33

THE END

“Are you crazy? She’s getting away!”

I don’t turn my head to follow the path of Jane’s gaze, which is trained on Tara as she blends in with the dispersing crowd. I’m too intent on holding the gun steady.

“Penelope, you won’t really shoot me,” she tries again, her tone more pleading this time. “I was your mother’s friend. Her best friend. No one knew her like I did.”

“Then tell me about her,” I say. The gun wavers in my grip, but I manage to keep it upright. Even though I’m a lousy shot, I’m standing close enough to Jane that any quick movement on her part would be a painful mistake. “Tell me a story about her, and I’ll let you go.”

Jane licks her lips nervously. With a strange sense of detachment, I note that the deep red color stays in place. Owning a cosmetics company must come with its perks.

“What kind of story?” she asks. “What do you want to hear?”

“Tell me what you loved about her.”

At my request, Jane makes a jerky movement to her right, but I hold firm. Most of the people have left the museum now, and the confusion is dying down. I figure I have about two more minutes before someone in a position of authority—Simon or one of the security guards—finds us hiding over here.

I intend to use my two minutes wisely.

“Tell me,” I repeat.

“Everything—I loved everything,” she says, her voice almost wild. “She was smart and beautiful and fun. She had money and friends and a family that loved her so much, they couldn’t bear her loss. She could do no wrong in the eyes of the world.”

“No,” I hear myself saying, as if from afar. “That’s not true.”

“It is true, and you know it,” Jane insists. “Ask anyone about her, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

I know they will—which is why I find myself holding the gun steady now. “She might have been all those things, but you didn’t love her for it, did you? You hated her.”

Jane starts, but she doesn’t take a step.

“You hate her just as much as Tara does. Except she’s willing to admit it.”

“I never hated her!” Jane cries, but there’s a feral look in her eyes—that of a trapped animal. A jaguar. “And I don’t hate you, either. All you have to do is let me go, and I’ll help clean this up for you. No one has to know you were involved.”

“But I am involved,” I say, seeing things clearly for the first time. “I did this. I pulled a team of mismatched people together, I orchestrated a heist in one of the most-watched museums in New York, and I broke dozens of laws to do it. And I’d do it all again in an instant. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s who I am.”

And there it is, the reality of it all. I’m a woman who makes mistakes. I’m a woman who strives to do her best every day—sometimes with good results, sometimes with catastrophic ones. I’m a woman who’s deeply, irreversibly flawed, and who deserves to be loved in spite of it.

Who deserves to be loved because of it.

“I’m not perfect,” I say and lower my gun a fraction. “And it’s ridiculous to assume that anyone is. Even you, Jane. Even my mom.”

“Are you letting me go?” Jane asks, seeing only the gun going down.

“Yes, but I doubt you’ll get very far.” I nod my head behind her, where my reinforcements have finally arrived. “I think it’s time I handed this over to the real professionals.”

* * *

I’ve never been present at an arrest before.

Well, that’s not true—I’ve been at lots of arrests, including that of my father and a few of my own when I was a teenager. It would be more accurate to say I’ve never stood on the side of the good guys, watching as someone I helped catch is carted away.

I can’t say it feels very good. Especially since, when it comes down to it, the only thing separating me from Jane Bartlett is timing.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Simon says in a voice of proud authority as he slaps a pair of handcuffs on Jane. He walks her toward the car that’s pulled up to escort her back to the FBI building, in his element as he continues reciting her rights.

She’s going to need them. They found the diamond necklace smuggled under her fifties-style dress. The pouf was perfect for hiding the telltale bulge of those diamond spikes.

“He loves this part, doesn’t he?” I ask Christopher, who’s standing beside me.

He arrived only a few seconds after Simon did, the pair of them working together to create as much of a scene as possible. I thought, at first, that they were playing up the theatrics because they couldn’t help themselves, but it turns out they were trying to give the rest of the team—Riker and Jordan and Cheryl and Mariah and Oz—enough time to clear away evidence of our involvement.

As far as the authorities are going to be concerned, this was a takedown orchestrated and pulled off entirely by Simon, with a little help from Christopher and me. No need for everyone to get put on another watch list.

