OH MY GOD! THAT’S Zayn Malik!”
Nicholas’s eyes were on stalks. He’d never been to Los Angeles before, or to any big city other than Denver, and that was only for a day-trip. His mother had brought him to Cecconi’s on Melrose for lunch, a celebrity watcher’s heaven.
“Who’s Zayn Malik?” Tracy asked.
“Zayn Malik? One Direction?”
Tracy looked blank. Nicholas gave her a look that was half pity, half disdain.
“Oh, never mind. Can I have another sundae?”
It was July and ninety degrees outside. While the Angelenos wisely headed to the beach, or locked themselves inside their air-conditioned cars and offices, Tracy and Nicholas had spent the morning pounding the streets, rushing from one tourist attraction to the next. In prior years, Tracy had sent her son to a local summer camp in Colorado called Beaver Creek. Nick spent his vacations swimming and fishing and kayaking and camping, and always had a great time. But this year she decided it was time he saw a bit more of the world.
Blake Carter was against the idea.
“I don’t see what Los Angeles has to offer that Steamboat doesn’t.”
Tracy raised an eyebrow. “Variety?”
“Them freaks on Venice Beach, you mean?”
“Come on, Blake. I know you’re not a city person. But there’s Hollywood, all that movie history. There’s museums and theme parks. I’ll take him to Universal Studios and maybe a Lakers game. He’s so sheltered here.”
“Kids are supposed to be sheltered,” grumbled Blake. “Maybe if he were a teenager. But he’s too young, Tracy. You mark my words. He won’t enjoy it.”
Nicholas loved it.
Everything about L.A. excited him, from the food and the blazing heat to the streets full of Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Bugattis and Teslas and the Venice Beach freaks that Blake Carter so despised: silver-sprayed mimes and snake charmers and transvestite stilt walkers and fortune-tellers with their faces covered in exotic tattoos.
“This place is awesome!” he told Tracy, night after night in their suite at the Hotel Bel-Air. “Can we move here, Mom? Please?”
A sundae arrived, Nicholas’s second. He attacked the mountain of whipped cream and fudge with the same enthusiasm he’d shown its predecessor. Tracy was sipping her coffee, content simply to watch him, when a party walked in and caught her attention.
The first thing Tracy saw was the necklace. Once a jewel thief, always a jewel thief. Although in all honesty, this one was hard to miss: a string of rubies, each one the size of a baby’s fist, hung around the scrawny neck of an otherwise unattractive, middle-aged woman. It was the most dazzling, over-the-top piece of jewelry that Tracy had ever seen. And she’d seen quite a few.
The woman was with her husband, a squat, toad of a man with bulging eyes whom Tracy was sure she recognized but couldn’t quite place. Another, younger woman completed the group. From behind, Tracy could see that this second woman was tall, slender and elegant. Then she turned around.
Tracy choked, scalding jets of coffee burning the back of her throat and making her eyes water.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy dabbed her eyes with the napkin, simultaneously using it to hide her face. “Finish your dessert.”
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Rebecca Mortimer! The girl from the British Museum. The girl Tracy had caught in her bedroom with Jeff, all those years ago. The girl who’d singlehandedly destroyed Tracy’s married life was here, not only in Los Angeles but in this very restaurant, sitting less than ten feet away from her!
Of course, she looked different. It had been almost a decade, after all. Her long red hair was now platinum blond and short, almost boyish. But there was nothing remotely masculine about her figure, especially when it was shrink-wrapped in an Hervé Léger minidress as it was today. Or in the coquettish toss of her head as she laughed at the fat man’s jokes.
I know who he is now, Tracy thought. Of course. That’s Alan Brookstein, the director. Which means those must be the famous Iranian rubies.
She couldn’t remember the whole story. But it involved a mistress of the former shah of Iran being tortured and strangled for her necklace, or something equally awful. Vanity Fair did a piece on it, and nobody came out well. Liz Taylor had tried and failed to buy the necklace before her death, after which it went underground again. Brookstein had bought it for his wife last year in a secret, possibly illegal deal, for an undisclosed sum. And here it was in the flesh, swinging around the woman’s neck at a casual lunch, like a mayoral chain!
Tracy summoned the maître d’.
“That’s Alan Brookstein and his wife, isn’t it?” she asked discreetly.
“Yes, ma’am. They’re regulars here.”
“I wonder, do you know the young woman dining with them?”
The maître d’ didn’t usually stoop to gossip with patrons. But the very beautiful Mrs. Schmidt was clearly far from one’s average tourist. She positively radiated class.
“I believe her name is Liza Cunningham. I’ve seen her in here before with Sheila . . . Mrs. Brookstein. She’s British. An actress.”
