Marked Masters (5 page)

As we neared the car rental company, I
ducked into the ladies', and by the time I came out, slightly more
refreshed, Jack stood at the counter flirting with the cute car
rental brunette. Too much to handle on an empty stomach.

"Jack," I called. When he looked up, I
pointed to my phone and then to a corner about twenty feet away. He
nodded, understanding I needed to check in with Cassie.

"What's up, boss?" Cassie grinned at me on
the small screen. She knew I hated when she called me boss. I'd
known her since college, and she and I were learning the ropes in
running the London office of Beacham Ltd. together. Not all the
kinks were worked out yet, but she was turning into a phenomenal
analyst and researcher in the field of missing art.

I frowned out of habit and said, "I think
Jack's working on a dinner date, but he has to make sure I get fed
first."

"Really?"

"No. He's working on getting us a rental
car, and the counter help is a young Jessica Biel wannabe. You know
what that means. Jack has to flirt, and every woman thinks a
British accent sounds sexy."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Huh?" What kind of question was that? "I
feel annoyed, of course. We have work to do, and he's wasting time
flirting. Last time he finagled an Aston Martin. All we need is a
plain sedan—"

"Never mind. I was just making
conversation." Cassie laughed then turned professional. "I got news
from Max today you're not going to like. All expenses you incur
have to come through me."

"What?"

"He got the bill for his AMEX Black."

I sighed.

"You knew this day was coming."

I nodded. I have a problem with budgeting—as
in, I have no real clue how it's done. Fortunately, my
man-of-all-talents, Nico, is a master at getting into any computer.
So when my funds ran short at a critical time when I really needed
to globe trot, Nico hacked into our boss's credit card history and
tacked all necessary expenses onto Max's account. But if Max
realized the charges were for my benefit and mandated this fiscal
timeout, what did he do to my favorite secret weapon?

"Cassie, did Nico—"

"Don't worry. Max tried to chew him out, but
Nico pretty much ignored all of it. He was here in the office to
Skype with the New York office anyway, and Max took the opportunity
to vent his spleen. I think Nico thought it was humorous rather
than humiliating."

"Which means Max now feels humiliated
instead of vindicated."

"What can I say? It's Nico."

Right. And he knows that Max knows everyone
in the world would offer my perfect techno-wingman a job the minute
he decided he'd had enough of the Beacham Foundation. Which would
also be the day I had Max drawn and quartered. At some point, the
man had to learn to leave the fieldwork to the experts and just
give us the support we required.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jack wave a
set of car keys.

"Gotta go, Cass, but a couple of final
things. First, I'm assuming Nico is still on the payroll."

"Yes. Absolutely. And flouting every
screaming command Max made during the Skype session."

"Good. Now for my second question. Have you
found out anything about the number Jack and I found in the
safe-deposit box in Orlando?" For security purposes, my team was
working alone on this new discovery. Jack was convinced there was a
mole in one or both of our organizations, though we hoped anything
on the Beacham side ended with Simon's defection. However, given
the possible scope of the heist based on intelligence learned so
far, we decided to keep everything at a minimalist level. Cassie
and Nico received regular updates and helped with research, but
even they would not know everything. We just couldn't take any
chances. We didn't want to risk tipping off a mole anywhere.

Equally, I wasn't taking any chances with
Jack. Information I gained on my own would be parceled out on a
need-to-know basis too. Without asking him, I knew he would be
doing the same. We might be partners, but we weren't very good at
working as a functioning duo.

"Sorry, but no. Nothing on Nico's end yet
either. At least, nothing he's made me aware of."

I already knew Nico had come up with
nothing, at least if I believed Jack. Still, I wanted the
confirmation from Cassie since I didn't know why Jack seemed to be
running my source as if Nico was his own. It was one thing to share
my resources, another to abdicate all authority. I needed to figure
out what to do about the situation quickly, but it shouldn't go
through Cassie. I caught myself biting my lip. "Okay, we'll talk
later. Maybe we can conference on Skype this evening."

