safe.”

“Where?” What the hell was going on here? First, Tiffany had
acted as if he was an axe murderer, now Nick was treating him like a leper.

Nick raked his perfectly styled hair and expelled a sigh
heavy with frustration. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.”

“You what?” Damian surged to his feet and grabbed Nick’s
lapels. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is my case, Nick, and Tiffany
is my prime suspect.”

Nick stood his ground. “You aren’t Michael, Damian. This
case isn’t yours. And from what I saw here tonight, you’ve recovered Isabella’s
Belt.”

“Yeah, well there is still the matter of murder.”

“You can’t believe Tiffany murdered those men.”

“Can I not? Let me tell you something about Ms. Tiffany
Cartierri.” Damian proceeded to relate how Tiffany had elbowed him in the
bathroom, how she had held him prisoner at gunpoint—twice—and had threatened him
with bodily harm if he tried to find her. “The woman is lethal.”

“The woman,” Nick countered with heavy irony, “is running
for her life. And she thinks you’re the one trying to kill her.”

“I hope you told her the truth.”

“I told her nothing. How could I? This is still an open
case.”

“So, you agree Tiffany is still the prime suspect.” For a
time he had believed in her innocence, now he felt less certain. A telephone
call would confirm whether or not Emilio Santana was missing any emeralds.
Another call would determine the authenticity of Isabella’s Belt, now residing
in his bathtub. If it was a fake, then Tiffany had lied to him about the Belt
she said she had taken from the bank. Confessed as she wakened him with bitter
espresso coffee and sweet galletas the morning after he’d fallen asleep on her
bed.

So why this hesitation
?

Because she could have shot him, but had not? Because that
act of mercy proclaimed her innocent—not innocent of stealing Isabella’s Belt,
perhaps, but of killing those men at the bank? Maybe she had difficulty killing
someone who was facing her. Maybe a garrote from behind was more her style.
Maybe she could not kill a man with whom she had made love.

Maybe his brains had taken up residence somewhere below his
belt.

“No, I don’t agree. I do think, however, that whoever did
kill those men wants her dead, as well.”

“Why?” Damian wondered aloud, his mouth dry, his head
pounding with fear for the woman who had captured his heart. He did not trust
her, but he was, he feared, falling in love with her.

Nick shrugged out of Damian’s grasp and paced away. “Maybe
it’s somebody she stole from during her career as a thief.”

“Or maybe it is someone whose jewelry she recovered.”

“Huh?”

“Someone who wanted the insurance money more than he wanted
the stolen property.” Damian restored the telephone and dialed. He ordered
ajiaco and bottle of scotch from room service. “Or maybe it is someone who
feels she betrayed him.”

“Her father?”

“Or Sir James Foster.” Liking that idea more than Charles
Cartierri framing his own daughter, Damian nodded.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“You won’t tell me where she is?”

“No.” Nick grinned. “But I’ll tell where she’ll be tomorrow
night.”

Damian barely drew a breath. “Where?”

* * * * *

At eleven o’clock the next night, TC stepped out of the
green and ivory taxi and pulled her full-length cape tighter around her.
Realizing she was gaping, she closed her mouth, but continued to stare at the
building across the street. Glass and wrought iron seemed to soar to the
cloud-riddled heavens. The Tiffany-style glass entrance glowed ruby red around
the revolving door. Bacchus and some goddess or other looked down from the
second story, but TC couldn’t decide if their expressions were welcoming or
forbidding.

“Wow,” Nick said.

“I thought you’d been here before.”

“I only know people who have.”

“And these costumes we’re wearing?” TC asked, eyeing his
tights-encased legs, his short, baggy pantaloons, his armor-plated chest.

“
De rigueur
,” he said with an insouciant smile. “If
we weren’t in costume, we wouldn’t be admitted. This is, after all, fiesta.”

“By invitation only,” TC said, parroting Nick’s words of
last night. “How did you get us invited?”

“I know people. Come on, we’re missing the fun.”

TC sniffed her disgust at the situation, but let Nick lead
her across the street and then preceded him through the revolving door. Inside,
she found herself surrounded by an oddly attractive combination of Byzantine
and Art Nouveau décor. Surprising her, strains of Mozart drifted down from
somewhere overhead.

“How genteel.” Her sneer faded when a band broke into a hot
rendition of one of Elvis’ early hits. Her hips began to sway. Her feet moved
her forward to the beat of the music. She tossed Nick a smile over her
shoulder, then followed a hostess up the spiral wrought-iron staircase, through
a throng of gyrating dancers, to a table marked “Reserved.” If she hadn’t hoped
to get a lead on the person who had stolen the real Belt she might enjoy
herself. But work came first.