That’s about right, thought Tracy bitterly. A damn good actress.
Tracy watched the way “Liza” divided her attention between the director and his wife, expertly flattering them both. In her prior incarnation as “Rebecca,” an innocent archaeology student, she’d played the doe-eyed, butter-wouldn’t-melt role equally well.
That’s when it hit Tracy like a thunderbolt between the eyes.
She’s not an actress, or a student. She’s a con artist, like Jeff and me!
She’s one of us.
It was so obvious now, Tracy couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t realized it before. Back in London. Back when it mattered.
She’s a con artist and she’s here to steal that ruby necklace.
“Mom? You look weird. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy had almost forgotten Nicholas was there. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed and her heart rate had started to rise, beating to a familiar but long-neglected beat.
I’m going to play her at her own game.
And this time I’m going to win.
By the time Tracy paid the check, the decision had already been made.
Tracy was going to steal Sheila Brookstein’s rubies.
IT WAS HARD TO say who enjoyed the next week more—Tracy or Nicholas. In between playing mommy and taking her son to all the L.A. sights, Tracy prepared for the job. Stealing the most famous ruby necklace in the world from a powerful Hollywood director’s wife was not exactly “easing oneself back in gently.” Long days running around town with her son were followed by equally long nights researching everything there was to know about Alan and Sheila Brookstein and the fabled Iranian rubies.
In two days she had a plan.
It was difficult, audacious and wildly risky. Worse, she had only ten days to pull it together.
TRACY AND NICHOLAS WERE at the Hollywood sign. Tracy’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“So it really is you!” The man on the other end of the line gave a raspy chuckle. “I’ll be damned. I thought you were dead.”
“Thanks, Billy. Good to know.” Tracy grinned. “Are you still in the jewelry business?”
“Are priests still screwing little boys? Whaddaya got for me, sweetheart?”
“Nothing, yet. Can you meet me at the Bel-Air later?”
TRACY HATED ROLLER COASTERS. Somehow Nicholas had badgered her into taking the Apocalypse Ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain. They had just strapped themselves in and Tracy was focusing on keeping her lunch down when an e-mail popped up on her iPhone.
Is this who I think it is?
Tracy typed back, Absolutely not.
Shame. The person I was thinking of used to have amazing breasts. I wonder if she still does?
I need a contact at a Beverly Hills insurance agency. Do you have one?
Possibly. Do you have a recent photograph of your breasts you can send me?
Tracy laughed loudly.
“See?” Nicholas grinned over his shoulder as they lurched forward. “I told you. The Apocalypse is fun.”
ALAN AND SHEILA BROOKSTEIN lived in a very large, very ugly home set behind very large, very ugly gates, just north of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The mock-Tudor manor was surrounded by garish flowers in a variety of clashing colors, and the driveway was lined with hundreds of truly hideous ceramic gnomes.
“You liked the gnomes, huh? My wife collects them. Has ’em shipped in from all over the world. Japan, France, Russia, even Iraq. You’d never guess the Iraqis were into garden statuary, would you? But I tell you, Miss Lane—”
“Please, call me Theresa.”
“Theresa.” Alan Brookstein smiled broadly. “It’s a funny old world we live in.”
The gorgeous young insurance agent smiled and nodded in agreement. Alan Brookstein rarely took meetings like this in person. “Home Insurance” fell squarely under the job description of his PA, Helen. But he’d happened to run into the beautiful Miss Theresa Lane yesterday, the first time she’d come around. One look at that slim figure, topped by the pretty, intelligent face and the cascade of chestnut hair, offset by those exquisite, dancing green eyes, and Alan Brookstein’s schedule opened up faster than a Kardashian’s legs in an NBA player’s hotel room.
“Your wife has great taste. That necklace is the most stunning piece I’ve ever seen.”
“Ah, well, that was my taste,” Alan Brookstein boasted. “I’m the one who picked it for her. You wanna see the safe?”
Tracy smiled warmly. “That’s why I’m here.”
Nicholas was in surf camp for the day out in Malibu. Tracy didn’t have to pick him up for hours, but she was still eager to get this done and get out of here sooner rather than later. She had nightmares of a genuine agent from Christie’s bespoke insurers telephoning or stopping by out of the blue and spectacularly blowing her cover. It’s not going to happen, Tracy told herself firmly. But her adrenal glands didn’t seem to be listening. The stakes were very high.
“This way, Theresa. Watch your step, now.”
