The Job by Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldberg Page A

caught you red-handed stealing a Modigliani and a Degas from a museum,” Kate said. “You’ll do ten years for that. And when you get out, the Turkish police will be waiting to lock you up in Diyarbakir Prison for God knows how many years. It’s so hellish there that prisoners have set themselves on fire rather than endure their sentences. After that, assuming you haven’t killed yourself, your time in a Tennessee prison will feel like a vacation.”
    Serena didn’t seem shaken by the grim forecast. She’d probably foreseen that future herself.
    “If you’re so sure that’s it for me, end of story, why are you in here talking?” Serena asked.
    “Because I might be able to shave a few years off your sentence if you cooperate.”
    “The way you tell it, you’ve already got me dead to rights, so what more do you need?”
    “You can tell me where we can find the Matisse, the sultan’s goblet, and the Vermeer.”
    Serena gave a thin smile. “No deal.”
    The artworks were the only leverage Serena had. That shewasn’t willing to use it when it could do her the most good made Kate curious. What was she saving it for? There was something else at play here, and Kate didn’t know what it was. So she decided the best way to reveal what she didn’t know was to use what she did know.
    “Okay, here’s an easier one,” Kate said. “What do you want from Nicolas Fox?”
    “Nothing,” Serena said.
    “It’s obvious that you’re desperate to get his attention. That’s why you were wearing a Nick Fox mask and planting his fingerprints at crime scenes.”
    “
If
I did that, it was because he’s a famous thief and I wanted you to chase him instead of me.”
    Kate decided to bluff and go with a crazy guess. “I might have believed that,” she said, “if you hadn’t hit Nashville, where you were part of the crew that helped Fox swindle Big Mike Gleaberg, and then Istanbul, where you helped him steal the Topkapi Dagger just to prove that it could be done.”
    Serena blinked hard, clearly startled that Kate knew about their secret crimes. Kate was startled, too, because it meant that maybe Nick actually
had
stolen the dagger and put it back.
    Kate pushed on. “You also went out of your way to irritate Fox by framing him for crimes that were so simple in concept and execution that they’d tarnish his reputation for ingenious crimes. Or maybe you’re just not smart enough to pull off anything more clever.”
    “I was clever enough to
allegedly
steal a Matisse, a rareTurkish antiquity, and a Vermeer in three different countries over the course of a little more than a week. How many thieves do you know who could have done that?”
    There was a knock at the door, and Commissaire Bernard stuck his head into the room and gestured for Kate to come out.
    “What is it?” she asked, joining Bernard in the hall.
    “Her lawyer is here.”
    “It’s not even dawn, and she hasn’t made any calls. How did he know that she was here?”
    “She might have had a hidden
confédéré
on the street who saw us arrest her and alerted her lawyer. But the fact remains, he’s here and we must deal with it. I’ve put him in a conference room.”
    Kate followed Bernard down the hall to the room. “Does he speak English?” Kate asked.
    Bernard reached for the doorknob. “A bit. His name is Jean-Luc Picard.”
    Kate sucked in some air at the name of the captain of the starship
Enterprise
on
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Stay calm, she told herself. Don’t punch a hole in the wall or have a high blood pressure attack. Just because it’s a name Nick would choose doesn’t mean it’s Nick. Okay, who was she kidding? She knew it was going to be Nick.
    She stepped into the room and stared across the conference table at Nick. He was wearing tortoiseshell glasses balanced on a prosthetic Gérard Depardieu nose that loomed over a thickhorseshoe mustache that framed his mouth and went down to his chin. He wore a silk lavaliere scarf tied