Sweet Revenge

the top layer and found putty, false lashes, and adhesive beneath. It appeared Adrianne liked to play at disguises. Beneath that layer he found Lauren St. John’s jewelry.
    Good? Had he thought The Shadow was good? The man was a genius. Somehow, in hardly more time than it took to tell about it, he had gained entrance to the St. Johns’ rooms, lifted the stones, then transferred them to Adrianne, without ever showing his face.
    She’d hidden them in a hollowed-out case that had once held an array of eye shadows. Holding them now, Philip felt the old temptation, that siren’s call of stones. Wars had been fought for them, lives lost, and hearts broken. They were dug out of the ground, chipped from rock, cut and polished and sold to adorn the necks, the wrists, the fingers. There were cultures that still believed they could ward off evil spirits or death.
    He understood why as the blood-red rocks and the diamonds glittered in his hands and whispered to him.
    He could have had them, slipped them into his pocket and walked away. He still had the contacts who could exchange them for cash and let him walk away richer and still free. It would be sweet, wonderfully sweet. And he was tempted, not so much because of the money, but because of the stones themselves. They lay hot in his hand, somehow feminine and taunting.
    With a sigh he put them back. It was unfortunate that he’d developed a certain loyalty to Spencer. Still, his decision came more because of Adrianne. He would wait and watch to see what she did with them, and with whom.
    He shut the case, then replaced it on the shelf at the top of the closet. After deciding it best to forgo dinner himself, he took a pillow from the sitting room, tucked it into the back of the spare closet there, then settled down to wait.
    He’d dozed off, but since he habitually slept lightly, a trait of thieves as well as of heros, he roused when he heard her key turn in the lock. He stood to watch her through the thin crack between the closet doors.
    She seemed relaxed. That was something else he’d begun to watch for, the shifting of her moods. The light she’d switched on fell over her back as she moved into the bedroom. He heard the rustle of her dress and imagined, though it did him more harm than good, the way she would look stepping out of it. The hangers slid metallically over the closet rail as she hung it up. When she moved past the door she’d left open between the two rooms, she was wearing a short robe, not yet belted. He could see the slender line of flesh from the well of her breasts and down.
    She was moving briskly; not at all like a woman who was preparing to end an evening. Philip cursed the wall between them as he heard her rattle bottles on the counter of the vanity.
    There were long silences, then the click of a jar being opened or closed, the splash of water running. Then he heard the sound of her door opening slowly, and the quick click that followed.
    He waited, five seconds, ten, before he slipped out of the closet. At the rampway he had to hold himself back from hurrying after her. When he reached the bottom, he thought he’d lost her. The only woman he saw was broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, with frizzed blond hair. Philip continued to look for Adrianne. Then abruptly he swiveled his gaze back to the blonde. It all had to do with the way she moved, he thought, and nearly smiled as he watched her cross the parking lot.
    It was Adrianne, but he doubted she was on her way to a masquerade.
    As she drove toward San Miguel he kept a quarter of a mile back. The traffic was sparse, with an occasional cab barreling from town to the hotel district. On the left the sea was dark and calm, the bright, colorful lights of a cruise ship draped across the sky like jewels. Soon midnight would bring the first breath of Christmas. Children were already sleeping, wishing for morning. Tourists were prolonging their parties. Though the shops were closed, there was still music from the bars and restaurants.
    Adrianne parked across from the square. Her business should be over quickly enough. She wanted it over. Tonight, sitting on her cousin’s yacht, watching Duja with her family, sharing memories of life in Jaquir, she’d decided the rubieswere her last job. Once she’d transferred the money and the dust had settled, she would be on her way east to the home of their childhood. And to The Sun and the Moon.
    There had been a festival in the square. The colored paper and