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London smiled. “Hanging my Christmas decorations.”
“It’s November.”
“I know!”
“Oh, God. You’re one of those, aren’t you? I should’ve guessed. All excited for a holiday.”
“You know it.”
“I’m gonna need more wine.” She refilled her cup again.
“Wade’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions,” London said, going back to their conversation as she handled the mangled string of lights.
“He has more at stake now. We’re not kids with nothing. He has a life and a business.”
“So tell him we don’t need help. We’ll back you up.”
Nikki groaned. “But I’m selfish. Iwantto work with him. Stealing the Devereaux from the Carlisle Museum was fun. Watching him teach Mia to run a con? Hilarious. I hadn’t realized how much I missed working with him.” She glugged down more wine.
The doorbell rang again and London went to let Audrey in.
“Hey,” Audrey said. “Did you get my message?”
“No. I must’ve forgotten to charge my phone. But Nikki’s here.”
“Good.” As they walked down the hall toward the loft, Audrey pulled off the kit beanie she often wore and shook out her dark brown hair.
“Eh. You might want to reserve that judgment until you see her.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“She’s fighting with Wade.”
“Am not,” Nikki yelled from inside the loft.
After closing the door behind them, London said, “So what’s up? Did you and Jared figure out how to move forward?”
“Pshh,” Nikki waved a hand as she filled her mug again. She pointed at Audrey. “No offense to your boyfriend, but we’d’ve been fine without the major pause.”
Audrey sighed. “He wouldn’t have made us stop without reason. There was too much suspicion.”
“What’s the plan? It’d be great to get rid of some of these.” She gestured to the canvases in the corner of the room. Then, she scooped up the tangled lights and shoved them on top of the bin so Audrey could sit.
“What’s with the lights?” Audrey asked. “A little early, isn’t it?”
“I was bored and feeling sad. Christmas makes me happy.”
“Okay,” Audrey continued, “Jared and I have been poring over the notes Mia left us about the art and the owners. So far, we’ve only found five pieces that are insured by a company other than Atlas.”
She handed London a piece of paper.
Before looking at it, London asked, “I’m still not sure what the big deal is about taking the ones Atlas insures. We’re not taking from Atlas.”
“Atlas is scrutinizing everything right now because of the rash of forgeries provided by us. If they think it’s an inside job, they might start re-evaluating all the pieces they insure. If they authenticate one on the list that we haven’t gotten to, they’ll pay out when we do get to it.”
London nodded. “I guess that does ruin the whole revenge-embarrassment plan. Okay, so we move on to other pieces and give Atlas a reprieve.”
“Plus, Atlas is the only link the FBI has.”
