Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(27)

Luke and Elise cringed in sympathy. Her own parents weren’t here, but that was because her mother, heiress to a fishing empire in Venezuela, had business to attend to. If the Marvez family was in the country, however, they attended all of these events, right alongside Luke’s parents, who had become good friends with them over the years, actually.

“Poor baby,” Elise said, patting Mark on his broad shoulder. “Such a hard life, dressing up and drinking other people’s booze.”

“Such a hard life,” Luke joined in, chuckling, “eating free food and going home with a fancy gift bag.”

Mark flipped them off. Elise and Luke returned the gesture.

Behind them, a cluster of old ladies gasped as they passed by. Mark only lifted his champagne in salute.

They waited until the horrified women had passed before stifling their laughter.

“Never changes,” Elise said, watching them go, her dark eyes bright.

But Luke found Mark studying him again. While Luke might have counted Elise as his closer friend, Mark had been the one who’d often shown up to physical therapy in those initial weeks, and then accompanied him to the PTSD therapy whenever Luke wanted company. The offer was always there: on hard days, when Luke didn’t want to make the trip alone, one call to Mark and his friend would pick him up.

“But you’re doing good, though?” Mark asked again.

“If he says he is, then he is,” Elise countered. Mark waved her off, refusing to take his attention off Luke.

They’d always looked out for each other, but since he’d come home, Mark and Elise had taken being protective to another level. It warmed something in Luke’s heart—made enduring their bickering worth it. “I’m doing well,” Luke said to his friends. “I really am.”

Mark seemed satisfied this time, and fell back into arguing with Elise about which reality contestants were likely to break into a brawl on the current season of their favorite show. Luke listened for a minute, smiling, and drained his second glass of champagne. His last.

He needed to be sharp tonight. There had been a number of small robberies these past few weeks. Gotham City’s elite who’d all lost valuables while out in public at dinners and parties.

Luke was willing to bet his inheritance that the city’s newest thief would be here. That the thief was already among them, the season kickoff gala too big of a payday to resist.

He prayed it was true. If they didn’t arrive, it’d mean going to the next gala. And the next. To watch for a pattern. Note the faces and names of attendees.

He had set the trap. And it would only be a matter of time before the thief fell for it.





Selina had only risked five minutes with the painting during the gala.

On the arm of a beautiful oil executive, she’d strolled into the long hall where the painting of a nondescript bowl of fruit hung on the far wall. It had been roped off, with a bored-looking security guard a few steps away to make sure no one took photos or got too close.

The oil exec actually knew a thing or two about art, and she’d rattled off various techniques the artist had used. Selina had nodded, leaning in as though she were studying the details. Instead, she’d been eyeing up the size and weight of the small painting.

Her heartbeat had pounded through her, but she’d managed to subtly suggest to the woman that perhaps they could return for another viewing of the painting in a day or so. And the exec had turned to the guard and asked just how long this painting would be on display.

Only through the weekend, ma’am.

Confirmation that Selina had to move tonight.

She had made sure that more than a few people, a frowning Luke Fox included, saw her swaying precariously as she headed to the bathroom toward the end of the night. And never emerged. At least not in that golden dress.

The security guards, tired and eager to head home, quickly checked the bathrooms upon leaving. None bothering to look up, at where she’d stretched herself out over the top of a stall.

Only when silence had fallen, and she had given enough time for even the few remaining security guards to have settled into heavy boredom, did Selina slip from the bathroom.

Stashing her bag with her League suit and matching helmet in the bathroom’s utilities closet had been the hardest part—the riskiest.

She’d done it during a daytime visit yesterday, hauling them inside with an oversized tote, waiting in the bathroom nearest the gala hall until it was empty and she could pick the lock on the closet door. She’d buried both helmet and suit at the bottom of a giant box of toilet paper, tucked it beneath another box of the stuff—surely they wouldn’t go through all of it in twenty-four hours—and sent up a prayer to whatever ancient gods were watching that the janitors wouldn’t find it.

They hadn’t. And now, the museum dark and quiet as a tomb, Selina slipped through the shadows of the various galleries, a thrill creeping through her veins with every movement.

Ancient statues watching on, she filtered the sounds that the receivers on her helmet picked up: a coughing guard five galleries away, a gurgling fountain in the center of the Egyptian hall, birds’ talons scraping on the fogged glass roof.

The glass panels of the built-in goggles gave her perfect night vision, turning the world into greens and yellows. Nothing but art and shadows. Each of these paintings was valuable, but stealing one of them was not the statement she needed to make.