The Black Sheep and the English Rose (20 page)

“What about Prague? You succeeded there, working solo.”

“I had already started networking on cases with Mac and Rafe by then, but strictly friend-helping-friend. Mac had already left the NYPD and was working private security for a very high tech firm. He's very…technologically and mechanically inclined, but he wasn't really happy with how he was applying those skills. Neither was Rafe. So, we got to talking, and that led to us teaming up, and Trinity was born.”

“You obviously enjoy what you do, sounds like all three of you have found a calling.” She smiled. “I think that's great.”

Finn kept his gaze on her, and when she looked back to the PDA, he pushed. “What about you? What got you into doing…what you do? When you go…hunting, do you have anyone you can go to for help?”

There was a momentary flicker in her expression at his description of her activities, but he couldn't decipher what it meant. Her expression was unreadable now, her gaze steady, but definitely wary.

“I rely on my own wits,” she responded.

“How do you decide which artifact to go after? What's your source?”

Her expression shuttered completely then, which only made him want to press harder.

“We're wasting valuable time,” she said.

“Felicity—”

“Finn,” she parroted back. “We need to focus on finding Miss Forsythe before the local agencies, or, worse, before the arsonist and/or burglar finds her first.”

Finn held her gaze another long moment. “I'm not going to stop pushing. You know that.”

Her shoulders drooped ever so slightly. And he thought he heard the softest of sighs. “I know.”

He pressed a finger under her chin and turned her face gently to his. He smiled, but he knew his gaze was serious. “You've said it yourself. I'm incorrigible. Why don't you just tell me? If you're worried you'd be dragging me into something, I'd say I'm already dragged. I can take care of me.” He drew his fingertips up to her cheekbone, then tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “And if you need help taking care of you, I can do that, too.” He cupped her cheek, lowered his mouth to hers. “But I can't do anything unless you let me in.” He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “Let me in, Felicity.”

She sighed into him, accepted his kiss, then returned an impossibly sweet one of her own. His heart dipped, then squeezed tightly.

“You're further in than you know,” she said, briefly cupping his face with her hand. “As in as I can let you.” She stroked her thumb over his cheekbone and looked into his eyes. “All I can do is ask that you trust me to know what I'm doing. And trust your own instincts. They're not letting you down, Finn.” And then she dropped her hand and ducked her head, removing herself from his touch, if not his personal space. “Now, please, we need to figure out her trail before something else happens.”

Finn stared at her bent head for a long, silent moment. She didn't give much, but she asked for even less. So when she did, he listened. She'd asked for his trust. Or, more to the point, his faith.

Now he had even more questions. And fewer answers. It was driving him insane. She was driving him insane.

“Why couldn't I do something easy?” he muttered. “Like falling for a mob heiress.”

She reflexively glanced up at him, then immediately looked back at the PDA screen. Given that he knew she had no mob connections, he could only assume it had been the other part. The part about falling.

“I know that unnerves you, but it's there anyway. You'll have to find a way to deal with it, Felicity Jane,” he said, wanting to shake her. Wanting to take her. Wanting…everything. “You're going to have to find a way to deal with me.”

“I'm working on it.”

“I
don't know about this,” Felicity said as their town car eased down a winding street lined with high stone walls and gated entrances. It was past dawn now, and the sun was rising toward the tops of the trees, burning off the fog that had cast everything beyond the curbs in a gray shroud of mist.

“What's not to know? This has to be it. Besides, none of the other clients panned out. Julia's nowhere to be found. This is the last solid lead we have. Hell, it's the only real lead we've had from the beginning. I just wish Rafe had found it sooner.”

“The Russian was never a client of Julia's, so it wouldn't have come up. I'm more surprised he found it at all.”

“I know, but we've wasted so much time. I never even thought to check that connection.” Finn sipped his coffee and forced another bite of their makeshift breakfast. “This is the driest damn bagel I've ever tasted.” He pushed the bag toward Felicity. “Have one, anyway. You need to eat something.”

She would have argued, except he was right. She was jittery from lack of sleep, too much stress, and having little to nothing in her stomach. He'd insisted they stop at a small coffee shop, where he'd surprised her by coming out with coffee for him and their driver, but hot tea for her. She nibbled at a sesame seed bagel. “You're right. These are awful.”

“I would have had them toast a few, but then I got that damn message from Rafe. We need to get to Chesnokov's place before he goes anywhere this morning.”

Felicity shook her head. “I still can't believe he has an address here in the States.”

“Not just in the States, but right here in San Francisco. Too big a coincidence for me.”

