To Have and to Heist(14)

“Check the back,” a man shouted. “She must have had an accomplice.”

“You were right,” I whispered.

“Professional, like I said.” He tensed again, holding me so tight, I could barely breathe. I felt curiously safe with him. If he’d let me go in that moment, I wouldn’t have moved.

Two police officers walked into the garden, sweeping their flashlights back and forth in a cursory search. They spent a few minutes studying the gravel path beneath the window and the grassy lawn beside it. One of them squatted to inspect my branch while the other shone his light on the wall. After a little arguing about whether it was worth searching the bushes in the rain, they turned and walked away.

I heard doors slam. Engines purr. Red and blue lights faded away. When the night was still and silent save for the patter of rain on the leaves above, my captor released me, and we walked carefully through the bushes into the dimly lit garden.

“Do I get to look at you properly now?” I asked, turning. “Or is this going to be a case of ‘If you see my face, I’ll have to kill you’？”

“I promised I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said. “I don’t break my promises.”

“I’m glad to hear—” Words failed me when I turned around. He wasn’t traditionally handsome but ruggedly so, with a strong jaw, a straight nose, and a wide, stubborn mouth. His eyes were dark and velvety, sprinkled with gold. Gorgeous. Just like the rest of him. Even partially hidden in the shadows, he was simply the most breathtaking man I’d ever seen.

My knees weakened and I struggled to regain my composure.

I was already dead when he smiled. I died a little more when he brushed back the longish dark hair that was a damp tangle around his chiseled face. He wore a leather jacket over broad shoulders and a gray T-shirt stretched tight across the hard, muscled chest I’d had the pleasure of leaning against for the last twenty minutes. I guessed him to be an inch or two over six feet, maybe slightly less if his battered leather boots had heels.

“Hello, beautiful.”

My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. He looked like trouble. But it was the kind of trouble that sent a delicious thrill down my spine.

He held up a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks for this. I needed cab fare.”

I stared at him aghast. “That’s mine?”

“It was in your back pocket. You should really keep your cash in a zippered purse. It’s more of a challenge.”

“You stole it?” I searched my now empty pocket. How had I not felt his hand? Granted, his hips had been on my ass the entire time, but fingers were different.

“Borrowed.”

“Are you seriously playing the semantics game again?” I forced myself to give him a harder look. Were those gold flecks in his warm brown eyes or was it just the glitter of ill intent? Was that a smile or a smirk on his handsome face? Was the devil-may-care attitude masking something more sinister? And were those jeans molded to his narrow hips for ease of running away? Or to entice a sex-starved candy store employee who couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hookup?

“I’d play any game with you, but this isn’t the time.” He walked back into the bushes, and a few moments later, he was up on the retaining wall.

“Wait,” I said. “If you’re going to steal my money, at least give me your name.”

“Oliver.”

“Oliver what?”

“Twist.”

Five

Someone had forgotten to tell Detective Garcia that he was supposed to be middle-aged and balding with a face worn by trauma and heavy drinking. Wasn’t mid-thirties—I had to guess when he wasn’t forthcoming about any personal details—too young to become a detective? With all the crime in the city, how did he have time to build biceps as big as beer kegs? And why would someone who looked like he should be on a runway in Milan become a detective? What a waste of deep, rich, chocolate brown eyes and a strong square jaw. Millions of women could be fantasizing about him, but instead he was sitting in a windowless interrogation room at Chicago’s 18th Precinct questioning a woman who was so clearly not guilty of any crime, it was almost laughable.

“Can we take off the handcuffs now?” I rattled the chain that attached the cuffs to the metal table in the interrogation room. “Look at me. Do I look like a threat?”

He lifted a nicely groomed eyebrow. “It’s standard procedure when we catch someone in the back garden of a museum during a theft.”

“The theft had already occurred by the time I got there,” I said. “And you didn’t catch me. I volunteered to come to the station to corroborate my friend’s story. I wasn’t expecting to be cuffed, tossed in an unmarked car, and frog-marched through the police station like a criminal. Where is Chloe? She’s going to be very distressed. I should be with her.”

“She said the same thing about you when I mentioned you were here,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me the facts, and then I’ll see what I can do.”

He leaned back in his chair, blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar to show off the corded muscles of his tanned throat, manspreading just enough to make me wish the metal table between us wasn’t quite so wide. The dude was solid muscle. He had to spend hours at the gym to get shoulders that huge. And that chest. Phwoar. I’d never hooked up with a police officer before, but I liked the idea of being with a man who could protect me with his body alone.