11

PLAN B

“You’re kidding. You were there? In person? You actually saw him walk the wire between buildings?”

Tara places a hand over her heart. “On my honor. To this day, it remains the best escape I’ve ever seen. The police didn’t have the heart to chase him down after that. He got away with all ten million.”

Riker releases a low whistle and continues perusing the collection of handcrafted porcelain doorknobs he’s ostensibly helping me select. Riker’s interest in ceramics is about equal to his interest in musical theater, which is why his presence should be setting off every alarm Tara possesses.

Should be, but isn’t. Tara leans across him to pull out a knob in the shape of a giant squid, and he stands there, basking in the full-bodied press of her.

“Maybe we should take up bank robbery, too,” Riker says with a laugh. He eyes me sideways, and I immediately distrust the playful look I see there. Of all his moods, playfulness is the rarest and most concerning. “What do you say, Pen? Ready to take to the skies as a tightrope walker? Think of all the ways we could expand our market.”

“Sure thing. Let me put circus training on my to-do list for next week, right after grocery shopping.”

“Oh, no. Not Pen.” Tara’s voice drips with faux innocence. “She doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore. Not now that she’s found true love.”

It’s hardly a statement I can argue with—I did find true love, and I don’t do that sort of thing anymore—but I still don’t care for her implication. Retirement is a perfectly acceptable alternative to theft.

Or it would be, if I could get used to the hollow feeling that seems to come with it.

“Yeah, she’s pretty much useless to us these days,” Riker agrees. “She used to be game for anything, but now it’s all ‘Grant wouldn’t like that,’ and ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’”

I open my mouth to object, as most of Riker’s ideas have never been any good, but he’s not done.

“In fact, it’s been a lot more difficult than we thought to keep a steady influx of funds without her, if you know what I mean. Turns out she and her light fingers are damn near irreplaceable.”

“Aw, Riker,” I say. “That’s so sweet. I had no idea—”

“I said damn near irreplaceable.” He turns that playful gaze on Tara, and I recoil when I see not only a cunning gleam in his eye, but a carnal one, too.

Gross. That woman once had sex with my dad. There has to be a best friend rule about that sort of thing.

“What we need is a professional who can squeeze into tight places. Someone flexible. Someone willing. Someone who doesn’t get so unnecessarily freaked out by claustrophobia.”

“I was never unnecessarily freaked out,” I say, stung. “That fear was highly necessary. It kept me on my game so I wouldn’t be sucked into ventilation fans and crushed by slowly moving walls.”

I snatch the squid out of Tara’s hands and put it back on the shelf. The rational half of my brain knows that this is part of Riker’s Plan B, a ritual of distraction-laden flirtation that Tara seems to be lapping up like it’s the blood of diamonds, but it hits too close to home for comfort. There are a lot of things I’m willing to overlook where Riker is concerned, but an alliance with this woman isn’t one of them.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t really squeeze.” Tara sidles closer and squeezes Riker’s arm as if to prove it, failing to note that his other hand starts snaking toward her purse in the process. “I’m more of a saunter in and out with my head held high sort of girl. You’d be surprised what you can get away with by acting like you belong somewhere. People rarely question the confident.”

“Is that how you’ve been doing it?” I ask. The question slips out before I can help myself. “You walk into those fancy parties and pretend like you belong?”

Although Riker shoots me a look of irritation as he’s forced to snatch his hand back, Tara just laughs.

“Penelope is operating under the delusion that I’m the Peep-Toe Prowler,” she explains. “She’s convinced I’m the one sneaking into all those parties and stealing jewels from the wealthy. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so misguided.”

“It’s not misguided,” I say. “It’s logic. If you’re not in New York to rake in a fortune, what’s keeping you here?”

“You.”

“Oh, really? You’re risking your personal freedom for the sole benefit of my sparkling company?”

“Well, not the sole benefit. I multitask.”

As far as I’m concerned, that’s as good as a confession.

“I don’t know why you’re so fixated on this Prowler of yours, anyway,” Tara continues in what I can only assume is an attempt to throw me off her scent. “Does Grant share the glory if you catch the criminals for him?”