She nodded. “I wonder why he used a Russian mule and set up the meet in New York?” The fact that Finn had been certain from the start that something was off with John's offer was starting to look quite probable. She should have listened to him.

“Who the hell knows? He uses Andreev often enough that we connected the two when we knew he was handling the transfer. Maybe, in this kind of deal, Chesnokov would only use someone that he trusted.”

Felicity dumped the bagel back in the bag, suddenly not hungry. “A deal that failed because of my interference. You'll have to pardon my lack of optimism that chatting him up is going to go well for us.”

“I'm not planning on chatting him up. I'm planning on following him.”

“If he used an agent before, what makes you think he wouldn't again?”

“Because, if we're right and he was Reese's target out here, then this is Chesnokov's second shot at it,” Finn said. “He won't take chances.”

“And now Julia has gone solo with the stone. Given that Andreev bailed out when he saw we knew about the deal, why do you think Chesnokov would deal with Julia, when he was supposed to deal with Reese?”

“I guess it all depends on how badly he wants the stone. But he's the only one out here with a direct connection that we know about, so I say we go for it.”

“Do you think she'll follow through with a deal with the Russian if he was Reese's target, rather than get a new one of her own? Or maybe she had someone lined up all along.”

“Considering we've been through the list of clients she might have gone to and come up empty-handed, I'd say she's planning on going directly to Chesnokov. But who knows? If it's someone else, then we're screwed unless we get another lead.”

“Wouldn't she be afraid of Reese coming after her if she tries to communicate with Chesnokov?”

“You could argue either side. That, if this was Reese's plan, she wouldn't go to Chesnokov because he'd know right where to ambush her. Or that she would, assuming Reese would never think she'd be so bold and would dismiss Chesnokov as her buyer. Or you could argue that Reese had a different plan entirely, and Julia went solo to sell to Chesnokov herself.”

“Meaning that Reese doesn't know the Russian is here, but Julia does? How? He wasn't on her client list, so—”

“Maybe he used an agent to purchase art from her. Hard to say how she might know about him, but I do think it's safe to assume she knew he was Reese's buyer in New York and she knows the deal went south. Maybe she lured Reese out here on the pretext of selling it to one of her clients, knowing as soon as she got the stone out here, she could hijack it and sell it to the Russian herself.”

“Why not propose that deal to John?”

“Greed? Could be many reasons.”

Felicity pondered his train of thought. “Well, it would explain why we can't find any evidence of the satyr, the sapphire, or her shipping anything out, or even any activity from her gallery in that direction at all the past forty-eight hours. If she knows her buyer is here, then it's all quite convenient.”

Finn nodded along with her reasoning. “The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Reese didn't have another buyer in mind. After all, he was sure she was shipping it, hence the need for the satyr. If he had any idea about a plan with Chesnokov as buyer, he'd know they'd be making the deal direct. No shipping or satyr required.”

“True, although given the initial meet was set in New York with a Russian agent, maybe Chesnokov wanted it off American soil, so they had to agree to ship it out of here for him.” She shook her head. “Too many possibilities, not enough information.”

“All of which revolve around Chesnokov. I think he's still our best bet.”

“I wish we could talk to John, see what he'd make of this connection, get more information on what his initial plan was.”

“Until we know more about what's going on, I don't think that's a wise idea.”

“I suppose you're right, but he's the one with the answers right now.”

“I don't trust him. And I don't trust him bringing us into this the way he did. If nothing pops with Chesnokov, then we'll consider going that route. Last resort.”

She nodded, reluctantly agreeing. “The greed angle, that I'm just not sure about. Without knowing her, or having more information on them as a couple, it's hard to say, but given how blindsided John was, I don't know why she would double-cross him so suddenly and badly. How much could she stand to make on this one transaction, versus a lifetime of future work with him? She had a decent working relationship with Reese and, from what it looks like, a serious personal relationship—”

“One that Rafe couldn't find a single trace of,” Finn pointed out. “So clearly they kept their liaison very private. It's also possible that she did propose it and Reese turned the idea down. There was a reason, after all, that the meet was in New York and not here. Maybe he knew the Russian wouldn't go for it.”

Felicity went with the idea. “So, you're saying she was frustrated by that and decided to strike out on her own?”

“Yes. It's even possible that she took the stone with plans to sell it direct to Chesnokov as a way to prove herself to Reese. Maybe she wasn't betraying him at all. In her mind, anyway.”

Felicity frowned. “She had to know he wouldn't take well to finding her and the stone gone with no word as to what she'd planned.”

