The Collector
Page 125

“It’s set?”
“They have the warrants. They’re going to wait until the scheduled meeting time, then move in simultaneously. The transmission was a little patchy in places, but they got enough.”
“The bra transmitter was so totally Q.”
“Q?”
“We’re definitely scheduling a movie marathon. Bond, James Bond. You know, Q.”
“Oh, right. Q. You’re not still wearing it, are you?”
“No. I took it off, but I’m sort of hoping they forget to ask for it back. I’d love to play with it. The obvious pen recorder was a good distraction, but I really thought the glad-hand woman was going to cop to the wire when she was copping a feel.”
“Even if she had, we’d still get Maddok. He was done with her.”
As much as she despised the woman, Lila felt her belly clutch. “I know. He was done as soon as I told him she’d attacked me, called me—and didn’t tell him.”
“The ad lib about her hoping to snag the egg for herself didn’t hurt.”
“I got caught up. He’d have killed her, so we’re actually doing her a favor. Yes, that’s reaching,” she admitted. “But I honestly can’t wish Vasin on anyone. Even her.”
“She made her choices, Lila. The cops want our full statements tomorrow. Even if Maddok doesn’t turn on Vasin, they have enough to charge him. For Oliver, for Vinnie, for Oliver’s girlfriend. Fine says the authorities are talking to Bastone.”
“Good, that’s all good. I really liked them. I like knowing they’ll get justice, too.”
“Alexi’s staying at the compound tonight. The Cherub with Chariot goes to the Met tomorrow. We’ll hold the announcement until the cops clear it, but it’ll be where it belongs. Where it’s safe.”
So straightforward now, she thought. All the steps neatly in place. “It’s really done.”
“Essentially,” he said, and made her smile. “They asked if we’d stay in tonight, stay low in case Vasin’s still having us watched. It might look off for us to go out.”
“I guess that’s right, considering. I’m too wired—ha ha—anyway.”
“We’ll have that celebration with Luke and Julie tomorrow, as planned.” He crossed over to take her hands. “Anywhere you want to go.”
Anywhere, she thought, and he meant it literally.
“Why?”
“I’d say because we earned it.”
“No, why? Why did you ask me what you asked me? We’d just spent an hour pretending to be people we aren’t, and the stress of that had me so twisted up I was afraid I’d lose it all over your classic car. Then I’m under your car, for God’s sake, because Vasin would probably be just as happy to see us dead—the people we are or the people we pretended to be. I don’t think it matters.”
“That’s a good part of the reason.”
“It doesn’t make sense. We didn’t even know each other existed on the Fourth of July, and it’s barely Labor Day and you’re talking about . . .”
“You can say it. It won’t burn your tongue.”
“I don’t know how this happened. I’m good at figuring out how things work, but I don’t know how this happened.”
“Love’s not a faulty toaster. You can’t take it apart and study the pieces, replace a part and figure out how it all fits back together. You just feel it.”
“But what if—”
“Try what is instead,” he suggested. “You crawled under the car in your blue dress. When I was grieving you gave me comfort. You told my father to go to hell when he was unpardonably rude to you.”
“I didn’t exactly—”
“Close enough. You fix cabinets, paint bathrooms, ask the doorman about his family and smile at waiters. When I touch you, the rest of the world goes away. When I look at you, I see the rest of my life. I’m going to marry you, Lila. I’m just giving you time to get used to it.”
Everything that had softened while he spoke stiffened again. “You can’t just say ‘I’m going to marry you’ like ‘I’m going out for Chinese.’ Maybe I don’t want Chinese. Maybe I’m allergic. Maybe I don’t trust egg rolls.”
“Then we’ll get pork-fried rice. You’d better come with me.”
“I’m not finished,” she said when he pulled her from the room.
“I am. The painting. I think you need to see it.”
She stopped trying to tug free. “You finished the painting? You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m telling you now. I’m not going to pull the ‘Picture’s worth a thousand words’ to a writer, but you need to see it.”
“I’m dying to see it, but you banned me from your studio. I don’t know how you finished it when I haven’t sat for you in days. How did you—”
She stopped, words and motion, in the doorway of his studio.
The painting stood on its easel, facing her, centered in the long ribbon of windows with the early-evening light washing over it.
Thirty
She walked toward it slowly. She understood art was subjective, that it could—and should—reflect the vision of the artist and the observer.
So it lived and changed from eye to eye, mind to mind.
From Julie she’d learned to recognize and appreciate technique and form, balance or the deliberate lack of it.
But all that went out the window, whisked away on emotion, on amazement.
She didn’t know how he’d made the night sky so luminous, how he could create the light of his perfect moon against the dark. Or how the campfire seemed to snap with heat and energy.
She didn’t know how he could see her this way, so vibrant, so beautiful, caught in that spin, the red dress flaring out, the colors of the underskirt defiant against her bare leg.
Bracelets jangling at her wrists—she could almost hear them—hoops flashing at her ears while her hair flew free. Rather than the chains she’d posed in, she wore the moonstone. The one he’d given her. The one she wore even now.
Just above her lifted hands floated a crystal ball, one full of light and shadows.
She understood it. It was the future. She held the future in her hands.