The Naked Detective (3 page)

“They don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?”

Nate looked up to find Ciara watching him. She leaned against the arm of the Barcalounger, tight jeans and a snug T-shirt molding to every curve.

Nate started to drool for a whole new reason, then sharply reminded himself that she was a suspect, a criminal—or at the very least an accomplice. His drool was reserved for the pious women his mother found for him—which didn’t sound like nearly as much fun, but he was no James Bond. He didn’t bed the bad girls before sending them away for life.

Ciara fidgeted, twisting her fingers. He belatedly realized she was waiting for a response, but he couldn’t remember what she’d asked him. Something about the movie? Where the hell was his brain? He’d been out of the game for a while, but he was a professional. He’d been at this too long to be tripped up by a pretty face with a killer movie collection.

He nodded toward the shelves that lined every wall. “You’ve got more movies than God.”

She flashed an impish grin. “Well, you know, He’s a busy dude. I’ve got more time to watch them.”

Nate stilled. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Ciara Liung was flirting with him. Hope kindled. Maybe he hadn’t completely ruined his chances to nail her—in the legal sense. If he could get her talking about her so-called magic process and trip her up somehow, he’d have a tidy little confession from Miss Ciara Liung in no time.

Nate settled onto the couch, propping his cane in front of him and doing his best to look mild and nonthreatening. “So the touching thing…”

Ciara sighed and dropped onto the arm of the Barcalounger. “It’s kinda like Rogue, from
X-Men
. Only in reverse. When people touch my skin, it hurts me.”

“Is that part of the finding stuff?”

“Sort of. It’s a side effect. I have an affinity for lost or stolen objects. I can
see
them, but anything touching my skin is like psychic static on the picture. Normally, I can ignore it, tune it out, but water is my catalyst. It amplifies everything. I can see so much more crisply when I’m in the water, but the touch of anything on my skin is excruciating.”

“So…”

“I work naked,” she said flatly.

His brain helpfully conjured images of Ciara
working
. Nate ignored them. Mostly. “You have to admit that’s awfully convenient.”

Her eyebrows flew up, a small smile quirking her mouth. “Actually, it’s extremely inconvenient.”

“Someone steals some jewels. The FBI comes to you to find them. You disappear and reappear with the location of the jewels. No one can watch you work because you have to work naked. You always find what you’re looking for. You always walk away with the insurance company’s reward money, but we never catch the thieves who stole the gems in the first place. That’s very suspicious, Ms. Liung. If someone tried to sell you that story, wouldn’t you wonder if they were running an elaborate con?”

She met his eyes squarely. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“You want me to believe you’ve solved eighty-five robberies in the last three years because you’re psychic, but only when you’re naked? Are you even listening to yourself?”

“It doesn’t really matter what you believe. You won’t be working with me long enough to matter.” Her smile turned smug.

She looked like she was
enjoying
herself. Not exactly part of his plan. He’d hoped to discomfit her, but if she was having fun, maybe she’d be more chatty.

Nate had been assigned to her detail until retirement, but he didn’t contradict her. Instead, he tried for a smile. “I’m easy to convince,” he said. “All you have to do is show me.”

She laughed. “I’m not going to strip for you, Agent Smith. No matter how many kinky fantasies you want to live out.”

He held up
To Catch a Thief
, showing her Grace Kelly oozing perfection on the cover. “What if I told you her necklace had been stolen?”

She arched an eyebrow. “That’s pretty much the premise of the movie. She thinks Cary Grant did it, only Cary Grant didn’t do it, but now he has to help her figure out who did do it or he’ll take the fall for it. I’m really feeling for Cary Grant at the moment.”

“I’m not talking about the movie. Princess Grace. The Heart of Monaco. It’s the necklace Prince Albert gave her on their wedding day. It’s been stolen. The government of Monaco has reason to believe the thieves will try to fence it in the U.S., so the FBI has been called in to assist in the investigation.” Nate studied her face, looking for telling signs of greed, eagerness or reluctance, but all he saw there was a little quirk of a smile with just the right dash of naughtiness. Which did not turn him on. He refused to be turned on by a suspect. “I’m supposed to ask you to find it.”

