The Lady Is a Thief (15 page)

 
   
“He won't find me here.” She seemed adamant.

 
   
“You're right. He won't because we're going
to your house in Malibu.”

 
   
The heat in her gaze turned to frost. “No,
we're not.”

 
   
“Yes, we are. You may not like it and you
may not want to be there, but since you never stay on the property, no one will
think to look for you there.” He took her arm and did a visual double check of
the room. “Get your purse.”

 
   
“Stop giving me orders.” She pulled out of
his grasp and glared at him. “We are not going to Malibu.”

 
   
He sighed. “We can argue about this in the
car. But you wanted a couple of days…”

 
   
She bit her lip and turned away, stuffing a
travel pack of tissue into her purse. “I need to be in Pasadena tomorrow.”

 
   
“You don't have it yet…” He swore
internally.

 
   
“No. I told you—I don't.”

 
   
“But it will be here tomorrow.”

 
   
“I didn’t say that either.”

 
   
Jarod scowled. “Do you have to be in
this
hotel?”

 
   
She said nothing and he glanced up at the
ceiling, calming the rapid beat of his heart with a series of deep breaths.

 
   
“You need to trust me.”

 
   
“I don't know you.”

 
   
They'd arrived at an impasse.

 
   
“If you don't need to be at this hotel, then
we can switch and it won't matter…”

 
   
“Why switch if he's searching every hotel?
We increase the chances of running into him.” she wasn't wrong, except she
checked herself into this one.

 
   
“The night clerk saw you—and even in those
baggy clothes and hat—you're worth remembering.” He didn't think too hard about
what that meant or why he felt the need to say it. “Trust me for five minutes
to get you out of here and somewhere safe—then you can go right back to keeping
me at
arms length
.”

 
   
She slanted a look at the bed.

 
   
“Okay, so you can keep me at panty length.”
He grinned despite the tension coiling through his gut. Whether it was greed or
competition that drove
duMonde
, he'd fixated on Kit
and the last place she needed to be was in his direct line of fire.

 
   
“And this could all be a ruse to lure me out
into the open where he can grab me.” She folded her arms and
retreated
another step. “If you want me to go—you let me go. You back off, you run
interference—whatever it is you want to do—but you give me the space to do the
same.”

 
   
He could knock her out and carry her out of
here in less time than this argument took. Or he could tell her the truth.

 
   
The phone buzzed with another update.
duMonde
was roughly three miles
away at a hotel closer to the freeway. She didn't flinch from his stare or back
off on her stance. Her poker face probably netted her millions in business
meetings.
No wonder her father wants her
to take on more of the mantle of control.

 
   
“What if we call a cease fire—it's not a
truce—and it's not an admission of trust. We move the board from one location
to another and we play again.”

 
   
“You don't get it, do you? You manage to
infiltrate a meeting of high level bankers and executives that are involved in
Hardwicke Industries. You board my plane without my consent or my knowledge.
You track me when I purposefully disposed of any possible electronic
surveillance device and invite yourself into my hotel room and start giving me
orders. I have no idea if Jarod Parker is even your name. I may be impulsive
and reckless at times, but I am not stupid.
So, no, Mr.
Parker.
I may have entertained your seduction, but I am not walking a
foot outside that door without more assurance than some bogus cease fire offer
from a professional imposter.” Every sentence chipped away at his ego, but he
gave her credit—she nailed him on the last accusation.

 
   
“Fine.”
He flipped
his phone to the keypad and dialed an international number by heart and he
didn't bother to disguise the identity of the name that popped up on the
screen. It rang twice.

 
   
“
Bonjour,
Monsieur
Curry!” Sophie's exuberant greeting dragged another smile out of
him. The art history specialist never seemed
put
off
by his Walter persona's gruff attitude or controlled manner. If anything, it
made her warmer and friendlier.

 
   
“
Bonjour
,
Sophie. How is Paris treating you?” He stared right at Kit as he spoke, his
voice changing,
adopting
Walter's more formal tones.
The shock rippled through the distrust on her face, and her eyes narrowed.

 
   
“I am in love with Louvre. I could live
there.” A masculine voice in the background grumbled and Jarod listened to the
stream of French curses.

 
   
“Is
Pietr
well?”

 
   
“Oh, he's fine. He's insisted on building a
crib at every apartment or house we stay in. I think this one is getting the
better of him though.” She laughed as
Pietr
cursed
again. “But yes, I'm sure it will be wonderful when the baby gets here and we
never
stop traveling from city to city.”
The roll of her eyes echoed in her voice.

 
   
“Sophie, I need a favor.”

 
   
“Oh?” Intrigue filled Sophie's hushed tone.
“Anya says you never ask for favors.”

