Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(13)

"So we're going to have to get in another way.

"We're going to have to get in another way."

"What is it we're trying to move?"

"Nothing big or heavy. It's called 'Man washing his hands'. A lost Vermeer. There's supposed to be a dozen more floating around out there, and some of Vermeer's paintings are actually the work of other artists. They found this one last year in the wall of a house, if you can believe that. The owners are putting it on display at this museum by arrangement with the foundation that runs it."

"What foundation?"

"Started by Ellicot Montclaire."

"Never heard of him."

"Guy started the Ace Chemical Company. Did gunpowder, then invented a bunch of synthetic fibers. Ellicot III runs the show now. He's got more money than God and this museum is a family tradition, which is why it's out here in the middle of nowhere."

"Not really the middle of nowhere. We're what, a half hour from Philly?"

He nods. "I suppose. Usually these things are more centrally located. That makes the proposition of moving it both easier and difficult. In a city there's traffic, construction, all sorts of problems we have to work around that keep us from moving the goods before somebody notices they're missing."

"Yeah, but out here we just drive away. So?"

"So that's it. Less traffic, fewer cars, higher chances of being waylaid or searched. This painting is basically priceless."

"Everything we steal is basically priceless. How much?"

"It's not really a matter of how much."

He stands up and looks at me, and he looks old. Maybe it's just the light in the attic catching all the lines and puffs in his face.

"What do you mean, it's not really an offer of how much?"

He sighs and leans forward, staring into the schematics on the table in front of him. He doesn't usually avoid looking at me like this. I can feel a nervous edge in his voice.

"The last job was sort of an audition. We're working on a contract, here. Think of it that way. I deliver the goods and the contract is fulfilled."

"Audition?"

"I had to prove we could pull off something like this. I need your head in the game. People like this don't f*ck around. We slip up and we're in serious trouble. We make it through this, and we're done, we're out. No more jobs, no more running from place to place, just roots."

I sit down at the table, opposite him.

"I didn't know you wanted to settle down."

"I don't, but your mother did. I left you with her because it was her wish. She wanted a stable life for you, not this."

I blink a few times. Dad never talks about Mom, not so casually. There is bad blood between us about this and it has never been aired.

I'll be blunt. My mother needed money when she was dying. It was lung cancer, and it was bad. She never smoked, but it got her anyway. She was only thirty-four when she died in a hospital bed. I don't know what kind of treatments she could have gotten with Dad's money, and I'll never find out. He didn't show himself until after she was gone.

Sometimes I think he just didn't care to see her, sometimes I think he couldn't bear to. There have been other chances in his life, as many as I have, most of the time, and I mentioned the Czech escort he was shacked up with for a while, but she was helping him with some kind of a job. I mean, I don't like to think about what my Dad does to satisfy his urges, that's a little weird, but he doesn't seem to take any joy out of the company of women the way I do.

I mean I do, don't I?

Suddenly I feel bad about… Brenda. Yeah her name was Brenda. I'm not going to romanticize it, paint it as anything more than infatuation on her part, but she was looking at me like I was something more than I was going to be for her. I feel a pang of shame, just taking pleasure from her and leaving. At least I gave as good as I got, right?

There's a photo of Diana on the table. I tap my finger on it and slip it over, turn it around so I can study it. Dad looks up.

"What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Her."

"I told you my first impression."

"She's pretty," he says, in an oddly paternal way.

"Yeah, she is."

"Not much younger than you."

"Yeah."

He shrugs. "You ever think about another life? Living some other way? Staying in one place?"

"Going to school? Going to college? Getting a job and a house in the suburbs? Please."

I quit school when we started globe-trotting. My real education was five years of training in thieving and social engineering and hacking and fighting, delivered by a master of all these things. I am an apprentice as much as a son, and I'm ready to take over the family business.

"Sometimes you ask yourself where it ends," he says, and knocks me out of my thoughts.

I just listen. It's odd for him to open up like this.

"You know, I don't know if I want this for you. Where does it end? When do I stop stealing from people? When I get caught? When I steal from the wrong person and end up at the bottom of a river? There's not going to be a retirement for me."

"Oh come on," I break in. "You said it yourself. We're done after this. The Argentina thing sounds great. Maybe we can both pick up some Argentinian girl with a great ass and just quit. You've got all that cash in the accounts, right?"