A Touch of Minx (18 page)

The two boys put clothes back on, thank God, but not the ones they'd worn to school. Ratty, ripped, and Splattered with red, they went over to Mike, who held a tray of what looked like paint. As he spread black around their eyes and streaked more red into their hair and on their faces and hands, it dawned on her. Makeup. And costumes. And Clark was a prop of some kind.

Then David pulled a camcorder out of his backpack and set it on a tripod they'd evidently stashed in the old warehouse. A movie. They were making a horror movie—or at least she assumed it wasn't a romance. Relieved, she kept watching as Mike and another boy put on black T-shirts with POLICE printed in white across the back. Then they went through a scene, zombies versus cops, with Clark as an unfortunate female victim being ripped open. Blood and internal organs flew everywhere, with blood packs and fake guns going off to complete the mayhem.

She laughed silently. Of all the scenarios she'd envisioned for Clark, seeing him turned into a movie star hadn't been one of them. It was a pretty clever idea, really.

It probably would have been simple if she wanted to go and retrieve Anatomy Man right then, but since the kids knew that she was acquainted with Mike, he would get the blame for ratting them out and ruining the movie. And she'd kind of given her word to him that she wouldn't wreck his reputation with his friends.

Quietly she backed off. From the look of things, Clark wasn't going anywhere. For one thing, according to the paperwork from Miss Barlow, he weighed seventy-five pounds. For another, the boys had obviously been keeping him there for the last couple of days, anyway. Clark's removal could wait, until the Spielbergs were finished for the day.

Before she climbed the fence again she took a quick, quiet walk around the perimeter. She could haul Anatomy

Man back over the fence, but she didn't want to rip his latex skin or clock herself with him if he fell. At the front of the warehouse a rolling chain-link gate opened onto a cul-de-sac. Or it would, if not for the heavy chain and padlock keeping it closed.

That would be her way in, then. It would be much easier to pull Clark out to the back of a car than to get him over an eight-foot fence. With a last glance into the warehouse to make sure the guys hadn't seen her, she climbed the back fence again, landing in the alley on the far side.

Samantha dusted off her pants and then went around to the Explorer again. One caper almost down, and one more very big one on hold until she heard from Castillo or Stoney, or until the Mallorey party tomorrow when she could check out Wild Bill Toombs's closed-off room for herself.

When she put the Explorer into reverse and backed out of her parking spot, she caught sight of a black Miata on the far side of the burger place. Okay, Palm Beach might be a small, insular community like Rick said, but it wasn't that small.

"Okay, buddy," she muttered, hauling the wheel around, "let's find out who you are."

As she turned the Explorer in the Miata's direction, the black car accelerated and merged into the street. Without hesitation, Samantha pulled out after it. If the Miata had been tailing her while she'd been following the kids, then she was losing her touch. Getting followed under any circumstances was very, very bad.

The sports car accelerated down the street, weaving through slower afternoon traffic. With the Explorer she wasn't sure she could catch up—and especially not with-out drawing a lot of attention to herself. That could spook the boys, and she'd lose track of Clark again. And Clark needed to be back home in Miss Barlow's classroom by the beginning of school on Monday.

"Shit." Slowing down to the legal limit, she made a left and headed back in the direction of the island. The Miata would have to wait, but she wasn't going to forget about it. Not until she figured out what was going on.

@

Friday, 5:19 p.m.

Richard sat out by the pool, a beer at his el-bow, and looked over the revised incorporation documents for the local television station he'd bought last year. "Why am I even looking at this?" he asked.

"Because you said you wanted me to run it by you before I filed it," Tom Donner answered, working on his own beer. "All we changed were the fiscal report dates."

Taking a breath, Richard picked up his pen and signed off on the affected pages. "Next time I do this, remind me that I'm too important to be wasting my time with fiscal reports."

"You got it."

Tom leaned over the table and pulled Samantha's sketches for the pool around to face him. "Did the nursery guys leave these? You must be throwing a lot of money around to earn the Monet treatment. Don't tell Jellicoe I said so, but this is going to look nice."

"Actually, Samantha drew those."

"Jellicoe?"

"Mm hm."

Tom looked through the half dozen drawings of the planned pool, landscaping, and plants. "Jellicoe drew these? Really?"

"She did."

"What the hell's she doing being a cat burglar when she could be Picasso?"

"Put that in the past tense, if you please. The cat burglar bit, anyway."

"I hate to say it, but she's good. In my amateurish opinion, of course."

That was his Samantha, modern-day Renaissance woman. Richard wondered from time to time if there was anything she couldn't do. Except become ordinary. She could pretend that on occasion, but for her, "ordinary" was only a mask. "I'll pass your opinion along, shall I?"

"I wouldn't."

"Hi, fellas," Samantha said from the balcony of the master suite above and behind him.

