His grin glowed in the reflected light of all that gold. He looked like a devilish angel. He whipped out a small piece of metal from his pocket. “Take the tape off Shelley. Put this on her.”
The object glinted in the light. “Oh, my God! You broke the cape?”
“Just a little.” He shrugged, but his forehead fell into lines of guilt. “They pay people to restore this sort of thing.”
I trust him. I trust him.
I unbound Shelley, minding the vomit, which truly reeked. Then, I eased the piece of precious gold into her hand and wound her fingers around it. The tape and roll went into Sam’s bag.
I looked up to see Sam kneeling beside the display case and knuckles deep in the wires and electronics of it. “You’re disarming it?” I asked.
“I already did that. Before, when I took the piece off.”
“Oh. What are you doing now?”
“Arming it again. But it won’t go off until I turn everything back on in the security room.”
“What? I thought you didn’t go in for this sort of gadgetey, technology-based thieving.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t choose this mark, did I? Serious museums have serious shit.”
I twisted my hands together. “What do you want me to do?”
He told me the rest of the plan. Damn, it was good.
I hoped so, anyway.
We put the brass knuckles on my fist. I stood near Shelley. “Catch you on the flip side.”
Flashing me a crooked smile, he chucked me gently on the chin. “You’re a helluva broad, Sam.” He whipped out a small water bottle and leant down to put Shelley’s hand around it. Fingerprints, you know? Then, he handed it to me.
I lifted up the bottle. “Here’s to getting away with it,” I said, and drank the whole thing. He held out a ziplock, and I dropped the bottle into it.
“Sit.” I did so, and we rested together for a few minutes. My hand fidgeted with nervous energy. It seemed weird to take a break in the middle of the thieving and do nothing. But after about ten minutes, everything seemed…better.
“Hey, Sam,” I whispered.
“Hey, baby. Feeling good?”
I wiped my nose. It itched. But it tickled, too. Holy shit—the cape was so sparkly. “No, no.” Sam caught my hands on the way to touch it. Suddenly, I wanted to touch him. A lot of him. Everywhere. I ran my fingers down his chest to grab his gorgeous dick. “Whoa. Tempting, but nope.”
“Let’s have sex on the—the—thinging thing. The languages. Did you know it has three? We can screw in three languages!”
Sam laughed and eased me onto the floor. He brushed the hair away from my forehead the way I looooooved him to do. It felt so good, and he felt so good, and he was so warm. I lay there and watched him do whatever he had to do. The ceiling spun around and around. This part of the plan was the bestest part. Except I really needed Sam to take off his pants. I tugged on them, but he just laughed and walked away. After a while, all I wanted to do was sleep. Screw and sleep. And sleep. And…
Chapter Fifteen
And the Award for Best Performance During a Double-Cross Goes to…
“She’s waking up.”
My head was made of cotton. Someone groaned, and after a minute, I realised it was me.
“Samantha? You’re in the hospital.”
I didn’t recognise the voice. My eyes opened a sliver and the sterile white and beige of a hospital room did indeed greet me. A lady in a white coat stood over the bed. “We think you were dosed with GHB, and it knocked you out. How do you feel?”
“Tired.” What the hell had happened? Last thing I remembered…
Ski mask. Sam. Some sort of plan…
I closed my mouth, afraid I might say something in my grogginess that we might regret. The doctor lady left, anyhow. My room smelt like a florist’s shop. Nearly every surface was jammed with bouquets, stuffed animals and balloons.
How kind of everyone
, I thought. The generosity warmed me, and I closed my eyes.
“Samantha, the police are here to see you.”
My lids popped open. Crust surrounded my lashes—I had no idea how long I’d slept. “Hello,” I croaked.
“I’m a huge fan!” said the tall, skinny woman in a pink button-down and no-nonsense black pants standing beside my bed. Her accent sounded Indian and British both, and her praise was wonderfully melodious. A man who appeared to be her partner was also there, in a terribly-fitting brown suit.
