The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(30)

With the EpiPen in her hand, Doc Jane pushed Manny aside, ripped the sheet free, and exposed Assail’s withered thigh. With his weight loss, the skin was loose around the shrunken muscles, and she grabbed as much of the thigh meat as she could, pinching up a pad of a target. Then she popped the top using her teeth, drove the pen down, and sent that epinephrine into his system.

Dimly, she recognized a scent in the air. Something like dark spices. But before that could really register, his blood pressure took another dip downward.

She looked at Ehlena. “Give me another pen.”

“You’re going to kill him,” Manny snapped.

She looked directly at her partner. “He’s going to die anyway. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing about it. Ehlena, get me another pen!”





FOURTEEN


As Vitoria got off the Northway at downtown Caldwell’s Third Street exit, she felt her jet lag ease off. The sight of the city’s shimmering towers rising so high into the night enlivened her.

Yes, she thought. This was why she had come, this commerce, this population, this just-north-of-Manhattan metropolis that would feed her ambitions, not starve them.

The traffic was light on the roads, given that it was nearly midnight, and after following a series of one-ways, she located the correct avenue and…there it was. Her brother’s art gallery.

The building took up an entire block, its contours bold and proud, its exterior covered in brushed steel with blackened panes of glass, big as barn doors, set into the walls.

BENLOISE ART GALLERY was spelled out in capital letters backlit by a neon blue glow.

Turning onto a side street just before the gallery, she pulled around to its rear, where signage delineated where the staff parked and deliveries were made. After she killed the rental sedan’s engine, she fumbled to get the keys disengaged from their insertion point—and was reminded of how much she despised driving herself. Opening her door, she extended a Gucci stiletto—

Slush, like a cold, oozing hand from the grave, grasped on to her foot, seeping easily through the satin strapping and causing her to glare down at what should have been clean pavement. Instead, the ground cover appeared to be a combination of motor oil, city sludge, and snow that was past its expiration date.

She glanced over at the pair of rear doors, one of which read STAFF ONLY. It seemed a mile away, and she considered re-parking herself closer to it. But no, that was too much work, she decided. Besides, these shoes were from last season. Shifting her other heel, she threw out a hand to steady herself—and landed the bare skin of her palm on the cold exterior steel of the car.

As she recoiled and shook off the burn, a stream of vile Spanish, unfit for her brother’s sister, left her lips. The past couple of days, however, had been a trial. She had had to unpack her own clothing; her bed had not smelled fresh; there had been no one to draw her bath this afternoon; and she had had McDonald’s for a repast.

At least she had liked the fries.

But she had hated everything else. Her hardscrabble youth was a long-faded memory not just due to time, but circumstance. When one was used to being waited on, transitioning to self-sufficiency, no matter how transitory she intended the state to be, was an unpleasant awakening.

And there had been other problems, too. She had called the gallery to inform them she was coming in, and an annoying woman, Margot Fortescue or some such, had been highly resistant to the idea that things were going to change. The Benloise family was back, however, and yes, although Ricardo and Eduardo’s absences had permitted things to run themselves, that time was over now—

The door to the building opened and a large shape filled the jambs. “I didn’t think you was gonna show,” a male voice said.

“How perfectly articulate of you,” Vitoria muttered into the cold.

“Huh?”

Madre de Dios, she thought as she pulled her St. John wool coat closer. Could he be any more stupid?

Then again, one didn’t expect ground beef to have an elevated command of the English language—something that had taken her a master’s degree to achieve. And she wasn’t hiring him for his grammar, was she.

As Vitoria made her way around the car, she picked and chose her footings as if her life depended upon it—and one slip might well be a mortal event given all the ice. Why had she worn these shoes? It was so much colder up here than she had packed for, her Chanel woolen suit and this coat as flimsy as two sheets of tissue paper against the chill.

“You are Streeter, then,” she said as she finally arrived at the entrance.

“Yeah.”

With the light streaming behind him, it was impossible to see his face. But she approved of the size of his shoulders and the fact that his waist was not that of a heavy drinker. What she didn’t appreciate was when he failed to move.

“Are you going to step aside,” she demanded.

“Why you here?”

“I told you on the phone. I am Vitoria. This is my brother’s business and so it is mine.”

“He didn’t tell me you was coming. He ain’t told no one nothing for a while now.”

“Get out of my way,” she snapped. “We have business to discuss—unless you’re making too much money currently to know how to spend it all.”

Streeter didn’t hesitate for long. And he complied because that was what men like him did. They were like backhoes, in this regard: power in need of direction, motivated by cash. Left to his own devices, as he no doubt had been since Ricardo or Eduardo had last called him into service, he was liable to have devolved into an inanimate object that was having trouble covering his bills.