“Nope.”
“Your Norwegian Elkhound can stand guard outside my bedroom.”
“Nilsson is Swedish. And no.”
She bites down on the tip of her tongue, just a tiny pink sliver glinting between her lips, and that’s the thing that breaks me. Because Megan Artemis Wolf is my sister. And because—despite all the years of running the cons Shannon taught us before we could read—Nutmeg has a tell. She’s biting her tongue to keep from crying.
I still won’t let her past the gate. There’s no guessing who’s trailing after her—angry boyfriends or mafia assassins or federal agents looking to throw her in jail. Nutmeg is a one-woman tsunami of chaos, and I’ve learned my lesson too many times to count.
If I let her into the house, she’ll set up a Big Store scam, running an elite casino out of the living room, just like that old movieThe Sting. Or she’ll salt a dozen cheap-ass paintings between my Monets and Renoirs and Matisses, selling her rip-offs to gullible marks. Or she’ll run the Realty Ruse, “selling” my home with the help of an imaginary mortgage broker and law firm, maybe to two or three people at once.
She’s done it all before.
But she’s my sister. And her sweatshirt is no match for DC’s late winter weather. That bruise is real; I’ve seen enough fake ones to know. I can’t leave her sitting on the sidewalk.
I glance at my Patek Philippe. I don’t really need to know the time—I own the plane I’m heading toward, and my pilot will wait no matter how late I arrive. I’m stalling. Making up my mind.
“Okay, Nut,” I finally say. “I’ll get you a room for the night.”
She climbs to her feet with a wince that tells me she’s bruised on more than her face. Then she gives me a blinding smile, and for just a moment, I’m eight and she’s six, and I’ve just handed her the bright yellow bag of M&Ms I swiped from the corner drugstore.
I point across the street. She knows the drill. She looks both ways before crossing the old streetcar tracks that carve the middle of the road.
Back in the Jaguar, I finally trigger the control that opens the front gate. The iron grill slides back smoothly. I stop the car so it blocks the sidewalk, guarding the entrance until the gate settles back in place.
I value my privacy. A lot.
Nutmeg shakes her head as I turn into the street, gliding to an easy stop in front of her. She takes every chance she gets to tell me I’m paranoid. But she grew up in the same family I did. She should know I’m not paranoid enough.
It’s less than a mile to the Four Seasons, but most intersections through Georgetown’s tree-lined streets are controlled by four-way stop signs. That gives me cover to pretend I’m concentrating on the road, when I’m actually sizing up my sister’s current status.
Good news: No jitters, no diluted pupils, no visible track marks—she probably isn’t using. The dye job on her hair hasn’t grown out and she doesn’t stink—she’s had access to a shower sometime in the last few days. She doesn’t immediately go for the protein bars I keep in the glove compartment—she’s had food too.
Bad news: That bruise on her face. Whatever’s going on beneath the sweatshirt, on her right side where she’s favoring her ribs. Her fingernails are chewed to the quick, which always happens when she’s nervous. And worst of all—she came to me for help.
It’s been thirteen months—no, fourteen—since she last washed up outside my Georgetown home with a broken arm, anasty limp, and something justshatteredinside her. She promised she was ready to give up the life, to major in business at college somewhere, to finally go legit. But she stormed down the street when I refused to give her money, even though I promised to pay tuition directly to any university she chose.
I’ve taken enough client meetings at the Four Seasons that the valets know me. I tip extra to keep the Jaguar waiting near the door. I won’t be long.
The hostess recognizes me at the restaurant as well. “Welcome back, Mr. Wolf,” she says, automatically taking us to a table in the far corner, where we can’t be overheard. She doesn’t give a hint of noticing Nutmeg’s hair, her face, her filthy, over-size clothes.
I wait until Nut’s halfway through her Truffle Grove Scramble before I begin our usual fight. “Let me give you a phone.”
“Don’t need one,” she says, around a mouthful of sourdough toast.
“You have to be able to reach me in an emergency.”
“If I need, you, I can wait outside your gate,” she says, which sounds completely reasonable because it’s working well today.
“Take the phone. You’ll have the internet in your pocket.”
She smirks over her third cup of coffee. “If I take a phone,you’llhave the internet in my pocket. Tell the truth. You could track me anywhere in the world, couldn’t you?”
I shrug, because we both know my ability to hack computer systems. “I worry about you, Nutmeg.”
“Don’t.”
It’s easy for her to say the word, but that doesn’t erase the last twenty-seven years. I’m her big brother. I’m supposed to protect her. I should have been there when Shannon died, when Nut ended up on the street at only fifteen.
