“That better be the Chinese,” Cleo said. “And let’s hope he brought extra egg rolls.”
“Becca.” Gideon drew her aside, lowered his voice as Tia dealt with the delivery. “You’ve no business running off this way with a strange man.”
“Why not?” Cleo demanded. “I did. Tia, I’m going to open some wine. Okay?”
“Yes.” Because her head was spinning, Tia leaned back against the door, her arms full of Chinese takeout. Her apartment was full of people, and most of them were talking at once. In very loud voices. She was going to eat food loaded with MSG and would probably die young because of it.
Her mother was barely speaking to her, there was a priceless objet d’art hidden behind the two-percent milk in her refrigerator, and she was sharing her bed with a man who was currently shouting at his sister.
It was exhausting. It was . . . wonderful.
“Been a busy little bee, haven’t you?” Jack commented.
“Here. Let me give you a hand with those. Anybody order pot stickers?”
“I did.” Cleo wandered over to him with an open bottle of wine. “I might share if you can manage to shut those three up.”
“I can do that.” He angled his head, took a good long look at her. “She didn’t do you justice. Didn’t figure she would.”
“Oh. Who?”
“Anita Gaye.” The name, as he’d expected, dropped the room into silence. “She called about an hour ago, asked me to find you.”
Cleo’s fingers tightened on the neck of the bottle. “Looks like I’m found.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rebecca demanded.
“Easier to tell it once. She gave me the impression you’re a dangerous character,” he said to Cleo.
“Bet your ass.”
“Good. Let’s break out these pot stickers and talk about it.”
HER LIVING ROOM was a mess. Correction, Tia thought, her life was the mess. There was a voice inside her head lecturing her to clean it up, this very minute. But it was a little hard to hear it with all the voices going on outside her head.
She now had connections to thieves and murderers. And two precious objets d’art in her apartment.
“Cunningham,” Malachi said as he studied the two statues. “It just figures. If you think about it all, if you believe the way life spins around, it just figures. There’s two of them.” He looked at his brother. “There’s what we were after.”
“We were,” Gideon agreed, “at the start of it.”
“We’re not at the start of it anymore.” Cleo surged to her feet, rage trembling through her. “That one’s mine, and don’t you forget it. I’ll see it melted down into a puddle before that bitch gets her hands on it.”
“Calm yourself down, Cleo,” Malachi advised.
“The hell I will. The three of you want to pay her back, that’s your business. But it stopped being about money when she had Mikey killed. He’s worth more than money.”
“Of course he is.” For the first time in days, Gideon touched her, gently, just a brush of his hand against her leg.
“I’m sorry about your friend.” Rebecca set down her wineglass. “I wish there was a way to make it right again. It’s clear enough we have to think of something else. None of us planned for anything beyond skinning her for money once we found these two. Christ knows why we thought we ever would, and still we have. That must count for something.”
“I won’t sell it to her. Not for any amount.”
“How about selling it to me?” Jack used chopsticks expertly for another bite of pork-fried rice.
“So you can turn around and sell it to her?” Cleo demanded. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m not going to sell anything to Anita,” he said icily.
“If you think she’ll sell you the one she has, you’re nuts.” Disgusted, Cleo stretched out on the floor again.
“I’m not buying anything from her either.”
“They only achieve their true value as a set,” Tia pointed out. “If you’re not going to negotiate for the set with Anita, the only way to get the first one back is to steal it.”
Jack nodded as he topped off two of the glasses still on the coffee table. “There you go.”
“Oh, I like that way of thinking.” Pleased, Rebecca sat up straight, shot Jack a warm, approving look. “Still, you have to remember that if it’s stolen back, it was stolen from us to begin with. Or, I suppose stolen from Tia in a way, then from us. It’s complicated, but it comes down to it being mutually owned, wouldn’t you say?”
Tia blinked rapidly, pressed a finger on what felt like a muscle tic just under her left eye. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I do. It’s not enough.” Cleo shook her head. “Even if you pull it off, she loses a thing. A thing that wasn’t hers to begin with. It’s not fucking enough.”
“No, it’s not,” Gideon agreed. “Not any longer.”
“You want justice?” Jack lifted his glass, skimmed his gaze around the room.
