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“Except . . . we are going to do it,” I said. I looked into her eyes, and she looked back, and after a moment her breath went ragged and her knees wobbled. I started to move toward her. But she straightened up and pulled her hands away from mine.
“Do what, for Christ’s sake?” she said with a frown.
The time had come. I reached into a pocket and pulled out a small packet of photographs. I tossed it onto her worktable. “This,” I said.
Still scowling, Monique picked them up, glanced at the top picture—and went very still. Inside and outside of her nothing made a sound; nothing moved. It felt like the entire world thumped to a halt, and Monique just stared at the top picture. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered at long last. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Since I agreed with that, I didn’t say anything.
Monique thumbed through to the second picture, stared at it, then went through all the others, faster and faster. “Fuck,” she whispered, “Jesus fucking Christ, oh, fuck,” over and over. She came to the last picture and remembered she still needed to breathe. She took in a big lungful of air and then started to shake her head. “No,” she said. “Uh-uh, no, can’t happen, no way. No, this is just—” And she slammed down the stack of photos. “For fuck’s sake, Riley!” she practically screamed. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”
“Maybe,” I said. She had me smiling again. “But I’m gonna do this.”
“What you’re gonna do is get yourself fucking killed!” she yelled. “Every fucking electronic security device in the whole fucking—I mean, things you’ve never even heard of, and—and the guards, Riley! They’re gonna have armed fucking guards! And the motherfuckers will be looking to kill somebody, and you just st
roll in and—goddamn it, NO! This is totally fucking impossible!”
“Yup,” I said. “And that’s why I have to do it.”
She stared at me, then shook her head. “You are totally fucking nuts.”
“But in a really nice way?” I said.
That pushed her back to being mad again. “Do you even fucking know how much fucking security is around this fucking thing?!” she shouted.
“Yup,” I said. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Doesn’t matter. Because Riley fucking Wolfe is on the job, so it doesn’t matter. Because Riley fucking Wolfe is SOOOOO fucking smart it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t stop him.” At least she wasn’t screaming anymore.
“You could say that,” I said.
I should have been ready and seen it coming. I wasn’t, and I didn’t. She smacked me so hard on the side of the head that I saw stars.
“You ignorant, dumb-ass, arrogant, conceited, stuck-up motherfucking pig!” she said. “I am not going to help you get yourself murdered or—I mean if you’re lucky, it’s just prison forever!”
I didn’t say anything. I just waited for the stars to fade so I could see again.
“Goddamn it, Riley, it can’t be fucking done,” she said.
“I can do it,” I said. “I have to . . . if you don’t knock my head off first.”
“Somebody shoulda knocked your head off years ago,” she snarled. “You sure as shit aren’t using it.”
“Well, shit, Monique,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Does that mean you can’t do it?”
“It means I’m not stupid enough to try! For God’s sake, that thing is—and it’s totally impossible! You’ll be killed or— No, Riley! Absolutely not!”
I raised one eyebrow at her. “Are you that worried I’ll get killed? Wow, so you do care about me, don’t you?”
“Care, sure, I care,” she snapped. “You’re a steady customer, you pay well, you never give me a short count—of course I care!”
I knew she’d say something like that—she almost had to—but it kind of hurt anyway. I mean, it would if I’d believed her. I didn’t. I shook my head and took a small, soft step closer. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”
Monique hesitated, just a half second. “No,” she said, looking away. “I mean, sometimes I think you’re—” She bit her lip in that way she had that I found incredibly sexy. “I think you’re kind of . . . a friend . . .” She glanced back at me. “Everybody has one asshole friend, right?”
Now it did hurt, and I almost believed it. “That’s it?” I said, moving a half step closer. “I’m just the asshole friend?”
Monique bit her lip again. Our eyes locked, and for a minute, neither of us said anything. “Damn it, Riley,” Monique said at last. She put a hand on my chest, and just when I was going to return the favor—she pushed me back. Hard. “It’s not going to happen again, all right?”
“It is,” I said, “when you lose our bet.”
