A Brilliant Deception (18 page)

I
n the safe house, Jack forced himself to watch Cat’s eyes steadily as she told him about Esmerelda’s murder. He knew she needed him to be strong, and the sight of her so distraught, wet and shaking in her scuba suit, flared every protective urge he possessed.

And then her expression slowly changed—he could see it happening in her eyes, as she gazed back at him. He watched her anguish compress into something fierce.

“I need to contact Gladys,” Cat said abruptly. “And Templeton. We need to plan our next move—”

“Cat,” Jack interrupted gently. “Just breathe. It’s been a hell of a night. Why don’t you take a minute for yourself, okay? We’ll figure everything out soon enough.”

Cat hesitated and then nodded. She excused herself to the washroom. Jack watched her walk away and raked a hand through his hair.

A minute later, Ethan arrived. “Were you followed?” Jack demanded sharply.

Ethan shook his head. He was still damp from his swim in the canal, and his eyes looked haunted. There was no need to discuss Esmerelda’s death. They all knew the situation by now.

Cat returned to the main room, and Ethan looked quickly at her, suddenly hopeful. “The ring?”

Jack flinched. Cat swallowed and shook her head, then told them the whole story of what had happened in the vault. Jack’s eyebrows lifted when she got to the part about Brooke. “So Brooke Sinclair is fully Caliga now?”

Cat nodded. And then hesitated. “Well, I’m not sure about fully. After Esmerelda was shot—I saw her face. She was there, she’d raced to the Grand Canal, probably in pursuit of me . . . and she saw what happened to Esmerelda. And there was no mistaking her revulsion.”

Everyone was silent a moment.

“I don’t think she knows what she signed up for, joining them,” Cat said.

“Well, perhaps she didn’t,” Jack said, “but she does now.”

Ethan turned to Felix. “Who’s in charge? Is it Reilly?”

Felix shook his head. “Reilly is high up, but he’s not the man at the top.”

“So who is?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Felix admitted. “They spoke of him, but they didn’t use his name. And I never saw him. I don’t even know if he’s here, in Venice.”

Ethan pursed his mouth and exhaled hard. “So what now?” he asked. “Do we try again?”

Felix shook his head. “You won’t be able to try in Venice again. They’re taking the ring out of here tonight.”

“To where?” Cat asked.

“Singapore,” Felix said.

Cat’s forehead furrowed. “Why Singapore? What’s their plan? And how did you learn all this stuff, anyway?”

“They assumed I didn’t speak Italian,” Felix said, shrugging. “They were wrong.”

“So what do we do now?” Cat asked, looking around at everyone.

“We have to go,” Ethan said, with a determined set to his jaw. “Esmerelda would want us to continue.”

Jack, who had been merely listening to all this, sat back in his chair and looked pointedly at Felix. “Well,
you
are not going anywhere.”

“Like hell I’m not,” Felix blustered.

Jack crossed his arms firmly. “I didn’t fly across the globe to rescue you, only to have you put yourself in the exact same goddamn position.”

The room went silent.

“Wait—what?” Cat said after a moment, looking between the two of them with astonishment. “You came to rescue . . .
him
?”

Ethan and Cat exchanged a bewildered glance.

Jack said nothing. Felix glared at him. “He’s my brother,” Felix said.

Cat’s head spun to face her trainee. “He’s
what?
”

Jack shrugged. “Half brother, technically.”

“And I am going to Singapore,” Felix said.

“Fine. Then I guess I’m going, too,” Jack said. “We’ll go to Singapore. Just to assess the situation. And then we’ll walk away, if we have to. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

At that point, Cat’s phone beeped. She tore her eyes away from the standoff and glanced down.

“Hang on, Gladys,” she said, answering the call. “We’re sorting something out.” She looked questioningly at everyone. “So, am I safe in saying . . . we need four tickets to Singapore?”

Jack and Felix continued glaring at each other.

“Wait,” said Ethan. “Is there any chance we can stop them before they leave Venice? Before they even go to Singapore?” He looked to Felix for an answer.

“Maybe. If we act fast—”

“It’s going to have to be really fast,” Cat interrupted. “You might want to look at this.” Cat turned the screen to face everyone and it flickered to a real-time CCTV shot of a helicopter landing on the
campo
outside Caliga’s palazzo. Everyone watched as the Caliga team loaded into the chopper. There was little doubt they were decamping right then and there. But Jack noticed Brooke was not among them.

