Always a Thief (4 page)

It was a familiar path she walked, one she had walked countless times in recent weeks, but even so she didn't let her guard down. Planning and practice, she had discovered, were the keys to success.

She was very successful, very good at what she did.

Less than ten minutes later, she was moving silently through the dungeonlike corridors of the museum's huge basement. Patrols down here were almost nonexistent, but she was forced to avoid one bored guard moving through the main corridor methodically checking doors.

After he'd gone, she looked at her watch, mentally reminded herself she'd have just enough time before his next pass through the corridor, then continued on.

She had to pass through two more doors, both locked and both easily opened with the aid of tools she carried, before she reached her goal. It was dark down here, with no more than dim safety lights burning, but with the aid of the small but powerful flashlight she carried, there was enough light for her to do her work.

She shrugged off the backpack and knelt to open it. The first thing she lifted from the bag was a canvas-wrapped bundle. She placed it on the floor beside her pack and carefully turned back the canvas to reveal a knife. It was about twelve inches long, with a hammered brass blade and carved wooden handle.

It looked old. It was old.

It was also stained with dried blood.

She smiled and got busy.

By Sunday morning Quinn felt well enough to get dressed and move around Morgan's apartment under his own steam. Slowly at first, but steadily gaining strength.

Max had come by with the doctor to check on his progress early in the day, but other than those visitors Quinn and Morgan were alone together. True to his word, Quinn shelved his Don Juan persona, and she wasn't very surprised to find him an excellent companion.

He was a lively and amusing conversationalist, which she had known, never seemed to lose his sense of humor, could talk intelligently on any number of subjects, had seen a respectable chunk of the world, and played a mean game of poker. He even helped her in the kitchen. Skillfully yet.

Morgan didn't mention the murdered woman Max had told her about. She didn't bring up the subject of why Quinn was in San Francisco, ask him exactly what he'd been doing to get himself shot, or castigate him for not telling her the truth—ostensible truth, anyway—about his involvement with the
Mysteries Past
trap.

Quinn also didn't mention anything potentially touchy. She thought both of them avoided the more dangerous subjects, and though she didn't know his reasons she certainly knew hers.

Quite simply, she didn't want him to lie to her—and she was reasonably sure he would.

They were casual with each other, and aside from one heated argument when Quinn wanted to give up her bed and sleep on the couch instead (Morgan won), they got along fine. But there was a growing awareness between them, a building tension that was difficult to ignore. Perhaps it was the inevitable result of spending so much time together, or perhaps something much more complicated, and by Monday night Morgan was clinging to her resolve with both hands.

She was afraid she was on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid, and she had the unnerved feeling he knew it too.

After they'd eaten dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, Morgan left him watching an old movie on television while she went to take a shower. She had gone out of her way to be conservative in her clothes, wearing mostly oversize sweaters and shirts with jeans and, at night, a pair of oriental-style black pajamas and robe that covered her decently by anybody's standards.

It didn't seem to help.

When she returned to the living room, clad in her oriental pajamas and a robe, the television was turned down low, only one lamp burned, and Quinn was standing by the front window—the same one through which he'd entered wounded—gazing out at a chilly, foggy San Francisco night. He was wearing jeans with a button-up white shirt, the collar open and cuffs turned back loosely on his tanned forearms. The bandage on his shoulder didn't show, and he didn't look as if he'd ever been wounded.

“Is something wrong?” she asked immediately, wondering if he'd been alerted by anything he heard or saw.

“No, I was just thinking . . . it's a good night for skulking around out there.” He turned, but his face was still in shadow.

Morgan felt oddly breathless and swore at herself silently for it. She was being ridiculous.
And stupid. Let's not forget stupid
. “Oh. Is this the kind of night you like? For—skulking, I mean.”

He didn't answer immediately, and when he did there was a thread of tension in his voice. “It's the kind of night I'm used to. The kind of night I've seen a lot of. When the line between black and white blurs in the darkness.”

