Once a Thief (17 page)

She turned slowly, the pain inside her pushed aside for the moment by the ancient instincts of self-preservation. Her mind was clear and cold, and the first thing she took note of was the businesslike automatic in Nyssa Armstrong’s slender and beautifully manicured hand.

The second thing she noticed was the insane rage gleaming in those wide blue eyes.

Oh, Morgan, you were more prophetic than we could have imagined . . .

Since Storm was a technical specialist with Interpol rather than a field agent, her training aimed at coping with a situation like this one had been rather sketchy. She could defend herself physically quite well—thanks to a father and six older brothers who’d made sure she could handle herself—but she didn’t know how to disarm an enemy in a situation like this one, and she wished she’d paid more attention in her few psychology classes.

“Can we talk about this?” she asked, keeping her voice as even and casual as possible.

Nyssa had allowed the suite door to close behind her. She stood just a few feet from Storm, the gun pointed unerringly at the smaller woman’s chest. She was smiling. “I don’t think so,” she said in a reflective tone. “You see, I really do hate to lose. And if I don’t stop you, I’ll lose twice. First Wolfe, and then the collection.”

Storm felt a chill unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. What Nyssa said was scary enough, but the way she said it was terrifying. With absolutely no sign of mockery, she was imitating Storm’s Southern accent, her head slightly tilted to one side as if to listen to her own efforts.

Storm wiped the accent from her voice. “As far as the collection goes—”

“No, don’t do that.” Nyssa frowned at her. “I have to get the voice right. I’ve seen his face when you talk to him, so I know he likes the voice.” She cocked the pistol. “If you don’t help me, I’ll kill you here.” Her tone was so matter-of-fact, almost indifferent, that it told Storm Nyssa would, without hesitation, kill.

Anything for a little more time, Storm thought. Staying alive was the first priority. “Anything you say,” she drawled. “Would you like me to talk? My pleasure. Besides, I’m curious. How could you lose the collection because of me? It doesn’t belong to me or to Wolfe—it belongs to Max Bannister.”

Nyssa had her head tilted again, listening, and when she answered it was with a creditable Southern accent as well as a tone eerily like Storm’s. “I could have persuaded Wolfe to let me see the collection. And, after that, it would have been easy to get the security details from him. I could do that, you know. Men tell me all kinds of things in bed. He would have, too, in time.”

“Then you would have tried to . . . take . . . the collection?” Storm asked, wording the question carefully. She wanted to keep the conversation away from Wolfe if possible, because she had the instinctive certainty he was the danger zone.

“My men would have.” Proudly, she said, “I taught them well. The police don’t have a clue.”

“You mean—that gang of thieves everybody’s after is under your control?” Storm was honestly astonished. Interpol had been suspicious of Nyssa, but not for that.

She laughed softly. “It’s the perfect arrangement. I find out all the security details, and then they go in. I select a few choice items for myself and give them the rest to sell to a few other collectors on their list. Everybody gets what they want and everybody’s happy.” She was still drawling.

“It does sound efficient,” Storm agreed.

Nyssa glanced at her watch. “I think we’d better be going. He’ll come back here tonight, won’t he? To be with you, like he was all weekend. I’ve been following both of you at different times. I know what’s been going on. So he’ll come back here soon, won’t he?”

Before Storm could reply one way or the other, the taller blonde was going on, her voice beginning to tighten and lose a bit of its lazy drawl.

“That’s when I knew for sure that I had to get rid of you. I didn’t like the way he looked at you that first night, in the restaurant—as if he couldn’t take his eyes off you. But I thought he’d lose interest soon. Then, at the museum on Friday, he gave me the brush-off.” Her laugh was high and brittle. “Oh, he was smooth about it, but what he meant was he just wasn’t interested in me anymore. It was you. I followed him over here, so I know he spent the night with you. I know he spent the entire weekend with you.”

“Nyssa—”

She sort of shook her head, visibly reaching for control, and when she spoke she was drawling again. “He’s the first one I really wanted,” she murmured, as if to herself. “Don’t know why, just something about him.”

