Detect Me (6 page)

Mark’s fingers tightened around hers, thought he kept staring straight ahead at the steel door in front of them. “You still want to go in?” he said after a moment, his voice carefully void of expression.

He was giving her a chance to back out now. She’d seen that Mark had some kind of issue - maybe with walking into certain traps (Nikki wasn’t too keen on that herself), or maybe with the Ghost. The logical thing to do would be to gracefully take a bow and walk away from a situation she had no place in anyway.

Except Mark’s hand was rough and warm around her, and she could see the tense line of his jaw as he waited for Nikki to answer. And when Nikki examined her own feelings, she realized that for some crazy reason she wasn’t worried. Not at all. She trusted Mark.

Probably not a good idea, but then, she’d never been known for those.

“I’m ready when you are,” she said quietly.

Mark couldn’t help himself from whipping his head around to stare at the small blonde by his side. Nikki stared back at him calmly. The only expression visible on her face was determination betraying itself in the slight narrowing of her eyes.

This made no sense at all. Mark wanted to try to figure Nikki out, but he couldn’t focus. He tried desperately to get a grip on himself; to stop his mind from repeating ugly scenes over and over again, to stop his body feeling phantom pain. To forget what being utterly helpless felt like.

Nikki’s small fingers moved against his, and Mark gripped them gratefully. Her skin slid against his like silk. The feeling distracted him, grounded him. He rubbed the pads of his fingers against Nikki’s smooth skin and stared at the slight contrast between his tan and her paler skin until Mark realized that he was probably annoying her. And he wasn’t really supposed to do this.

He yanked his hand away so fast that Nikki stumbled away from him off-balance.

“I’m ready. I’m ready now,” Mark mumbled, trying to ignore the hurt look on Nikki’s face. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t need to watch him try to hold himself together. He was a sorry excuse for a man right now, and as soon as this foolish venture was over he needed to get ahold of his self-control and chase Nikki off so thoroughly that she’d never even look at him again.

Yep, that was the ticket all right. Which was probably why his stomach felt like lead at the thought.

He reached for the door handle, not letting himself dwell too much on what would be waiting behind it. As he twisted the knob, Nikki spoke up and he paused.

“Whatever it is - um, you know, the reason that you’re not sleeping, the thing that had you just now - I just… I just want you to know, you’re stronger than it,” Nikki said, sounding deeply uncomfortable and deadly earnest.

Mark’s heart leapt into his throat. He couldn’t risk turning around to look at her. Every fiber of his body was screaming for her to grab Nikki right now and kiss her. To pull her close and let the heat of her body warm him from the inside out. Oh God, he wanted her so badly that it was insane.

Instead of any of that, he gave a brisk nod and yanked the service door open.

Nikki was still feeling the effects of nerves over her little impromptu speech as the door swung open and Mark rushed through. Trying to get away from her, she thought ruefully, and followed. She couldn’t blame him.

The room inside was well lit, which she hadn’t been expecting somehow. She’d been thinking of doom and gloom and plastic sheeting everywhere, but Nikki supposed in real life that wouldn’t be too practical for an art restoration room. Reality was bright fluorescent lights and a MoMA employee flanked by two security guards blinking at her.

A pale, unassuming painting was propped up on an easel in front of the art restorer. Nikki couldn’t help taking a second to admire the blending of greens and yellows in
The Olive Trees
. A small thrill went through her. She would never stop being amazed by great art.

“Um. Hello?” Nikki said when everyone else was silent. Somehow Mark seemed to have slipped right on by their attention… like a ghost. She made a mental note to ask Mark how he walked so silently on cheap linoleum.

“What are you doing here? You’re not allowed to be in here.” One of the security guards frowned at her.

Nikki tried to unobtrusively crane her neck to find Mark. She spotted him sidling along the far wall, clearly checking for entrances and routes of escape.

Which made her distraction girl, she guessed. She re-focused on the MoMA flunkies and tried a smile.