She went slowly toward him, halting no more than an arm's length away. His size always surprised her when she was this close to him, because there was something so lithe and graceful about the way he moved she tended to forget the sheer physical power of broad shoulders and superbly conditioned muscles. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him.

“Is that all you find nights like this good for? What about when you're inside, like this?”

He drew a short breath and let it out roughly. “Something blameless, I suppose. Read a good book, watch television. Play cards.”

“Strip poker?”

“A game you wouldn't play,” he reminded her.

“Maybe I've changed my mind.” She heard herself say it and couldn't believe the words were coming out of her mouth.
I'm out of my mind. Absolutely, unconditionally out of my mind
. . . Quinn reached up with one hand to brush a strand of her long black hair away from her face, his fingers lingering for just a moment to stroke her cheek. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his mouth sensuous, and she could feel a slight tremor in his long fingers as they touched her.

Then, abruptly, he turned away and crossed the room to the hallway leading to the bedroom. “Good night, Morgana,” he said briskly over his shoulder. Seconds later, the bedroom door closed softly.

. . .
and not much of a vamp, apparently
.

There wasn't much a woman could do when she had been rejected except wrap her pride about herself and try to put the rebuff behind her, so that's what Morgan did. She even managed, after a couple of glasses of wine, to drop off to sleep somewhere around dawn.

When she woke up Tuesday morning, Quinn was gone.

It was just after nine when Max met Morgan in the lobby of the museum as she came in.

“Keane's due here in about an hour to talk to you,” Max said after greeting her. “How's your houseguest?”

“Gone,” Morgan replied succinctly, proud of her matter-of-fact tone. “He was up and dressed most of yesterday, and gone when I got up this morning.” She paused, then added dryly, “While I was getting ready to leave, a florist delivered a lovely vase of flowers. No card.”

“Well, at least he said thank you.”

“He did say it once or twice while he was healing,” she admitted. “But the flowers were a nice touch.”

Max smiled slightly, but his eyes were grave. “Don't be too hard on yourself for . . . feeling the effects of his charm.”

“I think I should be appalled,” she muttered.

“Do you? Morgan, have you realized that, even six months ago, you were so fixated on work and so closed off from other people that you would have seen Quinn as pure evil, a completely negative force?”

“You're trying to tell me that would have been a bad thing?”

“Of course it would have. People are far more complex than that; their desires and motives tangled and contradictory. Alex is no more a purely evil man than he is a purely good man—he's just a man. And you've opened up enough, learned to trust your instincts enough, to be able to see that.”

“And just complicate the hell out of my life. Oh, goodie.”

“You have to admit you're enjoying this complicated new life a lot more than you were your old one.”

Morgan did admit that, but silently. What she said was, “He's a thief, Max. Whatever he's doing now with Interpol is because he had to, not because he wanted to.”

“Granted. But even good men can make bad choices, Morgan. Keep it in mind.”

“You like him,” she realized, surprised.

“I like him. I don't harbor any illusions about him, though. He's three parts chameleon, and he'll always find a way to fit himself into whatever role he's playing. So it is a bit difficult to see the man behind the gifted actor.”

Morgan thought about that for a moment, absently watching visitors wandering through the lobby. “Didn't you just contradict yourself? He can't be a good man who made a bad choice
and
a chameleon always playing a part and hiding his true self. Can he?”

“Can't he?” Without waiting for her to respond to that, Max added, “I have a meeting with Ken and the board, but Storm, Wolfe, and Jared are waiting for you in your office. You should all get up to speed on the latest . . . developments.”

“Gotcha.” Morgan made her way across the lobby and into the administrative area of the museum. She found her relatively small office occupied by two large men and one very small blonde and had to squeeze past Wolfe to get to the chair behind her desk.

“Hi, all.”

“We were just discussing your houseguest,” Storm offered in her customary drawl. She was in one of the visitor's chairs and Jared was in the other, with Wolfe wedged between the desk and a filing cabinet.

“Yeah? What about him?”

