29

THE COUNCIL

With the arrival of three federal agents and four newly reunited jewel thieves, my father’s once-spacious hotel room shrinks to the size of my first apartment.

“I am not sitting next to the one who keeps smiling at me like the Joker.”

“Well, I’m not sitting next to the one who looks like someone’s soccer mom.”

“Is there a reason my Wi-Fi keeps cutting out in here?”

“What do you mean, all communications are jammed? How am I supposed to work?”

“Are you sure that one is an agent? She looks like she’s twelve.”

Since I don’t have the power to whistle commandingly and bring everyone’s chatter to a close, I do the next best thing: I wheel out the dry erase board my dad had the bellhop bring up from one of the conference rooms. I noticed earlier that the back wheel squeaks, and the screech of rubber against metal does the trick.

This must be what power feels like.

“Okay, everyone. Quiet down. We have a lot of work to do and not a whole lot of time to do it.” I slap a picture of the Starbrite Necklace in the middle of the board to motivate them. It was either that or the gruesome picture I took of the exit wound on Grant’s stomach, but I wasn’t sure how squeamish some of them might be. “As most of you already know, Grant was shot in the back two days ago by Christopher Leon, a man he’s long suspected of double-dealing. Since the federal authorities have seen fit not to hold that agent accountable for his actions”—the criminal side of the room casts an accusing glance at the noncriminal side—“I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Namely, this.”

The two-dimensional necklace doesn’t make as profound a statement as I’d like, but the message gets across.

“It’s my belief that the Starbrite Necklace is too strong a lure for the Peep-Toe Prowler to resist, especially now that his continued federal career is in question. Regardless of whether or not he has any current plans to take it, I intend to make access so easy, he’ll have no choice but to go for it.” And, in so doing, get caught with the diamonds literally on his person. I defy any federal agency to clear him after that. “Which means that in the next two days, we need to come up with a surefire way to break into the Conrad Museum during a gala ball. Plans have already been partially laid by Riker, Oz, and Jordan over here on my right. Wave, guys.”

Oz lifts his hand and offers a cheerful wave. Jordan does, too, much more daintily, but all I can get out of Riker is a vague flap. I don’t blame him. This much authority in one room is a tad overwhelming.

“They’ll be able to fill you in on their details in a moment, but for now, it’s enough to know that the necklace is located on a heavily guarded second-floor gallery, complete with a laser security system and alarmed doors.”

Mariah, sitting crisscross on the floor with her computer in her lap, raises her hand. “So what you’re saying is, it’ll be a piece of cake?”

The room gives a reluctant chuckle.

“I know it sounds intimidating, but we’ve got seven of the best, most devious minds in this room right now. Eight, if you count my dad in the back.”

“Oh, don’t count me.” My dad doesn’t move from where he’s leaning on the doorframe to his bedroom. “It would break the conditions of my agreement with the FBI. I’m merely a spectator.”

Simon grunts in what could either be approval or condemnation.

“I’ve broken you into groups based on what I consider your strengths, but don’t feel like you have to stick to them,” I continue. “Remember, the goal here is to streamline our entry as much as possible. We want to grease the wheels so well that Christopher won’t be able to pass up the opportunity to lift the necklace. He’s probably scared right now—understandably—so there can be no errors.”

Picking up the whiteboard marker, I scrawl out the basics. “Okay, Mariah and Oz, you two are our hackers, which means you’re in charge of finding a way past the laser system.”

“No need, Pen,” Riker puts in. “I was already planning—”

“Riker, if you so much as say the word smoke or mirror, I’m kicking you out of this room.”

“But we had that part covered!” he protests. “It doesn’t make any sense to start from scratch now.”

I offer my best withering stare. “Oh, yeah? What were you going to use to get in?”

“Sm—” He slumps in his seat. “Never mind.”

Since I’m sure we could waste the next eight hours arguing over it, I decide to move on. “Oz, I believe you already found a way to take over the elevator to get us upstairs, yes?”

He nods. “I can control it remotely.”

Mariah, who had been eyeing Oz as competition, turns to him with interest. “Really? How? Did you have to hack into the elevator company’s security override system, or was it in the museum’s local controls?”

He ducks his head in a move I recognize as professional modesty. “Neither.”

Jordan fills in the rest. “He installed a communication box in the interior panel when they called him out to repair the elevator last week. It’s a mechanical override, not an electronic one. No hacking required.”

Ha! I knew I was right about that. No way was that elevator delay a coincidence.

Mariah lets out a low whistle. “That’s old school. I like it.”

