We leave the store and head down Mott Street, weaving through throngs of pedestrians and around the endless trash bags and piled-up cardboard boxes. “It doesn’t make sense that he’d bring a vase like that here,” Doug says, biting into a peanut shell that he just mysteriously produced, and tossing the empty shell to the ground. Noticing our stares, he pats his coat pocket and shrugs. “What? I do a lot of long hours. I need to keep snacks handy.”
“You think he’d take it to an auction house if he stole it?” I ask, dismissing Doug’s rather unseemly habit.
“I guess not.” He pauses. “Unless he thinks he has covered his tracks. He may wait awhile, though, just to be sure he’s going to get away with it. He doesn’t know that you hired me to root through her computer, right?”
“Right.” The only people who know about Doug are Hans, Ruby, and Grady. “So we need to connect with anyone his parents might use.”
“I’ll call the auction houses they’ve bought through in the past,” Hans offers.
“Will they talk to you? I mean, aren’t you a competitor?”
Hans mocks my concern with a laugh. “Oh, they’ll talk to me. Anyway, I’ve already flagged it at all the big houses in the city. They know that this vase has been reported stolen to the police.”
“What’d the cops say, Maggie?” Doug asks, breaking open another peanut.
“That unless they find Celine’s fingerprints on it or the thief confesses to stealing it, it’s going to be hard to prove that it was hers.” After I stormed out of the precinct with Ruby in tow, Detective Childs was kind enough to send a police officer over to the apartment to file the necessary paperwork to report the theft.
Doug nods. “Of course. I wonder if he’d be dumb enough to exchange emails about it with someone. I’ll get Zac to try and get into FCM’s email system.”
“He knows how to do that, too?” Who exactly is this Zac guy that I’m paying a lot of money to do illegal things?
“There’s not much he can’t do. The firewalls will be tight, but it’s a big network and all you need is one person to open the wrong email.”
“What about Jace’s home computer?”
“A little tougher. Jace’d have to open an email with a backdoor program.” His feet slow, and when he turns to look at me, I see the idea taking form. “You know, you should get into Jace’s condo.”
“My B and E skills are less than stellar.” I can’t even break into a rooftop garden without getting caught.
“No B and E. Get invited. Tell him you want to know more about the market and that you might have more money to spend with him. Say . . . your advisor sent some investment plans through that you aren’t a hundred percent excited about, and you’d like Jace to look at them, for a second opinion.”
“But why would he agree to that?” I counter.
Doug dismisses my concern with a hasty wave. “Because it’s an in for him to convince you to invest more with him. Trust me, he’ll take it. And Zac’ll load up an email with some financial bullshit and a back door, and you forward it to his personal email. He’ll have to open it on his home computer.”
Doug’s grasping for straws here. “That’s the kind of thing we’d do in his office, though.”
“You’re too busy during the day. It has to be at night.”
“I don’t know if he’ll—”
“If he’s making house calls to the LES to get you to sign his papers, I’m guessing there isn’t much he won’t do to get his hands on your money.” His eyes dart over my frame. “Put one of your friend’s pretty dresses on. I’m guessing that’s been working well on him, too.”
“How do you know—” I cut myself off. I don’t want to know. “Don’t you think that’s dangerous? You know, if . . .” I let my voice trail. It’s enough that Hans thinks Jace may have stolen Celine’s vase. I don’t want him to know what I suspect about Celine’s death.
“No. If he thinks you’re there to see him, it’ll be fine. He won’t suspect a thing. Just dangle all that money in front of him and get a good look around.”
Doug’s basically sending me on a date with Jace. In his apartment, alone. I remember what happened the last time I was alone with Jace, not that I’m too worried about a repeat. “I’ll think about it.”
————
“Hey.” I glare at my reflection in the mirror. I lasted all of two hours after my conversation with Doug on the streets of Chinatown, distracting my thoughts with packing tape and bubble wrap and two boxes of rare first edition books, before dialing the personal cell number on Jace’s business card.
“Maggie? Just give me a sec—” I hear his muffled voice say to someone, “I’m sorry, just give me five minutes and I’ll be back with you. Why don’t you review this plan I’ve laid out while I’m gone.” A door clicks. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I need to bounce some investment ideas off you.”
“Really?” The surprise in his voice is unmistakable.
“Yes. I have more money to invest and I want a second opinion on my advisor’s recommendations. Can we talk about it? In person.” I practiced that line for ten minutes before picking up my phone, afraid he’d hear the duplicity in my voice otherwise.
“Okay.” He’s smiling, I can tell. “I’ll have Natasha make room for you in my calendar and you can come in—”
“I’m not getting in those elevators again.” That’s an even better excuse than simply being busy. He witnessed firsthand how crazy I got.
His chuckle tickles my ear in a way that I love, before I remember just who this guy is. “Fair enough. How about we meet over dinner? I know a great Italian place over in Chelsea.”
“How about your place. Tonight?”
There’s a long pause, and I bite my lip, afraid that even Jace Everett might find that a bit too forward. “You have a pen handy?”
————
“What am I doing, Ruby!” I pace around the boxes as the shriveled little woman sits and watches from her folding chair, the tea set steaming from its place on the brass tray. Before coming to New York City, I could count on my hand the number of times I’d had tea in the last year. Now she’s showing up at my door every afternoon—since that first visit—turning me into a habitual tea drinker. And I’m glad for it. She’s become the ear I so desperately need. “Is this insane?”