The Proposition

“I’ll take you up on that,” Chance said. That gave him about forty-eight hours to come up with a strategy. Deadlines always sparked his creativity.

“Good. I was sure I was going to be bored. Now, I’ll have the chance to observe a master con man at work.”

“HERE ARE THE latest acceptances to your party.”

Carlo Brancotti didn’t glance up from his computer screen as his personal assistant, Lisa McGill, placed a manila folder on his desk. He was a careful man. Some judged him to be too careful, but he hadn’t remained at the top of his profession by letting down his guard. Anything out of the ordinary was reported to him instantly, and his surveillance team had phoned him the minute the boat had been spotted so close to shore. They’d already traced the license plate. It belonged to Lucas Wainwright. Frowning, he tapped his fingers on his desk. Wainwright…the name was familiar, but the details escaped him.

Suddenly, the information appeared on the screen. Carlo scanned it quickly. Lucas Wainwright, CEO of Wainwright Enterprises, owner of a resort hotel in the Keys and another in South Beach, frequently used his boat to fish.

Satisfied, Carlo turned his attention to Lisa. “Report.”

“All of the usuals, Sir Arthur and Lady Latham, the Moto brothers, the Demirs and Hassam Aldiri.”

“And the first-timers?”

Lisa frowned a bit. First-timers made her nervous because there was a chance, always a chance, that one of them would be a plant, someone that a big insurance company or a law enforcement agency had gotten to. Carlo was looking forward to that very possibility. Foiling those who thought they could catch him was half the fun of the business he was in. More than anything, he enjoyed the game. He always had. The money was just a very pleasant side benefit.

“Risa Manwaring, Armand Genovese and Steven Bradford have all accepted, and they will arrive on Sunday.”

The disapproval in her voice had him biting back a smile as he opened the file she’d placed on his desk. He wouldn’t show any disapproval for her concern, for it was her job to worry and to keep him safe. “You’ve put them under surveillance?”

“Of course.”

Carlo nodded in approval as he examined the photos in the file. Lisa had already run background checks on all three—Risa Manwaring, the retired film star, who now lived in seclusion; Armand Genovese, the Italian businessman, with rumored ties to organized crime; and Steven Bradford, the software genius, who reportedly had money to burn. Each would have his or her own reasons for wanting to acquire the Ferrante diamond. Which one, he wondered, would have that special craving for it that would run up the price?

Taking out the photos, he lined them up in a neat row, then pulled a magnifying glass from his desk. Not one of them offered a clear, accurate image. “These were the best you could get hold of?”

“Yes. I’m still working on it.”

He nodded in approval, but he didn’t expect her to find any better pictures of his future guests. He’d chosen these three specifically because all three shunned the media.

Which one would the man who called himself Chance Mitchell be impersonating? That was the question.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the insurance agent who’d come so close to tripping him up on his last job would take the bait. The man was good. Too good. After their last encounter, Carlo had made it his business to learn everything he could about the freelance insurance investigator who went by the name of Chance.

Carlo doubted that was the man’s real name or that he even used it very often. There was even a possibility that Chance was a woman. In the past seven years, Chance Mitchell had become a legend of sorts in certain circles, the one person feared by anyone in Carlo’s business.

But Carlo wasn’t afraid. No, indeed, he thought as he smiled. He was looking forward to going up against Chance Mitchell again. Lately, he’d found that life offered too few challenges. With one long finger, he tapped each of the photos in turn. Which one would Chance choose to appear as? Risa, Armand, Steven or the woman on Steven’s arm? He lowered the magnifying glass to decipher the name. Calli.

“Run a check on this Calli also.”

“Yes, sir,” Lisa replied.

Carlo set down the magnifying glass. He would know each one of his invited guests intimately before they arrived at his estate. Which one would turn out to be the one he would have to kill?

3

NATALIE SPOTTED her sisters the moment she stepped into the Blue Pepper. Rory, as usual, was in the thick of things, having an animated conversation with the reservation hostess. Natalie had no doubt that in spite of the crowd, Rory would get them a table. With her pixie face and short, dark hair, Rory had always reminded Natalie of Puck, the mischievous fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She had a knack for muddling things up the same way he had.

As Natalie edged her way through the crowd, she searched for a glimpse of her youngest sister, Sierra. Sure enough, Sierra was seated next to the reservation desk, looking on and jotting something down on one of the blue note cards she never seemed to be without. Natalie bit back a sigh.

With her straight blond hair and innocent air, Sierra had always made Natalie think of Alice in Wonderland. Though the academic Sierra was more intellectual than Alice and more shy, she was every bit as curious. However, Sierra never ever just tumbled into things the way Alice had. Instead, from the time she was little, she’d mapped out everything she did on blue note cards.

