The Collector (46 page)

Reality came first.

She went back to her desk, read over the last page she'd worked on.

But kept thinking of traveling wherever she wanted. And couldn't quite see it.

A
sh asked Fine and Waterstone to come to his loft—a deliberate move. If Vasin still had eyes on the loft, the claim of police harassment would hold more weight.

He gave them credit for listening to what he'd done and planned to do—and to Lila for recording the phone call from Jai Maddok.

“I made a copy.” Lila offered Waterstone a memory card she'd put in a small baggie, labeled. “I don't know if you can use it, but I thought you might need to have it. For your files. It's legal to record a phone conversation, right, since I was one of the parties? I looked it up.”

He took it, slipped it into the pocket of his sport coat. “I'd say you're clear on it.”

Fine leaned forward, gave Ash what he'd come to think of as her hard-line cop stare.

“Nicholas Vasin is suspected of international crimes, including murder-for-hire.”

“I'm aware, since my brother was one of his victims.”

“His hired gun made personal contact with you. Twice,” she said to Lila. “Personal's what it is now.”

“I know. That's really clear. Um.
Biao zi
is Mandarin for ‘bitch,'
which is pretty tame.
Bi
is . . .”—she winced because she hated saying it out loud—“cunt. That's really ugly, and I consider that a lot more personal.”

“And yet the two of you come up with some scheme to take Vasin on yourselves.”

“To have a meeting,” Ash corrected. “One we've got a good chance of getting. You don't.”

“And what do you think you'll accomplish—if he doesn't have the two of you disposed of on the spot? You think he'll just turn over Maddok? He'd just hand over one of his major assets?”

“I know about men with wealth and power,” Ash said easily. “My father's one of them. A man in Vasin's position can always buy another asset, that's the point, for some, of wealth and power. He wants the egg, something I have—we have,” he corrected. “Maddok's an employee, and likely a valued one. But the egg's worth more to him. It's a very good deal, and he's a businessman. He'd recognize that.”

“You really think he'd agree to a trade?”

“It's business. And my terms don't cost him a nickel. No employee's indispensable, and up against the Fabergé? Yeah, she'll come up well short.”

“You're not cops.” Fine began ticking off negatives with her fingers. “You have no training. You have no experience. You can't even be wired as he'd check.”

Waterstone scratched his cheek. “That could be an advantage.”

Fine stared at him. “What the fuck, Harry?”

“I'm not saying it's a crowd-pleaser, but we can't get near him. These two maybe can. They're not cops, they won't be wired. Couple of chickens to pluck, from his way of thinking, if you ask me.”

“Because they are.”

“But the chickens have the golden egg. The question is, how bad does he want it?”

“Four people are dead—including the art dealer in Florence,” Lila pointed out. “That indicates really bad on my scale. And the way she came after me? She had something to prove. Her job performance hasn't been stellar on this assignment. Trading her for the egg seems like a deal to me.”

“Maybe a deal,” Fine agreed, “until you factor in what Maddok knows about him, what she could tell us.”

“But we're not giving her to you,” Lila reminded her. “At least that's what we'll tell him.”

“Why would he believe that someone who's never killed before intends to, and you'd go along with it?”

“He will. First, because that's his solution to getting what he wants, and second, because Ash is pretty scary when he cuts it loose. Me?” She shrugged. “I just looked out the window. I just want it done. I've caught a really shiny fish here, in Ashton Archer. I want to start reaping those benefits without being worried someone wants to kill me.”

Ash cocked a brow. “Shiny fish?”

“That's what Jai called you, and I can play on that. Rich, important name, renowned artist. A big haul for a military brat who lives in other people's houses, and has a moderately successful young adult novel under her belt. Think what hooking up with Ashton Archer could do for my publishing career. Pretty sweet.”

He smirked at her. “You've been doing some thinking.”

“Trying to think like a businessman
and
a soulless killer. Plus, it's all true, factually accurate. It just leaves out feelings. She doesn't have any. He can't have any or he wouldn't pay her to kill people. If you don't have feelings, you can't understand them, can you? You get revenge, I get the shiny fish, and Vasin gets the golden egg.”

“Then what?” Fine demanded. “If you're not dead five minutes after meeting with him—if you get that far—if he says, ‘Sure, let's make a deal,' then what?”

“Then we agree on when and where to make the exchange. Or for our representatives to make the exchange.” Because, Ash thought, he wanted Lila nowhere near that part. “And you take it from there. We're just making the contact, making the deal. If he agrees, it's conspiracy to murder on his part. And you have him with our testimony. You have her because he'll at least pretend to deliver her. And the egg goes where it belongs. In a museum.”

“And if he doesn't agree? If he tells you, ‘Give me the egg or I'll have your girlfriend raped, tortured and shot in the head'?”

“As I told you, he'll already know if he does anything to either of us, the announcement goes out publicly, and the egg moves out of his reach. Unless he plans to try to steal it from the Met. Possible,” he said before Fine could speak. “But he hasn't tried to have any of the Imperial eggs stolen from museums or private collections.”

“That we know of.”

“Okay, that's a factor. But it's a hell of a lot easier, cleaner and immediate to make the deal.”

“He could threaten your family as you say he threatened Bastone's.”

“He could, but while we're meeting with him, my family will be inside our compound. Again, I'm making him a straightforward deal where he pays nothing for what he wants. He just trades an asset that hasn't been paying dividends.”

“It could work,” Waterstone mused. “We've used civilians before.”

“Wired, protected.”

“Maybe we work something out there. We talk to Tech—see what they've got. See what the Feds got.”