Oz’s face takes on a light pink tinge at the mild compliment. “It’s a short-range solution,” he mumbles. “I have to be nearby to make it work.”

“Thus ensuring you’re on site for troubleshooting,” Mariah says with a nod. “Good thinking.”

The light pink turns dark. I turn my attention to Jordan, wondering if she’s witnessing this new, blushing Oz, but she’s busy taking notes.

“Jordan, I’m hoping you can work something out with Simon to get the key code from Pierre, the guy who runs the place,” I say. “Simon was telling me about a case he worked where the thieves put some kind of chemical on the victim’s fingerprints and used that to figure out what buttons he pushed to get into his warehouse. Is that a thing?”

“Absolutely,” Jordan says. “And I can take you one step further with a degrading fluorescent chemical. It’ll leave residue behind while also making sure each print is fainter than the last. That way you can see the numbers and sequence.”

“Excellent. I’ll also need you two to either duplicate his key card or find a way to lift it. Riker refuses to tell me what you had planned for that, but I assume you can start there.”

With that, I turn to my final mismatched pair.

“Riker and Cheryl, you guys are in charge of the ATM camera outside the bank next door. Christopher is obviously camera-shy, so there’s no way he’s going to follow through if he thinks he’ll get caught on video. That means we need to do more than just hack in and turn it off like you guys were thinking. He needs to see that steps have been put in place to secure an exit.”

“Spray paint?” Cheryl asks.

Riker shakes his head. “Wouldn’t work. The bank guards would pick up on it in seconds.”

“Smash it with a rock?”

He shakes his head again. “Too obvious. See above.”

For a moment, I think it was a mistake to hand poor Cheryl over to Riker, who obviously intends to sneer circles around her, but she turns to him with her most quelling look and asks, “How about smoke and mirrors?”

We all laugh again, but Riker perks up, looking at Cheryl with something akin to admiration.

“I’ll also need everyone to come up with ideas for handling security that night,” I say. “I have it on good authority that they’ve hired additional staff, and there isn’t enough time for one of us to get hired on. We’ll need to find another way to circumvent them.”

I take a deep breath and survey the assembled crew with a heartfelt pang. For the longest time, I’ve seen these two parts of my life as diametric opposites—my good half and my bad half, irreconcilable in every way—and navigating between them has been exhausting. I’m no one without the good half; even less without the bad. This group of people is as close to a literal translation of my dilemma as you can get.

Yet here we are. Sitting together. Working together. There is no monkey in the middle here.

“I’ve ordered room service and requested that no one disturb you unless absolutely necessary,” I continue. “I know it’s asking a lot for you to sit here for the next forty-eight hours and plan the theft of a necklace we don’t get to keep, but you’re all I have. You’re all Grant has. No matter what else happens, we can’t let Christopher try to take him away from us.”

I pause, waiting for my rallying cheer, but all I get is a lot of blinking and two enthusiastic thumbs up from Oz. Good ol’ Oz. At least one of us has seen the same heist movies as me.

“Any questions before I head out?” I ask.

“I have one.”

We turn as a group to face the door, where a woman appears to have slipped through, unseen by all except my father and his ever-watchful eye. Dressed to impress in a mint-green pencil skirt and a cropped white top that shows off the perfect curve of her stomach, Tara is—as usual—a sight to behold.

“Yes?” I ask, refusing to be intimidated by her presence.

“It’s a good plan and all, but how can you be so sure Chris will fall for it?”

There’s that Chris again—mocking me, taunting me—but I suspect I know what it is now. It’s the last-ditch effort of a woman who wants to be relevant. It’s her desperate need to play along.

“Easy,” I say and smile. “Because it’s my job to make him.”

* * *

Although I’d like nothing more than to start working on my part of the plan, I have to return to the hospital to check on Grant and assure him that I’m still in one piece. Enough time has passed that he’s probably climbing the walls, if he hasn’t already torn them down one by one.

It’s a testament to his mother’s calming influence that he’s in his bed sleeping peacefully when I arrive.

“Oh, there you are, dear,” Myrna says as I tiptoe through the door. I doubt the soap opera she’s watching is the same one as before, but her gaze is fixated on the screen, and it doesn’t look like she’s changed position at all. It feels as though I’ve been gone eight minutes instead of eight hours. “It’s good that you’re here.”

“Why? Is everything okay?” My fears of waking Grant disappear as I fly to his side, scanning the machines he’s hooked up to as if I have a clue what any of them mean.

