A Kiss in the Dark (Sam and Rick #2)

Chapter 12

12

Saturday, 2:35 p.m.

C licking off the video call, Richard blew out his breath. Catching a guy flat-footed on his way to dinner in order to pretend interest in the man’s banking empire or company or shares in something was fairly common for him. Getting someone to chat before he or she quite knew what was going on was an efficient way of collecting information and assessing weaknesses.

This call, though, had been different. Firstly, Daan Van der Berg didn’t seem actually to own a company. Or any tangible property at all, for that matter, with the exception of a ridiculously huge yacht. Other than that, as far as Tom and his team had been able to dig up, Van der Berg had minority shares in two dozen banks, a familial history of questionable art acquisitions, and a couple of nebulous offshore accounts.

It screamed money laundering to Richard, but he didn’t have the luxury of waiting around for Interpol or someone else to investigate Van der Berg and run him off to white-collar criminal prison. That could take decades, if it ever happened at all. No, Richard wasn’t interested in doing business with this guy, but he had wanted a chance to give the Dutchman a sideways warning about trying to illegally obtain Calder kinetic structures—or anything else about to be auctioned by Sotheby’s.

With Van der Berg pretending he didn’t speak English and Richard losing his patience at being played with, the threat had been more direct than he’d intended. But for Christ’s sake, Tom had sent him videos of interviews where the twat spoke perfect English, with a perfect English accent.

So now he’d been warned off, with a couple of threats about financial ruin thrown in for good measure. Richard didn’t like being toyed with, but if he wanted to justify his…direct approach, he could always claim that he might just have turned Van der Berg away from a life of crime.

Of course he might also have made things worse. If Van der Berg was the guy who’d hired Martin Jellicoe, he’d tipped them both off to the fact that Samantha knew that. He hadn’t said her name, of course, but Martin knew they were engaged. Anyone with electricity knew they were engaged. It wasn’t a great leap to figure out what was going on.

And on top of that, it had taken hours to track the man down and cause this potential disaster. “Well done, you wanker,” he muttered at himself, turning over his cellphone.

Three missed calls. Two from Tom, and one from Samantha. Whereas Tom had left a pair of detailed messages, though, Samantha hadn’t left one at all. Ignoring his stomach growling, he called her back.

“Hey,” she answered, as she generally did.

“I’m sorry I missed your call. I had some overseas communications going on.”

“Well, whoop-de-do. We got to tase somebody.”

For a second Richard shut his eyes. His Samantha was not for the faint-hearted. “Is he arrested, or buried in the basement?”

“The first one. Anne and Aubrey handled it so I could keep my usual police safety perimeter intact.”

“Good. Is that why you called? To inform me about the tasing?”

“I know you hate when I get to do something fun and you’re stuck in the office.” She snorted at her own wit. “That was it, mainly. I asked Aubrey to see if he could figure out if any of his snowbird Palm Beach buds might be after something of Adgerton’s, but that was mostly to give him something to do that didn’t involve following me around.”

That was as good a lead-in as he was going to get, whether he wanted to use it or not. “I had a chat with Daan Van der Berg,” he said as smoothly as he could. “About banking and wealth and collecting.”

For twelve seconds she didn’t say anything. He knew it was that long, because he counted. “Anything interesting come up?” she finally asked.

“No. I think I made a bit of an ass of myself, because it turns out I don’t like smug people who are more lucky than intelligent. It may have devolved into fairly direct threats if he has anything to do with an upcoming robbery at Sotheby’s—which also may get back to Martin, if Van der Berg is indeed his client.”

He waited for the inevitable explosion. It didn’t come. “Eh,” she said, her voice its usual cool, half-amused tone. “I don’t think it’ll matter. You might have set Martin back on his heels a little, which I count as the good stuff.”

“Really?” He stopped himself from saying anything else, because even he could hear in his voice the boy relieved to be avoiding a stern talking-to. “Well, I prefer when my threats are for a good cause.”

“That definitely qualifies. In other news, Stoney and I had our first talk about getting a divorce.”

