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I didn’t bother going back to my house on the mountain. It was a nice place, and I like the Ozarks, but it wasn’t secure anymore. I didn’t need anything so bad it was worth the risk of going back. The stuff I had left there was all replaceable. Clean clothes, books and music, like that. None of it was worth taking the chance to go back and grab it. If it was ever safe to go back there again, the stuff would still be there. If not, it didn’t matter. I could get more.
So I put all that out of my head, filled the truck’s gas tank, and put on a new license plate, New York State this time. I got behind the wheel and cranked up the driving music—Yo-Yo Ma, Silk Road—and headed north.
Now came the really hard part.
14
Monique was probably the best art forger in the world. She didn’t think of herself that way, of course. She worked hard to be good, and she appreciated being very well paid for what she did, but it was counterproductive to dwell on her place in the hierarchy. Still, plenty of other people thought she was the best, and she always had plenty of good, paying work to do. That was all that really mattered.
Right now the work space in her twenty-fifth-floor Manhattan apartment was crowded with projects. On her easel there was a half-finished copy of a Caravaggio, and across from that, on a workbench, stood an early version of a Sumerian votive figure. Between the two of these projects, and three more she had waiting, she could keep busy for another two months, and get paid well when she was done, too. So she didn’t really need to think about Riley Wolfe. Or where he was and what might have happened to him—it had now been five weeks, and still no word from him. All she knew was that he had told her he was about to snag something very special. For Riley that could mean a lot of things, but Monique knew him better than most people. Maybe better than anyone else. And the way he’d said “something special” made her think it was an object of rare beauty. For a thief, Riley had great taste, and he truly knew, and cared, about art. But whether that meant extra danger this time, he did not say. Of course, with Riley, the risk was something she took for granted. It was part of why he did these things—they were usually so insanely dangerous that nobody else would even try them. That was Riley’s ballpark, and he was the MVP of the whole league.
Riley also said he had a buyer lined up, a guy who would pay top dollar—but he wanted her to make a copy of it before he delivered it. That way he could sell the copy, too, getting two paydays for one job, and not incidentally providing a good one for her. It was a typical Riley stunt, and Monique actually thought it was pretty smart, unlike some of the crazy bullshit Riley pulled.
So Monique had been standing by to make a copy of this something, whatever it was. Naturally, because he was Riley Wolfe, he wouldn’t tell her anything about the object. It could be a fifteen-foot bronze statue, a tiny diamond ring, or anything in between. And no matter how many times she pointed out that it would save a lot of time and effort if she knew what to get ready for, he just smiled and shook his head and said she’d find out when it was time. “When it was time,” like she was a little girl waiting for her birthday surprise. It pissed her off maybe more than it should have—again, because it was Riley Wolfe, and there was definitely something about him that made Monique want to slap him silly every time he fed her that line, with his superior smirk.
So she was already fuming, and when he was this late, without a single goddamn word of explanation, those fumes were fanning themselves into flames. But there was work to do—real work, well paid, for people who showed up on time, paid on time, and didn’t make Monique want to scream and shred them with her fingernails, like Riley did. So fuck Riley Wolfe. Whatever he was up to, it was his problem, and the fact that he didn’t bother to call meant nothing to her, except that it would be a stupid waste of time to sit around worrying and wondering if he was all right.
So she didn’t. Not very much, anyway. She buried herself in her work, and if stray Riley thoughts pushed unwanted into her head, she pushed them right back out again. Screw him. He was probably shacked up somewhere with some sleazy slut he’d run into along the way, and if he couldn’t at least call and say he was okay, Monique hoped the woman gave him an STD. Serve him right, the rotten amoral bastard.
So for the nine millionth time Monique shoved Riley out of her mind, picked up her paintbrush, and stared at the canvas, where a woman’s face was taking shape. The forehead was the key here—Caravaggio had a thing about foreheads, and to get the lines just right took a lot of care, intense concentration on the lines and shadows that—
“Saint Catherine?”
The voice came softly, right at her shoulder, and Monique was two feet off the ground before she realized who it was. And when she did realize—she came down swinging.
“Riley, goddamn you!” She connected with the side of his head before he could flinch away, and it felt so good that Monique swung again. Riley managed to duck this time, but his face was already turning red where the first swat had hit him, and that felt just as good. “I told you not to sneak in the window like that!” she said.
“You left it open, and you know—I kind of wanted to climb a little—”
She swung again, just barely clipping his blocking arm. “Fuck you and your fucking parkay—!”
“Parkour,” he corrected mildly.
“I don’t care what the fuck it’s called. How many fucking times have I told you not to do that!” she demanded.
“Um—a lot?” Riley said, still backing away with his hands held up defensively. “I mean, I didn’t count or anything? But it seems like—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up! Where have you been, goddamn it?”
“I can’t shut up and tell you,” he pointed out. She swung again, but he dod
ged it.
“Fuck you, Riley Wolfe! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear that you—I mean, it would just take one two-minute phone call! Would that have killed you?”
Riley looked serious for the first time. “Actually, it might have,” he said.
Monique opened her mouth to tear into him again, and then paused as she realized what he’d said and that he meant it.
“What the fuck does that mean?” she demanded.
“It means,” he said, and he was very serious now, “that I was in some seriously deep shit. I still am.”
“You mean, besides the deep shit you’re in with me?”
Riley looked away, and Monique saw a look on his face she’d never seen before—deep, intense anxiety. Then he looked back at her and tried to smile. He didn’t do a very good job. “I would never underestimate the danger of being on your shit list, Monique,” he said, rubbing his face where she’d clocked him. “But yeah, this is worse. A lot worse.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s hear it.”