 
   
“Anya is correct. But I need you to vouch
for me to a friend of yours.”

 
   
“Of course, I'd be happy to. Are you in New
York?” Curiosity practically bubbled in her voice.

 
   
“No, not at the moment.
Let me put Lady Katherine Hardwicke on…” He didn't get to finish before Sophie
burst out laughing.

 
   
“Sorry, sorry—yes, please put her on. And
no,
Pietr
, I don't think I could put it together
better than you. I promise.” But the amusement in her voice decried the denial.
Jarod held the phone out to Kit and she had to step back to him to take it.

 
   
“Hello?” She studied him as she listened to
the sudden burst of conversation from Sophie.

 
   
“I see.” Her eyebrows raised and she looked
him over. “Describe him to me.”

 
   
He said nothing, letting Sophie tell her
that he was a man in his mid-fifties, slightly balding with salt and pepper
hair, a thick jaw and a gently rounding belly. His slightly hooked nose would
be labeled a throwback to his Native American blood.

 
   
“Interesting.
Thank
you, Sophie. I do appreciate it—
oh,
you do have
Pietr
wound up don't you.” She could be an actress, her
voice perfectly modulated to a friendly casual without any intimation of
stress. Sophie continued to chatter, but Kit interrupted. “I'm so very glad you
like it and I look forward to our next luncheon. In the meanwhile, we have to
go into a meeting—yes, darling. I told you we would be fabulous friends.”

 
   
A few more sentences and they rang off, but
Kit held onto his phone. “You're Walter Curry?”

 
   
“Yes, ma'am.”

 
   
“A fifty year-old with a
bald spot and a thickening waist.”
She rubbed her tongue against her
teeth. “Which one is the mask, Walter or Jarod?”

 
   
“Walter.”

 
   
His phone buzzed in her hand and she passed
it back without looking at the screen. “Okay. I'll go with you.”

 
   
“Good, because
duMonde
is here.”
Dammit, I should have just knocked her out.

 
   
“That's fine—we just need to move rooms.”
She scooped her duffel away from him and walked over to the door, he barely got
there in time to brace it closed and nudged her back.

 
   
“
Me
first.”
He looked out and scanned the hallway, silent and quiet save for
the muffled sound of an ice machine. “If we go down the stairs…”

 
   
But Kit didn't follow him. She walked across
the hall to the other door.

 
   
“We don't have time to try and break in and
those electronic doors are harder to crack than…”

 
   
The door opened in thirty seconds and she
glanced at him. “You were saying?”

 
   
The elevator dinged its arrival and Jarod
hustled her inside, closing the door as silently as he could manage. The dark
room was—thankfully—unoccupied. He leaned against the door and watched their
room through the peephole.

 
   
duMonde
and three of his men slotted a key in the room they'd just left and burst
inside. Kit moved up beside him, but he held up two fingers for quiet. The men
weren't long. Louis stomped out and looked both ways up and down the corridor.

 
   
“She's still here.”
duMonde
looked down at a black device in his hand. “Go down and question the clerk
again, then get his master key. I want men on each entrance and exit.”

 
   
“Sir—if we push too hard, someone might call
the cops again.”

 
   
His face a mask of fury, the Frenchman rounded
on the speaker and they backed off, hands raised. “We're on it.”

 
   
The group moved off and Jarod swung a look
at Kit. She wasn't wearing anything she'd had on earlier. The duffel bag she
claimed at the bus station so what the hell could
duMonde
be tracking?

 
   
He replayed the scene at the airport…the way
duMonde
seized her face and pulled her in for the
kiss to each cheek.

 
   
Son of a bitch.
Nudging her into the bathroom, he pressed a
finger to her lips and then shut the door and cut off the lights. He flicked
through the applications on his phone until he found the black light. Turning
it on, he waved the phone over her cheek.

 
   
His blood went cold.

 
   
Fingerprints glowed against her cheek.

 
   
The bastard tagged her with a radioactive
isotope.

 
   
 
“Okay,”
she whispered. “I think I might need your help.”

 
   
T
hree
hours later, they were back on the freeway and merging into Sunday morning
traffic. It took some finesse to get out of the hotel, but Jarod settled for
just pulling the fire alarm and mingling with the early morning crowd in their
borrowed hotel robes. They shuffled through with everyone, weaved around the
fire trucks and reclaimed Jarod's car from the lot. Hopefully the three hundred
irritated guests and hotel employees kept Louis busy while they escaped.

 
   
“Where are we heading?” She tried not to
focus on the fact that they left Pasadena in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t
go anywhere near the post box with the radiation on her face.

 
   
Her face.

 
   
“Disneyland.”
Of all
the destinations he could have named, her man of a thousand faces picked the
happiest place on Earth.