Immovable Objects

When she’d finally let her guard down, she’d discovered that there were no communal thoughts for her to let in. No feeling that something that Anthony was experiencing was touching her.

Like smoke on the wind, Anthony was gone, out of her life, as if he’d never been there.

It felt wonderful to be normal, to be alone with her thoughts.

Wonderful and strange and lonely, she slowly discovered.

So this was what everyone else experienced. After being part of a trio and then a duo for so long, she wasn’t all that sure she liked this change completely.

No, she silently argued with herself as the temptation to call Anthony one more time rose within her. Anthony’s terms were total surrender.

She sank back against a pillow. It was high time she took the training wheels off her life and rode on her own. Maybe not in a straight line, but at least unassisted.

The apartment she’d gotten was a studio. She had enough money in her account—Jeremy had always been generous with their cut—to get any sort of living accommodations, but she wanted to start out small and see how she liked it.

There was always time to get something bigger later. But she wanted to take baby steps because baby steps guaranteed that you didn’t fall flat on your face the way you might if you leaped.

Her attention drifted toward the newspaper she’d picked up earlier. She noticed a large, splashy article about the grand opening of Cole Williams’s new gallery. It promised to be a major event with a great many celebrities there, rubbing elbows with the CEOs of industry.

She smiled.

Just the kind of stomping grounds a newly released sparrow was looking for, she thought.

Beside the article was a rendition of the invitation that had been sent out to legions of people who periodically made the news. The article said that the party was “by invitation only.”

Her smile grew wider as she reached for a sketch pad. “Not a problem.”

Chapter 2

Elizabeth didn’t have to glance in the mirror. She knew. Knew that she was a certified, pull-out-all-the-stops knockout.

But a languid review of the evidence certainly didn’t hurt.

A smile curved her generous mouth as she looked at her reflection in the freestanding oval mirror that allowed her to get an overall view of herself. Satisfaction wrapped itself around her like a warm, velvety blanket as she surveyed her image.

She was loaded for bear and ready to go.

Rather than some prim hairstyle, she wore her hair loose. Coming down just past her shoulders, the midnight-black torrent of swirls and waves seductively brushed against her bare back. Her eye makeup, done to perfection, brought out her hazel-green eyes and accentuated the Gypsy blood that ran through her veins, thanks to her Romanian mother.

But it was the dress that pulled everything together. A flaming-red bit of fabric that nipped in at her small waist, highlighted her subtly rounded hips and, because the hem flirted outrageously with her thighs, allowed anyone with eyes to take in the fact that she had long, shapely legs that seemed to go on forever.

If this didn’t bring the great and near-great moneyed men milling around at the gallery opening to their collective knees, then nothing would, she thought with a toss of her head.

Upon scrutiny, Elizabeth couldn’t have been accused of having a vain bone in her body, but what she did possess was confidence: confidence in her skills, in her abilities to use them. She knew exactly what to do to stir up a reaction, be it from a crowd or an audience of one.

It didn’t take any of her special gifts to bring her to this conclusion; it was instinct, pure and simple. Survival instinct, because once upon a time those same skills had been what had helped her, Anthony and Dani survive on the street after they had run away from their last foster home.

Even after all this time, the memory still sent a shiver sliding down her spine. Living in that house had been surreal. On the outside, they all appeared to be the perfect family, being trotted out to church every Sunday, looking like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. But once behind closed doors, it had been different, completely different.

Amanda Toliver had been little more than a mousy servant to her husband, Wayne. And Wayne, with his large, beaming smile and his even larger hands, had felt that he was entitled to do whatever he wanted within his own residence.

That had included enforcing his will on the three of them.

Taking a hairbrush from the bureau, Elizabeth ran it through her hair one final time. Toliver had been roughest on Anthony, demanding all sorts of things from him, never satisfied with anything Anthony did. She remembered being surprised that Anthony had taken being ordered around for as long as he had, but she’d been aware of her brother making an effort, a really big effort this time, to blend in. They’d wanted so much to fit in, to have a normal life after what they’d gone through, after all the homes they’d been sent to.

But then it got uglier.

Always smiling at her and her sister, Wayne was constantly reaching out and touching them, petting them, hugging them. They were thirteen and just beginning to mature, but they both felt uncomfortable with what he was doing, even though they tried to reassure each other that it was just harmless.

And then they were forced to face the truth. One night Wayne slipped into their room, the one that she and Dani shared. Sensing someone’s presence, she woke up and screamed. Wayne was in her bed.

Anthony came flying in from the next room, his beloved baseball bat in his hand. He swung it against Wayne, knocking him out. She was sure that Anthony had killed the man. Amanda never came into the room. It was as if she didn’t want to know what was happening.

Grabbing their clothes, the three of them fled into the night. To hide from the system. To hide from a society that looked the other way when they were being herded around like so much chattel.

For the next few days, they stole newspapers from people’s front steps to find out if there was any mention of Wayne. If Anthony had killed him, there would have been a story, an article, a line. But there wasn’t. Wayne Toliver obviously hadn’t been killed and the law wasn’t looking for Anthony for murder.

It was a relief.

It was also a position they were determined never to put themselves in again. So they stayed hidden, living by their wits and talents. Outcasts again.

On the outside, looking in, that was how they always felt. Even after Jeremy came into their lives and took them in.

The feeling had only intensified because Jeremy found ways for them to make use of their unique talents, talents that set them apart from the rest of the world. A client coming to Jeremy for “help” could be assured that if he’d had something stolen, it would be returned, no matter where it was or how well guarded.

That laws had to be bent in order to retrieve stolen items was something no one concerned themselves about. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was an active motto in all of their lives. Jeremy told them more than once that he didn’t care how they did something, as long as they covered their trail and that it didn’t lead back to them. Or him.

Elizabeth had used some of her personal talents to ensure that she’d gain entrance to the gallery tonight.

The invitation sitting inside her purse on the coffee table had not arrived via mail but via her rather uncanny ability to copy whatever she saw, whether it was a work of art or an invitation to an exclusive gala.

Right now, the latter promised to be more fun.

Elizabeth set the brush down and did a slow turn before the mirror, watching her hair move. She was really looking forward to tonight. Not just because she’d be crashing a gala where the rich were rubbing elbows with one another, but because she truly loved art. In whatever spare time she had away from her duties for Jeremy, she liked to haunt art galleries and museums.

Anthony had no patience with that sort of thing, and even Dani, when she’d been around, had no interest in spending her time staring at sweeping lines and trying to discern different brush strokes, so it had been the one thing she could do on her own.

Elizabeth had gone into her hobby the way she went into everything—wholeheartedly. She’d immersed herself in every single aspect and detail of art.

Her skills ran to forgery. She was able to copy adeptly any style, any artist.

She’d used both skills in printing up her invitation. The rest had required a little research. She’d gotten a lead on the company that had printed the original invitations. Paying a visit to the store, she’d affected a Southern accent and gushed, professing utter admiration for the look of the invitation when it had arrived at her home. The printer had been in the palm of her hand within two minutes, answering her questions unconditionally. After all, what was the harm in telling someone about the kind of paper that was used to print the invitation?

Armed with that and the newspaper photograph of the invitation, the rest was easy.

She smiled to herself as she slipped her wrap around her shoulders and gave herself one last look before picking up her purse. Ready.

Cole had no idea who she was. Only that he quite possibly—despite his wide circle of friends, acquaintances and business associates—had never seen a woman quite this beautiful in his life. In the crowded gallery, he’d noticed her the moment she’d walked into the room.