Well, Natalie believed in plans, too, but she drew the line at listing steps on note cards of any color. And she worried a bit that Sierra, who’d been sick a lot as a child, was a little too organized and too cautious in her approach to life. But whenever she broached the subject to Sierra, her sister would point out that her planning had gotten her two Ph.D. degrees and a tenure-track position at Georgetown University.

Ever since their father had left them, Natalie had always believed that it was her job to look out for her sisters, and she couldn’t help worrying about how they were going to take the news that she was bringing them tonight.

Outside on the patio, a saxophonist blew a trill of notes, and Natalie stopped short as the image of Chance Mitchell slipped, unwanted, into her mind. That was all it took for her body to respond. Annoyance streamed through her. It had been three months since she’d been here with him—three long months since she’d thrown caution to the winds and spent the night with him. And she still couldn’t get him out of her mind.

One night. That’s what he’d offered and what she’d agreed to. He’d promised no-strings, no-etiquette sex, and he’d certainly delivered. Just the memory of what he’d done to her, what they’d done to each other, was enough to have her skin heating and something deep inside of her melting.

It certainly wasn’t Chance’s fault that she’d never before experienced anything like it. Nor could she in all fairness blame him for the fact that she wanted to experience it again.

Her glance shifted to the patio where they’d danced and where he’d made her the proposition. Oh, there was a part of her that wanted to blame Chance, a part of her that wanted to pay him back for the fact that since she’d spent that one freeing night with him, she’d felt restless, unsatisfied with her job and with her life.

And dammit, she’d been perfectly satisfied before. Her work on a select task force that handled high profile crimes in D.C. was exciting, but lately she was…just plain bored.

“Detective Natalie! Greetings, greetings, greetings.”

Natalie smiled at Rad as he rushed up, grabbed her hands and rained kisses on the air several inches above her knuckles. The young restaurant owner was a full head shorter than she was, and he changed his hair color as frequently as he changed his ties. Tonight he was wearing his pale blond hair in spikes that were tipped with orange. She noted that the shade matched one of the swirls in his psychedelic tie.

Holding her hands a few inches out from her sides, Rad’s smile faded as he gave her outfit a thorough look. The linen suit she wore was khaki colored, the T-shirt beneath was black, and she could sense a fashion critique coming her way.

“How’s George?” she asked in an effort to deflect Rad’s attention. George, Rad’s partner, was a bronze-skinned, gentle giant of a man who managed the bar while Rad ran the restaurant.

Rad waved a hand. “George is gorgeous. Perfect, as usual. You, on the other hand…” He broke off to press a hand over his heart. “It cuts me to the quick to see you in such drab colors. Aquamarine would do wonders for you. Or mint-green.” He tapped a finger to his lips as he considered. “No, pink. You should really think pink.”

Natalie suppressed a shudder. A cop wearing pink? Not to mention what the color would look like in contrast to her red hair. She thought not. In a second attempt to distract Rad, she said, “Nice hairdo.”

He flashed her a grin. “Thanks. There’s a lot of product up there.”

“Excellent match with the tie.”

Rad fluttered his hand an inch above the spikes. “I had to work on the color for over an hour. I could do something quite wonderful with yours.”

“I’d rather you found me a table.”

Rad glanced over to where Rory was beaming at the reservation hostess. “I think your sister has taken care of that. I’ll run interference for you.”

Straightening her shoulders, Natalie followed Rad through the crowd. Tonight she and her sisters were going to celebrate their mutual birthdays, and she was bringing them a surprise present.

The envelope she carried in her purse had arrived this morning. It had contained a note from her father’s attorney and three separate sealed envelopes for Harry Gibbs’s daughters. Inside were messages from their father—messages that he’d written six years ago and had wanted them to read on their twenty-sixth birthday.

All day long the letters had been weighing on her mind and her heart. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about them. Harry Gibbs had walked out on his family when she and her sisters were ten years old. When they were twenty, he’d died in a fluke climbing accident. Her father had always been taking risks. Within six months of receiving the news of Harry Gibbs’s death, their mother had died, too.

Natalie had always known that her parents had loved one another—and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her mother had died of a broken heart. But ten years before their deaths, Harry and Amanda Gibbs had split up because of “irreconcilable differences.”

In this case the difference they couldn’t reconcile was the fact that Harry Gibbs was a master jewel thief who found it impossible to settle down, and their mother Amanda wanted to raise her daughters in a stable, conservative environment.