That stopped him for a good handful of seconds. “Anything interesting come of it?” He thought he sounded fairly suave for a guy whose mind had just run off in a hundred different directions, imagining a future where Samantha actually cut off all ties with her former criminal gang.

“He’s thinking about it. I also asked if he would walk me down the aisle and then threw in a question about whether he’d ever consider relocating to New York. Altogether, I think I’ve earned a day off tomorrow.”

“It will be Sunday. Sounds sensible to me.”

“Good. I like to be sensible. So anyway, I’ve got another couple of hours here today. Meet at the apartment and stay in for dinner and a movie?”

“God, yes.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“I love you, too, Samantha.”

Rick set his phone down and stared at it for a long moment, then tapped the intercom button on the office’s phone. “Jeniah, have the car sent ’round. I’m in need of a bit of a lie down.” And a beer. Or three.

* * *

Aubrey scrolled through the phone numbers on his cellphone, stopping at the one labeled “Joe—tennis racket repair.” His finger hovered over the highlighted number while he glanced around him again.

He’d tried the coffee shop Samantha had recommended, but it was small and neat and quiet. That was no good for him. Another block down and he’d found a sports bar, filled on a Saturday afternoon with people who’d started drinking beers early and who were already arguing over games just about to begin. Loud, rowdy, and rude—much better for privacy, really.

Finally, he tapped the number and put the phone up to his ear. Two rings later, it picked up. “Ling.”

“It’s Aubrey,” he said, shifting a little closer over his plate of wings.

“It’s Saturday. I took this job so I would have people who would take calls on the weekend and I wouldn’t have to hear about it until Monday.”

“I didn’t want this heading to you through Dean Frankle,” Aubrey commented, resisting the urge to plug his other ear so he could hear more clearly.

“You mean you didn’t want Frankle taking credit for something you dug up. I’m not your damn camp counselor, Pendleton. Go through channels. I’m hanging up.”

“Did you know Martin Jellicoe is still alive?”

The call didn’t disconnect. “No shit. You saw him?”

“No. He made a deal with Interpol to aid in recovering some of what he’d taken and turning in other cat burglars. They put out that he was dead to protect him and his sources.”

“Lucky bastards,” Ling muttered. “Where are you? In a bar?”

“Sports club. Manhattan.”

“I specifically didn’t authorize that yesterday.”

“My other boss paid for the ticket. Not an extra dime charged to your office.”

“Like I give a fuck about that. You have a deadline, Aubrey. This is—”

“She took the Sotheby’s job because she found out that Martin Jellicoe intends to hit the exhibit,” Aubrey interrupted, beginning to wish he’d taken a few more minutes to decide exactly what he wanted to say. When Samantha had told him about Martin Jellicoe and his recent doings, though, the opportunity had been far too good to let pass by. It gave him options, which made getting scolded for weekend calling completely worth the annoyance.

“You’re going to have to back this up a little.” At least Ling Wu sounded interested now.

“Okay. My source told me that Martin Jellicoe made that deal with Interpol, and that he’s been feeding them info and going behind their backs and hitting places, then setting up other thieves to take the fall. He’s made an industry out of it, apparently.” That might have been a slight exaggeration, but it was also a way out of this mess. Hopefully.

“How certain are you about all this? Because if you make me step on Interpol’s toes for no good reason, I am not going to be happy, Pendleton. And then you’re going to be very unhappy.”

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know the veiled threats bit by heart, Wu.”

“Then you also have an answer, I suppose, when I ask you if the Jellicoes could be in this Sotheby’s heist thing together? She sets up security and he goes in through whatever hole she’s left? It’s kind of perfect.”

“Sure, that might work once or twice, but it’d also hard to explain to prospective clients if everywhere she installed security got hit by a pro. Aside from that, none of the places where she’s installed security have been hit. A couple of attempts, but nobody’s made it in.”

“Maybe it was all leading to this.”

Aubrey rolled his eyes. “So she went public, started a business, got engaged to a billionaire, stopped a couple of robberies, and helped put a couple of really bad guys away just so she could get a contract to install security at one Sotheby’s exhibit and help her dad rob it?”

“Maybe she needs a wedding gift for Addison. He collects art, doesn’t he?”