"I'll get a message to Nico and see how his
schedule is running," Cassie said.

Jack cut the distance between us with
several long strides, his patience obviously at an end. One more
question before he got too close. "Have you found any more missing
art on the bad USB drive? Anything else pointing to Florida, since
we've now been led here because of the bank box?"

"Nothing yet." Cassie's image shook her
blonde, hot-pink-tipped hair and looked down like she was keying or
making a note while she talked. "But I have an idea on how to get
into some of the corrupted areas. I'll let you know if I find
anything interesting in the next few hours. I'm hopeful."

"Great. I have to go. Talk to you soon." I
ended the call just as Jack entered my personal space.

"Anything?" he asked.

"Only that Max is out for blood over my
finances, but what else is new? Got the car?"

He dangled the key ring tagged to a
steel-blue Mercedes 350 Cabriolet ragtop.

"A convertible, Jack? Really?"

Yet when I saw it a few minutes later, I had
to admit it was gorgeous. I didn't put up any fight when he opened
the top to the sun.

"Dig around in your catchall of a purse and
fetch something to hold back your hair. The windblown look is
devastating on blondes of your age." He grinned, knowing full well
I recognized he was pushing my buttons. Successfully, as usual.

He was also right about my bag. I still had
the lovely gold-on-white Hermes scarf Cassie lent me for camouflage
on a Chunnel ride. Though how something so expensive could make one
incognito in such a setting was unbelievable in the extreme.

In the current situation, however, riding in
an expensive car, heading for an expensive part of Miami Beach, and
playing the part of an expensive playmate to Jack, the
coin-and-chain printed scarf was perfect. I slipped it over my hair
and tied it under my chin, Lauren Bacall or Kate Hepburn style, and
added big sunglasses. For a split second I could imagine my
grandmother looking down at me—from wherever she and her old
cronies played their nonstop bridge rubbers—with love in her eyes
and a smile on her pale-pink lips, nodding in approval. I looked
the part and was now completely wind resistant.

Jack grinned, and I had little doubt he was
thinking exactly as I, despite never knowing my grammy. There were
moments when he and I connected in ways I didn't understand, and
this was one of those.

We were on the road and checking out the
early street scene as we headed for Miami Beach and the water. The
day was fast approaching
the trolling hour, and a
little later when the streetlights came on avenue by avenue, we'd
see the hipsters converge, merge, and urge each other into sleek
bars and trendy restaurants. We were on the cusp of the evening's
magic moment when the marathon clubbing and dining commenced. The
fact it was a Thursday didn't make much difference. The scene would
have been familiar any other night of the week too, but weekends
naturally heralded even bigger crowds and wilder
spectacles.

I simply wanted food.

"Jack, can we stop
somewhere for a late lunch." I looked at my watch. "Or, I guess,
early dinner?"

"Soon. I thought we'd
check out Wynwood first."

Wynwood was once an
industrial district. Thanks to the art crowd, it had been
transformed into their personal Mecca and was known for the monthly
gallery walk. But, alas, a flick of my phone told me tonight did
not show the gallery crawl on the art scene agenda. So why were we
headed there? I raised my voice to be heard over the street and
wind noise. "Got a tip I should know about, Jack?"

"In a mo'. Want to check
out a source," he shouted back. "See if we can find any connection
to Simon."

It hadn't been that long ago Frommer's too
often commented in their Miami guides about how the city lacked any
reputation as a cultural center, but reputations were made to be
reversed. The beach city's artistic street cred had changed in a
progressively upward movement during the last few years. With the
milder winter climate, Miami started playing host to international
events and created liaisons with other esteemed art fairs. When
Switzerland's Art Basel hit Florida each winter for its days in
December, the city parlayed the connection into other events for
art snowbirds, and the Miami cultural reputation made its slow but
steady rise.

