"S!"
He wasn't a security guard. The hand over her mouth was encased in a thin, supple black glove, and as much of his arm as she could see was also wearing black. Several hard objects in the vicinity of his waist dug into her back painfully. Then he pulled her impossibly closer as running footsteps approached, and she distinctly felt the roughness of wool—a ski mask?—as his hard jaw brushed against her temple.
Better the devil you know than the one you don't… The thought ran through her mind, but for some reason she didn't struggle in the man's powerful embrace— probably because she didn't know the devil out in the hallway any better than she knew this one. Instead, she concentrated on controlling her ragged breathing so that it wouldn't be audible, her eyes fixed on the archway of the room. She realized only then that she'd bolted into a room with only one door. Her captor had literally carried her back into a corner and in the shadows behind one of the fierce warrior statues, and she doubted they were visible from the doorway.
The footsteps in the hall slowed abruptly, and she caught a glimpse of a rather menacing face further distorted by an angry scowl as her pursuer looked into the room. She stiffened, but he went on without pausing more than briefly. As the footsteps faded, she began to struggle; the steely arm around her tightened with an additional strength that nearly cracked her ribs.
Three breathless seconds later, she realized why.
"Ed." The voice, low and harsh, was no more than a few feet down the hallway.
Morgan went very still.
There was an indistinguishable murmur of at least two voices out there, and then the first voice became audible—and quite definitely angry.
"I thought she came this way. Dammit, she could be anywhere in this mausoleum—the place is huge!"
"Did she get a look at you?" Ed's voice was calmer.
"No, the hall was too dark. When I tapped her boyfriend to sleep, she ran like a rabbit. Why the hell did he have to pick tonight to come here? If he wanted romance, he should have taken her to his place. Judging by what I saw of her, she'd have kept him busy between the sheets for a week."
Feeling herself stiffen again, this time indignantly, Morgan was conscious of an absurd embarrassment that the man holding her so tightly against him had heard that lewd comment.
"Never mind," Ed said impatiently. "We're covering all the doors, so she can't get out, and the phone lines have been cut. Go back to your post and wait. We'll be finished in another half hour, and out of here. She'll be locked in until morning, so she can't do us any harm."
"I don't like it, Ed."
"You don't have to like it. And stop using my name, you fool. Get back to your post."
There was a moment of taut silence, and then Ed's unhappy minion passed the archway on his route back to his post, an even more distorted scowl darkening his face.
Morgan heard his footsteps fade into silence; strain as she would, she couldn't hear anything from Ed. At least five minutes must have passed, with agonizing slowness, before her captor finally relaxed slightly and eased her down so that her feet touched the cold floor.
His voice sounded again, soft and no more than a sibilant whisper, next to her ear.
"I'm not going to hurt you. Understand? But you have to be still and quiet, or you'll bring them down on us."
Morgan nodded her understanding. As soon as he released her, she took half a step away and turned to confront him. "If you aren't with them, what are you—" she began in a whisper, then broke off as the question was answered.
He was a tall man, an inch or two over six feet, with wide shoulders and a wiry slenderness about the rest of him that spoke of honed strength rather than muscled bulk. She'd felt that strength. Enveloped in black from head to foot, he had a compact and very efficient-looking tool belt strapped to his lean waist. And from the black ski mask gleamed the greenest pair of eyes she'd ever seen.
"Oh." She knew then what he was doing here. "Oh, Christ."
"Not nearly," he murmured.
Morgan felt a burst of pure irritation at his ill-timed humor but somehow managed to keep her voice low. "You're just another thief."
"Please." He sounded injured. "Such a commonplace word. An ugly word, even. I prefer to call myself a privateer."
"Wrong," she snapped, still in a low voice that would have been inaudible a couple of feet away. "This isn't a ship on the high sea, and we aren't at war. You're a common, ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminal." She could have sworn those vivid green eyes gleamed with sheer amusement.
"My dear young woman," he said, that same emotion threaded through his soft, unaccented voice, "I am neither common nor ordinary. In fact, I'm one of the last of a vanishing breed in these uncomfortably organized high-tech days. If you must attach a noun to me, make it 'cat burglar.' However, I'd much rather you simply called me Quinn."