“That’s right.” Gideon laid a hand on Cleo’s shoulder, then looked at his brother, at his sister, back at Jack when they nodded. “That’s what has to be.”
“Okay. Justice makes it a little trickier, but we’ll work it out.”
Nineteen
NOTHING, Malachi decided, was going to be solved during this first disorganized and impromptu meeting. They needed time to let it all settle in. Time, as Tia had said, to define their direction and their goal.
As usual the brainy and delightful Dr. Marsh had cut through to the heart of the matter. The six people currently scattered around her apartment had a variety of agendas and styles.
The outside force of Anita Gaye had only one.
To win, they would have to meld those six individuals into one single unit. That required more than cooperation. It would demand trust.
Since they had to start somewhere, Malachi decided to explore the new element.
Jack Burdett.
He wasn’t entirely sure he cared for the way the man looked at his sister. That was a bit of personal business he intended to wind through the rest as soon as possible.
In any case, Tia was looking more than a little shell-shocked. She did better, to his way of thinking, when she had some time inside her own head. So the first order of the day was to clear out the apartment and give her a bit of room.
“We all need to chew on this for a while.” Though he didn’t raise his voice, the chatter quieted. It was something Jack noticed, and filed away.
“Fine with me.” Jack got to his feet. “Meanwhile, I’ve got something for you, Tia.”
“Something for me.”
“Consider it a hostess gift. Thanks for the Chinese.” He dug into his bag and came out with a phone. “It’s secure,” he told her. “And so will the line be, once I hook it up. You can use this line to make and receive calls you don’t want our eavesdropping friends to hear. I don’t imagine I have to tell you not to give the number out.”
“No. But doesn’t the phone company have to . . . Never mind.”
He flashed a grin at her. “Where do you want it?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows, tried to think. Her office was out as long as Cleo needed it for a bedroom. Her own bedroom seemed wrong, somehow selfish. “The kitchen,” she decided.
“Good choice. I’ll take care of it. Here’s the number,” he added, taking a small card from his pocket.
“Do I memorize it, then eat the paper?”
“You’re all right, Doc.” With a chuckle he hefted the bag and headed toward the kitchen. Then stopped. “Seems like you’re a little crowded in here. I’ve got plenty of room. Rebecca’s staying at my place.”
“Do you think so?” Malachi’s voice was dangerously soft.
“Stop it,” was all Rebecca said, and she said it under her breath.
“I can take one more, if anyone wants to relocate. That evens things up.”
“I’ll go.?
?? Cleo rolled up off the floor, careful not to look at Gideon.
But Jack looked at him, saw the start of surprise, the quick, baffled anger. “Fine. Saddle up. This won’t take me long.”
“I don’t have much.” She shot Tia a grin. “You might actually get some work done this way.”
She walked off into the office, and Malachi sent his sister a fulminating look that only made her yawn. “You think I’m letting you take up with a man this way?”
“What way would that be, Malachi?” She fluttered her lashes at him, and the eyes behind them were cold steel.
“We’ll just see about all this.” He lurched to his feet and strode off into the kitchen after Jack. “I’m going to need a word with you.”
“Figured that. Just let me take care of this.”
Malachi frowned as he watched him work. He had no idea what the man was doing with the little tools and bits of equipment, but it was very clear Jack knew.
“Hand me the small Phillips head bit out of the kit there,” Jack asked.
“You screwing this into the wall?” Malachi handed over the bit, watched Jack fit it onto a mini cordless drill. “She won’t care for that.”
“Little sacrifices, big payoff. She’s already swallowed more than a couple of holes in the wall.” He fixed the phone jack in place, ran the line, then, taking what looked like a palm-sized computer out of his bag, ran a series of numbers through it.
“You can use this to contact your mother,” Jack said conversationally. “But I wouldn’t mention to the doc that the phone company’s getting stiffed on the long-distance calls. She’s a straight arrow. Your mother’s phones are clear. Or were when I was there and checked them out. I showed her what to look for, and she’ll be doing a check twice a day. She’s a sharp lady. I don’t think they’ll get past her.”
“You form impressions quickly.”
“Yeah. This is set. Reach out and touch someone,” he added and packed up his tools.
