Free The Taming of the Thief by Heather Long

closet
door.
            The
clothes she'd worn home from the museum were in a pile next to the bed. As
though she'd stripped quickly and changed before rushing out to meet him.
            “I
thought Detective Bryant said they didn't get this far.” Sophie ducked under
his upraised arm and prowled into her bedroom. She moved from surface to
surface, inspecting the windows, their drawstring curtains with heavy ties,
which could be released to block the sunlight. Even the stack of well-read
novels next to the bed seemed more orderly than the methodical destruction of
the front room.
            The
room's quiet retreat was both provocative and soothing.
            “It
never hurts to double-check.” Pietr nodded to himself. Whoever the thieves had
been, they'd not violated her bedroom. Cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
“Is anything missing?”
            “No.”
Sophie murmured as they retreated to her living room. “But it's hard to tell. I
mean the obvious stuff isn't gone.” She gestured to the television and DVD
player.
            “There's no cable or satellite box.” Pietr
observed, but then there hadn't been one the night before.
            “I don't watch television, not live anyway.”
            “What
about a computer or a laptop?” He'd not seen either the day before, but it
didn't hurt to ask.
            Sophie shook her head in a quick negative.
“The laptop is probably still in my office at the museum. I didn't go back
there before the officer dropped me at home last night. It's small enough that
I can carry it back and forth.”
            “Anything valuable on it?” Had the thieves been hunting the
laptop? His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the text
message while Sophie reached down to pick up a picture frame. She was in the
image with two older people, presumably her parents and a younger man whose arm
wrapped around her shoulders.
            Pietr
didn't like the familiarity of the intimate pose.
            “Emails, research, my dissertation.” Sophie shrugged. “I
don't know why anyone but me would find that valuable.”
            “What
about museum information?” A message from Jacques informed him that Viktor had
arrived. He tapped out a quick response, sending Viktor to the museum to locate
Sophie's laptop in her office and to watch it, if the thieves hadn't made it
there yet, should they make a play for it.
            He
pocketed the cell phone and brushed a caress across her cheek. She held tight
to the photograph and he held his expression calm as he glanced at it again.
            “My
family,” Sophie murmured, catching his second glance. “Mom, Dad and that's my
brother Rhet.”
            “Rhett?” The southern style name seemed out of place in New
York, but Sophie had been born in Louisiana.
            “You
probably think it's odd that he has such a southern, iconic name.” Sophie's
words echoed the line of his thoughts, but he kept his own counsel. It was
hardly going to be a comfort that he knew as much as he did about her
background.
            “ Oui, a tad strange.”
            “We
were born in Louisiana. Mom studied law at Tulane and she fell in love with the
language, the Latin and the Greek from which most legal terms descend.”
            “And
Rhett is a legal term?” Not wholly unfamiliar with the law, Pietr didn't
recognize that particular wording.
            Another blush stole over Sophie and she tucked
the picture frame up onto a shelf, straightening it gently. “Rhet is a nickname,
kind of like Sophie.”
            Pietr
was intrigued. He'd learned Sophie's legal name as a matter of course, but
knowing the fact didn't give an explanation for it. He knelt down and began
picking up the scattered knickknacks, mentally cataloging the damaged ones so
he could replace them later.
            “Dare
I ask what it is a nickname for?” He kept his