Richard twisted to glance up at her. All in one piece, thank God. "How is Clark?"

She came up behind him, sliding her hands down his shoulders and leaning around to kiss his cheek. "How did the garden negotiations go?"

"You'll—"

"Clark?" Tom repeated, breaking in on the conversation. "Livia's dummy? You found it?"

Samantha shrugged. "I have some leads," she said, swiping Richard's beer and taking a drink.

"You'll find it," Richard said, hoping he sounded encouraging. "And to answer your question, the garden negotiations went swimmingly. You'll have enough left on your gift certificate for several beds of flowers and a wheelbarrow."

"Excellent. I've been wanting a wheelbarrow."

He grinned, despite the abrupt realization that her relaxed, easy demeanor probably meant that she'd satisfied her adrenaline craving for the day. And that generally entailed her doing something illegal—or dangerous, at the least. "By the by," he said coolly, "Detective Castillo called the house." He glanced at his watch. "He'll be here in about twenty minutes."

She nodded, dropping into the chair between him and Tom. "I hope that means he's got something for me."

It would be nice if whatever information Castillo had would encourage her to change her mind about breaking into Toombs's house tomorrow night. "He didn't say."

Tom pushed to his feet. "Well, before the discussions about illegal activities start, I should get going. Katie's making enchiladas."

"Much as I'd like to hurry you on your way," Samantha put in, "there's a cop coming to the house. Should you be drinking and driving now, Dormer?"

"I had a third of a beer, Jellicoe. Rick?" He shook hands with Richard, then headed into the house toward the front door.

"That was nice of you to worry about him," Richard said.

"It was beer from your house. I was worried about you."

"Ah." Richard accepted his bottle of beer back and took another swallow. He wasn't driving anywhere tonight. "So, anything interesting in your life today?"

"Maybe."

"Your lead about Clark didn't pan out?"

Her mouth twisted briefly. "I know something about somebody you consider a friend," she said, her green eyes alert and serious. "I think I can fix things, make it all come out okay, so my question is, do you want me to name names, or keep somebody's secret for them?"

She'd said all that without giving him a clue even about whether this someone was male or female. "Does keeping this secret endanger you in any way?"

"No. It will hurt this person's reputation if it should get out. And I'm not sure that's deserved."

"Would it change my opinion of this person?"

"It might. And it would put you in the middle of something that you'd probably prefer to avoid."

He wanted to know. He hadn't built his empire by being satisfied with ignorance on his part or anyone else's. But Samantha excelled at reading both him and everyone else, and if she seriously thought he wouldn't want to know, he probably didn't. Otherwise she would have told him outright. "Unless you need my help, I'll consider this to be your business," he said slowly. "But if you do need my help, you will tell me. Fair?"

She nodded, squeezing his fingers briefly. "Fair."

He eyed her for a second. "This is about Clark, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"Just clarifying." Richard cleared his throat. "Any news from Walter?"

"No. The ads will show up in the papers tomorrow." She started for his beer again, then put her hands back in her lap. If he hadn't made the study of Samantha Jellicoe his primary concern over the past year, he wouldn't have known anything troubled her. "Is there a Plan B, if he doesn't respond to the ads?"

"I've never had to figure out a Plan B."' Her lips tightened. "There are a couple of old hangouts I could try, and a couple of old acquaintances I could hit up. And if he doesn't get hold of me tomorrow, I'll call Delroy in New York. He might have an idea or two."

"What about the police?" he asked, even though he was fairly certain he already knew the answer to that one. "A missing persons report?"

"No way," she returned, as he'd expected. "I don't want the cops digging into Walter Barstone's life any more than I want them digging into mine."

He turned his hand over, and she placed her fingers into his palm. "And there are things you could do before to find him that you can't do now," he said quietly. And Walter had never gone missing for this long when she'd been crooked. Would she blame him or her new life for Barstone's absence? God, he hoped not.

She shrugged. "If he got into something, I don't know what it is. But I'm going to break his neck if he doesn't have a really good reason for bailing on me like this."

"Hi, kids," Detective Castillo said, coming through the same set of double doors that Tom had used.

"Hi, Frank," Samantha answered, freeing her hand.

In the past, Richard had been much more familiar with police chiefs and mayors than with their subordinates. And when a homicide detective they'd met in the course of his job could refer to him, one of the wealthiest men in the world, as "kid," life had taken a turn for the quirky. And Richard rather liked it that way. "Frank," he said. "May I get you a beer or a soda or something?"

"A Diet Coke would be great."

While Castillo sat at their table, putting a folder down on top of Samantha's sketches, Richard went to the soon-to-be-redesigned barbecue and pulled a soda from the small refrigerator there. "Samantha?"

"I'm good, but somebody's almost finished off your beer."