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “I got… lost?”

Security guard number two raised an eyebrow. “You got lost through two locked doors and a private entrance.”

Nikki flicked up the wattage on her smile. “These things happen.” Though probably not to, like, normal people.

A hand settled on the small of her back and she jumped. She jerked around to see Mark grinning down at her, all his confidence restored, clearly in his element.

“Remind me not to sign you up for the French Foreign Legion,” he said, and gave the MoMA folks a no-problems-here-I’m-taking-care-of-things nod. “Subtlety wasn’t on your resume for a reason.”

“Yeah, well,
va te faire foutr
e,” Nikki retorted. Security guard number two smothered a laugh.

Mark’s hand slid up to firmly grasp her shoulder as he continued to scan the room. “Are you sure you don’t mean
je vais te baiser
?”

Nikki shrugged. She was totally lost now. “Dunno,” she said. “Languages were never my strong suit.”

Behind her an unfamiliar voice said, “Oh, I suspect quite a lot of things aren’t your strong suit, my dear.”

Nikki’s blonde hair fanned out behind her as she whirled around. It brushed across Mark’s fingers before they were wrenched off her shoulder. He took a moment to note the reactions of the MoMA employees before he turned. They looked frightened, but not particularly surprised. There was something off about that, but he’d have to think on it later.

When he’d been waiting for this moment, Mark had felt afraid. He’d remembered what it was like to be helpless at Ghost’s mercy; remembered it in a visceral, physical way that had squeezed his bones and frozen his blood.

But now that the moment was upon him, all the fear dropped away and left him feeling… nothing. He felt alert. Alive. Like he could see everything more clearly with danger at his heels and adrenaline pumping through his veins. The unimportant stuff fell away, and Mark was left with a vivid awareness of exactly what he needed to do.

Mark knew that he needed to keep Nikki safe, no matter what happened. He didn’t give a crap about the painting. Ghost could take a Bic lighter to the thing for all he cared. To hell with his professional record and integrity; if there was a chance of him getting Nikki out without her being hurt, Mark would drag her away without a single look back.

That knowledge secure in his mind, Mark finally turned around to see Ghost again.

All Nikki could think was that at least there was no way Ghost could fit a gun in that skintight outfit.

For some reason, she hadn’t been expecting the most notorious art thief of the century to be a woman. Had Mark? She slid a glance over to him, but Mark was staring at Ghost with a perfect expressionless poker face. Nikki was immediately jealous; she wanted to be able to do that. It would come in handy in job interviews no doubt.

If she lived long enough to go on any more, that was.

She faced forward again and did her best to give Ghost a dead-eyed stare of her own.

“At least I don’t dress like an out-of-work dominatrix,” Nikki said, because she’d never learned to keep her mouth shut.

Ghost’s green eyes flashed. She was taller than Nikki by at least four inches, skinny in a muscular way, and had thick brown hair that was scraped back into a tight ponytail. Nikki couldn’t see most of her face because it was obscured by a black balaclava with cut-outs for only her eyes and mouth, but Nikki guessed by the lines of cheekbones cutting across the fabric that Ghost would be striking without the mask.

And she didn’t have a gun, but she did have a very large knife.

After a second of silence went by Ghost rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s the best you can do? Oh no, I wear leather. I’m so very impressed with the help, Mark.”

Mark. Ghost was on a first name basis with him? Nikki struggled to keep the confusion off her face.

“I’m not interested in witty banter,” Mark’s low voice rumbled beside her. It seemed to vibrate along her bones and ease some of the fear Nikki hadn’t even realized she was feeling. “You’ve lost. It’s five against one. Give up and turn yourself in.”

Nikki could make out the curve of a smile under Ghost’s mask. “You really think I’m going to believe that?” Ghost asked. “Calling the police was never your style. You wanted it all - all the fame, all the glory. I was regretting not bringing along a gun, but since the only surprise is you, I suppose it’s not such a mistake.”