Morgan stared at him. Quinn? Quinn. She knew of him. Of course she knew of him! For nearly ten years, the name of Quinn—along with assorted aliases and journalistic nicknames in various languages—had been synonymous with daring, nerveless theft at its most dramatic. If the newspapers were to be believed, he had smoothly robbed the best families of Europe, relieving them of fine baubles and artworks with a delicate precision and finicky taste that made the "cat" in his preferred noun an apt choice. And in so doing he had bypassed some of the most expensive and complicated security systems ever designed with almost laughable ease. Also according to the newspapers, he never used weapons, had never injured anyone, and had never come close to being caught—all of which made him something of a folk hero.
"Hell," Morgan said.
"Not yet." He seemed even more amused. "I see that my reputation precedes me. How gratifying. It's nice to know that one's work is appreciated."
She ignored the levity. "I thought you were a European thief exclusively."
"Ah—but America is the land of opportunity," he intoned in a reverent voice.
She didn't know whether to laugh or swear again. It disturbed her to realize that she—be it ever so reluctantly—found him amusing. With her own love of ancient artifacts and priceless artworks, she had never felt the slightest urge to romanticize the theft of them. And no matter how rapturous certain journalists seem to be in describing the daring exploits of thieves with taste and without any leaning toward violence, she saw nothing of a Robin Hood-type myth clinging to this one: No one had ever implied that Quinn shared his spoils with the poor.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"I rather thought that was obvious."
Morgan drew a deep breath. "Dammit, I meant— Stop staring at ray chest!"
Quinn cleared his throat with an odd little sound, and in a suspiciously pensive and humble tone said, "I have held in my hands some of the finest artworks the world has ever known. Had I but realized a few moments ago that so exquisite a work of nature herself was so near… May I say—"
"No, you may not," she said from between gritted teeth, fighting a mad urge to giggle. It cost her something to stop him, because the words were certainly lovely enough if one cared for that sort of base flattery—not sure that she was impressed by them, of course.
"No, naturally not," he murmured, then added sadly, "there are certain drawbacks to being a gentleman burglar."
"Oh, now you claim to be a gentleman?"
"What's your name?" he asked curiously, ignoring her question.
"Morgan West." Oddly enough, she didn't think about withholding the information.
"Morgan. An unusual name. Derived from Morgana, I believe, Old Welsh—" This time he stopped himself, adding after a thoughtful moment, "And familiar. Ah, now I remember. You're the director of the forthcoming Mysteries Past exhibit."
She raised a hand and shook a finger under his nose. "If you dare to rob my exhibit," she said fiercely, "I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and roast your gentleman's carcass over perdition's flame!"
"I believe you would," he said mildly. "Interpol itself never threatened me with more resolution."
"Never doubt it." She let her hand fall, then said in an irritable tone, "And you distracted me."
Still mild, Quinn said, "Not nearly as much as you distracted me, Morgana."
"It's Morgan. Just Morgan."
"I prefer Morgana."
"It isn't your name—" She got hold of herself. Absurd. Of all the ridiculous… Here she was in a dark museum that was being systematically looted by an organized group of thieves. Her dinner date had been, at the very least, knocked unconscious; she'd been chased through marble halls by a man who probably wouldn't have been nice if he'd caught her; and now she was defending her name preference to an internationally famous cat burglar who had too much charm for his own good.
And hers.
Doggedly, she tried again. "Never mind my name. If you aren't with those jokers out there, then why are you here?"
"The situation does have its farcical points," he said amiably. "I'm afraid I dropped in on them. Literally. We seem to have had the same agenda in mind for tonight. Though my plans were, of course, on a lesser scale. Since they outnumber me ten to one, and since they are definitely armed, I chose not to—shall we say—force the issue. It breaks my heart, mind you, because I'm almost certain that what I came here for is now neatly tucked away in one of their boring little leather satchels. But… c'est la vie."
Morgan stared at him. "What did you come for?"
Quite gently, he said, "None of your business, Morgana."
After a moment, she said speculatively, "I don't suppose you'd let me see your face?"
"That wouldn't be my first choice, no. Quinn is a name and a shadow, nothing more. I have a strong feeling that your descriptive powers are better than average, and I don't care to see a reasonable facsimile of my face plastered across the newspapers. Being a cat burglar is the very devil once the police know what you look like."
And watch for the sequel to
ONCE A THIEF
The thievery continues in January 2003 with
ALWAYS A THIEF