Thief (17 page)

But Mr. Coaltar’s eyes didn’t stop their slow perusal of my body. He took a step back, getting the full view. It gave me a chance to look at him entirely, too. He was a head and a half taller than me, with broad shoulders under his dark suit coat, a white collared shirt underneath, and a silver tie with a red pin. His suit fit perfectly to his body, and it wasn’t hard to imagine a sculpted body underneath.

“Oh no,” he said, his voice had a deepness, but with a curious Charleston accent - Southern refinement. “I reckon the fault was mine. I’m so sorry. Did I ruin your dress?”

“Oh, this thing? No. Don’t worry about it.” I waved carefully. Now that a minute had gone by, I wanted to make my exit. This was too close. “Now where did he...” I started to say, ready to pretend to find Brandon, the boyfriend.

“No, please, sugar. Don’t run off,” he said. His hand loosely cuffed around my wrist. “Let me at least apologize properly.”

“You don’t really have to.”

“As your host, I insist.” He bowed his head. “Forgive me. How can I make it up to you?”

“Host?” I asked, not meaning to ask the question. The formality just struck me off guard. Or he did. I felt he didn’t want to release me at all.

“This is my party,” he said. His lips cracked open into a sly smile. “Didn’t you know whose house you were walking in to?”

I glanced from side to side, wishing I had known more about what we were doing, or who I was up against. Maybe Marc had told me when I wasn’t paying attention. “Oh, yes,” I said. “You’re ... Mr. Coaltar.”

“So you have heard of me?”

“Your name,” I said. “My, uh, boyfriend brought me.”

His eyebrow lifted again. “Who?”

“Brandon.”

“Brandon who?”

My lips parted except I didn’t know what his last name was, and I wasn’t sure if I should lie. If I said the wrong name, and he didn’t know him, would he think I was lying and throw me out?

Mr. Coaltar’s smile broadened. “Is it too personal a question, sweetie?” His tone suggested maybe he knew I lied and I didn’t have a boyfriend and he was hoping that was true.

Run away. Run away. Run away!

“No, I mean, it’s not that,” I said. I inched my body around, angling as if I had to go. “I should probably find him.”

He released my wrist but stepped around to block me as I tried to escape. “Of course, if you did say his name, I probably won’t remember. I hate to say it, but I’m hardly ever at home. Half the people here I can’t remember their first name sometimes. I’m over in Europe way too long these days.”

I glanced around, looking to see who he might have been talking to before now. The others had completely vanished. We were on the outer edge of the partygoers. How was I supposed to get away?

Something struck me about what he’d said. It wasn’t what he was telling me, it was
how
he was saying it. There was a way he held himself, the deep tan that seemed to drop down below the collar of his shirt. “Did you say you go to Europe a lot? Is that for business?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but giving a question that I expected him to answer no to. This playboy? Would he laugh at the suggestion of work?

He tilted his head in a way that suggested he was surprised at the question. “I go when I can. The most recent trip lasted maybe a month, but felt like a lifetime. I don’t like to think of it as just for business. Most of my research requires my being in different locations. If I have the choice, I try to at least go to pleasant places.”

I squinted at him. Did the guys even talk to him? Maybe I could get out the information they really wanted. That would show them I could do more than steal a wallet. Not that I should need to impress them, but it was an amusing thought. I wanted to grin but smothered that instinct. “What sort of research?” I asked, pushing him to talk a little more.

He paused and his eyes narrowed, suspiciously dancing back and forth with mine again, searching for something. “Oh, you can’t fool me. You don’t want to know about that. Girls like you don’t really want to talk about science. You just want to know how big my yacht is."

I swallowed back the urge to huff indignantly. “I like science.”

He sliced his hand through the air. “Bless your heart for entertaining the idea,” he said dismissively.

“I was recently doing a study on bioluminescence,” I lied. “About the chemical reaction within animals.”

“Oh?” He perked up, his shoulders straightening. His eyes brightened with honest interest.

“My current one is on the reaction of Sea Sparkle as a defensive response.” I faked a blush. “I mean, I know it’s probably silly and unimportant research.”

“If you really want to do some helpful studies, you should consider forensic research. I did something similar with chemiluminescence a couple years ago.”

