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Claire laughed—not just with her mouth, but with her eyes and her whole being.
“My firm is responsible for the safety of the necklace until it is returned back to theChateau des Templiers.”
She leaned in and looked around with a conspiratorial grin. “Do you really think someone would try again? I don’t recall anything untoward happening at the gala. Did I miss something?”
Something about her casual questioning set off his alarm. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he chided himself to proceed with caution. “No. Nothing happened at the gala, but there had been word on the dark web that a notorious jewel thief had been behind the first attempt. There seemed to be signs that he would try again.”
“Do you know who this thief is?”
He shook his head. “No. No one even knows enough to give him some catchy nickname.”
“Does anyone know anything about him?”
“No, but as I was doing my research, I think I’ve spotted a pattern no one else has noticed.”
“Oooh, like an MO—that’s what they call it right?”
Her grin was infectious and he found himself reflecting it back to her. “MO stands formodus operandi,which means a particular way of doing something. He doesn’t have that. He’s come in through the ductwork, across an alley on a high wire, eluding laser traps, and a lot of other ways. He hits homes, banks, museums…wherever the jewels happen to be. Where I spotted the pattern is in what he steals.”
“Well, if he’s a jewel thief, wouldn’t it stand to reason he steals jewels?”
“Yes, but only jewels with a sketchy provenance, and in particular pieces that were supposedly stolen by the Nazis.
“The Nazis?” she asked, shaking her head. “I think for some the Nazis are like bogeymen and people forget some of the horror they visited not just on the world, but on individuals who had lives and families. I don’t know, sometimes I feel like I’m one of very few people who even cares anymore, and I ask myself why do I care. So many people seem to feel it was more than three-quarters of a century ago, so it doesn’t matter.”
There was something about the way she seemed to be trying to deflect it that didn’t sit right. Deciding to see what kind of reaction he’d get, he continued, “I’m sure the people from whom they were stolen cared a great deal, as do their descendants. Most of them died in the concentration camps. He’s bound to get caught at some point. I’d just like it to be me.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a bounty on his head of ten million dollars.”
Claire choked on something and had to take a gulp of ale to wash whatever it was down her throat. “Ten million?”
“Yeah, Lloyd’s of London started the barrel rolling and then a bunch of the other insurance companies pitched in. They say that doesn’t even touch what the standard finder’s fee of ten percent would be if you added up everything he’s stolen.”
“More than one hundred million?”
He nodded. “And some of the pieces are truly priceless.”
Her fingers wrapped around the bottle of Otter Ale as she brought it to her lips and took a long, slow swallow. He could almost see her throat relaxing under its cool effervescence and he wondered how it would react to a full load of his cum.
“I think I’ve seen a couple of news articles about some high-end master thief, but I never imagined he’d stolen so much, or that the insurance companies were so desperate to catch him. Do you think it ever bothers them that these people are recovering money on jewels that were never theirs in the first place?”
“No. They always have provenance that will cover them, but for the most part, they didn’t steal the jewelry, they simply bought it from a broker who got it from those who got it from the victims.”
“But how does once removed make it better?” She sat back again, clearly incensed.
“It doesn’t. That’s why they have the forged paperwork And some of these people acquire these tainted pieces of jewelry and art and never let it see the light of day.”
“What does the thief do with it?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, snagging one of her chips.
“Well, by this time, doesn’t he have enough money? And if so, then what truly motivates him? Maybe, just maybe, he’s a kind of modern-day Robin Hood. Maybe whoever he is, he wants to see that those who lost so much have their property returned to them. Maybe he is making right those original sins by returning whatever he’s stolen to those to whom it rightly belongs.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s stealing, himself. He too is robbing people of what legally—perhaps not rightfully or morally—belongs to them. The fact is, we live in a world where vigilante justice cannot be tolerated. I know it’s a romantic way to look at life, but where do you draw the line? The whole slippery slope theory always wins out. If someone got away with a theft worth a thousand dollars, why not go to a hundred thousand, or a million?”
“But if he’s not keeping the pieces for himself…”