“Well, for one thing, what was he doing to end up getting shot? I mean, the collection isn't in place here yet. The trap isn't set.”

Morgan found it perfectly reasonable that Storm knew about Quinn and the trap being set; aside from being Wolfe's fiancée, she was also their computer expert and had written the security program that would protect the Bannister collection. She
had
to know.

“I didn't ask, and he didn't offer any explanations.” Morgan looked at Jared, brows lifting. “Shouldn't you know? And should Interpol be such a . . . visible presence in the museum?”

“I'm not known as an agent on this side of the Atlantic; as far as onlookers are concerned, I'm an independent security consultant called in to work with Wolfe.”

Morgan found that a bit ironic but repeated her other question. “Shouldn't you know why Quinn was shot?”

The Interpol agent answered readily. “Quinn's convinced that Nightshade is already in the city. That he might even live here. So he's been . . . looking around.”

“Breaking into private homes?”

Wincing slightly, Jared said, “I told him not to tell me about it if he did. He claims he's mostly kept an eye on the nightly activities in the city, just to identify the players more than anything else. But, since we're convinced Nightshade is a collector, searching for a secret cache in a private home is probably not a bad idea.”

“Was that what he was doing Thursday night?”

“No, he says he was near this museum—and spotted someone apparently casing the building, for at least the third night in a row. On both previous nights, this person slipped away from him in the fog, so Quinn was, naturally, determined not to lose him. What he wanted was to follow him or her back to, presumably, a house, apartment, or hotel. Unfortunately, somewhere near the waterfront, his quarry doubled back and caught him. Shot him with a silenced automatic.”

Morgan blocked from her mind the memory of that terrifying night and Quinn bleeding in her living room to say calmly, “Max said the bullet went in at an angle, otherwise it probably would have killed Quinn. But he heals fast.”

“Already up and gone, is he?” Jared said.

“This morning.” Morgan offered nothing more.

It was Storm who asked, “Couldn't that bullet be used as evidence? I mean—”

Jared said, “I know what you mean. Yeah, if we ever do get our hands on this guy, if he has a gun, and if a ballistics expert can match it to the bullet the doctor dug out of Quinn's shoulder, we could at least hang an attempted-murder charge on him. We're waiting for a ballistics report now. What I'm interested to see is whether that bullet matches the ones taken from four of Nightshade's previous victims.”

Wolfe spoke up for the first time to say, “If it does, you'll know that Nightshade is in the city and that Quinn came very close to him that night.”

“Too close,” Morgan said.

“Too close in more ways than one,” Jared said. “If it was Nightshade, it's at least possible that he now knows someone has been shadowing him, following him across rooftops. And the police don't usually work that way.”

“But another thief might.” Morgan didn't like the hollow sound of her own voice.

“Another thief might,” Jared agreed. “So Nightshade has to be wondering who's following him. And why.”

“Then there's this new wrinkle,” Storm said. “A murdered woman possibly connected to the museum. Inspector Tyler and his people are being awfully cagey about the connection, but just from their manner I'd say they're pretty damned sure there is one.”

“So we have to assume the same thing,” Wolfe said. “First the Ace employee being blackmailed and then murdered and now this.” He was gazing steadily at Jared. “There's two lives that might have been saved if nobody had planned to display the Bannister collection.”

Jared didn't flinch away from that hard stare. “And God knows how many Nightshade will kill if we don't stop him here and now. Just for the record, I'm betting the police will rule out Nightshade in the Jane Doe murder.”

“Why?” Morgan asked.

“Because in virtually every case, Nightshade has left his victims where they fell, and they've tended to fall at the scene of one of his robberies. This woman was found near nothing of value to a thief, and no break-in or theft was reported. Plus, according to my sources she was stabbed; Nightshade always uses a gun. And as far as we know, he's always taken credit for his crimes. That dead-rose calling card.”

“Which means,” Storm said, “we could have yet another player in the game. And this one has his own set of rules. Very nasty rules.”