Three Fates

her back. “Goddamn it, Cleo, I love you, and you’re going to have to deal with that.”
    “Okay.” And that slow, liquid warmth inside her became a fast flood as she put her arms around him. “Okay,” she repeated, nesting into him. “Okay.”
    Here, she thought. At last.
    “Okay? If that’s the best you can do—”
    “Shh.” She wrapped her arms tighter. “Quiet. This is like a Hallmark moment here.”
    He let out a sigh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about half the time.”
    “I’ll make it easy for you. I love you back.” She eased away so their eyes could meet. “You get that?”
    “Yeah.” His grip on her hair gentled until his fingers were stroking through it. “That I got.” He brought his lips to hers, slid them both into a long, sumptuous kiss. “We’ll need to talk about this, eventually.”
    “You bet,” she said and locked her mouth to his again.
    “I want to tell the others we need to find another way.”
    “No.” Now she pulled free. “No, Gideon. I do my part, just like Tia did hers this morning. Just like we’re all doing. I owe Mikey that. And it’s more,” she continued before he could speak. “I’m going to be straight with you. I’m a bust.”
    “What the devil does that mean?”
    “As a dancer. I’m a bust.”
    “That’s not true. I’ve seen you.”
    “You saw me strip,” she corrected. “A three-minute number where I shake it, peel it and sell it to the crowd. Big fucking deal.” She dragged her hair back, huffed out a breath. “I’m a good dancer, but so is every second kid who ever took dance class. I’m not great and never will be. I liked being part of the company when I could get the gig. I liked being part of something. I never had that with my family.”
    “Cleo.”
    “This isn’t some deep philosophical confession of my unhappy childhood. I’m just saying, I like to dance. I liked being with other dancers because we could make something together. Sort of like that tapestry Tia was talking about before, you know?”
    “Yes.” He thought of his world in Cobh—family, the business, and the need to hold both together. “I know.”
    “I spent nearly ten years as a gypsy, and the only real friend I made was Mikey. I gotta figure one of the reasons for that is I was never involved enough. I’d get bored. Same show, same routines, same faces, night after night and twice on Wednesday.”
    He traced a finger along her eyebrow, over the little mole at its tip. “You needed more.”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that when you’re a good dancer with a mediocre singing voice, you better have plenty of drive and ambition if you expect to make a living onstage. I didn’t. So when that bastard dangled the idea of the theater in Prague, the chance to choreograph, I jumped. Look where I landed. I had a lot of time to think when I was scraping bottom in Prague. Kept focused on getting back to New York, even though I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do once I did. I guess I know now.”
    She picked up the watch cap, twirled it. “I’m part of something now. I’ve got friends. Tia, especially Tia. I guess I’ve got family, and I’m not walking away from it.”
    She blew out a long breath. “And that concludes the True Confessions portion of our entertainment.”
    He said nothing for a moment, then took her cap, snugged it down over her head. “It looks good on you.”
    The back of her eyes stung, but her voice was cocky. “You got that backwards, Slick. I make it look good.”
     
     
    THEY TOOK SHIFTS monitoring Morningside. After seven, when the place locked down for the night, it was a boring, thankless job. But they would continue monitoring, listening for any change, any sound, until the job was finished.
    At three, Malachi had heard Anita’s assistant, whom they’d dubbed Whipping Girl, remind her boss of a salon appointment and her evening’s dinner engagement.
    Anita had left ten minutes later, after haranguing her attorney over the phone, and hadn’t come back.
    At midnight, Rebecca was manning the listening post, from the rear of the van. When Jack climbed in the back, all she could drum up was a scowl.
    “My brains are going to start leaking out of my ears if I have to do this much longer.”
    “We leave in an hour.” He leaned down, his head close to hers, to study the readouts. Then sniffed the side of her neck. “What’s the perfume for?”
    “To drive you mad with frustrated