“There’s no way we can catch them,” Cat said, her voice tense. Jack knew she was frustrated. She was never good at hiding that.

“They must be taking the helicopter to the airport,” Ethan said.

Jack nodded. It would be Marco Polo Airport, on the mainland, about four miles north.

“So, Gladys, can you get us four tickets on the next flight to Singapore?” Cat asked.

“Not a problem,” she chirped. The sound of computer keys clicking came over the line. “It’s not a frequent flight path, though. There might be a delay of a day or two . . .”

Jack ran his tongue along his teeth as he struggled with the idea that had occurred to him. “Belay that,” he said suddenly. “It’s fine, we don’t need the tickets. We’ll take my ride.” Jack had traveled to Venice on his private jet, and it was still waiting for him at the airport.

He hazarded a glance at Cat. She was grinning.

“Gladys, can you follow them, and find out where they’re going?” Ethan asked.

“Of course, dear. Once they land, I’ll be able to monitor their movements.”

Cat sat back and chewed her thumbnail. “I still have a lot of questions,” she said. “There’s so much we don’t know. We don’t even really know what Caliga has planned, and why they want the Lionheart Ring.”

“Actually, we do,” Felix said.

All eyes shifted to him.

“The Lionheart was made with the Gold.”

 

D
espite Jack’s jet being a fully stocked, luxuriously appointed, five-star hotel on wings, I couldn’t sleep a wink. My mind swirled and churned like a whirlpool, processing the fact that the Lionheart Ring had been fashioned with the long-lost Gold of the Gifts of the Magi. I had known the Lionheart was an extraordinary piece of jewelry; I hadn’t realized
how
extraordinary.

The story of the Gifts of the Magi was becoming clearer now. In the course of history, the three Gifts had been broken up—the Gold taken and crafted into the Lionheart Ring in the twelfth century, the Frankincense and Myrrh locked inside a Fabergé egg several centuries later.

We had found the long-lost Fabergé last autumn, after generations of searching . . . only to have it spirited away by Caliga. And just as we’d learned the secret location of the Gold, Caliga—once again—had beaten us to it.

I shifted in the leather seat I was stretched out on while jazz music tinkled in the background. In spite of the physical comfort, I couldn’t clear my head. The stakes of this job were so much higher now, and more people were getting involved. And more than that—people were sacrificing their very lives for the cause. A hard lump formed in my throat thinking about Esmerelda.

I couldn’t quit, though. If for no other reason, I had to keep going for her. She had believed in this mission. I would see it through, for Esmerelda.

Gladys popped up on a video call. I sat up straight at the sound of the video feed coming through, as did Jack. He moved over to sit beside me so we could both hear what Gladys had to say.

I glanced behind me to where Felix and Ethan were still sleeping. I thought about waking them up, but they looked peaceful and relaxed. And, as a group, we needed to get as much rest as we could. Jack and I could get the details and relay it to them later.

“Okay, so tell us, Gladys. What have you learned?”

I glanced at Jack, wondering what he was thinking. On our way to the airstrip, Jack had made a call. All he’d said was, “If the Lionheart is actually made of the Gold, the gold from the Gifts . . . I know somebody who would be very interested in hearing about that.” I asked him if it was Wesley he’d called, but he’d refused to tell me.

As we sat side by side, I realized it was the closest I’d been to Jack in ages. I could tell by his rumpled appearance that he’d tried to sleep, too, but had obviously been unsuccessful, as well. It was a look I was familiar with. How many times had I woken up next to Jack, with him looking exactly that way?

“There’s an Australian businessman in Singapore,” Gladys was saying on the video screen. “A rather powerful fellow, name of Chips Walker, he retired in Singapore because it’s a marvelous tax haven. He happens to be a billionaire, and he’s involved with Caliga. In fact, he appears to be funding their plan.”

“What’s their plan?”

“It’s hard to say. But I must tell you, it feels like something big. Eastern power appears to be getting involved, somehow. Chips Walker has a lot of contacts in North Korea, and China, and they seem to be positioning themselves for something.”

I frowned, considering that. Gladys kept speaking. “I did hack into an e-mail from Walker. He was talking about the power of the Lionheart. A power that straddles East and West. Because of the fact that it belonged to a Western king, but was given to him by an Eastern sultan, Saladin.”

Plus
, I thought, the fact that it had been fashioned from the Gold that was part of the original Gifts of the Magi—a gift from Eastern kings.

