Sticky fingers, p.26
Sticky Fingers, page 26
‘Those are mostly scams.’
‘Sure, but I did some digging of my own. I know your history. You never stay with anyone too long to get attached. I wanted you to get attached to me.’
Nick started to laugh. ‘So you hired me –’
‘Are you angry?’
He was still amazed at how cleverly she’d managed to fool him. It took finesse, the way she’d worked. And it took style. Two things that Jodie had in spades. But it also took a laxness on his part. He’d refused to see the things that were right in front of him. Clouded by how interested he was in her. More into her than into the case. After a minute, he tried to think back to all the different clues he’d missed. Right away, he realised that the whole situation with Jodie and Isabelle and Cameron and Lucas was about far more than overlapping lies – it was about overlapping lives.
‘Start at the beginning,’ he said. ‘That first phone call.’
‘That was me, putting on my most aristocratic voice.’ She cleared her throat and then adopted a slight British accent as she continued to explain. ‘I got an invite to a special event, and I decided to invite you, as well. It came to me on a whim, as a way to stimulate your interest.’
‘You’re pretty good,’ he said, ‘and I was extremely hungover. I didn’t even consider that the call wasn’t legit. When the money was wired to me, I had all the faith in the employer that I needed.’ Now he hesitated, trying to piece the remaining fragments together. There were still plenty of things that didn’t make sense to him. ‘But that lady – the hostess at the party, she knew me.’
‘That was easy. I got information to her that said the pieces were being protected by a private detective. That you were the one who had been hired. She had no reason to doubt the veracity of what I told her. It’s simple to convince people of things if you act sure enough yourself. Confidence is the number one factor for getting people to believe a lie.’
Nick nodded. He used that bluffing-style method all the time. ‘You’re good at poker, aren’t you?’
Jodie grinned. ‘Try me someday. You’ll never win.’ Then more seriously, she repeated, ‘You’re not upset?’
‘No. Not at all.’ As he spoke the words, he realised that they were true. ‘Shows what a back-ass private dick I am. I didn’t even think to do any research about my employer. Lost so much time just focusing on what you were doing. Who Max really was. What your plans might be. And you were the one with all the informants. Lucas and George and Isabelle. And that bluehaired chick at Airhead. Do you know someone at Sammy’s?’
‘I know Sammy.’
‘And you told him to let me know you were going to Europe, didn’t you?’
She nodded.
Secrets, Nick thought again. He remembered talking to Sammy about Isabelle and Jodie, remembered how Sammy acted so cool, as if he’d never seen either girl before. Now, Nick stood up and walked to his clothes.
‘You’re not leaving?’ For the first time, there was a note of fear in Jodie’s voice.
He shook his head. Then he reached into his side pocket and pulled out a slim cream-coloured envelope. ‘Open it up.’
With one crimson-red nail, she cracked the seal, then pulled out a stiff piece of cream-coloured stationery. It was the type of old-fashioned monogrammed stationery that men used in the 1940s for important personal letters. On it was Nick’s resignation letter. He was bowing out of the case rather than turning Jodie in. She smiled broadly when she read the words.
‘I didn’t have a physical address. I was going to email the employer today to get it.’
‘Better to deliver the news in person.’ Jodie smiled.
‘You didn’t really want that ring anyway, did you?’ Nick asked.
She shook her head.
‘And you must know that the one on your finger’s a replica.’
Now, she was the one to nod. ‘You wouldn’t be who you are if you’d actually stolen the real piece. I knew that you’d find the jewels, and that you’d figure I switched the real with the fake. So you did a doubleswitch easily enough. It was fun for a fantasy, though.’
Again he had to ask. ‘But how’d you know?’
‘Secrets,’ she said, ‘have legs.’
He grinned at her, recognising his own statement coming back to him. So she really did know Sammy, didn’t she? That was the only way those words would have been echoed.
‘Once you start talking, they start walking.’
‘But you’re not going anywhere,’ Nick said, getting off the bed and grabbing Jodie around the waist. He lifted her in his strong arms and brought her back into the centre of the bed. Then he pulled out the bedside drawer and grabbed her regulation steel handcuffs from within. Her eyes were on him as he locked her wrists into place. So she wasn’t the only one with a secret or two up her sleeve, or down her garters.
‘And you know about the handcuffs, how?’ she teased.
‘I’m a private eye, sweetheart,’ he said in his best Bogart impression. ‘It’s my job to know.’
She squinted up at him. ‘You were here before.’
‘Very good.’
‘In my bedroom.’
Now, he was the one to nod.
‘Where else were you?’
‘Where have you been lately?’
She ticked off the different places with a smile in her voice. ‘Isabelle’s, Cameron’s, Heidi’s … I always like having an audience. It was fun to pretend you were there, to imagine that you might be watching. It would have been a let-down not to have found you if I’d looked.’
He moved up her body, slowly. Jodie could go nowhere captured so securely in his embrace and by the cuffs. Since Jodie was still dressed in the pyjamas, he leaned over and reached into the pocket of his leather jacket for a Swiss army knife and brought out the blade.
‘You’re a good boy scout at heart, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know about good.’ He sliced through the sheer pyjama top, and spread it open, then made his way to the slim grey pants. He could have simply pulled them down, but that wasn’t what the mood called for. Eyes on his work, he destroyed the pyjamas with a single slip of the blade, opening the fabric with one long slice. Jodie trembled as she lay in the remnants of her fancy pjs. Now, she had on only a pair of turquoise blue satin panties trimmed with lace the colour of a robin’s egg. These were panties she’d stolen in Europe, but Nick didn’t spare them either. They held no sentimentality for him. Slipping the edge of the knife under the waistband, he cut through the delicate material.
Once again, Jodie was entirely naked, surrounded by the colourful fabric scraps, all that remained of her expensive outfit. Nick moved between her legs and began to lick at her pussy. He thrust his tongue between them, tasting her, sweetly at first. Tenderly. Jodie groaned softly and lifted her hips upwards. She was held firmly by the cuffs, but she had a full range of motion and was able to wrap her athletic legs around Nick and gain the contact she craved from his mouth. There was a sexy urgency in her actions. A pulse that beat from her to him.
Nick didn’t mind her helping him. The energy from her body, the excitement that she obviously felt, fuelled his own passion. He used his lips to ring her clit and sucked hard. He made his tongue into a point and tapped it lightly where she would feel it the most. Then he moved away and looked up her body.
‘So it’s true what they say about thieves?’
‘What’s that?’ she asked, her ever-changing eyes already glazed with pleasure as she stared down at him. Her cheeks had grown flushed and her hair tousled by the way she moved on the bed. Nick believed that she’d never looked so lovely before.
‘That deep down they want to be caught.’
‘I can’t speak for all thieves,’ she said, and there was a dark note of humour reverberating in her voice.
‘But you can speak for yourself. All this time, that’s what you wanted, right? That’s why you hired me. Why you had Liz at the museum put me on the case. You wanted to be caught.’ His voice was husky. Barely even a whisper. ‘Right, Jodie?’ He had to hear her say it.
‘Only by you, Nick,’ she sighed, arching upwards again. ‘Only by you.’
As she moved in Nick’s embrace, the ring on Jodie’s finger caught the light. When she turned her head, she saw the pure red fire there, gleaming in the inky blackness.
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First published in 2003 by Cheek, London
Published in the UK in 2013 by Rouge, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Copyright © 2003 by Alison Tyler
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Alison Tyler, Sticky Fingers
