Three Fates

closing. Then, for several long seconds, nothing but silence.
    “Asshole.” It was a vicious whisper and made Jack grin. “Stupid bastard. Idiot. The nerve, the fucking nerve of him coming here to question me like a common criminal. Do I have a gun? Do I have a gun?”
    Something fragile broke with a sad tinkling of glass.
    “Didn’t I leave the goddamn murder weapon behind where a ten-year-old could find it? But he comes here interrupting my day, insulting me.”
    “Bingo,” Jack shouted, then sat back.
    “She did it.” Tia shuddered as she lowered herself into one of two chairs bolted into the van’s floor. On audio, she could hear Anita snap at her assistant to call her lawyer. “I know we believed she did, even knew it on some level. But to hear her say it, just like that, annoyed because she’s being inconvenienced. It’s horrible.”
    They listened as Anita swore at her assistant when she reported the lawyer was in a meeting.
    “Our Anita’s having a bad day.” Jack turned in his chair. “And we’re going to make it worse. You still in?” he asked Tia.
    “Yes.” She was pale, but the hand she lifted to Malachi’s was steady. “More than ever.”
     
     
    GIDEON WATCHED AS Cleo bundled her hair under a black watch cap, as she stepped back, turned in the mirror to study herself.
    “What do you think?” She did a quick pirouette. “It’s the latest in nighttime B and E fashion.”
    “You’ve plenty of time yet.”
    “Yeah, but I wanted to check out the look.” Dressed in black jeans, black sweater, black sneakers, she gave her reflection one more hard stare. “It works on me. The Gap. Who’d have thought it?”
    “You’re not nervous.”
    “Not particularly. How hard can it be not to break into a place?” She did a couple of deep pliés to check the give of the jeans. “Too bad there wasn’t time to hunt up a cat suit.” When he didn’t respond, she straightened. “What’s up, Slick?”
    “Come here a minute.”
    Willing to oblige, she crossed to him and was surprised when he drew her into his arms, hard.
    “Wow. What’s this about?”
    “There’s always a chance something will go wrong.”
    “There’s always a chance a satellite will fall out of the sky and land on my head. Doesn’t keep me hiding in the basement.”
    “When I dragged you into this, I didn’t know you.”
    “Nobody drags me anywhere. Got it?”
    “I didn’t care about you then. I care about you now.”
    “That’s nice. Don’t start making me all squishy.”
    “Cleo, you don’t have to do this. Wait,” he said when she started to pull away. “Let me finish. Tonight’s not such a big step until you look at the whole. If things work, we’ll be taking it up a level. A very big level. The next time you put on that cap, it’ll be to break into Anita’s house, to take something from her she’ll kill to keep.”
    “Something that doesn’t belong to her.”
    “That’s not the point. You heard her on that tape. She killed a man, and she won’t hesitate to kill another. She knows who you are.”
    “She knows who I am anyway.”
    “Listen to me.” His fingers tightened on her arms. “Jack could get you out of this. He’d know the way—people, papers. You could disappear, with the money he’d give you for the statue. She’d never find you.”
    “Is that what you think of me? The rat who deserts the ship even before it starts to sink?” She pushed away. “Thanks a lot.”
    “I don’t want her to touch you. I won’t have her touching you.”
    The restrained violence in his tone, the bubbling frustration under it, defused her own temper.
    “Why?”
    “I care about you, damn it. Didn’t I say so?”
    “Give me another four-letter word.”
    He opened his mouth. His tongue felt thick. “Hell.”
    She made a buzzing sound, snapped her fingers. “Wrong answer. Care to try again? You can still win the trip for two to San Juan and the complete set of Samsonite luggage.”
    “This isn’t easy for me. I don’t like being in this position.” He jammed his hands in his pockets, paced restlessly in the confined space of Tia’s little office. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. A man doesn’t have time to think under these conditions.”
    “Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.” She pulled off the cap, shook out her hair. “I think I’ll grab a snack before we head out.”
    He stopped her by snagging her hair, wrapping it around his hand and using it as a rope to yank