Nightwork, page 33
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Because he needed a moment—maybe several—to clear his head, Booth rose to walk to the butler’s pantry and his liquor cabinet. Though he’d have preferred a Coke, that didn’t suit the persona he’d adopted.
Not just a thief, but hard, cynical, a user. Confident, heartless, self-possessed.
After he poured the brandy, he poured himself three fingers of whiskey, straight up.
The Red Goddess. The stuff of legends, of blood and death and betrayal.
There wasn’t anyone in his line of work who hadn’t had a dream or two about her, including himself.
But then, he reminded himself, people dreamed of dragons and magic coins. It didn’t make them real.
He took the brandy to LaPorte, then sat again.
“What makes you think you know not only the Red Goddess is real, but where to find it?”
“Because it was put on auction last year, for bidding by a select few.”
Pulled too far out of the game, Booth admitted, because he hadn’t heard a whisper of it.
“You authenticated it.”
“Would I have bid otherwise?”
“You’ve seen it.”
“In a very restrictive setting. I held her in my hands.” As he swirled brandy with one, LaPorte stared down at the other as if seeing the stone. “She’s well named. There’s no other like her. Nothing approaching her. In all the world, she is the only of her kind.”
“Why didn’t you buy it at auction?”
Temper flared, briefly, before LaPorte sipped his brandy. “The final bid was three million a carat, and she, the largest raw red diamond ever mined, half again the weight of the Moussaieff. Nineteen point eight carats, pure red. Absolutely pure, without a hint of brown or blue or green.”
He sipped again. “Why would I pay sixty million when I can pay you three to acquire it?”
“You won’t get it for three.” Booth dismissed the offer with a slow roll of his shoulders. “Five maybe, depending. Who bought it? Where is it?”
“You might think to take it for yourself. To vanish with it. I’d think carefully. I’ll kill you in the most painful of ways if you don’t deliver the Red Goddess into my hands.”
Ice-cold, Booth stared him down. “If I take a job, I deliver. It’s annoying enough to have you show up at my door when you please and threaten me. I sure as hell don’t want that stone weighing me down. I’d never be able to sell it—too much risk. If I take the job, you’re the client. That’s how I work, and you know it. I wouldn’t have lasted this long otherwise. But I’m not taking a job without the particulars.”
In the silence, Booth sipped whiskey and waited. He felt the subtle power shift when LaPorte broke first.
“She’s in Georgetown. Washington, DC. I think of that as fate, as it makes it convenient for you. Alan C. Mountjoy acquired it.”
“It would’ve been a blind auction,” Booth commented. “No one knowing the identity of the other bidders, or the top bidder.”
“Of course. But there are ways.”
In the same flat tone, Booth asked, “Who’d you kill?”
“I don’t kill. The man who possessed the Goddess murdered his own father for it. Arranging an accident seems like a kind of justice. And his death helped the one who ran the auction see the wisdom in cooperating with my very simple request.”
“What happened to him?”
“He appears to have gone missing.” Another sip of brandy. “People do. All the time. You won’t go missing if you try to refuse the job now that you have this information. But Edward here will beat you to death, and he and Angelo will stage a break-in. A tragedy along the river.”
“I’m not about to refuse. Why would I refuse the opportunity to steal a legend? But the fee’s five million. Don’t nickel-and-dime me, LaPorte. I may need to hire some help for this. Half up front.”
“One million up front.”
“No.” He had to set the terms, and the tone. “Half. I’m the best there is. I’m the goddamn GOAT, or you wouldn’t be here. Half up front, half on delivery.”
“I want her within six weeks.”
“No,” Booth said again, and began to enjoy the iced anger on LaPorte’s face. “You’re hiring me, and I set the terms. I have a musical to put on.”
Booth held up a hand before LaPorte could fully surge out of his chair.
“If I take off before that, before the end of term, there’ll be questions. If I poof, they’ll look for me. I’ve been here three years, and I’m part of the community. It’s not like college and a few months. Jesus, I’m friendly with the chief of police, the freaking mayor. They’ll start digging.”
He turned the hand he held in the air side to side as if considering. “I can do a lot of the research remotely, and I can take a weekend trip or two—after the show. Nobody’d think twice. I can take a vacation after school’s out. No questions, then work out how to get the stone. By August, I’d say. And it’s probably better if I come back, put in another year. Another year holed up here after the job of a lifetime.
“After that,” Booth murmured, and let pleasure eke through. “After that, I can shake this place loose. It’ll be cool enough back in Europe now. Or anywhere else I want to land.”
Putting excitement in his eyes, he lifted his glass. “Those are my terms. Five million, half up front, half on delivery. And stay out of my way while I’m working. I don’t want to feel you breathing down my neck. The job of legends.”
He shook his head, drank deep. “By August. I put it in your greedy hands by August. This isn’t the beginning of a beautiful friendship, LaPorte, but it’s a very lucrative contract on both sides. Now finish your brandy and hit the road. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Do you think your arrogance and rudeness are somehow charming?”
“I think you mistake confidence. And since you hijacked me at my current place of employment, have threatened to maim and/or kill me, I don’t give a rat fuck if you consider me rude.”