“We're meeting with him,” Ash pointed out. “With or without you. We'd rather with you.”

“You're handing him two hostages,” Fine pointed out. “If you're going to do this, you go in, she stays out.”

“Good luck with that,” Ash commented.

“We both go.” Lila met Fine's eye with the same hard look she
received. “Not negotiable. Plus it's more likely he'd consider one of us a hostage, and the other—me—forced to turn over the egg if I was still outside. What have I got if my shiny fish is gutted?”

“Think of another metaphor,” Ash advised.

“He's unlikely to agree to a meeting,” Fine pointed out. “He's known for doing everything by remote. At best, you may end up talking to one of his lawyers or assistants.”

“My terms are set. We meet with him, or there's no negotiation.” He glanced at his phone when it signaled. “That's my lawyer, so we might have an answer. Give me a minute.”

Rising, he took the phone with him, walked to the other end of the living room.

“Talk him out of this.” Fine shifted that hard stare to Lila again.

“I couldn't, and at this point I can't try. This gives him—us—a good chance to end it. We have to end it, and it doesn't end, not for Ash, if he doesn't get some justice for his brother and his uncle. He'll feel responsible for what happened to them for the rest of his life without that.”

“I don't think you understand the risk you're taking.”

“Detective Fine, I feel I'm taking a risk every time I walk out the door. How long could you live with that? The woman wants us dead—whether her boss does or not. I saw it, I felt it. We want a chance to live our lives, to see what happens next. That's worth the risk.”

“Tomorrow.” Ash walked back, laid the phone on the table again. “Two o'clock, at his Long Island estate.”

“There goes Luxembourg,” Lila said, and made Ash smile at her.

“Less than twenty-four hours?” Waterstone shook his head. “That's cutting it damn thin.”

“I think that's part of the point, and why I agreed. It should tell him I want this done, and now.”

“He thinks you'll ask for millions,” Lila pointed out. “What you will ask is going to take him by surprise. And it's going to intrigue him.”

He crouched down beside her chair. “Go to the compound. Let me do this.”

She took his face in her hands. “No.”

“Argue that later,” Waterstone advised. “We're going to talk about what you'll do, won't do, and if it gets that far, the where and when for the trade.” He glanced at Fine. “You better call the boss, see about a way to keep them wired in, if there is one, and how we set it up from our end.”

“I don't like any of it.” She rose. “I like you, both of you. I wish to hell I didn't.” She took out her phone, walked away to call her lieutenant.

The minute they were alone, Lila let out a huge, huffing breath. “God, all that fried my brain. Checkpoints and code words and procedures. I'm going to do the next coat on the powder room—manual labor helps fried brains—before the FBI tech guys get here. We're going undercover for the FBI. I really need to get a book out of this. If I don't, someone else will, and I'm not going to let that happen.”

She pushed out of the chair. “What do you say we just order pizza later? Pizza's food you don't have to think about when your brain's tired.”

“Lila. I love you.”

She stopped, looked at him, felt that now familiar lift and squeeze of her heart. “Don't use that to try to persuade me to stay behind. I'm not going to be stubborn, not going to wave my feminist flag—though I could. The fact that I'm going, absolutely need to go, should tell you something about what I feel for you.”

“What do you feel for me?”

“I'm figuring it out, but I know there's no one else I'd do this for or with. No one else. Do you remember that scene from
Return of the Jedi
?”

“What?”

She closed her eyes. “Please don't say you haven't seen the movies. Everything falls apart if you haven't seen
Star Wars
.”

“Sure I've seen the movies.”

“Thank you, God,” she murmured, opened her eyes again. “The scene,” she continued, “on the forest moon of Endor. They've got Leia and Han pinned down outside the storm trooper compound. It looks bad. And he glances down, she shows him her weapon, then he looks at her and says he loves her. She says—she smiles and says—‘I know.' She didn't say it back. Okay, she said it first in
The Empire Strikes Back
before Jabba the Hutt had him frozen in carbonite, but taking just that scene on Endor, it showed they were in it together—win or lose.”

“How many times have you seen those movies?”

“That's irrelevant,” she said, a bit primly.

“That many. So you're Princess Leia and I'm Han Solo.”

“For the purposes of this illustration. He loved her. She knew it, and vice versa. It made them both braver. It made them stronger. I feel stronger knowing you love me. I never expected to. I'm trying to get used to it—just like you asked.”

She slid her arms around him, swayed a little. “When I say it to you, you'll know I mean it, would mean it even, maybe especially, if we were pinned down by storm troopers on the forest moon of Endor with only a single blaster between us.”

“And somehow I find that the most touching thing anyone's ever said to me.”

“The fact you do . . . I'm trying to get used to knowing you understand me, and love me anyway.”

“I'd rather be Han Solo than a shiny fish.”

She laughed, drew back to look up at him. “I'd rather be Leia than someone who's looking to hook one. So I'm going to go back to faux painting the powder room, work with the FBI, then eat pizza. We're leading fascinating lives right now, Ash—and yes, we want the middle
part of that done and over. But I'm a big believer in making the most out of where you are while you're there. And”—she gave him a squeeze before stepping back—“it's going to work. Just like it worked for Leia and Han.”

“You won't have . . . What was her weapon again?”

“I can see you need a Star Wars marathon evening, as a refresher. A blaster.”

“You won't have one of those.”

“I have something else she had. I have good instincts, and I have my own Han Solo.”

He let her go because part of him thought she was right. They'd be stronger together. Thinking of that, of her, he went up to his studio to finish her portrait.