“Are you looking for him now?”

  Carter nods. “Of course. Don’t worry, Poppy, we’ll find him.”

  Poppy? When did we start going on a first-name basis? “Good luck with that,” I say just as condescendingly.

  “Thank you. I’ll definitely let you know as soon as we have more information to share.” When I don’t bow down, thanking him for the kindness, he asks, “Hey, how’s your book going?”

  I blink at the sudden subject and tone change. “Uhm, good?”

  He pauses, clearly looking for more information for some reason. When I don’t offer anything further, he adds, “Glad to hear that. I’d love to read it sometime. What’d you say the title is?”

  “Love in Great Falls. I’m working on the sequel, which I should probably get back to . . .” I trail off, suddenly very uncomfortable with this whole conversation. I can’t decide if Detective Carter is flirting . . . or if this is still a conversation about the stolen property.

  It’s a lot to take in, and I need to process all this.

  Because I’ve fallen in love . . . not with a petty thief but an art thief . . . who’s been lying to me all along.

  But Carter seems willing to drop it for now. “Sure thing. I understand. I’ll be in touch.”

  I nod slowly. “Bye, Detective Carter,” I manage to stammer out, sounding mostly normal. But going back inside, I’m freaking the fuck out.

  What if they figure out that it’s Connor who stole my laptop and the painting? What if they track him next door? What if they realize that we’re dating . . . and telling people that we’re engaged? They’ll think I’m in on it. Especially after I lied to the police about seeing him again.

  “What the fuck am I going to do?” I whisper, peeking out my fisheye lens like a total paranoid nut to make sure he’s left. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck . . .”

  I start pacing the living room, which wakes up Nut and Juice. They look at me worriedly, probably wondering why the hell their mama’s gone crazy this time. They’re the ones who’re supposed to run in circles, not me.

  “What do I do?” I ask them, but all Nut does is yawn and lie back down. “Thanks for nothing, you fuzzy little monster!”

  Juice climbs off the couch, coming over to lick my foot. It tickles, and when I wiggle my toes, Juice thinks I’m playing, but this is no game.

  I start my pacing again, panic rising and thoughts scrambling around faster than a cow in a tornado.

  What the hell am I supposed to do?

  Chapter 21

  Connor

  I’ve done all the internet research I can, and now it’s time to get eyes on my target.

  I’ve adjusted my features some, like I normally do. First, I put in colored contacts, making my eyes look brown, then hid them behind a pair of designer, slightly gaudy nonprescription glasses. A small insert between my gum and upper lip adds a subtle amount of weight to my face, and a clip-on earring in my left ear pulls attention away from the rest. All added to my black suit with a purple striped tie that’s an attention grabber, I’m a much different version of myself.

  I look . . . flashy and expensive. But also like I belong at the upper-crust auction house, either to purchase for myself or perhaps as a personal assistant to someone wealthy enough to purchase things here.

  At the front desk, there’s a woman at a computer, typing in a desultory way that tells me she’s not enjoying her job right this moment. The rest of the place is deserted, as planned.

  “May I help you?” she says in a bored voice, not looking up from her screen.

  I clear my throat, putting on an accent that I’ve practiced for years. I’ve got three, but this one is perfect for this situation—slightly British, but indistinct enough to sound American influenced. “Yes, I represent a potential buyer for several pieces coming up for auction. I’ve been sent to examine and authenticate the pieces he . . .” I dip my chin like I’ve misspoken and add, “or she . . . is interested in.”

  The woman’s eyebrows lift as she looks me over, suddenly alert and attentive. Just as planned. “Do you have an appointment?” She knows good and well that I don’t, but this is part of the game.

  “My employer isn’t the type to advertise interest. It tends to be bad for the purchase price. I’m sure you understand.” I scrub my chin with a hand, framing a charming smile and exposing my expensive watch. Her memories should be centered around the bling and flash and not the man in the suit.