Booth waited to see if he’d gone too far, if the stone-faced Edward would knock the arrogance out of him, but LaPorte set the glass aside.
“I’ll leave you a way to contact me.”
“Really?” Gesturing with his glass, Booth pushed a bit more. “You expect me to steal the Red Goddess, but you don’t think I can get your personal cell phone number? I’ll let you know where to wire the up-front. Don’t come back here. Somebody sees you, questions? Somebody recognizes you? Deal’s off. Let me get to work.”
As LaPorte walked to the door, his bodyguard opened it.
“If you fail and run, I’ll find you. And I won’t be so patient or accommodating.”
Booth waited until he heard the car pull out, saw the sweep of headlights before he went upstairs, changed into a black long-sleeved tee, black jeans, black high-tops.
Just in case.
If LaPorte had someone watching his house for his initial reaction, his first moves, they’d see nothing.
He switched on the light in his office, drew down the shades. The light would show against the window, but nobody would see in. He checked the recording on his laptop, then did a search, and confirmed his suspicions.
He slipped out the back like a shadow, and was in the trees within seconds.
He knew the way, had hiked these woods countless times over the last three years. The thin moonlight didn’t provide much, but he didn’t need it.
He had gotta-run routes mapped out in his head. Maybe he’d relaxed enough—too much, he admitted—to believe he’d ever need to use one, but the route he wanted now came clear.
That thin moonlight silvered the near shadows while the deeper ones held midnight dark. An owl hooted its curious two-note call, and something splashed into the river to his left.
He jumped over a long, thick branch that must’ve come down in the buffeting March winds, and kept his ears tuned for the sounds of a car on the road, any rustle that said human rather than animal.
Her lights gleamed, spots of light in the dark.
At the edge of the woods, he paused, scanned toward the road, then back.
He could see her clearly through a kitchen window. Her hair braided and falling over the back of a baggy gray sweatshirt.
He waited a full two minutes, but not a single car passed. Still, he did a wide circle of her house, looking for signs anyone watched before he went to the back door.
She had music on—loud—and he saw her pull a bag of popcorn out of the microwave. Rather than knock, he tried the door. He found it unlocked, shook his head, then stepped in.
“Miranda.”
She didn’t scream, only made a strangled sound as she spun around. The bag of popcorn shot straight in the air.
He caught it, set it on the counter. Closed and locked the door behind him.
“Booth! What the hell! You scared the crap out of me.”
“We need to talk. Right now.”
He pulled the kitchen blinds.
“Get the living room.”
“What?”
“The blinds, Miranda. Just go close the blinds. I don’t think he’s got anybody watching your place, but close them.”
“Who? And what?”
“LaPorte. If you close those damn blinds, I’ll explain. Just go close them, casually, like you’re settling in for the night.”
She’d never seen him like this—cool, dangerous, impatient. And her heart wouldn’t stop drumming.
“If you’re trying to scare me, you’re doing a damn good job.”
“Good. And make sure your front door’s locked.”
She crossed into the living room, drew down the wooden slats. When she went to the door and he heard the lock click, he stepped out.
“I’ll lecture you about an unsecured house later. You should sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down until you tell me what the hell’s going on. What about LaPorte?”
“He found me. He and a couple of his goons were waiting outside the school when I came out from rehearsal.”
“Booth.” Irritation shifted hard to concern. “Did they hurt you?”
“No. That’s never going to be his first move. He starts with intimidation, threats, demands. He wants you to think he’s got all the power, holds all the cards. But he made a mistake.”
Booth paced now, now that finding her safe defused the low-grade anxiety. He’d deal with his anger later. Now was the time to look at the whole, see the steps, work out the plan.
“He lied. He lied right off, telling me he’d known I was here all the time. That’s ego, vanity, the power play, and a mistake.”
“How do you know it’s a lie?”
“If he’d known, he wouldn’t have waited. The TV crew at the bookstore. They took a shot of the Westbend Students Recommend wall, and Carolyn mentioned me, by name. He’d have feelers out, or maybe he has someone running a program. Sebastian Booth—those names. And you. Put it together, he’d dig deeper. So the way I figure it, he lied about knowing because he just found me.”
“Because I did that stupid signing. Because I—”
“No, Miranda.” He cut her off. “Not because of anything you did. Because he’s like a cat at a mouse hole, and he sees me as the mouse. He’s dead wrong.”
“What does he want? What are you going to do? What—”
“Take a breath. Sit down. Please.”
She sat, linked her hands together, took that breath. She felt, actually felt, that scarred-over crack in her heart open again.
“You have to leave, disappear again. You wanted to tell me first this time.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I have a spring musical to put on, and finals coming up right after.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I ran before because I didn’t know what else to do. He had all the power, and I was afraid of him. For Mags, for you, for myself. He’s repeating the pattern, almost straight down the line, but he’s not dealing with the same person this time. And he lied.”
Booth smiled a little because he understood all the fear he’d lived with had vanished like smoke.
“He lied so I’d be crushed under the weight of believing he could reel me in anytime. But he can’t, and I’m a better liar.”