“Then why don’t we step into my office?” Malachi suggested, and grabbed a couple of beers out of the refrigerator.
From her seat on the sofa, Rebecca had a clear view of small dramas. She watched her two angry brothers split off into opposite directions, Gideon into the little room to the right, where Cleo had gone. The door slammed smartly behind him. And Malachi out the front door of the apartment with Jack. That door closed with ominous control.
“It seems everyone’s gone off to argue without us.” She stretched, yawned again. The flight had tired her out more than she’d realized. “Why don’t I help you tidy up this disaster we’ve made of your home. You can tell me what’s brewing with my brother and Cleo, and what’s brewing with my other brother and you.”
Tia looked blankly around the room. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Pick your spot,” Rebecca told her. “I’m good at catching up.”
“WHAT DO YOU mean you’ll go?” Gideon demanded.
“Makes sense.” Cleo stuffed clothes into her bag. “We’re crowded here.”
“Not that crowded.”
“Enough that you’re sleeping on the goddamn roof.” She heaved the bag onto the daybed and turned. “Look, Slick, you don’t want me here, in your face. You’ve made that crystal. So splitting off makes it easier all around.”
“It’s that easy for you? The man says I’ve got room and you jump over to him?”
Her cheeks went ice-white. “Fuck you.”
She grabbed her bag again, and so did he. For ten bitter seconds they waged a fierce tug-of-war. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He wrenched the bag free, heaved it aside. “What do you take me for?”
“I don’t know what I take you for.” Despite Malachi’s earlier advice, she’d had no intention of using tears on him and was furious that they were blurring her vision. “But I know what you take me for. A liar and a cheat, and a cheap one at that.”
“I don’t. Damn it all to bloody hell, Cleo, I’m angry with you. I’ve a right to be.”
“Fine. Be as pissed off as you want. I can’t stop you. But I don’t have to have it shoved down my throat every day. I screwed up. I’m sorry. End of story.”
She started to shove by him to retrieve her bag, but he caught her arms, tightening his grip when she tried to jerk away. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Let go.” Tears were spurting out faster than she could blink them back. “I don’t blubber to get my way.”
“Don’t cry,” he said again, and his grip gentled to a caress. “Don’t go.” He drew her in, rocked her in his arms. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t know what I want altogether, but I know I don’t want you to go.”
“This isn’t ever going to go anywhere.”
“Stay.” He rubbed his cheek against hers, transferring tears. “And let’s see.”
She sighed, let her head rest on his shoulder. She’d missed this. God, she’d missed just this simple connection so much it ached in the bones. “You can’t go soft on a woman just because she drips on you, Slick. Just makes a sap out of you.”
“Let me worry about that. Here now. Here.”
He skimmed his lips over her damp cheek, found her mouth and sank in, soft and slow.
The tenderness of it had her muscles trembling and her belly doing one long, lazy roll. Even when he deepened the kiss it was all warmth, without any of those edgy flashes of heat she expected, she understood.
For one of the first times in her life she stood poised on absolute surrender, with a man in total control of her. Heart, body, mind.
It terrified her. And it filled her.
“Don’t be nice to me.” She pressed her face into his shoulder as she struggled for balance. “I’ll just screw it up.”
Not as tough as she pretended, Gideon thought. And not nearly as sure of herself. “Let me worry about that as well. You’ve only one thing to do at the moment,” he added, and tipped her face back to his.
“What?”
He smiled at her. “Unpack.”
She sniffled, and hoped to get a little of her own back. “Is that how you get what you want? By being nice?”
“Now and then. Cleo.” He cupped her face in his hands, watched the wariness come back into those deep, dark eyes. He didn’t mind it. If she was wary of him, she was thinking of him. “You’re so beautiful. Seriously beautiful. It can be a bit disconcerting. Unpack,” he said again. “I’ll tell Burdett you’ll be staying here. With me,” he added. “You’re with me, Cleo. That’s something we’ll both have to deal with.”
ON THE ROOF, Jack took stock. One way in and out, he considered. That made this area either a trap or a solid defense. It might be wise to set up a few measures here.
If a man didn’t anticipate a war, he always lost the battle.
“Hell of a view,” he commented.
“Got a smoke?”
“No, sorry. Never picked up the habit.”