“Why does talking to you make me want to slam my head against a table?” For God’s sake. A thing either made sense, or it didn’t. Samantha only pretending to go straight didn’t make sense. She’d stuck her neck out too far, put too much into her life in Florida, made herself too public. The downside was huge, and he couldn’t see the benefit of doing it as a ruse. There just wasn’t one. “What I’m hearing,” Ling Wu said, from his clipped tone pissed off that an agent had done something other than compliment him, “is that you want to trade one Jellicoe for the other. That’s not how we operate, and you know it. Take down Martin Jellicoe if you want; it’ll look good on your score sheet. But doing that doesn’t make her innocent.”

“Wu, th—”

“Run it past the Manhattan office on Monday. I’ll coordinate with Tampa and make sure you get however much manpower you need. But you’d better be sure, Aubrey. If you get this wrong, it won’t be reassignment to a desk at this damn CVS-view office, filing other people’s reports, for you. It won’t even be Immanuel Village in Nebraska. If the FBI loses one to Interpol thanks to you, you’re done.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Oh, and if it messes with you nabbing the daughter, double forget it. I’ll put a call in to Interpol and let them worry about their own mess after we get her in cuffs.”

“I’ll figure it out. No phone call from you to Interpol until I get back to you.” Whatever leverage he had right now, he wasn’t letting go of it until he’d figured out how best to use it.

“I’m hanging up now.”

Tapping off the call, Aubrey set down his phone and leaned back in the padded booth seat, picked up his waiting beer, and took a deep, long swallow. Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, army and aliens—it had all been pretty black-and-white when he’d been a kid. Sure, he’d learned differently a long time ago, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still a few white hats and black hats out there, somewhere.

While he was willing to bet that whatever she’d been before, Samantha Jellicoe had put on her white hat and didn’t intend to take it off, deciding what he was willing to bet on it—that was the hard part.

The exhibit would open on Tuesday. A week and a half after that, it would shut down and Sotheby’s would auction off the goods. That left him a very small window to trap one Jellicoe, save another, keep his own job—jobs, rather—and not upset the balance he’d managed for the past nine months. For the past ten years, really.

Shit. Samantha should probably change the ringtone she used for his phone calls from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to the theme from Mission Impossible . Because two things were becoming quite clear; he’d already decided what he wanted to do, and there was no chance in hell any of this was going to go the way he hoped.

* * *

Her daughter tased people. Or had someone else tase them, which was pretty much the same thing. Anne Hughes reached into one of the smaller displays and changed the angle of the amber cane topper to make sure the mosquito inside could be seen through the glass. Very Jurassic Park of Mr. Adgerton, and not the most valuable piece by far, but she was also fairly certain this particular item would appear in at least a few newspapers next week when the press got their tour of the exhibit on Monday.

She’d never seen anyone tased except on TV, and it looked painful. Even so, she could certainly get behind doing that to Bradley, if he ever did show his face there. She almost wished he would, just so they could get the anticipation over with.

Then it would be over, she would know that they’d stopped him from doing still more damage to her life and to her career, and if she was very lucky, he would be back in prison—for good this time. She didn’t imagine many people lied to Interpol and did criminal things while on their payroll. At least she hoped not.

How many lives had he ruined? Was it just her and Sam? And if he succeeded here, what would he do next? Would he decide to target her and everyone else in her life just because she’d tried to stop him? What would her own mother do if Bradley Martin showed up? What would Michael do? Oh, that couldn’t happ—

“That is very Jurassic Park ,” Sam commented, leaning over the glass while the two workers secured the lid and made sure the alarm was live.

Anne jumped. “I was just thinking that. Plus, this is the only way I like my mosquitoes. Frozen solid and turned into decorations.”

Her daughter snorted. “That reminds me of when Madame Tussaud’s called and wanted to make a wax statue of Rick to go in their Hall of Billionaires.”

“Really? What did he say to that?”

“He said being memorialized for having money was stupid. I think he was worried I would steal it from the museum and do stuff with it.”

That made Anne laugh, even as she wondered whether other mothers and daughters had conversations like that one. She couldn’t imagine they did. It wasn’t one of the talks she’d imagined having with young Sarah, and she’d imagined so many of those. So many.