I tried to sit up, but everything went haywire and I fell back.
“Let me help.” A nurse hurried to my bedside and pressed a button on a white remote. The head part of my bed slowly elevated me into less of a recline.
“Thank you,” I said to the lady detective, who continued beaming at me.
“I’ve never seen you in anything,” said the dude cop. He sounded sceptical that he even should have looked at me in a film. “Can you tell us what happened to you?”
“I—I don’t remember.” Shit, I’d better get my act together. Wisps of cobweb clung to my brain synapses. I did know I’d been drugged. When Sam had found the GHB in Shelley’s bag, it was a blessing straight from the lord. Or the devil. But it was a blessing. One of the side-effects can be memory loss.
Flashes began returning to me—the cape room, throwing up.
Here goes. I took a deep breath. “We finished filming for the day. Night, sorry. I went to my trailer with Shelley, one of my assistants.” I shrugged and shook my head. “And then I woke up here?” I gasped, awake enough now to enjoy my role. “Is Shelley okay? Was she drugged, too? Why?”
“You poor dear,” said the female cop.
Her partner said, “We found you with your assistant next to the item she was attempting to steal.”
I recoiled in horror, clutching my thin hospital blanket to my bosom. “Steal? Item?” Really, this performance should earn me a daytime Emmy, at the least.
Copper long legs leaned in. “That Shelley woman drugged you!”
“No. I don’t believe it.”
“Yes. She knocked you out and tried to steal the golden cape.” Her eyes took on a distinctly conspiratorial shine. “But you tried to stop her by punching her! And”—she broke into a chuckle—“it appears you threw up on her. From the drug, you know. That’s a common side-effect.”
“I did?” I looked from one to the other of them, my eyes so innocent Bambi should be ashamed. “How mortifying. Was anyone else hurt? Oh, I hope not.”
“No.” The man cop clipped his answer before Officer Big Fan spoke. “She also drugged your other assistant”—he referred to his notes—“Zackary. He’s recovering in the next room.”
My head turned towards the wall he’d indicated, as if I could see him through it. My body unclenched just a little. We’d made it this far.
“Ms Lytton, did Shelley strike you as an intelligent girl capable of single-handedly carrying out the robbery of a museum? She even disabled the cameras, but got tripped up by the alarm.”
Bless Sam. “Well, no. Shelley always struck me as an idiot. But maybe she was acting. Maybe everything she ever said was a lie.” Perhaps I could convince them that Shelley was the most brilliant actress of all time. The more she played dumb and denied knowledge, the more they wouldn’t believe her.
“How did you come to employ Shelley as a masseuse?”
My heart slammed into my throat and stayed there. That had been a very good question. One that I did not have a good answer for. I licked my lips and tried to swallow.
“Do you need some water?” asked Ms Detective.
I nodded and smiled up at her gratefully. How had I met Shelley? How had I met Shelley? I couldn’t mention Valerie—I had no good reason to know her, either. Gaaaaaah. “She showed up on set one night. Said she was sent by my agent to help me relax.” I swiped a hand across my face. “Yes, I know I’m spoilt, and that a personal masseuse is a little obnoxious. So was Shelley. She never so much as touched me.”
“Then why did you continue to employ her?”
I shrugged. “I’ve found in the Hollywood game that it’s usually better to just be grateful anyone wants to do anything nice for you. Go with the flow.”
Man Cop put his hands in his pockets. “Why were you at the museum so late?”
“Just dawdling in my trailer. I was waiting for Zack.”
“Your boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend?”
I smiled. “Boyfriend, then ex, then boyfriend.”
My biggest fan tsk-tsked. “I thought you were dating Daniel Zhang. He’s such a hottie!”
“Well”—I played with my blanket—“Danny is amazing, but I’ve been dating Zack a while. You can’t fight love.” I pinned a star-filled gaze on her, and she practically sighed before nodding.
Her partner actually elbowed her in the ribs. She swallowed and referred back to her notes. “You foiled another art theft a year or so ago, Ms Lytton?”