Booth sat now, on the coffee table facing her. “And this time, I’m going to tell you everything. He doesn’t know Mags and I are still tight. As far as he knows, I haven’t seen her in years—and I played that up. She’s really nothing to me. Neither are you. My bad luck you came to the area, worse luck you saw me, recognized me. But I played on old feelings, spun you a sad story. I’ve got a recording of the whole thing, so you can hear it for yourself.”
“A recording.”
“A remote switch on my alarm system. The whole thing’s on my laptop. But highlights. I told you Mags—my only family—got into trouble. Drug addiction, police, desperation. I had to go deal with it. Ashamed, then in trouble, and so on. She died.”
“Oh my God, Booth.”
“You felt sorry for me about that, and bought I’d changed my name. Anyway, once I’d covered that ground, I played you into bed.”
Through the whirling in her head, one thing stuck. “You’ve made me out to be a spineless idiot.”
“That’s right, and one I don’t care about. Just useful in the moment, just handy. Be pissed off if you want,” he added as her body stiffened, her eyes hardened.
“Oh, believe me.”
“Fine, but let me finish. He bought I have to finish the term so nobody goes looking for me, starts digging. He should’ve thought of that himself. I’ve been here three years, made connections. It’s not like a few months in college. So instead of a deadline of a few weeks, I have months.”
“A deadline for what?”
“What he wants me to steal. The Red Goddess.” Booth looked off in the distance, like a man gazing at something holy.
“What’s the Red Goddess? A statue? A painting?”
His gaze shifted back to her. “No. It’s a red diamond, raw, uncut, nearly twenty carats, and pure. It’s the fucking Holy Grail for someone like me. And most who know about it think, like the grail, it’s the stuff of myth and legend. But he’s seen it, verified it, even held it.”
“If he has it, why does he need you?”
“He doesn’t. He got outbid at auction, an underground auction. It’s all on the recording. The Goddess has a bloody history. She’s the biggest red diamond in existence. People have killed for her. I imagine he’s weighing the option of killing me when I get it for him. He absolutely plans to kill me if I don’t.”
The way he spoke of murder made her throat dry.
“You have to go to the police, or the FBI or whatever authorities handle this kind of thing.”
“That’s the last thing I’m going to do, or should. I’d end up in prison, then dead—he’d make sure of it.”
“Then you have to run, you have to go. What else can you do?”
“That’s easy. I’m going to steal the Red Goddess.”
“You’re going to steal for him? You’re going to let him use you again?”
He gave her a look of such infinite patience, she wanted to smack him.
“I’m not going to steal her for him, Miranda. I’m going to steal her, then I’m going to use her to make him pay. I bought the time I need to figure it out, just how to do it. And I’ll figure it out. He’s not my client this time. He’s the goddamn mark.”
Reaching out, he took her hands. “You could decide to spend some time with your dad at Oxford. He thinks I’m like him, Miranda. That I don’t care about anyone. He’s not going to bother with you if you’re in England.”
“I’m not going to England.”
“Just hear me out.”
“No.” She pushed up. “No. I’m not letting someone I’ve never even laid eyes on run my life, push me into doing what I don’t want to do. He wrecked my life before. Not again. And now I want a drink.”
She stalked into the kitchen. “You’re not the same person,” she continued as she took a stopper out of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “Neither am I. Do you want a glass of this?”
“Now I do. It would just be until August, maybe September. Sooner maybe, I have to work it out.”
“No. I didn’t even know diamonds could be red, and now this greedy bastard and some big red rock are going to dictate my life? Just no.”
“Diamonds come in all colors, and red’s the rarest, so more valuable per carat than any. Most are small. Anyway, what’s important is he’s fixed on it. I can use that. I will use that. I don’t want you catching any of the blowback.”
“Why would I?” She tossed back her braid, then some wine. “You said you convinced him you don’t care about me. You’re just using me as cover. Like you used Mags as cover in the story you supposedly told me. You’re out for yourself, right? Did he believe that or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, he believed it. Why wouldn’t he?” He drank some wine, set the glass down. Then began to pace again. “He doesn’t understand love. He doesn’t love anyone. He feels for no one. Possessing drives him, not feelings. He doesn’t even love the possessions. He used what I felt for you before, something he saw as a weakness. He thought he could use it again, and that he won’t do. He won’t use you or what I feel for you as a weapon ever again.”
He turned, saw her standing in the bright kitchen lights just staring at him.
“God, Miranda, you have to know. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. Not before you, not after. It’s always been you. Just you.”
“How can you think you can say that to me, that I could hear you say that to me, then pack up and fly off to Oxford?”
“There’s nothing I can offer you beyond what I feel. We both know that. Now, right now, I need to figure out how to solve this problem, because until I do, you’re never going to be fully off LaPorte’s radar. Neither is Mags. You’re the most important people in the world to me, so I’m going to solve the problem.”
Her heart didn’t drum now. It beat hard, but it beat steady. “The problem’s the priority?”
“It has to be.”
She considered her wine, then nodded. “All right. How can I help solve the problem?”
