To Have and to Heist(116)
“Except Fagin, who was arrested and hanged, and Monks, who died in prison.” His bitter tone told me everything I wanted to know. He hadn’t shared any more about Mr. X, but I had a strong suspicion he was the Fagin in Jack’s life.
“Where are you going after India?” I dropped my sheet and pushed him back against the door, hoping to chase away the shadows that had fallen across his face.
Jack responded with a growl of approval. “Egypt, and Greece after that. I get a new burner every time I hit a new country. I’ll make sure you get my numbers. Keep an eye out for flower deliveries with secret messages.”
“I remember seeing statues from Egypt and Greece in Mr. Angelini’s office,” I mused out loud. “When I went to see him to collect our money, he said they’d been stolen during the wedding.” I rubbed up against him, eliciting a groan.
“That’s quite a coincidence.”
“Do you know what else is a coincidence?” I’d been waiting all night to share this with him. “Garcia told me that he received a tip that Simone’s missing necklace from the charity ball was in Mr. Angelini’s office safe, along with papers that showed he was guilty of loan sharking and forcing people out of their homes on the very block where your grandmother lived. He had planned to develop the entire area as a shopping mall.”
“Garcia talks too much,” Jack said, pulling away. “Maybe he should put some of that energy into learning about plants.”
“He thinks Mr. Angelini will be going to prison. Thank God I already got my five-star review.”
“He deserves far worse than prison.” Jack pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “You are making it almost impossible to leave, but I can’t miss this flight.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too, sweetheart.” He grabbed his bag from the floor. I’d tucked an envelope in it with the number of an account Chloe had set up that contained a share of the reward money and the wedding planning fee. Everyone had agreed Jack deserved it, even though he’d never asked for a cent.
“I’ve left a few plants at your new office so you don’t forget me,” he said. “Real plants. Not nineties throwbacks that are unsuited to an office climate. The moth orchid is finicky and the tillandsias can be particularly tricky. They don’t grow in soil and instead need rocks or shrubs to cling to. They’ll need several hours of indirect sunlight so don’t put them on your bookshelf.” He gave me one last, long kiss and opened the door.
“Jack?”
“Yes?” He looked over his shoulder.
“Why were you still in the bushes outside the museum if you knew the necklace was already gone?”
He turned fully to face me. “I was thinning the hellebore when I saw a woman in an oversize suit jacket and a fedora trying to throw a rope into a window two stories high to rescue her friend in the dark and rain. I’ve traveled all over the world and I’ve seen many things, but I’ve never seen anything like that. And then the alarm went off and she didn’t run. She didn’t give up. She refused to leave her friend and tried to scale a sheer brick wall with her bare hands. I didn’t know love and loyalty like that existed. I only knew what it meant to be alone. I had to meet her.”
“We didn’t meet,” I said. “You grabbed me and dragged me into the bushes.”
“That’s what you do when you find the love of your life,” he said.
“You love me?”
His voice was soft as he turned away. “I think I loved you from the moment you threw that rope.”
Epilogue
Jack
Six Months Later
Imagine you are just an ordinary guy. You have a good job. You came into some unexpected money and now you have a brand-new Ford F150 truck waiting for you behind your cousin’s greenhouse in Chicago. Your Acanthocereus tetragonus cactus is thriving. You have your health. And you have found a woman to love and who loves you back. You call her every day just to assure yourself she isn’t a dream, and also because she loves burner phone sexy times almost as much as you.
On a cool summer evening in New York, you repossess an incredible sixteenth-century bronze by Willem Danielsz van Tetrode. Don’t worry. The collector is a bad guy. On your way to the airport, you are run off the road by four goons in a Mitsubishi Mirage. They have guns and tire irons and they look like they mean business. But this time you have not been cavalier about your safety. You promised your girlfriend you would come home to her alive, and she has threatened to withhold all sexy times if you get seriously injured. You are carrying the Sig Sauer 45 and two small Beretta M9-22s that your cousin gave you when you were last in Chicago. Your rental car is fully insured, and you are wearing the bulletproof vest your girlfriend bought you for Christmas.
You are also not alone.
After you get shot—but live thanks to your vest—Gage blows up their rental car and helps you beat them and break a few bones. You toss them in the ditch and tell them to pass along a message to Mr. X: Watch out for Oliver Twist.
You search their phones and pockets and discover the details of Mr. X’s next target—a $50 million collection of Cambodian antiquities hidden in a secret gallery beneath a controversial billionaire’s Chelsea home.
You tell Gage to use his special skills to question Virgil. He has always been Mr. X’s weakest link. Also, you haven’t forgotten that day in the butcher shop when he kicked you in the head. You call your boss, who green-lights the job. As always, it’s off the books. No one can know what you do.