“Do you have plans for tomorrow?” she asked, as they moved on to make final adjustments and secure the next display case. “Other than obsessively checking the camera feeds, that is.”

“I think Rick wants to go look at a few houses outside the City, but I’m not sure how far away from this building I’m willing to get.”

“Houses? Are you thinking of moving here?” Did that mean Sam wanted to be closer to her family? Did it mean they had a future? Did it mean anything at all? “I mean, you have the apartment already.”

Samantha shrugged. “Rick has this idea that I’d be happier and busier here, and if he moves, he wants his friend—his best friend, really—Tom Donner, to be around, too. And Donner comes with a wife and three kids.”

“Wow.”

“Well, they’re practically attached at the hip.”

“Oh, that’s not what I mean,” Anne said. “It’s more about the wine, I think. And the vintage I used to prefer, and how it never gave up anything for me.” Hell, Bradley not only hadn’t given up his way of life, he’d stolen their daughter on his way out.

“Ah.” Sam put a hand on her arm. “Gotcha. Yeah, Rick’s pretty cool.”

“But the house would be for the Donners?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s just getting a feel for the area. Or something like that.”

For a minute she wanted to recommend her own Connecticut neighborhood, but that might come across as stalkery and creepy, especially if they were only talking about Rick’s friends and where they would live. She didn’t imagine any of them would want to live next door to Sam’s mother, though. And she certainly didn’t want to be that type of mother—or mother-in-law—either.

And now she wanted to ask if Sam had begun plans for her wedding, or if she needed any assistance with that. That conversation was another one to be saved for later, though, with fewer people to overhear. Because no one was supposed to know they were mother and daughter. Because stupid Bradley had managed to mess up even this reunion just by virtue of his existence.

The good thing about Samantha’s performance this morning was that absolutely no one reached for their phone inside the premises. It almost became a problem, with so many calls going unanswered, but every weird ringtone reminded her that her remaining employees were following both Sam’s rules and the sign’s rules. No calls, no photography, no electronic devises but her iPad and Sam’s own phone.

The press coming in on Monday would alter that, and afterward, while they could discourage flash photography, she didn’t want to be tackling every prospective buyer who pulled out their phone to take a call or a discreet photo. Hm. She and Sam would have to talk about that. And about whether Bradley had been known to wear a disguise and if she thought he might try to sneak in as a tourist or future auction participant.

Would she recognize him? Anne shuddered. Not so much his looks, probably, as that…feeling of dread that had come over her once she’d realized just who he was, and just before he’d grabbed Sarah—Samantha—and taken off into the darkness, not to be heard from for twenty years. His features wouldn’t even matter. It would be that sensation that gave him away. So if he knew what was good for him, he would stick with the threats and bullying, and get out of Manhattan.

“Okay,” Sam said, straightening. “Let’s do one more walk-through of this floor to make sure everything’s wired, secured, and ready, then we’ll go down to the second floor and do it again.”

“Are we going to have people here as security, now? Or just the alarm system?”

“Just the system at night. At this point security guards are the weak link, but they’ll be a help with traffic control at least during the day.”

“That seems very cynical, but I can’t argue with what’s already happened. Just tell me Rhee will be monitoring, too.”

“Technically,” Sam commented, heading for the next room, “nobody needs to be monitoring. The system will alert everybody, including the police, if anything at all trips. But yeah, I asked him to keep checking in, the same as you and I will be doing all fricking day and night until this is over.”

This was the largest exhibit and auction Anne had put together in years, and she was very aware how closely her bosses at Sotheby’s were watching. The fact that they’d allowed it all to proceed according to her direction, even after learning about her connection with Bradley Martin, both gave her warm, fuzzy feelings and terrified the living daylights out of her. “I don’t suppose I could arrange for armed guards outside twenty-four-seven, anyway?”

“Don’t tempt me. I’d definitely like it better if I could be on every floor and in front of every monitor all at the same time, but at some point I have to trust that we’ve done enough.” Samantha blew out her breath, letting Anne take the lead as they descended the wide staircase to the middle floor.