“Oh, he’s fine. He almost ripped his IV out and went looking for you when it started to get dark outside, but I convinced him to keep it in.”

“How?” I ask, genuinely curious. That seems like a trick I should know.

She turns her mild gaze my way. “I don’t know, dear. How do you get him to do the things you want?”

You mean, other than breaking his heart by telling him I have no intention of changing my ways and that I plan to make decisions regardless of his wishes? “I don’t,” I admit. “He’s impossible once he gets like this, so I usually ignore him and do my own thing.”

“As do I.” Her smile spreads, and a twinkle reaches her eyes, which aren’t like Grant’s at all. While he has those dark, almost inky irises, hers are bright green, full of warmth and light. “I told him to go ahead and act like a barbarian who doesn’t have enough faith in his wife to let her five feet out of his sight. I intend to keep you in the divorce, so his actions have no bearing on me.”

My chest tightens. Her words hit closer to home than she realizes.

“Do you need to take a break for a few hours?” I ask. “The guest room is all set up for you at the house, so if you want to settle in…”

“I’m comfortable right where I am. Don’t worry about me.” She does look comfortable, but then, she always does. She’s not one to be put out by circumstance. “But there was a young man here looking for you.”

“For me?” The only young men I know are Riker and Oz, and I’ve already seen both of them.

“Well, he wasn’t here to see me, and he wouldn’t even come past the door to see Grant. You’d think my son had bones sticking out of his skin for how green the poor boy turned at the sight of him.”

Dread and anticipation flood through me. “Was he about six feet tall? Golden hair? A cleft chin that looks like it could crack stone?”

“It was a rather forceful chin, now that you mention it,” she says, only partly paying attention. Someone on the television set ran out of a wedding in a white dress, so I don’t take it personally. “Grant’s father had something like it. I hated it. I can’t tell you how happy I was when our baby came out nicely flat and square.”

I murmur a vague excuse for ducking out of the room, but she waves me off with the opinion that Grant will sleep for at least twelve more hours, so I’m free to roam the hospital at large. Which is exactly what I intend to do, except I get all of three feet from the door when Christopher pounces.

Like a lion.

Like a would-be assassin.

Like a man I’m not letting anywhere near my husband.

“Christopher?” I say, doing my best to keep the hard edge of anger from my voice. He looks peaky, as Myrna mentioned, so I focus on that to garner enough sympathy to face him. This plan will only work if he believes my forgiveness is sincere. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Did you come to visit Grant?”

For a moment, the green, uneasy look lifts from his face. “Is he asking for me?”

“No.” I’m prepared to lie for the sake of what needs to happen, but only to a point. That point doesn’t include putting this man and my husband in the same room anytime soon. “He’s asleep.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“And he’s not feeling up to having visitors, so even when he is awake…”

“You mean he’s not feeling up to having me as a visitor.”

I take Christopher’s arm and pull him away from the door. Even in the quiet wing of a hospital, his voice is overloud and overeager, his whole body strung full of energy.

“You did shoot him,” I point out.

“I didn’t!” Then, when a nurse walks by and shushes him with a harsh glare, he amends his outburst. “Well, I did shoot him, but I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

I’m unable to keep my hostility at bay. “You accidentally pulled a gun and shot a fellow agent in the back?”

“I know how it looks.”

No, he has no idea how it looks, or he wouldn’t be standing here with me. If he had any idea what sort of revenge lay in wait for him, he’d be changing his name, his hair color, his goddamned chin in hopes that I never track him down.

“His mom has him under a careful watch, and she’s strict about who she lets in, so I don’t suggest you try.” I lead him to the elevator and push the button. Up, down, to the moon—I don’t care as long as it gets Christopher off this floor and out of Grant’s vicinity. “Did you know she’s the person who taught him how to shoot a gun? You wouldn’t think to look at her, but she carries more heat than most of the FBI agents I know, Grant included.”

It’s a lie, bald-faced and brazen, but I don’t care. Christopher is not going to creep in and finish the job.

As the elevator arrives with a cheerful chime, Christopher steps back to allow me on. Even now, slick with remorse and some unnamed motive, he’s ever the gentleman. We get on, and I press the number for the cafeteria level. That seems as good a place as any to lay out the trap I have for him.

“What’s she like?” Christopher asks suddenly.

“Grant’s mom? I just told you. She has great aim.”

He laughs uneasily and reaches up to adjust his tie in what I suspect is a nervous tic, considering he’s not wearing one. He’s in jeans and a nicely pressed shirt with a jacket over the top, almost as if he wanted to get dressed for work but forgot, halfway through, that he’s suspended.

