The Night Café. Taylor Smith

stapling the paper back in place, she propped the painting on the sofa. Then, she had another thought. She pulled the portfolio toward her and examined it closely. Rebecca had provided it, so if the case concealed something illegal, then Nora’s friend was implicated. Hard to believe, but who knew? She wouldn’t be the first person driven to crime out of desperation.

      The case was padded and reinforced to reduce the risk of crushing. And maybe conceal contraband? Hannah took her Swiss Army knife from her messenger bag and used it to make a small slit in the lining. All she found inside was high-density foam wrapped around sturdy cardboard.

      Setting the case aside, she took up her water glass again and settled into her favorite rocker to study the painting. Why would anyone want to own a piece like this? And pay a quarter million dollars for it, plus commission and shipping? It wasn’t so much that it was ugly. Compared to other “high concept” art pieces she’d seen in the past, hideous things that left her head shaking, this one was okay. The longer she looked at it, in fact, the more she found herself picking out images, reading emotions into the dusky, gladelike colors. Maybe that was the idea.

      Since this was the first time she’d ever acted as an art courier, Hannah had raised with Rebecca the legal ramifications of importing and exporting paintings.

      “It’s not a problem with modern work like this, as long as the paperwork’s in order,” Rebecca had said. “August Koon’s work is hardly a national treasure.”

      She’d handed over an envelope. When Hannah had opened it, she’d found the bill of sale and an authentification certificate signed by Koon, as well as an import permit from Mexican Customs and her Los Angeles/Puerto Vallarta return air ticket—AlaskaAir, 10:10 a.m. Tuesday morning, first class as promised. Rebecca said the airline had been given a heads-up that Hannah would be hand-carrying a painting and had affixed an amendment to her file noting that the portfolio was to be safely stowed alongside her in the first-class cabin.

      Hannah examined the Mexican import permit that had apparently been arranged by Moises Gladding. It all looked very official. She suspected money may have changed hands under a table somewhere but, although she studied the paperwork closely for irregularities, everything seemed in order. No matter how much she might fret about dealing with Gladding, sometimes a cigar was just a cigar and a courier job was just that. All she had to do was carry the painting to LAX, board the plane, tuck the portfolio into its closet, then sit back with a glass of champagne and enjoy the two-hour flight. She’d be met in Puerto Vallarta, she’d deliver the picture, and then her work would be done. Easy money.

      She rewrapped the painting in the soft cloth Rebecca had provided and slipped it back into the leather portfolio. In her bedroom, she propped it behind her bureau, then kicked off her sandals and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She was just heading to the bathroom to turn on the shower when the bleep of her cell phone stopped her in her tracks. It was in her messenger bag in the living room. She ran back into the other room, plucked it up and glanced at the screen. Her stomach did a backflip. The number was familiar enough that she recognized it, but not such a habit that she’d assigned it a permanent place in her phone list. That would be too much like asking for trouble.

      She opened the phone. “Hi, there.”

      “Hey, stranger.” John Russo’s voice reminded her of bittersweet chocolate—deep, dark, rich but never cloying. It was like everything else about him, a balance of weirdly Zen calm and edgy tension that made him intriguing, unpredictable and just a little bit scary. He was unremarkable in appearance, not overly large or menacing, but the bad guys he encountered in his line of work would underestimate him at their peril. Russo was one of the best homicide detectives in the city. It would be easy enough, she imagined, for a suspect to be lulled by his easygoing demeanor, only to be stung by that laser intelligence and pit bull tenacity.

      Hannah counted herself among the good guys, but Russo kept her feeling a little off balance, too. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about that. The two of them had been tap-dancing around each other for a couple of months now. If the irregular hours they both kept made it tough for them to find time to see one another, Russo had made it clear he wasn’t about to let a few scheduling problems get in his way. The guy was determined, she’d give him that. And a damn good kisser, Hannah had discovered. Her stomach cart-wheeled as she recalled their one and only real date. It was about ten days ago, dinner followed by a walk on the beach. Yes, a cliché right out of the classifieds, maybe, but it had worked. Unfortunately, it had come to a breathless but abrupt end when he’d been called out to a murder scene in West Hollywood. He wasn’t supposed to be on call that night, but as luck would have it, a gang war had erupted in Compton and all of Russo’s colleagues had been out picking up the pieces of carnage there when the dead sheet call came in.

      “You’re a tough lady to get hold of,” Russo said now.

      “I wouldn’t want to seem easy.” Hannah winced. Damn, was she flirting? She hated flirting. “Anyway, I called your office. You have a new partner.”

      “Yeah, she’s a newbie. She’ll be riding with me for the next couple of months. I’m her T.O.” Her training officer. “Name’s Lindsay. She just transferred in from the Twin Towers.”

      The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, in addition to policing vast swaths of Southern California, also ran the detention facilities that housed men and women arrested anywhere in the county. It was impossible to climb through LASD ranks without sooner or later doing a stint as a corrections officer in one of the jails. Hannah herself had worked in the Twin Towers correctional unit for a year after graduating from police academy, and she’d hated every minute of it. The relationship between jailed and jailer was made up of equal parts suspicion, contempt and gamesmanship, bored inmates having little else to occupy them besides looking for ways to end-run the guards. The day her transfer to a patrol beat had come through, Hannah had danced a jig right there in the control tower.

      “I’ll bet she’s glad to be out of there. I assume she’s been on the street already?” Hannah asked. You didn’t make detective in the Sheriff’s Department until you’d put in your time on patrol.

      “Yeah, she worked the Valley and Compton. She only just told me you’d called. When exactly was that?”

      “Thursday or Friday, I think.” Actually, Hannah knew precisely when she’d called, but there was no mileage in looking too eager. “She said you were out of town.”

      “Yeah, I had to go up to San Francisco. I got back on Friday, but I didn’t get your message until a few minutes ago. The kid’s in big trouble.” Russo sounded annoyed. That was gratifying. “She misses another message like that and she’ll be back on a beat before she knows it.”

      “Don’t be too hard on her. She doesn’t know me from Adam. Probably thought I was one of your groupies.”

      Russo made a dismissive noise, but cops did tend to attract a fan base. It wasn’t just the man-in-uniform phenomenon. Plainclothes detectives held just as much fascination for civilians. It was the illusion of invincibility, maybe, that knight-in-shining-armor thing. As a former cop herself, Hannah knew the badge was no guarantee of valor or integrity, much less infallibility. Russo had certainly suffered his own share of personal and professional problems, but he seemed to deserve his rep for decency.

      “Believe me, Lindsay knows now she’d better tell me right away if you call,” he growled. “When I didn’t hear back from you, I was beginning to think you were avoiding me. I was thinking about taking up stalking. Anyway, why did you call the desk instead of my cell?”

      Hannah hesitated. Why indeed? Because she’d been hoping to get a recording and put the ball back in his court? Because the thought of seeming desperate, or of putting herself out there and getting hurt again was scarier than anything she could imagine? She’d walked into booby-trapped buildings with less trepidation than she felt at the idea of letting this guy get close. She’d been on her own nearly five years now. There’d been a couple of so-called relationships in that time, but she’d had no problem keeping them compartmentalized, tucked away in a little offside place that came nowhere near threatening her