Desperately, Storm said, “I’m curious again. Did you follow me tonight, or what?”

Nyssa frowned. “No. I had something to do, so I couldn’t wait outside the museum for you. I was lucky, though, because I got here just when you did. And when I saw he wasn’t with you, I knew I could do it tonight. We’re leaving now.”

It didn’t require any training or special knowledge for Storm to recognize the implacable expression on the other woman’s face or the madness in her eyes. All Storm could think of was that she would have to make some kind of move between here and the front door of the hotel; once out of the lobby, her chances of getting help diminished rapidly.

She didn’t attempt anything as she walked slightly ahead of Nyssa out of the suite and down the hall to the elevator. The car was deserted when it stopped for them, so Storm bided her time, silently hoping there would be people in the lobby; it was usually pretty active, and there were groupings of chairs and huge planters and other places to hide.

But what if Nyssa began shooting? Could she risk that, Storm asked herself desperately, could she be responsible for this madwoman hurting or even killing some innocent bystander? God, she
couldn’t
let that happen. . . .

Frozen inside, her instincts screaming for her to do something and her mind telling her she couldn’t, Storm stepped out of the elevator. Nyssa was a half step behind, a scarf draped over her hand to hide the gun that was pressing into Storm’s back. They were halfway across the fairly busy lobby when a quiet voice behind Nyssa spoke her name.

To Storm, the next minute or so seemed to drag out until it lasted hours. She flinched away from the gun as Nyssa jerked it away from her back, and she had to turn around just as the other woman did, because it was Wolfe’s voice.

He was there, standing very still, looking at Nyssa’s face rather than at the gun now aimed at him. Storm wanted to scream out a warning, but a powerful hand was pulling her away. She knew it was Max, because she could see Jared slipping up on the other side of Nyssa, his unusual eyes coldly intent.

“It’s me you really want, isn’t it?” Nyssa said to Wolfe in that drawling voice uncannily like Storm’s. “I’ll forgive you, darling, just say you don’t want her anymore.”

Wolfe never had to respond to that, which was probably just as well; he looked a bit sick. Before Nyssa could take in Wolfe’s expression, Jared made his move. He got the gun out of her hand without a wasted second, and before Nyssa could even begin to struggle she found herself in a hold she couldn’t escape.

By the time she began screaming, the police had arrived.

Storm didn’t look at any of the three tall men standing in her hotel suite. Instead, she gazed at the nervous little blond cat in her lap and stroked him gently. Max had brought her back to her suite soon after the police had arrived; Wolfe and Jared had joined them up here a few minutes later. She was dimly aware that they had talked, the three of them, but she had no idea what about.

Max had apologized to her quietly and sincerely, saying it was his fault she’d been put into the position of having to lie to Wolfe. It was ironic, he’d said; if she hadn’t been so honest and conscientious, she would have saved herself a lot of pain by telling Wolfe the truth when their involvement became personal. Instead, bound by her sense of responsibility to do her job and obey her superior, she had been forced to go on lying.

Storm doubted that Wolfe would see it that way.

With the threat of Nyssa gone, her rush of adrenaline had gone as well, leaving her as numbly miserable as she had been before. She wasn’t even interested enough to ask someone how they had known about Nyssa; they must have known, otherwise they wouldn’t have been waiting in the lobby, she thought. Not that it mattered.

After an indeterminate while, her frozen senses thawed enough to tell her that Max and Jared were leaving. She looked up, watching them go. Wolfe shut the door behind them. He was staying, she realized. He took his jacket off and flung it toward a chair without looking to see where it landed. He came toward her with a very deliberate tread. She watched him come toward her, and some instinct rather than knowledge told her he was so tense he was on the knife edge of doing something violent.

He bent down, lifted Bear out of her lap and set him gently on the couch beside her, and then he jerked her up into his arms.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

F
or a moment, the breath knocked from her and
more than a little dazed by his action, Storm didn’t even hear the words he muttered into her hair. When she did hear them, she was afraid to believe what she heard.

