Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(14)

"Right," he says, a touch of sadness in his voice. "Anyway. Basics. First principles. The painting is going to be moved to an exhibition wing in three weeks, but at night it will be moved back to the vault. We're not cracking this thing open short of some pretty serious explosives, and that's not an option."

"So, we need the combination."

"Right, but there's three levels of security on the vault door. One is a set of physical keys."

"Okay, steal it."

"The other is a set of codes. There's a passcode, which stays the same, and an encryption key that rotates. We need those codes?"

"Who has them?"

"Four people. Two board members, head of security, and the curator."

"Diana's mother."

He nods. "Carol Matthews."

"So what do we do?"

"We go on a date. Or rather, I go on a date. I need to get into Carol's bed."

I snort. I've read the dossier we have on this woman. "Good luck with that."

He looks up. "Son, where do you think you came from? I can handle this. I have an in." He checks his watch. "I have to get moving. There's a dinner at the museum tonight for donors. Our backers have secured a sizable donation."

"Think Diana will be there?"

"Maybe, maybe not. In any case, I'm working alone on this. I'll be in touch."

He pats my shoulder as he passes by, and jogs down the steps. By the time I get down to the first floor he's already fully dressed. It must be a black tie affair. He nods to me as he leaves and that's the last of it. There's car out front to pick him up.

Everything swirls in my mind at once. I head out to the back porch to get some air. It's cooled off considerably since the afternoon, and there's bugs flitting about, buzzing.

Backers?

We've never worked like this before. There's something he's not telling me. I get the feeling we've been completely set up here-he wouldn't rent a house like this in his own name, and who was driving that car?

I do wonder if Diana will be there. If it's an evening wear type event, she might be wearing something slinky and sexy that shows off those curves. For some reason picturing her in a black cocktail dress is more exciting than thinking about peeling that imaginary bathing suit off her.

She looked younger in person. Innocent, somehow. I'm not used to that.

Music wafts over, from the neighbor's yard. They're all outside, lit by the glow of those stinky candles that keep bugs away and paper lanterns and oil torches. A cookout, by the looks of it. A plump father, a homely mother in a long dress, two kids, a boy and a girl, and some extended family. I try not to stare but I write stories for all of them in my head. The other adults are aunts and uncles, grown cousins. There's laughter and happy words I can't hear.

Reminds me of trips to New York. I always seem to find some time to walk the nicer parts of the city. You can't go too far without ending up outside a big picture window looking into a fancy restaurant, and there's always couples inside on dates. I stand there and watch them acting goofy in public and feeding each other and doing couple things, and wonder what that's like.

I feel the same way now. I feel not like I'm on the outside looking in, but like I'm on the inside, and the whole world is moving on around me. When your life revolves around a trade built on secrecy and stealth, at the end of the day, no one knows who you are.





Chapter 4: Diana





When I wake up there's no note, no messages on my phone, no nothing. The Honda is in the garage and the house is empty, except for me.

It takes me a long while to reach my conclusion.

Last night, there was a small party hosted for donors to the museum foundation. Mom insisted on calling it a gathering. I don't think she acknowledges the existence of parties. If I was maybe two or three years younger I'd have been dragged along with her, forced into a demure dress and made to hang around all night like I had anything to talk about with a bunch of people twice my age.

I usually ended up spending most of these things avoiding a couple of the donors that seemed way, way too interested in little ol' jailbait me. They could really skeeve me out. I never bothered telling Mom. She'd just get offended on their behalf. I just hid.

Usually they were over by ten o'clock and we were back at the house by eleven. Usually.

As I wander through the empty house, finding her bedroom as she left it before she walked over to the museum to meet and greet, I come to the inexorable, unavoidable, and completely absurd conclusion that my mother did not come home last night.

Okay, I think I'm panicking.

She doesn't answer her phone. I know, because I call her five times. It just rings through to her voice mail. On the sixth call I hear it buzzing away in her office, though I can't get the desk drawer open. She keeps it locked. That's when I give up and call Bob.

He answers on the third ring.

"Diana?"

"Yeah, it's me," I pace through the house. "My mother didn't come home last night. Do you know where she is?"

"No idea. She was leaving with one of the guests, last I saw her."

"Who was she? The guest."

"She? It was a man."

"Wait, what? Are you telling me my mother left the party with a man and didn't come home all night?"