“Really?” I asked, widening my eyes for extra emphasis. Movement distracted me from the corner of my eye. Brandon stood a distance behind Mr. Coaltar and signaled, asking me if I needed help. I cut off his distractive motioning with a slight wave of my hand. Not that I wanted to jabber on, but I had a feeling. I refocused on Mr. Coaltar. “That’s the chemical reaction, right? The stuff they put in glow sticks?”

He laughed, his lips puckering at the end. He tilted in, lowering his tone as if sharing in a secret with me. “Same idea, different research. The idea was to use it on bullets as a sort of tracking system so I could better calculate distance and location of the bullet at gunfire. Something better than the tracer rounds they’ve got these days.”

“How would it be better?”

“I was the only one who could see where the bullet was going. My targets couldn’t see them coming.”

My heart started to thump. So he wasn’t beyond doing research on weapons. But was that illegal? “Did you manage to get it to work?”

“It helped. Unfortunately the government heard about my research and kept sending people to interrupt. They offered me a contract to work with them, but they wanted to work with phosphorescence materials instead so I turned them down. Joke’s on them. They’ll never get the consistent chemical reaction needed for a bullet launch. It’ll be too dull a glow for the human eye to follow. And they didn’t really care about the research, they just wanted another advantage on the battlefield.” He waved a finger in the air. “Let that teach you what the world thinks about scientists. Their only interest in us is how to use our brains to hurt others. Or worse, make a profit off of our efforts without doing any of the heavy lifting.”

I sucked in a sharp breath and caught the golden flecks in his eyes as he watched me with that same curious expression on his face. He didn’t like the idea of working for our own government on their weapons. Even for profit? That didn’t sound like a criminal. A legitimate contract with a lot of money, anyone would have jumped on, including me. Maybe he didn’t need the money, but all the assumptions of him being a rich playboy started fading.

“But you’re able to do your own projects now?” I asked, wanting to get him to talk more. “Things you’d like to do?” He shifted again, raising his hand to cut me off. I got the feeling he was going to tell me off and laugh about not wanting to talk more about science. I politely touched his forearm to stop the motion. “I don’t mean to pry, of course, but I have to admit, marine biology research isn’t exactly something the government is interested in issuing a contract for, you know? Not a lot of demand for research on Sea Sparkle.”

“There might be. Depends on who you know,” he said. He tilted his head to the side. “Where are you studying? You seem a little young to be a marine biologist.”

“You seem a little young to be a forensic scientist, and one good enough to be offered contracts by the government.”

He smirked. “
Touché
.”

“Mr. Coaltar!” A middle-aged man with a wiry frame and a wide smile called out. He waved while walking up. “It’s good to see you. I didn’t know you were back from Italy.”

“Couldn’t play for too long,” Mr. Coaltar said. He stuffed his hands into his front pockets. The move made me flinch, because I thought tightening his pants may make him feel the difference with the dummy wallet in his back pocket. If he felt it, though, he never indicated it. “I was just talking too ... I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”

“Kate,” I said.

The new man smiled shortly and with disinterest. “Pleasure.”

Mr. Coaltar straightened his stance. “We were just talking about whether or not Kate should change her research focus from biology to forensics.”

“Really?” The gentleman said in a bored tone. He turned his back in a way that effectively cut me off from Mr. Coaltar. “I don’t mean to interrupt, of course, but I wanted you to meet my new wife.”

I almost snarled until I realized he was giving me an out from talking to him. Did he think he was saving me? No, the back turn was deliberate. He either needed to talk with Mr. Coaltar himself, or he didn’t like me. Did he think I was too poor to be here? A bumbling girl flirt? Not that I should have cared, but what an insult!

And then the man glanced back at me over his shoulder and his eyes were no longer friendly. They were cold, calculating, and inquisitive. That told me too much about him in a single look. He was an older man, I would have guessed at least late forties. New wife? Married quickly over the last few months? Clearly he wasn’t exactly a best friend of Mr. Coaltar or he would have met the new wife before then. So the urgency to get Mr. Coaltar to meet her was a distraction. That meant business. Business that was urgent enough to interrupt Mr. Coaltar at a social event and have to talk to him in secret about. Who was he?