Alan Brookstein led her through a baffling series of hallways, each one smothered in thick, beige carpet like marzipan frosting. Saccharine impressionist paintings in a riot of pinks and blues and greens hung on walls papered with busy floral prints that would have made Liberace wince. Two maids in full uniform flattened themselves against the wall as Tracy and the director passed. Tracy clocked the fear in their faces. Evidently the rumors she’d heard of both the Brooksteins’ bullying and unpleasantness toward their staff were true.
The safe—or rather safes—were in the master suite, behind a panel in Sheila’s dressing room.
“You have three?”
“Four.” Alan Brookstein’s chest puffed out with pride, making him look more like a toad than ever. “These three are all decoys. I put a few, less valuable pieces in each one, just enough to make a thief think he’s hit pay dirt. The third one has a perfect replica of the Iran piece. Real rubies, artificially produced. You can’t tell the difference with the naked eye. Wanna see?”
Unlocking the safe, he pulled out the necklace Tracy had seen at Cecconi’s and draped it over her hands. The stones were heavy and glowed like coal embers between her fingers.
“This is a fake?”
“That’s a fake.”
“Impressive.”
“Thank you, Theresa.” Alan Brookstein’s eyes seemed to have developed a magnetic attraction to Tracy’s nipples.
“Does your wife wear this out?”
“Sometimes.” Brookstein replaced the necklace. “She wears both. The fake and the real one. If it’s something really big, like the gala at LACMA on Saturday night, she’ll wear the real deal. I’m being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award,” he couldn’t resist adding.
“Congratulations! Your wife must be thrilled for you.”
Alan Brookstein frowned. “I don’t know. She’s thrilled to have a chance to flash those rubies, make all her girlfriends feel like crap, you know what I mean?” He laughed mirthlessly. “The truth is, Sheila can’t tell the difference any more than the rest of ’em. If it’s big and red and sparkly, she likes it. Kind of like the gnomes.”
Tracy followed the director through to his dressing room. A false panel at the back of a closet pulled aside to reveal a fourth safe.
“The code is changed every day.”
“For all the safes, or just this one?”
“For all of them.”
“Who changes the codes?”
“Me. Only me. Nobody knows what I come up with each day, not even Sheila. I appreciate your company’s concern, Theresa, but between this and our guards and the alarm system, I truly don’t think we could be better protected.”
Tracy nodded. “Mind if I look around a little?”
“Be my guest.”
Removing her shoes, Tracy flitted from room to room. She stepped inside closets and began climbing shelves, rifling through the Brooksteins’ suits and shirts and dresses and shoes. From her capacious Prada purse, she pulled out a variety of equipment, much of which looked like electronic monitors of some sort, which made an ominous, static-y, crackling sound when run along the edges of mirrors.
“Okay.” From her position at the top of a wooden stepladder, where she’d been examining the safety of a ceiling panel, Tracy suddenly spun around.
Standing at the foot of the ladder, Alan Brookstein, who’d been within inches of getting a clear view of her underwear, jumped a mile.
“What? Is there a problem?”
“Happily, no.” Tracy smiled. “No cameras or devices of any kind. I agree, you’re sufficiently protected. Although I would be careful which staff members you allow access to this room. We have had cases of maids installing pinhole cameras close to known safes, capturing the lock and unlock codes, and passing them on to boyfriends who then raid the houses in question.”
“Not our maids,” Alan Brookstein joked. “Trust me, those cholas don’t have a whole brain cell between them. You’d get more ingenuity out of an ape.”
Still, he thought, it was a good observation. The last schmuck from the insurance agency never gave me any practical advice like that.
“You’re a smart girl, Theresa. Thorough, too. I like that. You got any other tips for me?”
Tracy paused for a beat, then smiled slowly.
“As a matter of fact, Alan, I do.”
ELIZABETH KENNEDY HAD NO time for stupid, rich women. Unfortunately, in her line of work, she dealt with a great many of them. Although few were quite as stupid as Sheila Brookstein.
“I honestly don’t think I can stand it much longer,” Elizabeth told her partner. “The woman’s a card-carrying moron.”
“Focus on the money,” Elizabeth’s partner reminded her curtly.
“I’m trying.”
Elizabeth Kennedy usually had no problem keeping her mind on the silver lining—or in this case, ruby lining—of being forced to spend so much time with rich, stupid women like Sheila Brookstein. Elizabeth had grown up poor and had no intention of ever, ever going back there. But playing the role of British actress Liza Cunningham, Sheila’s new best friend, was really beginning to grate. It was like making small talk to a lobotomized cabbage. On a really off day.
“WHICH ONE, LIZA? THE Alaïa or the Balenciaga?”