  The woman is hesitant, understandably so considering she works with a wide variety of expensive merchandise. But she also works with wealthy, and sometimes eccentric, buyers. And their representatives.

  When she still pauses, I reach into my inner pocket and remove a small envelope, which I slowly place on the desk. It’s obviously got something in it, based on the subtle thickness of the package.

  She looks at the envelope carefully, her eyebrows lifting and then lowering.

  “Well, I’m sure a little peek wouldn’t hurt, right?”

  “Exactly,” I respond, straightening my suit jacket. Actually, I’m slouching some, but again, I’ve learned exactly how to do this to the point of making it look natural.

  I follow her down the hall, looking for weaknesses in their systems or protocols. I already know a lot about the site’s security, but I double-check my data on the alarm system and badge scanner, comparing it against what I know as she places an ID against a solid black panel with a small company name engraved on the top. It’s top-notch, as is the sprinkler system. No opportunity for a false fire alarm, no getting in without an ID badge, either stolen or reproduced.

  So far, the only obvious flaw in their system is the woman letting a complete stranger in to view upcoming auction merchandise. But a distract and snatch won’t work this time. Their monitoring includes cameras in every room, including this hallway. Hopefully, the fake glasses will do enough to disguise my appearance. As an added bonus, my glasses have a small pinhole camera hidden behind a rhinestone, and I’ll review the footage later, frame by frame.

  She scans her ID badge once more and opens the door into a large storage room. The tables are long, set up in labeled sections and filled with treasures. A weaker man would start stuffing his pockets and make a run for it. But that has never been my style.

  “Which pieces do you want to see?” the woman says, businesslike but nervous. “We need to be quick. People will be returning from lunch soon.”

  “Of course. There are three pieces.” I tell her the titles of the pieces, and she leads me to the first one.

  The painting is dramatic, a Viking ship with tattered sails in tumultuous seas backed by thunderous clouds. I pull a magnifying loupe from my pocket and lean forward to examine the signature.

  The woman tells me about the piece, a consummate salesperson, but it’s information I already know. After a quick but thorough examination of the brushstrokes, frame, and small chipping along the side edge, I nod.

  She smiles and rushes me to the second piece, but again, it’s not the one I’m here for. It is, however, next to the one I’m interested in. I narrow my eyes, scanning the Japanese piece as the woman gives me the details on it while actually looking past it to a rustic stone figurine.

  The female figure sculpture is remarkably robust, the weight apparent by the full curves of the stone. Past that, it’s small, roughly the size of my forearm, and primitive in design. Through my surreptitious looks, I verify it’s the piece I want, noting its most unique feature, the well-documented fault line where the figure’s left arm broke off sometime in the last four hundred years.

  “The last one?” I ask, straightening up. I want to cast all suspicion away from me when I do steal the stone figure. That’s why I’m looking at three pieces and making sure I show no awareness of the one I’m actually interested in.

  I’m a ghost on the breeze, never to be suspected or even considered.

  The woman’s anxiousness is ramping up, judging by the way she’s nibbling at her lip now. Whether it’s the elapsed time or a return of her conscience, I don’t know. “You have to hurry.”

  I nod, and she leads me to the third one. Another painting. I do a cursory examination, not truly interested and only finishing my casing of the room, but something in the layers of paint catches my eye.

  I look again in another spot, and then another. The crackling of the paint is all wrong. This piece should have aged out with spiderweb-style cracks, and while they’re there, the cracks are too pronounced in some areas and nearly indistinct in others. Storage in non-climate-controlled areas might cause that, but this piece has been in a documented private collection for generations. It would have been cared for diligently.

  I’d have to do a deeper examination, but I’m reasonably certain this is a forgery. That it’s for sale by a reputable auction house tells me that fact is unknown, and I muse mildly about how long the original’s been gone. For all I know, the forgery could have been passed off for a generation or more. Or it might be a new development by a family who needs funds but is unwilling to sell off an important heirloom.