“God, baby, I’m
sorry.
I didn’t mean what I said, I swear I didn’t. . . . I know you never would have lied to me if you’d had any other choice, and I know sleeping with me was never part of the job.”

Storm leaned back far enough to look at him when he finally raised his head. There was something wild in his eyes, and she felt hypnotized by it. “I didn’t lie about that,” she whispered. “What I felt when you touched me . . . How badly I wanted you. I didn’t mean for it to happen, Wolfe, but I couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t tell you the truth about that, about how I felt, when I was lying about why I was here. . . .”

He surrounded her face in his hands, those fierce eyes even wilder. “Tell me now.”

Storm didn’t hesitate. As long as there was a chance he could forgive her, she was willing to gamble everything she had, every shred of pride and every ounce of dignity. With simple honesty, she said, “I fell in love with you that first day, when I looked up and saw you standing there glowering in
such
a bad mood—”

Wolfe made a hoarse sound and kissed her. “I love you.”

She didn’t know how much time passed, but gradually she realized that Wolfe was on the couch and she was on his lap, held tightly in his arms. The position was amazingly comfortable, and she cuddled closer with a sigh of contentment even as her mind began functioning with something approaching normality.

Quietly, she said, “I never wanted to lie to you, Wolfe.”

“I know.” He matched her tone, his own voice still a little strained. “Even before you left the carousel, I knew. Then Max was there, and between them, he and Jared explained why they’d decided to keep their plans from me.”

Storm drew back a little and gazed at him gravely. “Jared didn’t tell me everything, of course. He just said Max didn’t want you to feel torn between loyalty to him and your responsibilities to Lloyd’s. He said your job was to protect the collection, and since that wouldn’t change no matter what they planned, there was no reason for you to know.”

Wolfe smiled slightly, but it was a wry smile. “Both of them knew better.”

“I thought they
should
have—but it wasn’t my place to say,” she agreed. “It seemed to me all they really wanted was to delay you finding out long enough for them to think of a good enough reason to persuade you that using the collection to bait a trap was the right thing to do.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Even so, when I realized how I felt about you, it put me squarely between a rock and a hard place. Interpol recruited me in college—they needed technical specialists, and with a major in computer programming and a minor in law, I was just what they were looking for—and I’d never disobeyed orders. So there was Jared saying he didn’t want you to have the chance to look over the program I was writing, and I was falling for you so hard I had all the caution and subtlety of a comet—”

Wolfe kissed her, then said, “I gather your program has one of those doors we talked about a million years ago? Big enough to admit a thief?”

“Well,
one
of my programs does. I’m writing two, exactly alike except one of them has a weak spot—or door. The original plan was to leave one on file at Ace, to be the lure.”

“I wondered when we’d get around to Ace,” Wolfe said with visible satisfaction. “I always knew there was something fishy about Max’s faith in the place.”

Storm was a bit startled. “You mean, they left me to tell you all this?”

“They’re rotten to the core, both of them,” Wolfe said promptly. Then he smiled a bit ruefully. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t in much shape to talk about it. I know some, but not all. So tell me—what’s the deal with Ace?”

She cleared her throat. “I guess you didn’t know Max owned the company?”

He stared at her. “No.”

Storm was glad that particular lie (by omission, at least) wasn’t hers. And she wondered if this was why the other two men had left her to fill in the blank spaces. Undoubtedly, they felt it best to stay out of Wolfe’s reach, at least until he had time to absorb their various stratagems and omissions.

Keeping her voice casual, she said, “Yeah, he does. When they decided to use the collection as bait, Jared put a couple of people inside Ace as a kind of sting. They were supposed to be amenable to bribery, which was how my fake program was going to be available as part of the lure.”

“Wait a minute,” Wolfe said, frowning. “The employee who was murdered supposedly broke into secure files—”

Storm nodded. “Nobody saw that coming. See, Jared was still in the process of getting his people settled into the company; nothing was supposed to be happening. Nobody counted on a thief showing interest in the museum before the exhibit was in place.”