“You’re supposed to, but…what? You don’t want me to?”

“The government of Monaco would certainly like it back, but let’s just cut the crap, Miss Liung. You and I both know you aren’t psychic. Just give me the name of the fence you’re working with. I’ll see what I can do about mitigating the charges against you. Just confess…or get naked. Your choice.”

Ciara bit her lip. He could see her thoughts racing behind her dark eyes. Nate smiled internally.

If she started stripping to prove her innocence, he might have to believe his luck had changed. Blown cover, shot in the leg, blood infection, permanent muscle damage—his life had sucked lately. A Chinese-American fantasy giving him a private striptease would be a hell of a way to reverse his fortunes.

Any moment now she’d admit it was all a scam. She’d lead him straight to whoever was behind the robberies. In a matter of days he would go from being the pitiable crip relegated to working a desk to being the Bureau hero responsible for bringing down a major jewelry theft ring. Visions of commendations and promotions danced in his head. He would prove that he wasn’t just some poor schmuck with only one leg who wasn’t good for anything anymore. He’d get his goddamn dignity back. Just as soon as little Miss Ciara Liung acknowledged the impossible was really impossible. She wasn’t a psychic. She was working both sides.

Eighty-five cases in the last three years. The thieves always got away, but the feds always got the goods back. Nate wasn’t sure what kind of angle Ciara was working. He didn’t know why any thief would go to the effort to steal something, only to turn it over to federal custody before it could be fenced, but he was damn sure going to find out.

He might be stuck behind a desk, but he wasn’t a sucker.

And any second now she was going to prove him right.

Chapter Three—Bubble Girl on Tour

Confess…or get naked.
If only he’d meant that in a less crime-and-punishment way.

Ciara wet her lips. Confession wasn’t an option. She didn’t have anything to confess to. She could wait him out—he couldn’t possibly have any evidence against her, and Karma would get him yanked off her detail first thing Monday morning—but there was a chance whoever had Princess Grace’s necklace would take it out of the country and away from the FBI’s jurisdiction if she waited until her next handler was assigned to find it.

Which left getting naked.

And what’s behind door number three, Vanna?

She could always try a trace clothed. The fabric against her skin would be distracting, a static dissonance she’d have to try to work through, but if the alternative was going full frontal in front of Agent Smith, she’d rather deal with the extra noise.

Ciara stood. “Let’s get on with the floorshow, shall we?”

Ciara’s pool was about as close to heaven as life on earth got. The renovations had been brutally expensive, but this room was her office and her sanctuary. Floating in that pool was the one time the static noise of the rest of the world disappeared.

Blue and white tiles swirled in an artistic pattern on the curved walls. The tiles on the floor were a pristine white and the pool itself was tiled a deep midnight blue. A skylight directly above the pool filled the room with natural light. The overall effect was soothing and vaguely Turkish.

“Nice,” Agent Smith commented, leaning against the wall. He looked so smug, so certain she was about to break down and confess.

Ciara couldn’t wait to wipe that smugness off his face. She stepped down on the first step leading into the pool, water lapping around her ankles and soaking the bottom of her jeans. She could have stripped down to her underwear, but she wanted to keep as much of her armor on as she could as a defense against Agent Smith’s microscope eyes.

“Satan reserves a special spot in hell for Peeping Toms,” she said cheerfully, as she stepped farther into the pool, the water calm and warm around her hips.

He just smiled—and damned if that quirk of his lips didn’t make her feel warm all over.

She glided deeper until the water lapped at her rib cage and wet the fabric beneath her breasts. She kept her eyes down, pointedly ignoring him, but she felt his gaze on her like a physical touch, a weight on her skin.

Ciara wasn’t used to company. No one else had even entered this room since the renovations were completed. She also wasn’t used to swimming with clothes on. She’d forgotten just how loud the psychic dissonance was.

She took a deep breath, preparing to submerge, and then realized with a jolt that she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to be looking for. Five minutes with Agent McDreamy and she forgot how to do the most basic parts of her job.