Gladys was right. This
did
feel big. But what did it all mean?

She signed off then, saying she was going to keep digging and would tell us more once she learned it. Also, that she needed to attend to her pineapple upside-down cake or it would burn.

I glanced at Jack. He was deep in thought. My eyes traced his face. He was starting to get some scruff; he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. It suited him. In fact, even rumpled and scruffy, he looked amazing. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and he smelled great—like soap and fresh pine needles.

I cleared my throat and straightened my cardigan, then got up to use the restroom. I needed to stop this. In the tiny restroom I looked at myself sternly in the mirror.
Do
not
get pulled in, Cat. Do not fall for him again. Jack is not yours, and he never will be.

I walked out of the washroom, still completely lost in thought, not paying attention, and walked right into Jack, who was standing right outside the door.

He put out an arm to steady me. I looked up at him in a daze. “Whoa there,” he said. “Somebody need a coffee?”

I smiled. “Yeah. Definitely. It’s been a tiring couple of days.”

The space outside the restroom was tiny. Standing so close to Jack suddenly, being held by him, touched, feeling his warmth, smelling his skin—it made me feel even more light-headed than I had before. His touch was so familiar. It brought back, in an instant, all the memories of being physical with him—in bed, in the shower, on the kitchen counter . . . my face flushed, burning—where had
that
memory come from?

I cleared my throat again and broke away from Jack, quickly returning to my seat. Within minutes, everyone else had woken up. Once the flight attendant had brought fresh coffee and breakfast, and we had updated Ethan and Felix about Caliga and Chips Walker, we got to business. We needed a plan.

“Okay, so Singapore is tiny, as far as countries go,” Ethan said, digging in to the omelet in front of him. “But I think we need a few more specifics on location.” He looked to the video screen, where Gladys had popped up again, in a real-time feed.

“There’s only one place they could be taking it,” Gladys said. “It’s Walker’s most secure location. Here, I’ll show you.”

A picture flashed on the screen. It was a super-modern high-rise, one of these architectural marvels with three towers and an enormous platform stretching between all three, like a space age Stonehenge.

“The Marina Bay Sands,” Gladys was saying. “One of the most iconic buildings on Singapore’s waterfront, a luxury resort and casino. It also has the honor of being the world’s most expensive building. The towers are fifty-five stories high, and the platform on the top is called the SkyPark. It contains gardens and restaurants and an enormous vanishing-edge pool.”

The idea of swimming and viewing the skyline two hundred meters above the city sent shivers down my spine. It would be incredible. Two months ago, that height would have seen me panicking. I was thankful I’d gotten over that brief spell of fear.

“Walker has more than one high-tech vault contained within the complex. The Lionheart Ring will be inside one of them. Here are the possibilities.” Gladys went on to produce files and schematics and blueprints of the Marina Bay Sands. For the next hour, over several rounds of coffee, we sketched out a plan for entry.

Ethan was grimacing at the blueprint in front of him. “What about the getaway?” he said. “This place is a fortress. Getting out is going to be even harder than getting in.” He was right. Every good thief always needs several ways of getting out of a building, should things go sour.

Jack nodded. “We’ll need a few solid extraction plans. Can’t always count on ex-professors turning up in speedboats, can we?” He glanced at me with a crooked smile. My heart thumped.

“Or being able to hand a pink wig off to an unsuspecting decoy,” Felix said, looking at me with a grin.

I smiled back, knowing he was talking about my recent Beverly Hills heist. The others looked confused. “Inside joke,” I said to them. “A little thing about my last job.”

We turned our attention to devising a few breakout plans. But as we worked, I felt a growing discomfort deep in my stomach. There was something about what Felix had said that didn’t sit right with me.

When Felix got up to use the restroom, I watched him go, then stared out the window, frowning. My insides flip-flopped. I didn’t typically get squeamish on airplanes, but at that moment I was very uncomfortable. And then I realized why.

I had never told anyone about the pink wig.

It was a detail I’d neglected to mention to Templeton. After all the stuff that happened after that job, with my mother, I didn’t do my usual debriefing. So the question was, if I never told anyone about the pink wig, how could Felix possibly know about it?

Unless he had been following me. Or, maybe, talking to someone else who’d been watching me. But why would he keep that a secret?

Panicky questions crowded into my brain. How did he know about the wig? Who was Felix, really? And the stickiest question of all: could he be working for the other side? Was there a chance Felix was actually Caliga?