  But I don’t tell the woman who’s looking toward the door and then at her watch. I save that information for myself. Instead, I push my glasses up my nose and dip my chin. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. We need to go now.”

  I nod and follow her back out. I consciously don’t look back at anything, not wanting to show my hand in the middle of the game. Anyone who reviews the tape would think I came, I saw, I walked.

  There’s a man coming back in the door as we return to the front desk area. At the sight of him, the woman with me freezes like a deer in the headlights, stammering. You’d make a terrible criminal. “Oh, hi . . . Randy. This is . . .”

  I step forward to help, taking charge before she blows the whole fucking thing up without even meaning to. It’s for her good as much as my own. “Mike. I’m a . . . friend.” I say the word with a hint of allusion, letting Randy fill in what that might mean. Boyfriend, side piece, truly just a buddy. “How’s it going?”

  The woman steps closer to my side as Randy gives me a surprised nod. I fight the urge to bristle at her closeness and instead look down at her, faking fondness to sell the cover story. “I’ll see you later?”

  Implication drips heavily from the question, and Randy’s eyebrows go up another inch. Perfect. At this point, it’d take an act of God to get this woman to tell anyone about what she just did. She pushes her hair behind her ear. “Yeah.”

  I move toward the door, glancing back once to make sure Randy bought the whole thing. He’s already striding down the hall, not paying the woman any mind. But she picks up the envelope and mouths, “Thank you.”

  I smile in answer, but as soon as the door closes behind me, the fake smile falls away instantly.

  I’ve got more work to do.

  It’s late afternoon before I get back home, changing clothes into comfortable jeans and a T-shirt before going next door. I knock and hear Nut and Juice go crazy on the other side. “It’s me, you little monsters. Go get Poppy.”

  A moment later, the lock slides, and I’m ready to press inside and get Poppy back in my arms as soon as possible. It’s been a long day of prep, but as soon as I lay eyes on her, I know something’s wrong. First, her mouth is a thin line, lips pressed tightly together. Second, she doesn’t jump at me like one of her overly hyper dogs who are swirling around my ankles.

  “Get your ass in here.”

  Damn. What happened since this morning? The flatness in her usually bright tone guts me.

  “Writer’s block back?” I ask, hoping it's only that and not something much more dire. If it’s that, I’m more than up for naked muse time and pep talks and whatever else it takes.

  No such luck. She shakes her head and sits on the far end of the couch, her legs curled up in front of her, putting a literal wall between us. I sit down on the other end, turning toward her and laying an arm across the back of the couch, intentionally choosing an open posture that invites her to crawl into my lap.

  Poppy doesn’t take the invitation and looks at me evenly. “Tell me about when you took my laptop.”

  “We’ve covered this,” I point out.

  “Not everything,” she says, and I feel my stomach clench.

  No. Not yet. I want to tell her, but this isn’t the time. I glare at her, hoping she’ll let this go. I need her to, just for a little while.

  She glares back. In fact, she reaches out with one leg, digging her big toe into my thigh. “I’m giving you a chance to come clean here. Don’t fuck it up, mister. Last chance . . . tell me about when you took my laptop.”

  Fuck. How could she know? There’s no way she could know. No way she should know. But there’s knowledge in her eyes.

  Somehow, she found out why I was there.

  “I don’t know what you know or how you found out, but yes,” I tell her, keeping my voice calm, “there was more to it than your laptop.”

  She growls but retrieves her toe as she sits up fully, listening intently. “Spill it. I want all your guts laid bare on this couch, right here, right now, or so help me God, I will do it for you. Gut you like Rambo in the middle of a jungle, but I’ll use a dull, rusty pair of scissors and make it slow and painful.” She makes a stabbing motion, but thankfully, her hand is empty for now.

  “I don’t doubt that.” I sigh, scrubbing at my face and looking at the ceiling. There’s so much to unpack, and I haven’t had a chance to figure out how to tell this story, where it begins, or where it stops.

