That man and the woman scrubbing floors… way too close to home for Fallon.
Prescott was still talking. Something about the wine selection at a restaurant he liked on Newbury Street. He’d moved on from the housekeeper story without a seam. It was already behind him. A good anecdote. Nothing more.
Fallon turned away from the window and scanned the room.
There was a hallway to the left of the DJ booth that led to the venue’s private rooms. She’d noticed it earlier—a short corridor with two doors, both closed. One was probably storage. The other, based on the floor plan she’d pulled from the venue’s website, was a small gallery that the Arts Alliance used for rotating exhibitions.
She shouldn’t go look. She was here for reconnaissance. Observe the target, confirm the research, map the environment, go home. That was the plan.
But she knew what was in that room.
Prescott’s voice was still in her ear, cocky and pleased with himself, and she could feel her discipline fraying at the edges.
She walked toward the hallway. Not fast, not purposeful. Just a woman looking for the restroom. The corridor was empty. The first door was locked. The second opened.
The room was small—maybe fifteen by twenty. Track lighting on a dimmer, currently set low. Eight pieces on the walls, all contemporary, none of them major names. But against the farwall, on a pedestal behind a velvet rope, sat a bronze sculpture about eighteen inches tall. Abstract, fluid, the kind of piece that looked like it had been poured rather than cast. The card beside it readEvening Study, 1962and listed an artist Fallon didn’t recognize.
What she did recognize was the card below it.On loan from the private collection of Malcolm Prescott.
She stood in the doorway and felt her pulse pick up.
She could do it. The room had no camera. The velvet rope was decorative, not secured. The sculpture was small enough to fit inside a large handbag that she could lift from the coat room, and the pedestal had no pressure sensor—she could tell by the base, which sat flush against the surface without any visible wiring.
God, it was so fucking tempting.
She wasn’t going to take it. She was here for recon, not for action. The plan was the plan, and the plan did not include grabbing a bronze sculpture from an unlocked room at a fundraiser she’d been at for less than an hour. Cassandra would absolutely kill her.
But she stood there for ten more seconds than she should have, measuring the distance from the pedestal to the door, estimating how long the corridor stayed empty between foot traffic, cataloging the weight and dimensions of the piece.
Then she closed the door, turned, and walked back toward the main room.
Not tonight. Stick to the plan.
She breathed out slowly through her nose. The discipline held. Barely. Only knowing Prescott was going to get what was coming to him. Doing anything tonight would do nothing but tip him off.
She needed to move, keep circulating. Prescott was still at the bar—she could hear the murmur of his conversation throughthe receiver—and she had at least another hour of useful observation ahead of her. She dropped her untouched wine on a passing tray and started toward a cluster of guests near the auction tables.
She saw him from twenty feet away, and her whole body went still.
Isaac.
Dark suit, no tie, top button undone. A glass in his hand. He’d been talking to a woman in a green dress, but he wasn’t talking to her anymore. He was looking across the room. At Fallon.
He was already moving.
She turned away. Adjusted her path toward a cluster of guests near the auction tables, keeping bodies between them. Her left knee twinged on the pivot—a sharp little flare that reminded her she’d been on her feet for over an hour in a room with concrete floors.
She kept moving. Maybe he wouldn’t be sure it was her. She’d changed everything tonight—the makeup, the hair, the way she carried herself. If she kept walking, he might second-guess himself. Let it go.
“Fallon.”
Her stomach dropped. She stopped walking, and for one full second she considered not turning around. Just keep moving. Pretend she hadn’t heard. Disappear through the service door she’d clocked earlier and be in a cab before he made it to her. But she couldn’t take a chance on him shouting her name and drawing attention to her.
She turned.
He was now just a few feet away. His expression was hard to read—not angry, not cold, but not the easy warmth from last week’s gala either. He looked like a man who’d crossed a room on instinct and was now figuring out what he wanted to say.
“I thought that was you.” He tilted his head. “Wasn’t sure for a second.”