“Every agent loves this part,” Christopher says ruefully. “Some of us don’t get as many opportunities to do it, that’s all. He’s lucky.”

“Maybe you should stop shooting innocent men, and then you’ll get a turn.”

He winces, frowning heavily.

I wince, too. He just spent the past half hour trying to explain my innocence to a group of very angry, very incredulous security guards. He did a good job, too, stalling them long enough for me to get away and catch the real culprit. I could be more generous with him.

“Sorry,” I say. “Too soon?”

He holds up his fingers in the approximation of an inch.

“What will happen to her?” I ask.

“My guess?” He shrugs. “She’ll use her connections and position to try and cut a deal. The high profile ones always do.”

“Will that work?”

He levels me with a careful stare. “That depends. Do you want it to work?”

I’m startled by the question, as I seem like the least relevant part of the judicial process. I was instrumental in laying an underhanded plot to catch her, obviously, but that doesn’t make me qualified to don a robe and carry a gavel. I think.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?” I ask.

“She’s your friend. I might not have my badge right now, but I’m not without connections. And neither, might I add, is your husband.”

As I watch Jane being led away, her head held proud, I wonder if letting her go would be the worst thing in the world.

“I thought you were going to be different, Penelope,” she says when she sees me watching her. “But you’re just as bad she was.”

For a moment, I think she’s talking about Tara, but she continues. “She acted the same way when I took that dress from Bergdorf’s. I was only borrowing it, like I said. I was going to give it back.”

It takes me a moment to place her confession, but then I remember. A fight about something stupid, a dress I borrowed and didn’t return, and that was the last I ever saw of her.

“For a lousy thief, you sure are uptight when other people steal things,” she says. “I take back what I said before—I did hate her—and you.”

Only half of her spiteful words have any impact on me. “I am not a lousy thief,” I declare hotly. “I’m a very good one.”

Next to me, Christopher chokes on a laugh.

I turn to him with a shake of my head. “She’s not my friend. Don’t intervene on my behalf.”

“I won’t.” He hesitates before putting an awkward hand on my shoulder. “Um, and for what it’s worth, I think she’s wrong. That was a hell of a heist you pulled off tonight.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Thank you for helping me in the museum,” I say. “And for protecting me when the guards came in. You didn’t have to do that—especially since I’m pretty sure you’ve had me fingered as the Peep-Toe Prowler for a while now.”

A blossom of red covers his face. “Yes, well. Maybe a little.”

“Was it Millie Ralph’s that convinced you?” I ask.

“You were leaving the scene on foot.”

“And you were fleeing by car! What were you doing on the Upper East Side anyway?”

He shrugs again. “An old friend of my mom’s lives around there. He helps me out from time to time.”

“Oh.” I want to ask more, but it seems like a touchy subject, so I don’t. “One thing I’m confused about, though—if you thought I was the Peep-Toe Prowler, why were you helping me steal the necklace?”

He shrugs. “I knew you were going after it with or without me. Shooting Grant in the back was an accident—I swear it on my life—and I know it will be hard for him to overlook that. But if he found out I let you come to any harm while he’s in recovery? I doubt he could see his way past that one.”

That is so sweet and so misguided, I almost tear up. “You would have helped me get away with the theft of a ten-million-dollar necklace just to get on Grant’s good side?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Wow. I don’t know what that man has done to earn such undying loyalty from you, but I’m glad.” I turn to him with my hand outstretched. “Thank you, Christopher. I mean it. For being my date tonight, for helping me almost steal a necklace, and for being so nice to me now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you, but—”

“Convince Grant to see me.”

The request comes so rapidly, it takes me a moment to process it. I drop my hand. “I’m sorry?”

“One meeting, a few minutes at most. That’s all I need.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Remember when I said I had something I wanted to say, that I haven’t been up-front with you?”

“Ye-es. And then I made you break into the second floor of the museum and play with lasers, so we didn’t get to it.”

He’s too distracted by his own confession to smile, which is saying a lot. That was pretty funny.

“I told you that after my mother died, I didn’t have anyone. Well, that’s not strictly true. I have a father out there somewhere, but more importantly than that, I have the son he bore from a previous marriage. I have a half brother.” He takes a deep breath and points those oh-so-familiar eyes right at me. “I have Grant.”