True to his word, Mark didn’t say anything back. He did pull out a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket.

“Ghost, I am putting you under citizen’s arrest for attempted burglary.” He stepped forward, the cuffs dangling from one hand.

Ghost threw her head back and laughed, a high-pitched giggle that made the hairs stand up on the back of Nikki’s neck. Then she lunged.

Mark hadn’t really expected the handcuffs to work; he wasn’t a complete idiot. But he’d forgotten just how fast Ghost was and it still caught him off guard when she lunged forward.

The smart thing to do would have been to fling himself forward and try to tackle Ghost to the ground. He might have been able to wrestle the knife out of her hand and slap the handcuffs on.

But he was acting on instinct, not logic, and Mark threw himself in front of Nikki.

It was a mistake, no doubt – the worst mistake he could have made, the one he’d told himself to avoid. In the split second that Ghost turned her head before dashing past them toward the painting, he saw those green eyes ice over and glare. Not at him. But at Nikki, who was shoving at Mark’s arm and shouting, “What are you doing? Go get her!”

So very, very not good.

Ghost ran to the painting and shoved the art restorer out of her way, though Nikki noticed from behind the cage of Mark’s body that Ghost was careful not to send the restorer tumbling into the painting. One of the security guards attempted to reach for his baton and Ghost barely looked at him before swinging out a leg to knock the man off his feet.

“Stand back!” the second security guard yelled, reaching for his club.

Nikki thought she heard a chuckle as Ghost swung up her knife. The guard was still fumbling with his grip on the club and threw it up instinctively to block the path of the blade. Ghost moved in under his guard and yanked the weapon right out of his hand.

“Amateurs,” she sniffed. “ Why do they always assign these posts to clowns that have never so much as seen The Karate Kid?”

She hurled the club with sudden violence at the guard’s head and he crumpled to the floor with a cry. Then, path totally clear, she moved back over to the painting and reached for it.

And Mark still wasn’t moving! Nikki couldn’t understand it.

“Come on,” she muttered, standing up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “What are you waiting for?”

She couldn’t see it, but she sensed the incredulous look on his face. “Mostly for her to leave,” Mark muttered back.

“Why?” Nikki demanded. “There’s two of us and one of her!”

“I can hear the two of you hissing like geese over there,” Ghost called without moving her head to look around at them. “Whatever could you be plotting? Nothing stupid, I assume.”

Then she turned to stare straight at Nikki. Her eyes looked like shark eyes, cold and dead. “Faint hope, I know,” Ghost said.

Nikki suppressed a shiver.

She moved out from behind Mark and walked purposefully toward Ghost, ordering her limbs not to shake. Mark shot out a hand to grab her arm, but Nikki dodged away from his grasp and kept walking.

“Like Mark said, you’re under citizen’s arrest,” Nikki said doggedly. Ghost hadn’t even touched the painting yet. Maybe there was a way to save this yet. She didn’t want that beautiful painting to be harmed or taken away. Maybe she was a little bit in shock. “And Mark might not like the police, but I do. I called them. They’re on their way.”

She didn’t have handcuffs or a weapon or even the muscle to put up a fight against Ghost. Nikki stopped a few paces away from Ghost and stood there, empty-handed and uncertain of anything except the fact that she needed to do the right thing.

Ghost’s eyes narrowed into slits. Though it was meant to look menacing, Nikki sort of preferred it to the zombie eyes from before. “Did you really?” Ghost asked in a singsong lilt and yeesh, did she take classes in being scary as hell, because she was very good at it.

Nikki swallowed hard. “I did,” she said, and was proud when her voice didn’t waver.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Nikki tried frantically to think of something to do but came up dry. A life of small towns and art school offered no help. Heck, she didn’t even watch cop shows in her spare time. Nikki swallowed again and tried to think of something convincing to say about the value of publicly displayed art and the virtues of not stealing stuff.