I scanned the locals, pinpointing a black shirt and sun-kissed hair. I almost ran smack into him in my hurry to get away.

“Finally,” I said, touching him on the shoulder. “You might be wrong about Mr. Coaltar.”

“Wrong about what?” He turned, and I found myself looking at Corey instead of Brandon. His blue eyes lit at seeing me.

“Oh,” I said. “Where did—”

He put a finger to his own lips, his eyebrows going up.

“Oh. Yeah. Well, remember when
you
were telling me about your hunch about Mr. Coaltar?”

“Fill me in later,” he said, his eyes darting over my head.

“Are we good?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

“The one that walked away with Mr. Coaltar is watching you.”

I resisted the urge to turn around. “Who is it? He walked up and basically cut me off.”

“I don’t know,” he said, frowning. “It may be nothing, but we’re going to have to stay here in view of everyone here for a while. If we run off anywhere, it’ll look suspicious.”

I sighed. It didn’t matter. We were done here. “I’m tired of this party.”

“We’ve got to stay until we can return the wallet. It’s not the worst job I’ve had,” he said. “The band is pretty good. I wonder if I could put in a request. I wonder if they know any of the theme music from The Lord of the Rings.”

“Oh I loved those movies.”

Corey brightened. “Really? Did you read the books?”

“The first one. Meant to pick up book two but ... I don’t remember. I think I got busy.”

Corey’s lips parted and his head tilted. “You read?”

I choked on a laugh. “Is that surprising?”

He pushed his palm across his cheek. “I suppose it shouldn’t be. You just don’t seem like ... I mean you’re ...” He smiled. “My brother doesn’t read, you know? I mean he can, he just doesn’t like to for fun.”

“So you thought I was like your brother?” I smirked.

His cheeks tinted. “I thought you were more his type.”

“You mean moody and antagonizing?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t know. If I had to picture you in high school, there would be the jock and cheerleader tables and then there’s my table.”

“You think I’m a cheerleader? Or was one in school?”

“More like popular, yeah. Not now though. I guess. Unless you were. It was just that first glance, you know?” He grinned. “You were pretty. I mean you still are.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, and darted his eyes as he tried to save himself. Adorable.

I harrumphed. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m as bad. I thought you were a nerdling.”

“A what?”

“A cute geek,” I said. “ I mean you are still, and not in a bad way. I didn’t realize you were athletic.”

He blushed deeply, all the way up to his ears. “You thought I was cute?”

I smiled instead of answering him. The truth was, he was more than cute. His strong, wide shoulders and fit body stood out among the others around us. Dressed up, I thought he resembled a few country music stars I’d seen on billboards, with the down home look — in a hot way. His brother had the same look, obviously, Corey’s was just much friendlier and open.

The corner of his mouth lifted high, revealing his even teeth in a lopsided smile. He combed his fingers through the shorter strands of the hair at the nape of his neck. “So you’re into sports?”

“Not necessarily all the time.” I shifted on my feet, daring him to meet my eyes. “But I like to get outdoors every once in a while.”

He stared at me for a moment, as if he wanted to ask me another question, but was wondering how to put it together.

“Are we allowed to eat?” I asked, suddenly feeling a pang of hunger, and catching an eyeful of someone carrying a plate of food. I leaned around him, checking out the buffet table. “Please tell me we can have some.”

Corey chuckled. “I suppose.”

I grabbed his arm, dragging him along. He caught up, and while heading to the table, he gathered my hand, holding it.

It made me giddy inside for some reason. I felt like the hard part was over. I’d gotten away with replacing wallets. I did it once. All I had to do now was wait and replace it again and run away. I’d won. I deserved a snack.

The buffet was a mountain of finger food: fruit tarts and finger sandwiches, tiny chocolate cakes and some fresh homemade crackers. I think the crackers were for the caviar in the goblet bowls but even I had my limits. Too squishy a thing to want to put it in my mouth.

I piled a plate and made Corey hold one, too. At first I was trying to sample a bit of everything, except for the fish eggs, but I ended up with a third plate of what I liked best: the fruit tarts and tiny barbeque meatballs speared on frilly toothpicks.