Including Wolfe. “Yeah. And the fact that an Ace employee was actually murdered, probably after being blackmailed, sent up giant red flags in my mind about Ace.”

“Which was the last thing anybody wanted,” Storm said dryly.

“Was the computer foul-up deliberate?”

She chuckled. “Actually, no. What was supposed to happen was that the technician was going to get most of the basic programming in place and then admit he was in over his head. He’d leave with abject apologies, and Ace would send me in. I
was
in Paris, by the way, working on another project.”

“But not for Ace,” Wolfe murmured.

“No.”

“So what happened?”

“That poor kid really fouled up,” Storm said ruefully. “Then you hit the ceiling and started raining fire and brimstone on Ace, and everybody—I mean Jared and Max—started getting nervous that you were going to throw a spanner in the works and demand a different security company. So I was rushed in and ordered to fix up Ace’s black eye in a hurry. I was supposed to convince you I was the best
and
divert your attention away from Ace.”

“So your cocky attitude that first day was for show?”

She looked a bit self-conscious. “Well, no. That was really me. When you’re little, you learn to talk big—especially with six older brothers.”

Wolfe grinned at her. “That’s a relief. In case you didn’t know, one of the reasons I fell in love with you was that confident, fearless manner.”

“You were just happy to have somebody who’d fight with you,” Storm said, but she was pleased nonetheless.

“That, too.” He concentrated on the conversation. “Let’s see now . . . oh, yeah—the phone patch.”

Obediently, she said, “Was supposed to be another diversion for you, if needed. Jared thought I used it too soon, and he was horrified when I pointed you at Nyssa.”

“Why?”

“About Nyssa?” Storm sighed. “It’s so convoluted. See, one of the inside men at Ace
had
leaked information—to Nyssa. The trap wasn’t intended for her, but she’s been on Interpol’s watch list for years and the agent knew it. He leaked something he didn’t think was very vital, intending it to draw her back again later.”

It only took Wolfe a moment. “He leaked the information about you.”

“Right. So she approaches me in the ladies’ room to tell me she knows I’m the new computer technician, and I find myself with a potential problem. Since she also tells me how cozy you two are, I have to assume she might well share her information with you—and, at this point, I don’t know what else was leaked to her. No matter what she tells you, it’s going to turn your angry attention right back to Ace. So I decide to . . . take the bull by the horns.
I
tell you she’s somehow found out about me, and at the same time do my best to convince you she couldn’t possibly have found that out from anybody at Ace.”

“You have a devious mind,” Wolfe told her.

“Thank you. But Jared was convinced if your attention was on Nyssa you’d eventually work your way back to Ace, so he wasn’t happy with me.”

“He also knew she was unbalanced,” Wolfe said with a touch of grimness.

“He did? How?”

“Storm, she was on the Interpol watch list because at least three couriers supposedly carrying artworks from her to buyers turned up dead—with the valuables gone. Nyssa was the only common denominator in all three cases.”

She shivered. “I’m glad I didn’t know that. By the way, how did you guys turn up here in the nick of time?”

“That’s the only reason I’m still speaking to Jared. The man he had watching Nyssa radioed that she’d followed you into the hotel.”

Storm didn’t want either of them to dwell on what had happened, so she said calmly, “Well, I certainly hope all this has cured you of Barbie dolls once and for all.”

“You could say that. In fact, I’ve discovered a new passion.”

She eyed him. “Oh, yes?”

“Definitely. I fully expect it to occupy all my attention for the next forty or fifty years.”

Grave, she said, “That’s a long time. Sure you won’t be bored?”

Wolfe started to laugh. “Bored? Jesus Christ.”

Laughing herself now, Storm said, “Okay, then the flip side. Sure I won’t drive you crazy?”

“I’m absolutely sure you will,” he told her. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

A few days later, Wolfe left Storm at her hotel and returned to his apartment to change because they were going to have dinner with Max and his new wife, Dinah. Wolfe and Storm hadn’t yet moved in together, only because they were looking for an apartment or house with a garden where Bear could chase bugs and sun himself; in the meantime, they tended to spend the night in whichever place was closest or most convenient.