“Of course not. It’s a matter of principle, that’s all.”

“You have principles?”

“No, but I have pride. It’s basically the same thing.”

“I told you—she’s useless to us now,” Riker chimes in with a sad shake of his head.

Tara clucks in sympathy, but she keeps her attention on me. “If you want my opinion, you’re going about this all wrong. If you want to find out who’s behind all these thefts, you need to get closer to the source.”

“The source?”

“The rich. The robbed. The Republican.” She waves her hand, as if tired of the topic already. “If it was me trying to find the culprit, I’d get on the next guest list and see for myself what’s going on behind those closed, gilded doors. A seasoned pro like you could probably pick out a thief in minutes.”

“Right. Because an ex-jewel-thief-turned-housewife is at the top of every high-profile party invite. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Tara’s brow comes up in a way that would make Jordan proud. “Doesn’t your grandmother go to a lot of those functions? Strange. I’d have thought she’d be dying to show you off to her friends by now. You must be less fit for society than I thought.”

I blink at her in bemusement, watching as she crosses the shop to investigate a dress that looks as if it’s woven from a spider’s gossamer threads. Riker goes with her, and I can’t even rouse myself long enough to warn him to stop being so heavy-handed with both his flirtation and his pickpocketing.

Because Tara’s idea is, frankly, genius.

Oh, she’s still my number one suspect, no question. And I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s saying all this to make a game out of me. That’s why I’m not going to stop Riker from digging around in her purse.

She’s right, though. It wouldn’t hurt to start sniffing around the upper echelons to see what people on the inside are saying. In my experience, rich people tend to avoid authority figures just as much as poor people do—it’s usually only the middle class that has nothing to hide. Chances are they know something about the thefts they aren’t sharing with the feds.

That would make me, granddaughter to a wealthy socialite, the ideal person to sneak in and find out what that something is.

And the best part is that Grant can’t protest, because I’ll be doing exactly what he told me to. Just hanging out with my family and reporting back on my findings. Living the happy, carefree life of a retiree.

“Can I help you with something?” a clerk asks, approaching me. She notices me staring at Tara and adds, “Or your friend?”

“Oh, she’s not my friend,” I say, the words spouting unthinkingly from my lips. I can’t help it. Denying kinship with that woman is such an ingrained part of me, it functions on autopilot.

I am, however, developing a begrudging respect for the convolutions of her intellect—and an admiration for the way she wields it. She sees a problem, she finds a solution, and she puts those two things together, consequences and the feelings of other people be damned. Especially if the feelings in question are mine. I only wish I had half her resolve. The longer I spend trying to connect my problems to solutions, the more I flounder.

“Your…sister, then?” the clerks suggests.

I laugh out loud at that. I doubt the clerk would believe me if I told her the truth of our relationship. “She’s not that, either,” I say by way of explanation. “Tara defies labels, unfortunately.”

And as I’m rapidly coming to learn, I do, too. I’m not a jewel thief anymore, and as my stalking Tara while Riker’s hand is in her purse attests, I’m not a normal person, either. I’m just this weird, useless lump of a human being who used to steal things for a living.

I’m also a human being who needs to keep the clerk busy so Riker can finish his fishing expedition. I ask the clerk a series of pointed questions about a wooden goat sculpture, but it’s to no avail. When Riker finally removes his hand from Tara’s purse, he comes out empty, shaking his head at me with a frown.

I bite back my disappointment. It was a long shot to think Tara walked around with stolen jewels in her purse in the first place. If she has them, they’re either well hidden or already on their way to a third-party buyer. I’m going to need to catch her in the act if I want to learn the truth.

“You ready, Pen?” Tara calls, oblivious to our efforts.

“Almost. Gimme a minute.” I give the clerk my brightest smile. “I’ll take the scorpion serving spoon and the glow-in-the-dark underwear, please.”

“Excellent choices,” she agrees and leads the way to the register. That’s her first mistake—and my tenth or eleventh. I should know better than to trust a hardened thief. Tara uses the distraction I provide as an opportunity to slip a silver candlestick down the front of her dress.

Sighing, I place a few extra bills near the cash register to cover the cost. No way am I getting felt up in a back room for this one.