“She’d wait until we got back. I swear, she’d find a way.”
“Ah well.”
He removed the domes. Pancakes, bacon, berries.
He thought of her, Eve mused. He always thought of her.
“That’s what I call Sunday breakfast.” She topped off his coffee, then poured her own.
After drenching the pancakes in syrup, she cut into them.
“I dreamed about the vault, all the stuff, you, coming in—through the window—putting the Venus and the Royal Suite in there.”
“As, in a way, I did.”
“Yeah, in a way, you did.”
She ate some bacon, shifted to him. “You were in that… line of work most of your life.”
“If you don’t count the last few years, all of it. They used me as part of a con, or a ploy, a distraction to a lift when I was, what, three, four, five? I don’t clearly remember. Then I was out on my own, and expected to bring home a decent take. I learned to do just that to avoid the boot or the fist. But got them often enough in any case. You know this.”
“I know this. Brian, your other friends, were part of it.”
“We did what we had to do.” He spoke simply, but she heard the mild annoyance under the tone. “It was a different world, Eve.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I know that, too. Can you tell me the first thing you stole?”
“I couldn’t, no. Something plucked from a pocket, I’d expect.”
“How about the last?”
“The last? That would’ve been a few months—near to a year—before I turned and saw you at the funeral. While I was easing off that line of work, I didn’t know it was my last.”
He smiled now, in memory. “I’m pleased it was a worthy last.”
“And was?”
“Cartier had a shipment of stones coming in, to be selected for commissioned pieces. Diamonds—blues, whites, pinks, reds, greens, canary. The client wanted a kind of diamond rainbow, colorful and unique. It’s not so easy to trace loose stones, you see, so I gathered them up, sold them off here and there, taking my time about it.”
“I remember that.” She jabbed a finger at him. “I remember that heist. That was you? Who did you work with?”
“No one at all. I’d be disinclined to name names for you, but no one at all.”
“They figured it was a team. Had to be.”
“It wasn’t. I will say, I had another job in the planning. I’d worked on the ins and outs quite a while. Then there was you, so I let it go.”
“You didn’t need the money anymore. It wasn’t for that. It was for that thrill you can’t describe.”
“It was.”
She put down her fork, then took his face in her hands. Looking into his eyes, she kissed him. “Okay,” she said, and picked up her fork again.
“Who’s saying that? My wife or the cop?”
“Right now, both. And both are going to ask you for a favor.”
“What might that be?”
