The Night Café. Taylor Smith

raised a brow. “But you say it wasn’t you.”

      “Give me some credit, mate. Just because Her Majesty trained me in the deadly arts doesn’t mean I’m going to use them against civilians.”

      “So who do you reckon it was? One professional to another,” Teagarden added.

      “Oh, well, I don’t like to rat out a colleague, even if he is the competition.”

      “Hardly a colleague, I would think. As you say, it was a very messily executed job—literally, given the body count. Not very flattering professional company to be keeping.”

      “That’s very true. Gives everyone a bad name.”

      “On the other hand, who knows? Maybe that’s what passes for professionalism these days.”

      “’Scuse me?”

      “More efficient, I suppose. Eliminate all the witnesses.”

      “Nothing efficient about pulling down that much heat,” Britten sniffed. “Only a rank amateur or a psycho uses that much brute force when he doesn’t have to. And he didn’t have to, did he, given that the museum practically sent out engraved invitations asking to be taken down, the way they mucked up security.”

      “Yeah, but this ringleader, whoever he was, showed some restraint, didn’t he? After all, he only took the one painting.”

      “Self-restraint!” Britten snorted. “That wasn’t his idea. That was a direct order from the client—take The Night Café and nothing more. You don’t argue with orders like that, not when they come from that client.”

      “So you do know who did the job—and who gave the orders. Did the client come to you?”

      Britten shrugged. “Might have.”

      “And? You couldn’t handle it?”

      “Couldn’t handle it? Not bloody likely. A trained monkey could have done that job.”

      “Yet you turned it down.”

      Britten drummed his fingers on the table.

      “Why?” Teagarden pressed.

      “Look, mate, you and I have had our differences in the past, yeah? But we’ve got two things in common.” Britten held up the first two fingers of his left hand, then pulled them down one after the other. “A, we both love beautiful paintings, and B, we’ve both done honorable service for Her Majesty’s Government. Here’s the deal—nicking that painting had precisely nothing to do with the client’s love of art. And I spent the Gulf War dodging bullets from guns this bloke sold to Saddam Hussein. So, thanks all the same, no, I did not care to take the man up on his offer.”

      “So who was the client? And who told him ‘yes’ after you said ‘no’?”

      Britten exhaled sharply. Then, signaling to the waiter for another espresso, he settled in resignedly for a long chat.

      Teagarden, to be sociable, did the same. It would appear, he thought, that there was honor amongst thieves after all.

      Two

      Orange County, California

      “Gabe, no more snacking. You’ll spoil your dinner.”

      Hannah snatched the last of the nachos away from the poised hand of her son and carried them from the patio into the house. The western sun, low over the ocean, was making rainbows on the walls of Nora’s kitchen. For the past couple of hours, the boys—one compact, the other tall and rangy—had climbed out of the water every twenty minutes or so, water streaming off their bodies. Splattering over to the patio table, they’d practically inhaled the fruits and crackers, cheeses and nachos that Nora had set out for them to snack on while Sunday’s beef dinner roasted in the oven.

      By now everyone was ravenous. The table was set, the salad made, the oven turned off and the veggies ready for steaming, but Rebecca Powell, Nora’s college roommate, was late.

      Hannah scraped the nachos into the garbage disposal, then rinsed the platter and slotted it into the dishwasher. Nora was at the long trestle table in the kitchen, folding starched linen napkins into swan shapes. Their mother, just down from napping upstairs, was putzing around the room, looking for something to clean or polish. Hannah watched her mother’s slightly frenzied hunt. It was pathological. The woman would probably end up ironing the sheets on her own deathbed.

      “Ma, come and sit down.”

      Instead, Nana picked up a dish towel and polished the taps and faucet at the sink until they gleamed.

      Hannah sighed and turned back to her sister. “Could Rebecca have forgotten the invitation?”

      Nora shook her head. “I was just talking to her last night. She won’t have forgotten. She’s probably stuck in traffic.”

      “She still living in Malibu?”

      “No. The gallery’s still there, but she moved into an apartment in Westwood.”

      “I thought she was getting the house in the divorce.”

      “Bill reneged. He got himself some shark of a lawyer and the lines suddenly shifted. I’m not sure exactly how he managed it, but poor Becs is fighting for her life here.”

      “You think the shark dug up something on her? Like, maybe she had an affair, too?”

      Nora’s shoulders lifted in a sad shrug. “I really don’t know. Becs hasn’t volunteered and I don’t like to ask. She’s pretty wrung out these days.”

      “It’s a blessing she and her husband didn’t have children,” Hannah’s mother said. She’d moved on to wiping the brown speckled counter, even though it was already sparkling. If Rebecca didn’t show up soon, she was going to wear a groove in the granite. Hannah could sympathize. She’d inherited her mother’s restlessness, although in her case, it rarely manifested itself in an urge to clean.

      “I suppose,” Nora said.

      Nana’s head gave a sad shake. “Divorce is so hard on children.”

      Hannah’s gaze dropped to her hands and she tried to ignore the stab in her solar plexus. Her mother wasn’t trying to make her feel crummy about her own messy divorce and lost custody struggle, she knew, but the comment stung just the same.

      “Anyway,” Nora added, “I know she hasn’t forgotten about today because she asked last night if you were going to be here.”

      Hannah glanced at their mother, then back at Nora. “Who, me? Why?”

      “Something about a job.”

      “What would she need a security contractor for? Guarding overpriced seascapes?”

      Hannah had gone with Nora one time to Rebecca Powell’s Malibu art gallery. The place specialized in the kind of idealized, light-dappled images of coastal California, conveniently sofa-sized, that tourists seemed to favor.

      “I don’t know why she needs your services, but here she comes.” Sure enough, through the big, multipaned window next to her sister, Hannah saw a bright red BMW convertible roaring up the driveway. Nora set aside the last in her flock of linen swans and got to her feet. “You can ask her yourself.”

      It was courier work, it seemed.

      Rebecca didn’t broach the subject until well after dinner. Neal and the boys were in the den, watching a football game, and Nora and Nana were loading the dishwasher. When they brushed off all offers of help, Hannah and Rebecca escaped the warm kitchen and took their coffee out onto the softly lit, tented gazebo on the patio.

      “It’s for a client,” Rebecca said, after explaining what she needed from Hannah.

      She smoothed her cream linen slacks and crossed her dainty, espadrille-clad feet at the ankles before lifting