“Liza” was in Sheila Brookstein’s dressing room, helping her friend get dressed for tonight’s ceremony at LACMA. Alan Brookstein, Sheila’s fat, self-important husband, was being given some award.
“Try the Balenciaga first,” she called into the bedroom.
While Sheila swathed her bony frame in complicated layers of black silk, Elizabeth pulled the fake necklace that her partner had commissioned out of her purse. It was the work of a moment to exchange it for the real one, which Alan had removed from the safe in his dressing room earlier and laid out helpfully on his wife’s dresser.
“Should I bring the necklace through?”
“Would you? You’re an angel, Liza,” Sheila gushed.
Elizabeth fastened the fake rubies around Sheila Brookstein’s scraggy throat. She felt a moment’s anxiety as the older woman frowned into the mirror. Surely she can’t tell the difference? But the frown soon vanished, replaced by Sheila’s usual vacuous, smug, self-satisfied smile.
“How do I look?”
Like a wrinkled old turkey with a string of worthless red rocks around its neck.
“Ravishing. Alan’s going to die of pride.”
“And all the other directors’ wives are going to choke with envy. Bitches.” Sheila cackled nastily.
IT WAS ALMOST ANOTHER hour before Sheila finally left in the back of her chauffeur-driven Bentley Continental. In that time “Liza” had styled and sprayed her thinning hair three different ways and helped the makeup artist apply the thick layers of foundation that Sheila felt made her seem younger, but that actually gave her skin the look of hardened clay. And all the while Sheila had talked and talked and talked.
“Whatever did I do before I met you, Liza?
“You’re like a sister to me.
“Isn’t it incredible how we have so much in common? Like we’re both such incredible listeners. Alan never listens to me. He thinks I’m stupid. I swear to God, that bastard . . .”
Never again, Elizabeth thought, speeding toward the Century City condo for the rendezvous with her partner, the priceless ruby necklace tucked safely in her purse. This time tomorrow I’ll be on a yacht in the Caribbean.
Good-bye, Sheila! Good-bye, Liza Cunningham!
And good riddance.
“YOU’RE AN IDIOT. YOU’VE been duped.”
Elizabeth Kennedy felt the color rise in her cheeks. Not out of embarrassment. Out of anger. How dare her partner berate her like this? After the months she’d spent getting close to the Brooksteins! The endless, mind-numbing hours in Sheila’s company. Flirting with the repellent Alan.
“My job was to swap out the necklaces. That’s what I did. What the hell was your contribution?”
“Your job was to acquire the Iranian rubies. These are not the Iranian rubies.” Elizabeth’s partner looked up from the magnifying loupe. “You swapped a fake for a fake.”
Elizabeth’s mind began whirring. It was impossible that Sheila had deliberately deceived her. For one thing, she had no reason to. For another, she wasn’t smart enough. Alan Brookstein must have switched the necklaces and laid out the fake tonight without telling his wife. But why would he . . . ?
An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to her.
“What if he never bought the real rubies in the first place? What if he was duped?”
“Don’t be stupid,” her partner said rudely.
“It’s possible.”
“No, it isn’t. Don’t you think I checked that out months ago? Unlike you, when I do a job I do it thoroughly. And accurately. Brookstein has the necklace. It must still be in the safe. You’ll have to go back and get it.”
Elizabeth hesitated. She longed to tell her partner to stick it. That she wasn’t in the business of taking orders. But then she thought about all the time and effort she’d put into this job. And the Brooksteins’ empty house . . .
“Give me the damn code.”
ELIZABETH THOUGHT QUICKLY, HER agile mind skipping through all the possible risks and strategies. The gala itself would go on for another few hours at least, probably longer, so there was little danger of either of the Brooksteins returning home. Conchita, their housekeeper, would also have gone home by now, so the house would be empty but alarmed. That was no problem. Elizabeth had a key and had memorized the code.
More problematic were the two security guards, Eduardo and Nico, who patrolled the property at night. Both of them knew “Liza” by sight, which gave her the option of brazening it out, walking in through the front door and explaining that she’d forgotten some personal item. The downside to that was that it would definitively pin down Liza Cunningham as the guilty party once the theft was discovered, which might be as soon as later that same night. That meant cops and FBI out looking for her, E-FIT pictures, and all sorts of irritations and complications that Elizabeth would rather do without.
On balance, she decided it would be easier simply to burgle the house—cover her face and slip in through a window. She would have forty seconds to disable the alarm, more than enough time. And Eduardo and Nico were hardly the CIA. She’d simply wait until they were distracted, talking to each other on one side of the property, and quietly make her entrance somewhere else.