Chuckling, he pulled out another beer with his free hand and closed the fridge with his bare foot. Samantha was witty and sharp under the worst of circumstances, but after a nice, satisfying, relaxing adrenaline rush—or an orgasm, which he preferred for her safety's sake, if nothing else— she surpassed herself. And, he realized abruptly, he'd just freely agreed not to ask her what she'd been up to. That clever little minx. Richard hesitated, then handed over the drinks and took his seat again.

Castillo popped the tab on his soda and drank. "Okay. I went to my guys in Robbery, and I turned up nothing except what I already told you."

Samantha glared at him. "I waited four days for that? Give back that soda."

"Hey, let me finish! Because you mentioned Japanese antiques, I compiled a list of people from around here who've had any of that stuff stolen from them." He opened the folder. "This is what I came up with."

"Can I see it?" Samantha asked, reaching.

"No. I'm not even here, okay?"

"Jeez. So tell me, then."

IS

"First, I have a question. Why Gabriel Toombs and the Picaults?"

Richard sat forward. "They have the largest Japanese collections on the entire East Coast."

"That's it?"

Not looking at Samantha, Richard nodded. "That's it." Confessing that she'd stolen something on Toombs's behalf and that the Picaults felt hinky and that she'd logically eliminated all other credible suspects wouldn't benefit anybody except maybe Castillo's guys in Robbery.

The detective blew out his breath. "One of these days I'm going to explain the meaning of 'cooperation' to you. Like I said before, the Picaults were robbed once, about four years ago, in New York. They lost mostly electronics, jewelry, and cash, plus a small jade statue of a guy on a horse." He glanced in Samantha's direction, then went back to the folder. "Toombs has never been hit," he continued, "not that I can find, anyway. About a half-dozen other robberies in the area were Japanese antiquities."

"He's never been robbed?" Samantha repeated, making the statement a question.

"He's never reported a robbery. Why, do you know something I don't?"

"So many things, I have no idea where to start."

"Mm hm. Well, I know a thing or two, too. Guys with samurai sword collections and the training to use them probably don't get hit. Not successfully, anyway."

Samantha paused, Richard's new beer halfway to her lips. "Frank, Mr. Homicide Detective, did you ever happen across a D.B. with big old sword cuts?"

"D.B.?" Richard interrupted.

"Dead body, officially," Castillo supplied. "Or dirt bag, unofficially. And yes, I did. Two and a half years ago. The guy was a hood, a gang member, and honestly we had too many suspects and no way to narrow it down. Decapitation, though, isn't really street gang style."

"So you suspected Gabriel Toombs?"

"He has kind of a reputation for having a very rigid sense of justice. Like 1 said, though, no proof. And honestly, there were other guys with more motive. Toombs never reported a break-in or anything. And I could be totally off base with this."

Christ. "If you thought you were so off base, as you say, you wouldn't have mentioned it."

Castillo collected his folder and his soda and stood. "I just like to give people a heads-up. Because I believe in cooperation and everything. So is there anything you want to tell me about any of this?"

"Sure," Samantha said, turning in her chair to face the detective. "I've got a black Miata following me around. Any ideas?"

"Yeah. I'll run black Miatas. There's probably only a hundred or so of them in Palm Beach County."

"The first three numbers or letters or whatever on the plates are 3J3, if that helps."

"It might. I'll take a look. Bye, Rick, Sam."

"Thank you, Detective."

Fiddling with the beer bottle, Richard waited until Castillo was gone before he cocked his head at Samantha. "You saw the Miata again, I presume?"

"I did. And when I started after it, it went into warp drive and disappeared. Since it wouldn't know I was following it unless it was following me first, I'm pretty sure it was. Following me, I mean."

"You lost it, then?" he asked, surprised. "Traffic, kids, me in your incognito car—going all Darth Vader on the Miata didn't seem like a very smart thing to do."

"Speaking of smart things to do," he began, "how about not breaking into Toombs's house?"

"Don't start that again, Rick," she said, her voice calmer than he expected. "He can't hack me to pieces if he doesn't know I'm there. And he won't. I just need a look into one room."

"Unless the swords and armor are in there."

She blew out her breath. "I used to do this kind of thing— exactly this kind of thin—for a living, Brit. I'm good at it. And I know what I'm doing."

"I'm going with you."

"Rick, you are not going with m—"

"Will you carry a gun?" he interrupted.

"No. Guns are for guys who can't get in and out without being seen."

"Guns are to keep you alive when someone goes after you with a samurai sword," he insisted. "I'm going to carry one, and I'm going with you. Now if you think you can win this argument, go ahead and try. Otherwise, I think we should go and get some picanha."

"Hans is cooking top sirloin? We must have been good today."

"Don't change the subject. Do I tail you and ruin your B and E, or do we go in together?"

She muttered something that didn't sound very flattering. "Fine. If you agree to do what I say."

"I agree," he said easily.