“I know exactly how you feel, Sam. But yes, short of hiring a crack team of mercenaries I can’t even imagine what more we could have done—except for placing a giant boulder on the roof, poised to crush anyone who touches anything they shouldn’t, of course.”

Sam shot her a grin. “If only.”

“Unfortunately, giant boulders and mercenaries are both out of my budget. But go with Rick tomorrow. Have fun. I’ll be watching the video feeds all day, I promise you. And I will call or text you if I see even a speck of lint.”

“I appreciate it. I could log Aubrey in, too, if you want another set of eyes.” Sam shrugged. “Or I could let you decide that. I’m just security. It’s your gig.”

“Which I couldn’t have done without you. No matter what happens.”

It occurred to her again that whether they’d figured it all out or not, whether they could talk about it in front of other people or not, she was the mom in this relationship. And moms wanted their daughters to be happy. If enabling that entailed her being even more watchful than she’d already anticipated having to be, so be it.

* * *

Squinting a little in the sunlight even with her sunglasses on, Samantha put her feet up on the dash so she could prop the Best Places to Live on the East Coast real estate buyer’s book on her bent knees. “You really bought this?”

Rick glanced at her. “I had it purchased for me. Why? Are you secretly a real estate mogul in disguise?”

Man, he was testy this morning. Evidently she wasn’t the only one who needed a day off. “It definitely shows all the best places to rob,” she quipped, turning the page to look at more photos. It had clearly been put together by real estate people, made for possible buyers with money to burn. “Like a ‘Guide to the Best Shit’ catalog.”

His jaw clenched. “Why do you insist on doing that to my blood pressure?”

“Maybe it’s not me affecting you,” she suggested. “We did just cross the bridge into New Jersey.”

“There are some very nice places to live in New Jersey.”

“Yeah, I know.” She turned another page. “So are you just choosing the Donners’ house, or are you buying it for them, too? Don’t forget to scout the local school districts before you tell them where they’re moving. Katie is very particular.”

“That’s it.” Rick punched the accelerator and wrenched the Mercedes to the right, taking them off the toll road past a load of cars with people now honking and giving them the finger, down the ramp, and skidding them into a shopping center parking lot.

Bracing her feet, Samantha shut the book and faced him. “Thank God.”

“Thank God what? You’re maddening!”

“ I’m maddening? You’re like a giant clenched fist, Rick. What the hell is going on?”

He glared at her, blue eyes narrowed. “You need to make a damned decision,” he finally snapped.

Oh, so he was putting this, whatever it was, back on her. “Hold on. You’re mad because I haven’t decided if I want to uproot a dozen people’s lives or not? Tough shit.”

“It’s not—Stop worrying about what the Donners or Stoney or Aubrey or anybody else might or might not wish to do. I bought Solano Dorado as a place to entertain, and to show off. The apartment here was an investment, a place I could go to be alone, or again to entertain. I’m not alone any longer. I don’t want to live in a showplace. I want a home. With you. And one with extra bedrooms in case we ever get around to discussing whether or not we want children. Not because some CEO wants to jet in for the day and stay somewhere he can brag about when he gets home. A place with a yard, not a formal garden.”

Now she was staring, and she didn’t quite know how to stop doing it. She’d spent the last couple of weeks interpreting some things really, really badly. “This moving thing isn’t about growing my business, then. It’s not about me trying to weigh my shit against yours and me feeling guilty over making the Donners turn their own lives upside down just to suit my whims.”

“Well…No.” He frowned. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

“You really need to stop the thing where you don’t tell me stuff because you think I’ll run away. I said yes. I’m wearing a big-ass ring. If you want my input on a decision, fucking tell me about it.”

For a minute there was silence in the Mercedes, with the exception of the score from The Lord of the Rings playing softly in the background. This was the part where the Fellowship left Rivendell, not knowing they’d all make it back except for poor old Boromir. Samantha hoped she wasn’t about to be the Boromir of this situation.

Then Rick’s shoulders lowered, and he blew out his breath. “Okay. I suppose I can’t expect you to want the thing that I want when I don’t tell you what the thing is or why I want it.”