By the time Elizabeth pulled up in the alley behind the estate and switched off her engine and lights, her heart rate was barely elevated. Coming away with the wrong necklace had been an annoyance. But it was easily rectified, and would be well worth the effort.
Slipping her black silk balaclava over her face (it was terribly important to work in comfort; Elizabeth’s trusty mask was like a second skin), she was about to open the door when she suddenly froze.
The master-bedroom window popped open. Elizabeth heard the familiar, soft slither of a rope being thrown out. Seconds later a diminutive black-clad figure emerged, abseiling down the rear wall of the property with the silent grace of a spider gliding down a line of its own silk. It was quite beautiful to watch, like ballet. The figure stopped on a small flat roof about twelve feet off the ground. From there he paused, seemed to judge the distance, then made a catlike leap onto the boundary wall of the property, about thirty feet from where Elizabeth was parked.
Belatedly, she began to feel angry. The burglar’s exit had been such a virtuoso performance, Elizabeth had been momentarily blinded by admiration. But now she felt a different, more raw emotion.
I don’t believe it. After all that effort, someone beat me to it. That bastard’s got my necklace!
At that precise moment the figure on top of the wall turned and looked directly at Elizabeth’s car. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out the string of rubies and dangled them mockingly in Elizabeth’s direction.
What the . . .
Elizabeth turned on her headlights. Even from this distance she could see the red glow of the stones, taunting her. Then the black-clad figure removed his balaclava. A cascade of chestnut hair burst forth. A woman! A face Elizabeth Kennedy thought she would never see again smiled down at her, with a look of the purest triumph in her green eyes.
Climbing into her own car, Tracy Whitney blew her rival a kiss before speeding off into the night.
ELIZABETH KENNEDY SAT IN her car for a full five minutes before she made the call.
“Did you get it?”
Her partner’s voice was cold, curt, demanding. Elizabeth had come to hate it over the years.
“No.” She responded in kind, without apology. “I was too late.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’? The gala’s only halfway through.”
“By the time I got here, someone else had stolen the necklace. I saw them leaving, just now.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
Elizabeth said, “You’ll never guess who it was.”
More silence. Elizabeth’s partner did not like guessing games. Or any games, for that matter.
“Tracy Whitney.”
When her partner spoke again, Elizabeth could have sworn she detected a trace of emotion.
“That’s impossible. Tracy Whitney’s not active anymore. She’s almost certainly dead. No one’s seen her for—”
“—almost ten years. I know. I was there, remember? But I’m telling you, it was Tracy Whitney. I recognized her immediately. And I’m pretty sure she recognized me.”
TRACY PAID THE BABYSITTER at the hotel and tipped her very generously.
“Wow, that’s so nice of you. Thanks. How was the movie?”
“Exciting. I loved every minute of it.”
The sitter left. Tracy walked into Nicholas’s room and watched him sleeping. She’d taken a huge risk tonight, letting that girl—Rebecca, as Tracy would always think of her—see her face. But it had been worth it.
I wanted her to know it was me who outsmarted her.
Tomorrow Tracy would bring the ruby necklace to her dealer contact and leave Los Angeles seven figures richer than when she’d arrived. But it wasn’t the money that was making the adrenaline course through her body or the pleasure chemicals flood her brain. It wasn’t even outsmarting her nemesis—or not entirely. It was the joy of a virtuoso pianist reunited with her instrument after years in exile. It was the delight of an expert surgeon regaining the use of his hands after an accident. It was coming back to life, when you hadn’t even realized you were dead.
Tracy Schmidt is who I am now, Tracy told herself firmly. Tonight was a one-shot deal.
She said it so many times, and with such conviction, that by the time she fell asleep she almost believed it.
BACK IN THE CENTURY City condo, Elizabeth Kennedy’s partner hung up the phone and sat down on the bed, shaking.
Tracy Whitney’s alive?
Was it really possible, after all these years?
Elizabeth seemed quite sure. For all her sloppiness, she was unlikely to make an error about something as important as that. Besides, logic dictated that Elizabeth’s conclusions were correct. Unlike fickle human emotions, logic could be relied upon. Logic was never wrong. It was Tracy who’d stolen the necklace. Tracy who’d outsmarted them somehow, not the dim-witted Brooksteins. Tracy Whitney was brilliant, a virtuoso at her craft. In terms of pulling off the perfect con, she had taught Elizabeth Kennedy’s partner everything he knew. He wouldn’t even be in this business if it weren’t for Tracy. How ironic life could be sometimes!
Elizabeth’s partner no longer cared about the necklace. The necklace didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore except for that one, simple, incredible, intoxicating fact:
Tracy Whitney was back.
