"No. The theft of a major piece of art like a Monet takes time to plan and a whole underground web of contacts to execute. It starts with a rich collector and works its way on down. We think they've been planning this theft for at least six months, and we don't believe this is the first and only time Kevin and Shalcroft have been involved together. We believe they've been conducting this sort of operation since Kevin worked for Shalcroft in Portland."
Everything Joe said was possible, but incredible to reconcile with the Kevin she knew. "How could he be involved in such a horrible mess?"
"Money. A lot of money."
Gabrielle glanced at the muffin and coffee in her hands. For one confusing moment, she'd forgotten how they'd got there. "Here," she said, setting them on the table. "I'm not hungry." Joe reached for her, but she moved away and slowly sank to the edge of the couch. She sat with her hands in her lap and stared across the room.
Everything in her house looked the same as it had a moment ago. The clock on the mantel silently ticked off the minutes while her refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. An old pickup truck drove past her house, and a dog barked down the street. Normal everyday sounds, yet everything was different now. Her life was different now.
"I let you work in Anomaly because I didn't believe you," she said. "I thought you were wrong, and I built up this whole fantasy in my head where you'd have to come and tell me how sorry you are th-that," her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. She didn't want to cry or fall apart or make a scene, but she didn't seem to have any control over the tears filling her eyes. Her vision blurred, the printing on the coffee cups smeared and ran together. "That you'd have to apologize for arresting me that day in the park, and for making me betray Kevin. But you weren't wrong about Kevin."
"I am sorry." Joe sat beside her, his feet wide apart, and he closed his big, warm hand over one of hers. "I'm sorry something like this had to happen to you. You don't deserve to be caught up in any of this."
"I'm not perfect, but I've never done anything to earn this kind of bad karma." She shook her head, and a tear spilled dowrr her cheek to a corner of her mouth. "How could I have been so blind? Weren't there signs? How could I be so stupid? How could I not know my business partner is a thief?"
He squeezed her hand. "Because you're like eighty percent of the population. You don't suspect everyone you meet of criminal behavior. You don't walk around suspicious of every-one."
"You do."
"That's because it's my job, and I have to deal with the twenty percent running around like idiots." He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. "I know you probably can't see anything good coming from this right now, but you'll be okay. You've got a real smart lawyer who made sure you'd get to keep your store."
"I don't believe my business can survive this." A second tear slipped from her eyes, then a third. "The theft of that painting is still making news. When Kevin's arrest is reported… I'll never be able to recover from something like that." With her free hand, she wiped the moisture from her face. "Anomaly is ruined."
"Maybe not," he said, his deep voice sounding so confident that she almost believed him.
But they both knew her business would never be the same. She would always be tied to the theft of the Hillard painting. Kevin had done that. He'd done that to her, and it was nearly impossible to reconcile Kevin the art fence and the man who'd always brought her rose tea when she hadn't felt good. How could that dichotomy exist in one person, and how could she have thought she knew Kevin so well, yet not really have known him at all? "Do the police think he also has those stolen antiques I was shown the day I was arrested?"
"Yes."
A horrible thought struck Gabrielle, and she quickly looked at Joe across her shoulder. "Do you still think I'm involved?"
"No." He raised a hand and brushed her moist cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I know you aren't involved."
"How?"
"I know you."
Yes, just as she knew him. Her gaze moved over his face, the slight hollow of his cleanly shaved cheeks and smooth jaw. "How could I be so dumb, Joe?"
"He fooled a lot of people."
"Yeah, but I worked with him almost every day. He was my friend, but I guess I never really knew him. Why didn't I feel his negative energy?"
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and forced her to sit back with him against the couch cushions. "Well, don't feel bad, a person's aura can be real tricky."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"I'm being nice."
A sob caught in her throat, and she looked at him. First Kevin and now Joe. Wasn't anyone who and what she thought? "Why am I always so gullible? Francis tells me all the time that I'm too trusting. It gets me in trouble." She shook her head and tried to blink back the moisture in her eyes. Joe's face was so close she could see his whiskers beneath his tan skin and smell his aftershave. "Some people believe you draw positive or negative events toward you, that you attract the people you deserve."
"Sounds like bullshit to me. If that were the case, you'd only attract aura-seeing, karma-fearing, lapsed vegetarians to you."
"Are you trying to be nice again?"
He smiled. "If you don't know, then maybe I need work."
She looked into his handsome face she knew so well, into his intense eyes with their brows that were usually lowered when he looked at her. At his straight nose and the deep furrow that bowed his top lip. At his smooth skin that would begin a gradual shadow around noon. "My last boyfriend was an aura-seeing, karma-fearing vegetarian. Only he wasn't lapsed."
"Sounds like a ball of fire."
"He was boring."
"See, that's because you're a woman who lapses." His thumb swept another tear from her cheek as his gaze moved over her face. "You need a man who appreciates wild, unruly women. I went to parochial school and have a deep appreciation for lapsed girls. In fourth grade, Karla Solazabal used to roll up the waist of her plaid skirt and show me her knees. God, I loved her for that."
And she loved him for trying to cheer her up. "What's going to happen now?" she asked.
His gaze sobered. "Once Kevin is arrested, he'll be booked into-"
"No," she interrupted him. "Am I still your confidential informant until after the trial?"
"No, you're released from the agreement. Since you didn't know anything, I'm sure you won't even need to testify at trial."
His answer settled next to her heart like a hot briquette. She would not ask if he ever intended to see her again, or if he would call now that she wasn't his pretend girlfriend; She wouldn't ask, since she wasn't sure of the answer. "When do you have to go?"
"Not for a while yet."
She slid her hand up his arm, across his shoulder, to the side of his head. She wouldn't talk about what might happen later, or tomorrow, or next week. She didn't want to think about it. Her fingers brushed his wool collar and combed through his short, spiky hair. A flash of hunger lit his eyes, and he lowered his gaze to her mouth.
"Whatever happened to Karla?" she asked.
He brought a palm up to the sides of her throat and slid his fingers beneath her terry cloth robe. "She's a state legislator." His thumb tipped her chin upward as his lips lowered to brush hers once, twice, three times. He eased her into a soft kiss that seemed to pour through her like sunshine in August, warming her from the top of her head, down her spine, to the pit of her stomach. Hot tingles spread between her legs and thighs, the backs of her knees and the soles of her feet. The inside of his slick mouth tasted of mint and coffee, and he kissed her like she tasted sweet and very, very good to him.
She tilted her head to one side to give him better access, and he drove her against the back of the couch and made love to her mouth with his lips and tongue and hot juices. His warm palm slipped beneath her robe, and he slid his fingertips along the smooth edge of her bra, his touch grazing the swells of her breasts. Her skin grew tight, and she reached for the knot of his tie. He didn't stop her, and she pulled at it until the striped ends hung down his chest. She suckled his tongue as she unfastened the tiny button at his collar. Her fingers worked downward until the dress shirt lay open, then she pulled the ends from his pants. Between their bodies, her hands found his hard abdomen. He sucked in his breath. The fine hair tickled her fingers as she combed them up his stomach and flattened her palms over each male nipple. His muscles hardened beneath her touch, his flesh puckered, and he groaned deep in his chest.