So I was not surprised Jack already had a
potential lead to follow, and I mentally reviewed the Fendi's stash
of costume jewelry in case I needed to upgrade the bling of my
ensemble. A couple of blocks farther on our journey and the city's
design district opened up. Nearby, south of Wynwood, sat the CIFO,
the private museum founded by money that originated from Ella
Cisneros having once been married to the namesake media group. One
of my favorite museums, chiefly because of the location just blocks
away from the bayfront and the Miami Art Museum pavilion. The city
was changing in a good way.

Yet the set of Jack's jaw told me wherever
we were headed in the art scene was not likely all glitter and
lights. Didn't surprise me but didn't make me happy either.

When I noticed how the silver Honda behind
us kept making every turn we did, well, the knowledge pushed
happiness even more distant. In my peripheral vision I noticed Jack
straighten a bit and knew he'd spotted the car too. Not, of course,
that I ever doubted his observation skills for a second.

I wanted to make a joke, ask Jack if he
needed me to drive, say that I could lose them. But the gravity of
the situation wasn't lost on me. The Honda was coming up fast, and
the expression I read in the side mirror of the guy riding shotgun
increased the tension. A second later, he raised his right hand to
the dash and sunlight flashed on the metal object he held.
Damn!

Jack must have seen the same thing in the
rearview. I watched him grimace and hit the accelerator as if we
were in a Ferrari. In fact, as I scrabbled to choke the door handle
in a death grip, he even said, "God, I wish I had a Ferrari right
now!"

"I take it they were fresh out at the rental
counter," I yelled back.

"Actually, no. I thought it would look too
retro-
Miami Vice
and Michael Mann, and chose classy instead.
Thought you'd prefer that." He kept his face forward the entire
time he spoke. No smirk, no wink. But I watched a nerve twitch one
time at his temple.

I wasn't sure how to respond. How I even
wanted to try to respond. So I used my left hand to dig around in
my purse to find my smartphone instead.

I'd always loved visiting Miami when
Grandfather was alive, but as a child I spent more time in Coral
Gables than South Beach. If my father came along, he spent most of
his time at one of the high-roller jai-alai establishments. He
dragged me inside once when I was twelve or thirteen, paying
someone to let me slip past the rules, and I spent a bored
afternoon stealing sips of his beer while he bet on a ball that
would probably kill him if the thundering sphere hit him. Instead,
it hit his wallet, and we left when he ran out of cash. Miami
became all work once I reached adulthood, and I'd spend fly-in
weekends scrambling to attend one art extravaganza or another.

Regardless of the number of times I'd
visited, I didn't usually drive in Miami. Rather, I was picked up
and delivered wherever I needed to go. So now, with the
always-changing cityscape and Jack's current Le Mans maneuvers, I
was quickly and hopelessly lost. I had just brought up my phone's
street map app when Jack slammed on the brakes and jigged right.
The phone rocketed out of my hands and onto the floorboard. I'd
find it later. I wasn't letting go of the door for anything.

I didn't bother asking Jack if he had a
plan. The set of his jaw said he did—even if he didn't.

As fast as our real-time views changed, my
screen app probably couldn't have kept up anyway. I felt like I was
in an old episode of
Miami Vice
or simmed-out in
Grand
Theft Auto,
except for the fact that if either were true, we
really would have been in a cherry-red Ferrari.

Buildings were a blur, and I heard sirens in
the distance. Things were coming to a head. At one opportunity,
Jack moved to the left turn lane just as the arrow changed to
green, the Honda inches from our back bumper. Jack didn't slow in
the turn, but as our car filled the intersection, he grabbed the
hand brake and pulled an almost perfect Rockford one-eighty
sliding-round move and barreled back the way we'd come, speeding
again in the traffic-free lane. The Honda wasn't as quick.

"Keep driving!" I stared into the mirror to
give a blow-by-blow. "They're trying to back up and follow us, but
cars are behind them!"

I didn't know if Jack's driving panache was
due to beginner's luck, survival, or specialized training, and
figured it was probably a measure of all three. I patted his leg in
encouragement, and he smiled. Then he had to burst my euphoria,
saying, "I'm glad we could slow them down a bit, because from the
sound of their motor when they were behind us, I think they have a
lot more horsepower than the Honda's factory specs!"