Ciara forced herself to look up and meet his eyes. She immediately regretted it.

He was staring at her like she was a coed at a wet T-shirt contest—and she liked it entirely too much. She ought to be offended by the way his eyes were locked on her breasts, but instead she felt her nipples peaking, pushing against the damp fabric of her shirt. The intense fixation he had for her breasts was thrilling. No matter how loudly her internal feminist shrieked that she ought to feel demeaned and insulted, Ciara just felt womanly and sensual.

She cleared her throat, telling herself she was absolutely
not
sorry when his eyes left her breasts and made their way up to her eyes.

“I could sue you for sexual harassment.” God, was that her voice? That breathy murmur?

“After you brought me back here and walked into your pool of your own free will? Good luck with that.”

Damn. Did he have to be right? “Can you describe the necklace?”

He waved toward his own neck, as if the necklace were hanging there. “Fifty-carat heart-shaped Burmese ruby set in a choker surrounded by over a hundred and sixty carats of diamonds.”

“Jesus. That’s a big ruby. What’s a rock like that go for these days?”

“In the neighborhood of fifteen million.”

Ciara whistled. “Nice neighborhood.”

Agent Smith shrugged, as if the fifteen mil were inconsequential. “The royal family of Monaco claim the real value cannot be expressed in financial terms. Sentimental currency only.”

“It really belonged to Princess Grace?” Ciara shivered with delight. She’d worked cases with some pretty high-profile names attached. Considering the price tags on the items she found, low-profile names usually couldn’t afford them in the first place, let alone swing government intervention when they were stolen. But she’d never done a trace for an item that belonged to royalty—Hollywood or genuine. Grace Kelly had been both.

“How did the thieves get a hold of it?” she asked.

“Is that any of your business?”

“Nope. Just curious. I’m amazed they got it past the Guard and out of Monaco. Isn’t royal security usually tight as a drum?”

“You know this from all your vast experience breaking into royal households?”

Ciara rolled her eyes. “I know this from all my vast experience watching heist movies. I’ve also learned not to try to rob casinos or museums, unless you have a team of extremely good-looking men, in which case you are sure to get away with it. And that all the best thieves are stealing from safe deposit boxes these days.”

“You have a serious fiction addiction.”

She shrugged. “It’s a hobby. Are you sure I can’t convince you to step outside? Just for a minute. You can search the room for hidden cell phones before you go.”

“Why don’t you just confess? Save us both the bullshit of playing psychic. We can go grab a nice lunch, my treat, and you can tell me all about your life of crime. I promise not to judge.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re the picture of forgiveness. If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stick with my psychic bullshit. Thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” His eyes raked down her and he smiled wolfishly. “Nice shirt.”

Ciara flushed and dropped down so the water covered her breasts, but that wasn’t much help in the modesty department. Her shirt was clinging to her like a second skin, outlining every curve in graphic detail—and rustling against her senses like crackling tissue paper.

Whenever she touched an object, any object, there was a static hum, like a radio just out of tune, but when she engaged her gift, surrounded in the water that acted as an amplifier, the volume on that radio would be cranked up to a shattering decibel. Tracing the necklace with her clothes pressing against her skin was going to be flat-out painful, but she was too stubborn, and Agent Smith made her too nervously
aware
, to consider taking it off.

She’d just push through the pain.

Ciara dropped back and drew up her legs to float in the water. She closed her eyes and tried to let the peace of the water wash away the rest of the world, but each rub of denim and cotton against her skin was a static explosion inside her mind. She forced herself to focus on the necklace as Agent Smith had described it.

A vision flashed behind her eyelids, but it was blurry and disjointed, like an old television set, improperly tuned. The more she tried to bring it into sharp focus, the worse the pictures got. Fuzzy and choppy, the images flashed in her mind: slot machines…a long, wide boardwalk beside a rough gray ocean…pedestrians in brightly colored shirts posing in front of a statue of an elephant.

The dissonance from the fabric against her skin turned into a burn. She knew it was just in her mind—
knew
it—but that didn’t make it seem any less real. She was being painted in acid and each brushstroke made her stomach churn.
I’m going to be sick.