Wolfe was in a good mood when he came out of his bedroom dressed for the evening, but he tensed a bit when he saw that he had a visitor—though he might have admitted to feeling a certain amount of relief.

Standing by the open window, which was obviously how he’d entered the fourth-floor apartment, and dressed all in black but unmasked, the visitor said mildly, “Got your summons. Really, though, Wolfe—an ad in the personals column?”

“Last I heard,” Wolfe said in a voice of dangerous calm, “you didn’t have a permanent address.”

“True enough.” Quinn’s voice was still mild, but his green eyes were watchful—and the open window was close enough for a quick escape if necessary. “But—you’re obviously going out. Why don’t I come back another time?”

“Don’t you move.”

Quinn winced at the fierceness in that command. “It was just a suggestion. I wouldn’t have vanished off the face of the earth, you know.”

“You did in London.”

“That was different. I got the distinct feeling at the time that you were about to do something we’d both have been sorry for, so I cleared out. Removed temptation, so to speak.”

Waving that aside with an abrupt gesture, Wolfe studied his visitor through narrowed eyes. “You look like hell,” he said, taking note of assorted fading bruises and the remnants of a lovely shiner that marred the handsome face.

“Thank you so much.”

“Well, what did you expect me to say? Welcome to the States? I don’t think so. I want to know what you’re doing here. And I want the truth.”

After a silence, during which he seemed to be weighing Wolfe’s determination, Quinn sighed. “All right, but the answer won’t make your life any easier.”

On Friday morning of that week, Morgan came into the computer room with something of a flounce and collapsed into the visitor’s chair after dragging it out of its corner.

Storm stopped typing her new security program into the computer and rested an elbow on the desk, studying the brunette thoughtfully. “You look a bit aggrieved,” she said.

Morgan drew a breath, then began speaking rapidly. “When I woke up this morning, I found a gaily wrapped little package dangling from my doorknob. From the
inside
of the doorknob. The door was double-locked, mind you, with dead bolts. But did that stop him? Oh, no.”

“Quinn?” Storm guessed.

Morgan produced a small, ring-sized box, which she shoved across the desk at her friend. “Look at that. A copy, of course, but a damned good one. That lousy thief has taste, I’ll give him that.”

Opening the box, Storm found a spectacular ring with a huge, square stone that gleamed like moonlight. “It’s gorgeous,” she said admiringly.

Morgan scowled. “It’s a nail in his coffin.”

“Why?”

“There’s an entire collection of them in an Eastern museum,” Morgan said, almost visibly steaming. “He knew I’d recognize it. He knew. He did it deliberately, just to taunt me. And to think I was actually beginning to believe . . . Well, never mind about that. The point is—”

“Morgan?”

“What?”

Storm held the ring box up and tapped the stone with a questioning finger. “Tell me what this is?”

“It’s a
concubine
ring!” Morgan all but wailed. “That lousy, no good, rotten excuse for a man gave me a ring they used to pass out in
harems
!”

Storm couldn’t help it; she started to chuckle. “I’m sorry,” she said penitently to her offended friend. “It’s just that he sure knows how to push your buttons, doesn’t he?”

“What he knows how to do is piss me off,” Morgan said fiercely. “And he’s done it. I might have been stupid enough until now to pass up a couple of opportunities to set the police after his ass, but that won’t happen again.”

“No?”

“No. He’s just put himself at the top of
my
most wanted list.”

“That could,” Storm noted mildly, “be taken another way.”

“In the mood I’m in now, I’d slam the cell door shut myself and drop the key into the bay. Thieving bastard.”

“Well, you might just get your chance. Once the Bannister collection is out of the vaults, I imagine Quinn is going to be our biggest headache.”

“He’s the one who’s going to have the headache,” Morgan promised grimly. “He’ll have a headache the likes of which he’s never had before. If you’re a betting woman, bet on me.”