“Like kill?” Noah asked bluntly. Half the guys he worked with could do harm to others with a thought—controlling fire, moving and hearing things with their minds, knowing the future… All of which made for some dangerous potential. Probably why the government still kept tabs on them even eight months after the PWP had closed down.
“Some of the artifacts are lethal, yeah. But the item you’re going after isn’t dangerous. It’s just, well… Hell, read the file.” Jack paused to dig a folder out of his desk.
“I didn’t say I’d do the job.”
“I didn’t ask.” Jack slid the folder over to Noah and opened it up to reveal a picture. “That’s what you’re going after—a rare portrait, one of Emilio Vala’s earliest works, commissioned in 1854. According to Sotheby’s, it’s worth a few hundred thousand.”
Shit. From the look on his face, Jack wasn’t budging. Noah had no choice but to follow orders or get the hell out. After finally finding people who for the most part understood him, he had no wish to move from his new home. Though he didn’t relish the idea of leaving Bend, even for a few days, he’d do it because Jack had asked. Ordered, he corrected himself.
Noah studied the picture and felt his enthusiasm for the case build, regardless of wanting nothing to do with it. The picture was a portrait of a woman from the waist up, the backdrop a blue curtain. She wore a red dress trimmed with black lace that exposed her shoulders and the upper swells of her breasts while hinting at so much more. Little jewelry adorned her body except for a pair of glittery silver rosebud earrings. Her shoulders looked pearlescent, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. Until you looked at her eyes. Sooty lashes shuttered dark brown eyes that hinted at pleasures a man could only dream about. Pouty lips, a dainty nose, and a stubborn chin tugged at him to take a second look, to see what secrets she refused to share.
The artist had captured her charm and sensuality, yet there was something more that made Noah sit up and take notice.
After several minutes of quiet study, he glanced away from the picture to see Jack’s smile of satisfaction. “What?”
“I knew you’d see more.”
“What am I seeing, exactly, except a beautiful woman?”
“You tell me.” Jack paused. “Noah, you like to think you’re more grounded than the rest of us, but the truth is, you need to exercise your abilities more, not less, than everyone else so you can control them.”
“I’m fine.”
Jack snorted. “Yeah, that’s why you’re always staring off into space. I don’t even want to know what you were looking at a few minutes ago, because it sure as hell wasn’t my face.”
Noah flushed. Guilty.
“I need you to find the painting and bring it back. Kitty booked your airfare already. She left the ticket sitting with the front desk. If nothing else, at least it’ll get you out of this place for a while. You’re starting to distance yourself more and more from everyone. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Noah didn’t like being on Jack’s radar. “You mentioned a ticket?”
Jack nodded. “You fly out tomorrow afternoon.”
Thank God he wouldn’t have to drive. “Where am I heading?”
“You’ll fly into Phoenix, but your destination is a small town called Superior.”
Noah paused. “Any reason you didn’t send me out right after Price and Foreman told you where the painting is?” Noah could see the scene in his mind’s eye as his friends debriefed Jack on everything in this very office. Two months ago, they’d told Jack about that painting, as well as a half dozen of Stallbridge’s other treasures littered across the states.
Jack scowled. “I needed to iron out a few details with the client before any more of our team tracks down the artifacts.”
“The anonymous client, right.” Noah paused. “So Stallbridge is okay with me going?”
“You’re a real pain in my ass, Noah.” Jack sighed. “Our client leaves the manning of the cases to me. There was some question as to the ownership of one of his items after the first job, so we spent the last eight weeks cataloging and verifying the others. The painting is the real deal. It belongs to our client, and it’s part of his collection. I need you to get it and bring it back without a scratch.”
“Gotcha.”
“And Noah? This should be a simple retrieval.”
Right. Like the last one, in which their guys had nearly been killed. Price had been more than chatty during last week’s Seahawk’s game. Man had no head for liquor and the attention span of a gnat with his new fiancée and Foreman around.
“But be prepared for anything,” Jack added.
Their new company motto, it seemed.
Noah stood, nodded, and left with the folder tucked under his arm, itching to go home and stare at that picture in private. He needed to see what it was that drew him, because Noah knew better than to go into a situation without all the facts. He fingered a tiny scar at the corner of his left brow as he left the gym, his mind on other things.
Three days later
Lara Graham checked in an enthusiastic pair of out-of-towners, pleased to introduce the Lady Fine Inn to yet another group of art collectors. Brownville, Arizona, had been growing in leaps and bounds ever since the Associated Press had run a story revisiting famous outlaws and hidden treasures of the West. Brownville’s claim to fame was one Finnegan Fury. The press had chronicled the scandalous robber who’d bankrupted several nearby banks and involved himself in a forbidden romance with Cecilia Fine, the local madam and namesake of the current Lady Fine Inn. The tragedy of their deaths and the rumor that Finnegan had killed her in a fit of jealousy made the tale one that still had people speculating over a hundred years after the fact.
“Enjoy your stay.” Lara nodded to the elderly couple and locked their credit card receipt in the old-fashioned register. The nine-room inn, once an infamous saloon and brothel, now boasted polished pinewood floors, comfortable southwestern décor intermixed with nineteenth-century antiques, and the modern conveniences of air-conditioning, spa bathrooms, and a state-of-the-art kitchen Lara used to its fullest. Nine rooms of rental bliss for those who wanted the real Southwestern atmosphere of a brothel done in tasteful hues and tacky tassels. Lara had loved the place the minute she’d laid eyes on it six months ago.
And if she had her way, she’d own it in a few short years.
She watched a couple people relax in the formal living room while their newest guests went upstairs. To both her relief and suspicion, the voice in her head remained quiet. So far, so good. That made two weeks of relative peace.
“Not bad,” Frank said from directly behind her, making her jump. He chuckled. “I am the king of stealth.”
“And a pain in my ass.” She grinned along with him. Lara didn’t take to people, but from day one, something between her and Frank had clicked. Before she could start a volley of verbal abuse that would be sure to take them past their daily insults into truly raunchy rhetoric, a man entered the inn.
Everything around Lara came to a complete halt.
Hello, handsome. About time you arrived.
Lara winced. Oh hell. The voice had returned with a vengeance.
“Honey, I have this one.” Frank preened as he slicked back his shoulder-length dark hair, which emphasized his good looks.
Lara ignored the husky voice clucking in her mind. It really had been a stretch to think she could outrun her past. Especially with all the ghost stories in Brownville. Doing her best to compose herself, she donned the veil of normalcy she’d worked most her life to perfect and huffed, “No way he’s gay.”