“Big coincidence. You and art thieves.” The male cop was not having any of my shit. I took a deep breath in, and let it out. I just had to pray that Valerie had threatened Shelley enough to scare the idiot into taking the fall alone. “Shelley says you were supposed to help her steal the Mold cape.”
I laughed and put my hand over my mouth. Taking a beat, I glanced from one to the other of them, reading reactions. She didn’t believe Shelley—not one bit. He did, because why wouldn’t he? I was a big non-coincidence.
Finally, I gasped and let my face settle into innocent mode, with a hint of incredulity. “That’s…that’s insane.” I spluttered for a moment in alarm, and the lady cop sat on the side of my bed and took my hand. Yes! “I didn’t like Shelley. She got me in trouble with my director the other day by acting the fool. Why—” I laughed at the sheer preposterousness of it all, wait one, two, three beats… “Why would I help Shelley do anything, much less steal something so…so…”
“But the Picasso—”
“I put my life on the line to help law enforcement recover that painting!” Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned away to find a tissue.
“That’s enough.” My doctor to the rescue, exactly as I’d intended.
The woman detective patted my hand and rolled her eyes at her partner. “I think we’re done here. Thank you for your time, and we’re sorry we had to trouble you further, Ms Lytton.”
“You’re just doing your job,” I said with a piteous sniffle.
She stood to leave. “This Shelley has a record as long as my arm. She bit off more than she could chew this time.”
I shook my head, too overcome by my pretend-horror to comment. They left. I let out a long, long breath. My doctor told me to rest and vamoosed as well.
“Wow,” came a voice from the doorway. Sam. He turned to check that the hall behind him was clear and shut the door. At my bedside, he whispered, “That was a thing of beauty. You’re the Meryl Streep of bullshit.”
“I have no idea what you mean, Zack.” A sneaky smile played on my face. “Are you okay? They said that terrible Shelley drugged you, too.”
“I’ll survive.” He sat on the bed and stroked my hand. “You really okay?”
“Yeah. Just kinda foggy.”
“Me, too.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s the next day.” He looked at his phone. “Nine-thirteen a.m.”
My jaw dropped. “We lost an entire day?”
“Most of one.” Leaning close to my ear, he said, “Your agent is not going to have any idea about Shelley.”
“I know. They’ll just think she lied to me to get on set.” Oh, shit. I squeezed his hand in my suddenly sweaty one. “But why didn’t I say anything to my agent about her?”
“Right.”
“Shit.” We considered this story hole for a moment.
“How ’bout this…” He licked his lips. “You asked me to send some flowers to your agent to thank him for sending a masseuse, but I totally forgot.”
I grinned. “You’re such a crappy assistant.”
“I’m good at the things that matter.” He winked.
“Zack.” I pulled him closer. “They’re already pulling up your passport info and stuff, right? What are they going to find?”
“My deal with the Brits includes an identity that checks out to a high level. I’m pretty much an informant for them. They’ll divert any attention and protect me.” He swallowed.
“Even now?”
He ran a hand behind his neck and grimaced. “I’m meeting someone after the hospital discharges me. They’re gonna want the truth.”
“Are you going to give it?”
“I don’t think I have a choice. My immunity deal is for past crimes, not current ones.”
I set my forehead on his warm, solid arm. “You’ll send them after Valerie?”
“I’m pretty damn tired of her. It didn’t have to be this way, but she forced the issue.” His muscles clenched and he squeezed me close. “The minute she began harassing you—”
“Samantha?” A knock sounded on my door—accompanied by Danny’s voice.
“Yes, hi!”
Sam stood just as Danny and JenX came in the room. They barely glanced at Sam, but hurried over to me.
JenX cocked one hip. “So, amazing? Punching. Foiling robbery. Badass, right? Publicity.” I couldn’t see her eyes because of her shades, but she almost sang that last word, and I’m sure her peepers sparkled with the promise of box office receipts.