The Heist

discovered where Griffin is. We might need another twenty minutes or so to come up with a plan.”
    “You’ve done great so far. If either Bolton or I knew what you were doing, which we don’t, we’d be impressed.”
    “Thanks,” she said. “How much heat have we got on us?”
    “The LAPD is investigating Burnside’s disappearance, of course, but they’ve got nothing at all to go on. We haven’t been much help to them, either, the poor souls.”
    “What’s the latest on the manhunt for Nick?”
    “Ryerson is chasing a lead from Interpol that Fox may have impersonated some Italian count to fly out of Europe and into St. Louis, where the trail goes cold. I told him that was ridiculous. Why would he come back here? And why St. Louis? What’s Fox plotting to do, steal the Arch?”
    “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Kate said, and disconnected.
    She set the alarm clock on the nightstand to ring in forty-five minutes, pulled the comforter off the bed, slipped her gun under one of the pillows, and went to sleep on top of the blankets. When the alarm woke her after what felt like three seconds, she smashed it with her fist until it was silent and cracked, and she went back to sleep.
    The next time Kate came awake it wasn’t because of the alarm.It was because of an uneasy feeling intruding on her sleep, dragging her into consciousness. She lay perfectly still, eyes closed, all other senses alert. She heard the soft rustle of clothing and knew she wasn’t alone. She stretched and slipped her hand under her pillow, found her Glock, and bolted upright, aiming at a shadow at the foot of the bed.
    “How sweet,” Nick said, gesturing to the Glock. “Just like old times.”
    He was in a chair facing the bed, eating a Toblerone. A bottle of white wine and two glasses were on the table beside him.
    “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you. How did you get in here?”
    “To your knowledge, how many times have I visited the Louvre after it was closed?”
    “Three,” she said.
    “It’s seven, actually.” He unscrewed the top off the bottle of wine and filled two glasses. “With that in mind, do you really think your hotel room door was a challenge for me?”
    Smug bastard. She should have shot him. But it was a nonsmoking room, and they charged a $275 cleaning fee for cigarette smoke and ashes, so she figured that their price for scrubbing away blood and brain matter was probably astronomical.
    “You could have knocked,” she said.
    Nick held a glass of wine out to her. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
    She slid down to the end of the bed and took the glass from him. “How did you know I was sleeping?”
    “Anyone walking by your room would have known. You were snoring like a hippo giving birth.”
    “I don’t snore,” she said, and drank half the glass of wine. “You broke in to raid my minibar, like always, and didn’t expect to find me here.”
    “I’ll say that’s what happened if it will make you feel better.”
    “If that’s not it, then what
are
you doing here?”
    “I thought you’d like to know how we’re getting Derek Griffin.” His gaze dropped to her shirt. “Is that cocktail sauce?”
    Kate looked down and sighed. “Willie was at poolside and I snitched a shrimp off her platter.”
    Why me? she thought. Why doesn’t
he
ever have food stains on his shirt?

“You’ve figured out the con already?” Kate asked Nick.
    “Yep. The honey trap. It works in any situation where a man is vulnerable to the charms of a beautiful woman. And it helps if he has an unfulfilled desire for sex.”
    Kate foraged in the minibar, came up with a Snickers, and bit off a chunk. “So basically any man on earth with a heartbeat in any situation at all.”
    “Pretty much,” he said. “You’re going to be a rich, bored, man-hungry heiress cruising the Flores Sea in a multimillion-dollar yacht with a two-person crew.”
    Kate’s mouth dropped open and some candy fell out. “No! No way. Not gonna happen. I am
not
going to be the honey in the trap.”
    Her short hair was a wreck, overgrown for a pixie cut, not long enough for anything else. She had perpetual food stains. She didn’t own an iron and had no interest in buying one. And it didn’tmatter anyway because her clothes were all wash-and-wear and chosen for their ability to hide a gun. There were times when in all honesty she did feel a little man-hungry, but she had no confidence that, even on her best day, could she pull off the honey