  So I’ll have to wing it. “I did steal your laptop, obviously. But I wasn’t there for that. I was there to steal something much more valuable.”

  Was it just last night that I told myself I’d have to tell her? Back then, it felt academic, easy. Now, I’m scared shitless to tell her the whole ugly truth. I don’t want to see her look at me with disdain, with the same disgust I’ve become too familiar with. Or worse, disappointment. I saw that on my parents’ faces for so long, so many times. When I was younger, I enjoyed being the hellion who challenged their beliefs. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how unimportant that is. The way I live my life only truly affects me. Until now.

  “The Black Rose,” Poppy fills in when I don’t say it. “You snatched it, replaced it with a fake.”

  I grunt an agreement. Not much else to do.

  Poppy leaps from her end of the couch to where I’m sitting, landing in my lap, but not in a good way. Her palms swat and slap at my chest, more annoying than painful. What hurts are the barbs she’s spitting as she does it . . .

  “You son of a bitch!” Swat.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Slap.

  “Lying asshole!” A yank of my ear, which actually does make my eyes water in pain.

  She starts pounding at my chest, each fist punctuated with the same word. “Why . . . why . . . why?”

  I take it all, not fighting or even protecting myself, which somehow enrages her more. She pokes me in the chest, right over my heart, with a jagged fingernail that she’s obviously been chewing on in her worry. “Why didn’t you tell me? You lied to me!”

  She goes for another slap, and this time, I catch her wrist gently, hugging her flailing arms tight against my chest. She struggles, but I quiet her with a growled plea. “Poppy. Listen to me.”

  When she stills, I can see the glitter of tears in her eyes. Quieter, and less sure, she asks, “Was it all a lie?”

  I cup her face, releasing her hands slowly as a sign of trust. “No. It’s not all a lie. I swear it.”

  She sniffs, pouting and hurt, and I can see the deep pain beneath the puffed-out lip. “I don’t believe you.”

  I swallow and let it all drop. I have to now. “If it was all a lie, I wouldn’t be here now. You’ve got your laptop back, and you more than covered for me with my family. If this wasn’t real, I would’ve already moved on.”

  I run my thumb over her lip, hating the pain I’ve caused. Her eyes narrow, scouring my words for half-truths and lies. She’s looking for loopholes, the way she does her book plots, making sure every nuance is sealed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that next door is a cover home, a place to hole up away from my actual house so I don’t leave a trail. I’ve lived in a dozen or more places like that over the past few years. Poppy, I stayed because of you. If not, I would have blown out of here a week ago.”

  She huffs. “I hate it when you use logic on me, especially when I’ve got a good fit happening. For a damn good fucking reason,” she reminds me with one last love pat, this time to my cheek. Even as she snaps at me, her anger is waning. She sags, slipping off my lap to the couch beside me. “Tell me the full story. All of it, every detail.”

  That’s hard, and I sit silently for a moment before I get up and start pacing her living room, one way and then the other, as I try to put my thoughts into words. Nut and Juice follow me the first lap, but then they lie down in their bed and watch me walk, occasionally looking to Poppy for a clue about what’s happening.

  I wish I knew too, but I’m as lost as they are about how we all got here.

  “What I told you before wasn’t a lie, except by cutting the tale short. I did get started with pickpocketing and petty theft stuff. I got caught once, as a juvenile, for shoplifting, but my parents helped me get out of it. There was lots of volunteer work to make restitution. But they never let me forget it. From that point on, I was the black sheep. A criminal. Ungrateful for all they’d done for me. I could’ve chosen to be better, prove myself worthy to them. But I didn’t. I figured if they’d already written me off, then why bother trying to prove otherwise?”

  I clear my throat, mentally staring off into the past. “Ironically, it was during all that community service that I met people who appreciated me. There were other juvenile delinquents, and they accepted my point of view and taught me things. They gave me some new connections. I fell further and further.”