The gun—I was sure it was a gun—dug into the back of my neck.
I said, “Uh, Dash?”
“Nice to meet you, Dash,” the man said.“What are you doing in my room?”
“Nope.I was just—” A flash of brilliance.“—doing some light housekeeping?”
“Oh yeah?Where’s your cart?”
“Very light housekeeping.The lightest.Just—just fluffing the pillows, that kind of thing.”
“Why didn’t you say, ‘Housekeeping,’ when you came in?”
“Now, see, that’s a common misconception—”
“Do you know why today’s your lucky day, Dash?”
“You’re going to forget about this and let me go?”
The man let out a laugh that ended in a short, pained sound.When he spoke again, his voice was tighter.“You know what, Dash?I like you.”
“And I like you.In fact, I like you so much I want to let you get back to whatever you were doing when you were hiding in that closet—not that that’s a euphemism, I mean, not thatIhave any room to talk, I mean, I’m gay, so closets, you know—”
He gave me a shake and jabbed me with the gun.“We’re going to go for a ride in your car.And because you’re a smart guy, you’re going to make this real easy, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Good, Dash.Because we don’t want to make it hard.”
He turned me and walked me to the door.He had to shuffle, and his breaths came in thin, raspy gasps.When we passed the Safeway bag, I saw what I should have noticed before: the mound of bloodstained cotton.
Who said international jewel thief was a risk-free profession?
The call I’d overheard came back to me, and I said, as much to myself as to him, “She ditched you.”
“Shut your mouth.”
And the stolen jewelry spread out on the table.That was a stupid thing to do unless you had a reason to lay every piece out.Like you were making sure it was all there.
“She didn’t just ditch you,” I said.“She took some of the loot, didn’t she?”
“The loot,” he said in averyrude tone, and then he gave me another shove, and I stumbled forward.
I was still a few feet from the door when the knob rattled as someone tried to turn it, and a woman shouted, “Casey, open up!It’s me!”
“Her car died,” I said.“She only came back because she’s out of options.”
“Shut up,” the man said.He jabbed me with the gun.“Open it.And don’t try anything.”
The chain chittered under my fingers as I slid it free.As soon as I opened the door, the wig thief forced her way inside.She was wearing a crop top with unexpectedly poofy shoulders and Lycra hot pants, and instead of the hideous red shag, now she was blond, her hair styled in a way that would have made some teenage girl in the ’90s ecstatic.She was still carrying the cardboard box.When she saw me, she paused and said, “You!”
“Hi.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I want my wigs back.”
“Where have you been?”the man—Casey—asked.“And what’s that?”
