“All right,” Gina said, “but I have my cell if anything changes.”

***

Gina tightened her grip on Marco’s arm as they walked away from Julie. “Why don’t we take a stroll in the back courtyard?” she suggested.

“It’s rather cold,” he said, casting her a dark stare. “And you aren’t wearing much in the way of clothes. Not that I’m complaining.”

“I’m sure you’ll keep me warm.” There was a reason she’d invited her starving artist along for the ride. He needed money. So did she, and the judge’s threats only served one purpose. He’d convinced her he’d pay far more than fifty thousand dollars. Oh, he might try to kill her, too, but Marco had a shadowy past, a way he moved and operated that told her he was more than he let on. She could feel it, almost taste it when she was with him. It turned her on. It also made her confident fate had thrown him into her path for a reason. The two of them could get rich together.

She wasn’t quite ready to bring him in yet though. She had a way of getting men to open up in bed. She’d take him for a few more rides, starting in the courtyard. She’d test him, size him up. If she was right, then she’d have her man, the journal, and enough money to disappear. Screw Julie and her law degree, and screw the judge who though he could f**k her and not get f**ked himself.

***

Forty-five minutes outside the city, Luke squatted in the bushes at the back Judge Moore’s Long Island mansion, with Kyle by his side. It was only seven o’clock, still early for breaking and entering, but the two-acre lot and a heavy coverage of trees helped offer coverage.

Impressive as always, Kyle dismantled the security system in all of about sixty seconds, including the motion detector spotlights. Luke followed Kyle silently through the back door, blending into the darkness. Working with an unspoken understanding, they split up and began their search. Luke crept along the walls, looking for a hidden panel that might be a safe or hidden compartment, keeping low to avoid the windows. A quick flash of light, two blinks as a signal, told him Kyle had found something.

Within seconds, Luke and Kyle were side-by-side in a small library just off the kitchen, where Kyle had found a basement door under a carpet.

Kneeling down, they examined the entrance where a combination lock was set inside a steel door. Kyle grinned, showing white teeth against the darkness of the room, clearly telling Luke his job would be a piece of cake.

Leaning back on his heels, Luke watched Kyle in action for all of another sixty seconds. The man was incredible. They were just about to lift he door when a tiny click made both of them freeze. They listened. There it was again, a low, barely there sound. Luke pulled the Glock at his ankle and motioned for Kyle to keep working.

Luke quickly, soundlessly, crossed the room, and flattened against the wall. Cautiously he leaned forward, surveying the hallway. When he was certain he would be undetected, he moved through the doorway.

He was halfway down the walkway when a faint creaking drew him up short. To anyone else it might have sounded like the house settling. To Luke, it sounded like they had company, and nowhere near his team’s skill, or they wouldn’t have been detected.

Adrenaline surged in Luke’s veins and he squatted down, on the move again, pausing to glance around the wall into the living room. Two big men, also in all black, were searching the living room, and clearly they hadn’t done their surveillance well, or they’d have noticed the security system was down. They’d have known someone else was here.

Luke watched as they searched walls, behind pictures, and in unexpected spots like under the couch. Sizing up the situation, Luke backtracked. If Kyle had already found what they needed, then they could exit without the amateurs ever noticing.

Just as Luke started down the hallway a third man came through the garage and straight at him from another hallway. Luke grabbed him. The man elbowed him in the eye, but Luke didn’t flinch. He maneuvered him and pulled his back to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his neck. The man was asleep in seconds.

Luke hightailed it back to the library and motioned to the window, holding up two fingers to tell Kyle how many forms of trouble remained in the house.

They were out of the window by the time the two men rushed the room, and out of sight in a flash. Ten minutes later, they climbed into Luke’s truck that he’d parked discreetly down the road.

“Well?” Luke asked.

“Empty.”

“Of course,” Luke said, pulling onto the road. “And we lost our chance to dig around elsewhere.”

“Looks like Arel doesn’t trust the judge or he wanted whatever the judge owes him in artwork for free.”

“Or that Dragonfly person mentioned in the journals wants to cover his ass.”

“Or just screw the judge,” Kyle suggested. “They’re already double-crossing Arel. Why not double-cross each other? We need to figure out who Dragonfly is yesterday.”

They did. Kyle was right. “And I need to get Julie out of this today.” He couldn’t get back to her fast enough.

Chapter Seventeen

Julie worked the crowd in the museum, stopping to chat with a bigwig from a national company, trying to focus on the conversation, but all she could think was, where was Luke? It was the question she’d silently repeated over and over between idle chit-chat. Thinking about a man with a gun waiting on them outside that pizza joint only accelerated her heartbeat, and not with fear for herself. It was the certainty that Luke could easily encounter another man, or men, with weapons.