Page 18 of Brazen Deceits

Walker shakes his head. “She was on the porch, in the front hall, and up in my room. I don’t think she tagged anything, but if you want to do a sweep for bugs out there later, it couldn’t hurt.”

Trips locks onto me, the blue in his eyes faded this morning. “Clara?”

Weird. I’m supposed to verify what Walker says? “I didn’t see her plant anything, but I missed the cop leaving a bug in the kitchen last month, so I’m not sure I’m the best source,” I say.

Trips nods. Like that’s confirmation enough.

And now I’m nervous. Trips has never included me before, not like this. He’s worked with me, around me, but notincluded me. Taking in the room, no one else looks surprised by this change. Walker’s still acting elusive, but that’s it.

Setting the mug of coffee down on a coaster, I pull my arm inside of the sleeve of my shirt, my fingers hidden as I drum them against my thigh. I need more subtle tells—if the guys notice, they’ll all know how weirded out I am right now.

Trips turns to RJ. “Do the sweep after this, but I don’t think we have to worry for now.”

RJ slouches back into his chair, eyes still half open. How would I have wokenhimup this morning? We’re not there yet, but damn, is my libido ready to run with all the possibilities. Trips interrupts my sexy daydreaming. “Walker, tell us about the fence.”

Walker leans back on the couch, his coffee in one hand. “NightAntiques is a woman, maybe a few years older than us. She said her name was Jasmine, but who knows if that’s an alias. She’s ticked we messed up that job right before school started.” He shoots a glance at me, being purposefully cryptic. “So she’s threatening to take away the Rubens job. She’s set up a trial for Thanksgiving weekend, where we have to battle two other teams for the honor of stealing from the Art Institute of Chicago in December.”

RJ sits forward. “That’s ludicrous. I’ve been sniffing for two months, and I’ve only just finished the full map of their security measures. How would another team even get in?”

Walker takes a sip of his coffee, his face sour. “Smash and grab.”

The room is silent, this announcement apparently akin to finding your car keyed when you’ve parked it in your garage—both devastating and incomprehensible.

“What the fuck?” Jansen whispers next to me, staring into his cup of tea for answers.

Walker sets down his coffee. “Yeah. It’s a dumb route to take, and until last night, I thought NightAntiques, er, Jasmine, was a top-notch fence.” He shrugs, staring at his feet.

I risk cutting in. “Can someone explain to me why this is such a big deal?”

RJ rubs the back of his neck, taking on the explanation. “The goal of a fence is to connect stolen things to rich people who want them. The best fences will commission a theft for a client. Art, in particular, is very hard to move. Art’s all one of a kind, so you can’t just take theMona Lisaoff the wall of the Louvre and hang it up in your dining room—people will know you’re the one who took it. And you can’t steal famous pieces and expect someone to buy them, because hot thefts come with a lot of police pressure for both the fence and the buyer. So art theft is a high-stakes game, with a lot of risk.”

Trips drags his hand through his auburn waves. “That’s where we come in. Walker makes a fake, we switch it for the genuine piece, and no one even realizes it’s stolen, at least for long enough to kill a police investigation. Then the rich fucker who commissioned the theft can have the real deal, say it’s a reproduction, and be smugly thrilled that he’s put one over on everyone.”

Jansen sets his teacup down on the table, turning to sit cross-legged facing me. “A smash and grab is different. It’s quick and effective. It’s perfect for stealing things like laptops and phones. You smash into a store, grab all you can carry, and dash out. The items are indistinguishable from each other, and their value is in the number youcan move, so the more you get, and the faster you get them, the better. But with art?”

“It’s a shit show,” Walker says. “Everyone knows the art’s gone. It makes it to the national news, the FBI gets involved, and before too long, they catch the person who snagged the art. There are too many cameras in the world to disappear after a job like that. Smash and grab is the dumbest way to steal art. No one gets what they want.”

I reach for my coffee, my hand still wrapped in my sleeve. “That makes a lot more sense, then,” I say, thinking back to the conversation from last night.

Trips crosses his ankle over his knee, cradling his coffee in his big hand. He motions at me with the cup. “Your turn. Tell us everything you saw or noticed, no matter how dumb or unimportant it seems.”

I glance at Walker. He’s back to staring at his feet. “Walker already told you what happened with Jasmine.”

Trips just stares at me, waiting. Walker sighs, taking another sip of coffee, not looking at me or Trips. I really need to talk to Walker. This is not like him.

Either way, Trips is still waiting for my recap, so I’ll just have to save that for later. “Okay. I guess I can do that. What kind of stuff do you want me to tell you about?”

Trips shrugs. “Tell us about Jasmine, how she seemed, what she wore, assumptions you made. Shit like that.”

Sneaking another peek at Walker, I catch his eye. He lifts his chin, urging me ahead. “I can do that.” Pulling up the mental list I made last night, I drum my fingers on my thigh,one two three four fiveas I collect my thoughts. “I think she gave us her real first name. I don’t know why, but it felt genuine,familiar to her when she used it. She’s rich, not new rich, so I think she grew up with family money. She hates the cold and probably disappears during winter. Also, she seemed, I don’t know, European? Not like her accent or anything, but I think it was the way she moved. Maybe that’s where I got the rich vibes? I don’t know.” I pause, looking around the room, trying to see if I’m doing this right. The closest I’ve come to giving this kind of rundown was analyzing my ex for Trips, but that was a paper, not a presentation, and as far as I know, only Trips read it.

Everyone is watching me, waiting for what I’m going to say next.

Okay then.

I guess I’ll just keep going. “It also felt like she didn’t want to be here. I think someone was making her come to us. She was anxious but trying to hide it.”

Sipping my coffee, I try to figure out how to word the next part. Blunt seems best. “She’s also super-hot and knows it. She was planning on using it, but I think I threw her for a loop. And even though I didn’t say a single word, she included me in the conversation. I would have expected to be ignored, to be seen as arm candy, but I wasn’t. She assumed I was part of the team. I don’t know what kind of information you guys gave her about yourselves, but yeah. She thought I was one of you.” I add one last observation. “Oh, and she was super excited to tell Walker that her hacker is better than ours. Sorry, RJ,” I say, glancing at him.

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