Page 91 of Carved Obsession

“All the more reason for me to kill him. What is he blackmailing you with?”

“Jewels.”

I frown, but something clicks into place. “This has to do with your business, doesn’t it? Like whatever you were doing tonight.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you normally steal? Why your stepmother owns a jewelry store?”

“Normally, but not always,” she says.

“You didn’t steal jewelry tonight,” I acknowledge, already knowing the answer.

That mad grin returns to her soft lips, eyes narrowing in mischief as she shakes her head.

“Is it in that briefcase you insisted on taking out of your car?” I ask, intrigued to see the famous dagger.

“No. And thank you for reminding me of my lovely Agatha. My poor, precious girl.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Agatha?”

“Pretty name for a pretty girl—my car. God, I’m gonna miss her.”

She’s so fucking strange. And I want her even more for it. But sadness taints her eyes, and there’s something fascinatingly tragic about it. It makes me want to fix everything for her and make sure that wretched emotion never shares the same atmosphere as her.

“What did you do with the dagger, then?” I’m intrigued, but I also want to distract her from the car she’s clearly very sad about.

“Donated it to a museum,” she says with a wide, proud grin. “Slid it into their mailbox with a note. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Wayne not only finds out his precious conquest was taken from him, but that it magically appeared in a museum and he can’t do anything about it.”

Soft wrinkles crease the skin around her eyes, alongside the pure joy shining in them, and I’m...enthralled.

“Impressive.”

That timid smile returns, and I can’t help but wonder if, in this growing darkness, I’m missing flushed cheeks too.

“What’s in the briefcase, then?”

“My laptop.” She shrugs.

“Wait. Is it satellite?”

She shakes her head. “We wouldn’t be here if it was. Just a standard laptop, I’m afraid, but I do some of my best coding work on it and I don’t want to lose it.”

Fair enough. I should be disappointed, but I think I’d be pissed if anyone dared to save us right now.

“How did you hone these skills?” I ask. “I’m not saying coding and hacking are difficult, but still. I have a feeling it’s not a skill passed on from your father.”

“You’d be surprised by the things he’s passed on to me. I joined his business, not the other way around.”

Clever way of avoiding a straight answer. But I have time, and it seems that nothing excites me more now than discovering this woman.

With the tips of my fingers, I draw lazy circles over the velvety skin of her back as she carries on telling me her life story, filled with intentional gaps she carefully skirts around. Enough time passes as we talk that I have to add wood to the fire.

I thought we would be dead asleep by now, but I can’t stop asking questions and she’s had no issue answering them.

I’ve learned that she’s been doing this for about eight years, but she trained long before that. Jewelry is officially their primary business. The unofficial endeavor revolves around stealing art, contraband being her favorite, with its poetic justice.

I also found out that after she broke into my car, she went up a building via the fire escape, walked over the connected roofs of a couple other buildings, then went inside and disappeared via a ride she booked. Finally, an answer to that mystery.