Finn looked at Felicity. “Maybe she wanted him to trust her.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. Too long. Then finally looked away as she sipped her tea and wished she could untie the knot in her stomach. “So, we follow him…then what? If it is Chesnokov, how do we know the deal hasn't already happened while we were chasing after Julia's wealthiest client base?”

“From what we dug up on Chesnokov, the one thing that came through consistently was that he's known for his exceedingly high standards when it comes to taste, refinement, and style. I doubt, despite his desire for the sapphire, that he's the sort who'd agree to some clandestine, middle of the night rendezvous. He would consider that gauche. If Julia contacted him, I'm thinking he'd push for an early morning meeting, probably over breakfast. Far more civilized, and it would keep Julia dangling a bit while he checked out her story.”

“She's got the stone, so she has the leverage.”

“She has Reese potentially on her tail as well, though, so she needs to make a clean sale to someone who won't be bullied by him or anyone else, if Reese figured out who she sold it to and decided to make things difficult.”

Felicity tried to keep her optimism afloat, but battle fatigue was starting to set in. She tore off a chunk of bagel. “I just wish we'd been able to track down Julia. Any trace of her.”

“Certainly would have made things easier, yes. But she's either smarter than we credited her for, for a novice, or—”

“Or she's using Reese's connection to Chesnokov to make the sale.” She chewed, swallowed, and thought. “You're right, it does make the most sense.”

Finn polished off his bagel, but paused before taking a sip of his coffee.

“What?” Felicity asked, noting the sudden unfocused expression. She was learning him, bit by bit, and she'd already come to know that expression meant he'd just made a mental connection of fact to fact, or had some other revelation.

Finn's gaze focused outward as he turned to look at her. “There is a third possibility why we can't find any trace of her. One we really haven't discussed.”

Felicity didn't have to work too hard, given the somber tone, to make the mental leap with him. “I know things don't look so good here, but let's not assume the worst just yet.”

“Not assuming, but at least acknowledging.”

She took another bite and nodded as she swallowed. “If something untoward has happened to our Ms. Forsythe, then we're all screwed, so to speak. So we might as well think positively until we're given good reason not to any longer.”

“Agreed, but we need to think that possibility through, if for no other reason than to come up with a list of who, so we'd know what track to jump on.”

“If someone got to her already, I doubt we'll ever get our hands on that sapphire. Not this go-around anyway.”

Finn grinned. “Spoilsport.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Realist. It's taken over four decades for this stone to surface. I imagine it will be easily that long, if not longer, before it shows its lovely facets again. Likely not in our lifetime, anyway. Or your client's.”

“Which is why we're sitting at the corner of Chesnokov's street and hoping we're wrong about Julia's potential fate. But, playing devil's advocate here, if someone got to her, it's a pretty short list on who. The same list we came up with for the warehouse fire and shipping dock break-in.”

“You could add the Russian now.”

“True. So that makes two people.”

Felicity's eyes widened as another thought came to her. “You know, that list could get expanded by two more names. Ours.”

“We've got an alibi.”

“Right. The same one who would put our names on the list in the first place. John Reese.”

“I meant his driver.” He lifted a hand. “I know who pays his salary, but if push came to under oath, it might be a different story. And it's not like we're not capable of making it worth his while.”

“Bribe him, you mean?”

Finn grinned again. “There goes that tone of yours again. Maybe we should have skipped breakfast and—”

“Focus.”

“I am focused.” He kept his gaze on hers, totally unrepentant.

She just sighed. Mostly self-directed, because, truth to tell, her thoughts had gone in much the same direction. But he didn't have to know that.

“And we wouldn't be bribing the guy to lie. We'd be encouraging him to tell the truth.”

“Still, it's not something I'd want to bank my freedom on.”

“Which brings us back to Chesnokov.”

She tapped her chin and gave voice to her other fear. One she hated to even admit she was thinking, but Finn made too much sense where this entire scheme was concerned. “What if this whole thing is a setup by John to target us?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning if he set the fire and did something nefarious to Julia, then we'd be set up as being the ones that went after her. Complete with showing up at the scene of both crimes, albeit after the fact, but don't they say that the perps usually like to show up at the scene and bask in the glory of their dirty deeds?”

“You read too many crime novels in your garden,” Finn said, grinning, but he didn't sound truly cavalier about her supposition.

“What if I'm right?” she asked quietly.

“Then nothing we do now is going to change anything.”

“We could go after John.”

“If he is capable of what you're suggesting, then it's not our job to go after him. We have to go after the sapphire.”

“If he is capable of what I'm suggesting, then he has the sapphire.”

Finn lowered his coffee cup to his knee and gave her a steady look. “If you were working this alone, what would your next step be?”