“Damn straight.” She opened the book again. “Now get us to Glen Rock, New Jersey. There’s a house I want to look at.”

He put the car back in gear.

“Do we still get to have household staff, though?” she asked, flipping pages until she found the one she wanted. “Because I am not learning to cook.”

“Neither am I. So, yes.”

“Awesome.”

It made a difference to know that he didn’t want to move because he was looking out for her business. Or at least that that wasn’t the only reason. She’d been in all but two of his houses, and while all of them had a tasteful and expensive design and a scattering of art and antiquities that would make some museums weep, she understood what he meant. They were all showpieces. Places that would be open, ready, and appropriate for a weekend visit or for a rich dude’s party. They weren’t what she would call “homey.”

Neither, though, could she exactly picture Rick out mowing the lawn. So maybe “stately” and “comfortable” together. A place that required three or four staff members to maintain rather than twelve. “You’re okay with no giant wall surrounding you?” she asked.

“Perhaps a nice sheltering line of trees, or something. And a pond or a small grove between us and the neighbors. Among other neighbors who also value their privacy.”

She looked at him, studying his strong-jawed profile all over again. “You really have been thinking about this. Why the hell didn’t you say you wanted to move, too?”

“I should have. You have to admit, though, you have fled my company before, and for less reason.”

“Different reason,” she pointed out. “Not less reason. You tried to manage me. This time you did, like, the opposite, giving me nothing to hang a decision on. Somewhere in the middle would be good.”

He also needed to do some more work on the way he argued, but pointing that out now wouldn’t be fair. After spending most of his life being the guy in charge, Rick didn’t really argue as much as he just forcefully pointed out the way he thought things should be. While he’d made some big changes already, she got why he occasionally forgot he was part of Team Rimantha or Jellison or Addicoe or whatever they were. The point being, they were a pair. And if he wanted stuff done that concerned the two of them, he was going to have to ask questions and answer them.

Samantha smiled. She’d been a solo act for a long time, too. The main difference had been that most of the decisions she’d made had been about safety and staying clear of the law. Self-preservation. Now it was about lawns. And the other thing that people used extra bedrooms for that wasn’t houseguests.

“What’s so amusing?” Rick asked.

“I was just picturing you on one of those tractor mowers,” she said. “I’m totally getting you one.”

“Just remember that I can arrange to make the Donners our next-door neighbors.”

Ugh . Katie would be okay, and the kids, but Donner? Where he could be walking his dog beneath an open window and overhear…stuff? She made a face. “Okay. No ride-on mowers. Sheesh.”

“That’s right. Don’t forget, I negotiate for a living.” With a half-smile, Rick reached over and took her fingers. “On a different note, after this is over with, are you going to continue to go by Samantha Jellicoe? Or Samantha Addison? Or Sarah Addison? Or Sarah Jellicoe Addison? Or Sarah Hughes? Or S—”

“I’m Sam Jellicoe,” she broke in, before he could start in on the Martin and Bradley last names. “I could probably be persuaded to be Sam Jellicoe-Addison because marrying you makes me a marchioness and a Lady with a capital L , but I am not going back to Sarah. Whoever I was, I’m not a Sarah anymore.”

“Good. I happen to love Samantha Jellicoe.”

“Even if I’m named after a Broadway musical about cats?”

Rick shrugged, squeezing her hand. “Like you said, you’ve grown into this name. You made it yours. I, on the other hand, am not even the first Richard Addison.”

“Dude, your name didn’t shape you. Your life did. Just like me. We are our parents’ children, whether we like it or not.” Samantha snorted. “And man, do I feel sorry for those hypothetical kids you were talking about. They have no chance of being normal at all.”

Laughing, Rick released her hand again. “That’s the reason people have children, isn’t it? To laugh at them later?”

“And to make them carry heavy stuff when they’re old enough.”

“In that case, I deem us perfectly fit to be parents.”

She flipped another page of the book, a little surprised that she hadn’t tried to jump out of the car, despite what she’d said to him about good reasons for fleeing. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Before parenthood, she needed to stop her dad from ruining her life for the second or third or fifth time. For the last time.