Well, it could be a nervous tic, or it could be phenomenal acting. If this man is trying to get me to lower my guard, this would be a great way to go about it.

Too bad I have no intention of falling for it.

“No, I mean, what’s she like as a person?” he asks.

“She’s nice,” I say, answering with honesty. “Laid-back. It’s hard to get her riled up about anything, but once you do, good luck trying to get her to back down again. As soon as she commits to something, she’s immovable.”

He smiles faintly. “That sounds familiar.”

I can’t help but agree, but I press my lips in a firm line. I didn’t mean it as a compliment—it was supposed to be a warning.

I follow Christopher to the cafeteria, where he buys me a cup of coffee and a slice of chocolate cake. I accept them only because they’re put into my hands directly from the woman behind the counter.

“They took my gun and badge,” he says as soon as we’re seated, saving me the task of introducing the topic myself.

“Oh?” I can’t say I’m sad to hear about that. I don’t particularly like the idea of ending up in a hospital bed next to Grant’s.

“Yeah. I might not get them back again.”

I have a hard time mustering up the pity he’s so obviously angling for. “You fired a gun in a public place without cause and shot a man under your command,” I say. “People have a way of reacting badly to that sort of thing.”

“But you aren’t mad.” It’s more statement than question.

“I’m furious,” I respond, surprised at how calm I’m able to make myself sound. “I hope the FBI bars you from employment and makes it impossible for you to use a handgun for the rest of your life.”

He eyes me askance. “That’s fair.”

“He almost died, Christopher.”

“I know.” An expression of misery washes over him, and I don’t know where to look. As an actor, this man has some serious chops. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. More sorry than you know.”

“Is that why you came here? To apologize?” Or to finish the job you started? It’s not out of the realm of possibility—he has to know that Grant won’t stop now, that one wiped video isn’t a free pass for all his other crimes.

“I only wanted…” He takes a deep breath and cradles his head in his hands. “Just make sure he knows how sorry I am. Please? I know he has no reason to believe me, but it was never my intention to take things this far.”

I stop in the middle of lifting a bite of cake to my mouth. “This far?”

“Yeah. I should have stopped a long time ago, walked away while I still had the chance. But I kept going despite my better judgment, and now look what’s happened.”

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say or how I should react. Is he about to confess over dry cake and sour coffee?

He glances at me, sharp and earnest. “You understand, don’t you? How hard it is to step away while you’re in the thick of things? To give up when you’re so close?”

Lord help me, but I nod. This man robbed my grandmother’s friends and almost killed my husband, caused more problems in my marriage than any stranger should be allowed to, but still I nod.

Because I do get it. I do understand.

It’s wrong to break the law, and it’s wrong to take things that don’t belong to you, but when it’s the only thing you know—when it’s the only thing you have—it’s almost impossible to envision a life of anything else. It would be so easy to draw a line between me and Christopher, to point out that no matter how bad things get, I’d never hurt another human being. I’d never hurt Grant. But the reality is, I already have.

He wants the happy wife and the comfortable home and the neat picket fence protecting them both—but he’ll never have that unless I’m willing to change my entire worldview or cut him loose. And I tried that first one. For six whole months, I tried. My worldview, it seems, is permanently fixed.

Cutting him loose might be the only other option I have.

“Would you like to come with me to the Black and White Ball?” I ask suddenly.

Christopher blinks, understandably startled by my request. “What?”

“My grandmother got me tickets to the Black and White Ball—the one they’re holding at the Conrad Museum on Saturday. Grant was supposed to go with me, but that’s obviously not going to happen now. From what I understand, a girl can’t go to these things alone, so I’ll need a date. Would you like to be mine?”

I thought it would be difficult to get the request out, but it’s surprisingly easy. I guess that’s what happens when you have as much in common with your husband’s enemy as you do your actual husband.

“Really? You mean it?” The smile that spreads across Christopher’s face would be heartbreaking if I didn’t know the true motivation behind it. “I can’t tell you how much I’d like that.”

I know. He couldn’t get easier access to the necklace if it was handed to him on a tray. Which, in a way, is exactly what I intend to do.

“It’ll be fun,” I say and dazzle him with my brightest smile. “I still need to get a dress, and you’ll need a tuxedo, but I’m sure you won’t have any problems with that.”

“You don’t think Grant will mind?”

Oh, Grant will mind. Grant will mind so much, he might take it upon himself to get out of bed and stop us both.

So I laugh. “I don’t know about you, but I, for one, don’t intend to tell him.”