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“I did, but it doesn’t last indefinitely. I figured I’d wait until we got here.”
“And why are you here?” I wasn’t magical. If somebody turned Dusty into a swan, I was hardly the one to reverse the spell.
Gun glanced at the bird. “Dusty looks uncomfortable on the floor. Can we talk in a room with furniture?”
“That narrows down the options to the kitchen or my bedroom.”
“Kitchen it is,” Dusty said, and waddled behind her brother to the adjacent room at the back of the house.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked as they settled at the table. I suppressed a laugh as Gunther pulled out a chair for the swan.
“No, thanks. We only want to ask for what we need and be on our way. I’d like to be home in time to give out candy.” He cleared his throat. “Unlike some people.”
My curiosity was officially piqued. “What is it that you need?”
The swan and her brother exchanged glances.
“Let me start at the beginning,” Dusty said. “I got myself into a bit of a quandary.”
“You don’t say.”
“I was caught stealing,” she began.
“The criminal apple doesn’t fall far from the criminal tree. Let me guess—you stole from a magic user who turned you into a swan.”
“Not quite. I tried to steal from a wealthy asshat. His security was better than I anticipated.”
“Clearly,” I said.
Gun rose to his sister’s defense. “Dusty is an excellent thief.”
“What were you trying to steal?”
“That’s irrelevant,” she said.
“Not to me, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
The swan rolled her eyes, which looked more comical than it had any right to. “Fine. I was hired to steal artwork.”
“Artwork? Like a Picasso?”
“Like a Judd Tyler.”
“Who’s Judd Tyler?”
“He’s an up-and-coming artist. Very hot in the New York City art scene right now. Judd found out one of his paintings had been bought from a gallery by someone he considers beneath his work. He hired me to liberate it.”
It took me a minute to collect my thoughts, of which there were many. “Let me get this straight. An artist sold one of his pieces, but he doesn’t think the buyer is good enough to own it, so he paid you to steal it.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Gun agreed.
“Couldn’t he at least offer a refund if the guy returned it?” It seemed like the logical next step.
“Vincenzo Magnarella would never have agreed to that. He’s as arrogant and stubborn as they come,” Gun said.
So was Judd as far as I was concerned. “Does Judd Tyler know he can’t control who owns his work any more than Nora Roberts can control who buys her books?”
“He was worried that the purchase would hurt his reputation and future earnings,” Dusty replied. “Guilt by association.”
