Free ItTakesaThief by Dee Brice Page A

touching her
swollen right eye.
    “What happened?” Margreta asked, her fingers twitching as if
she wanted to soothe away every one of TC’s aches.
    “I foolishly allowed Tiffany—”
    “Ian graciously arranged for a backstage tour after the
performance. I went out on stage and fell down a rabbit hole.” TC directed a
reassuring smile at the wide-eyed twins, who had quit playing their board game
when she came into the room.
    “Thank you,” she said to Mark when he handed her a glass of
sherry. “You should see what this face did to the post it hit.”
    “Papa, will you take us to see it?”
    “It already has been replaced,” Ian said, an odd note in his
voice suggesting… What? That he had sent the shattered post to some crime lab?
Had it analyzed to see if it had been cut?
    Ian Soria is not what he seems.
    Was he a cop?
    * * * * *
    Late in the afternoon, Damian tapped on Tiffany’s bedroom
door. Receiving no answer, he went in and spotted her asleep in the window
seat. An open book lay on her stomach, spine up. Snagging a velour throw from
the bed, he lifted the book away, noting it was P.D. James’ An Unsuitable
Job for a Woman . He spread the throw over Tiffany and stared as she turned
on her side and sighed.
    For a long moment he simply gazed at her, savoring the way
her hair slid over her robe-clad shoulder, almost hiding her long lashes—a
crescent half-moon against her cheek. Her bruised and abraded cheek.
    Rage roiled in his guts. He wanted to wrap his hands around
the neck of whoever had messed with that star cover. His instincts told him
Tiffany’s fall was no accident. Someone had set out to injure her. Injure,
hell! They had wanted to kill her. Why? Because whoever they were, they knew
Tiffany would catch them sooner or later? Or because she knew who they were and
could send them to prison for the rest of their lives?
    With an inward sigh, he pulled a chair to the window seat.
Sitting, he went on conjecturing about Tiffany and her role in this mess.
Memories distracted him.
    When the Colombian police caught Yulie Cardoza—his brother’s
betrayer—she accused Michael of sharing secrets before, during and after sex.
Damian knew his brother was too smart, too careful to give up information as
“pillow talk”. Damian also knew Yulie was part of the drug taskforce Michael
was working with at the time of his death. He not only trusted the woman, he
loved her.
    Tiffany whimpered, drawing Damian’s attention back to her.
She knew more than she was willing to tell him. Could he…? Was he cold-blooded
enough to use sex, use the hope of love to seduce Tiffany into spilling her
guts? As she was a suspect, he knew he shouldn’t lay a hand on her again. As
his only viable lead, he knew he would do anything to catch the murdering bitch
who had killed the two Parisian bank employees. Or the murdering bastard ,
he corrected, fighting the impulse to convict Tiffany on the basis of flimsy
circumstantial evidence.
    Mumbling, Tiffany flung off the throw, then shouted, “No!”
Bolting to her feet, she stumbled over Damian’s chair and landed in his lap.
    Fate, it seemed, had dictated his path to perdition. “Good
afternoon,” he said, kissing her nose on its up-tilted tip.
    Covering her yawn with her fist, she asked, “What time is
it?” Her eyes widening, she tried to wiggle off his lap.
    Holding her in place, he said, “Six, six-thirty.” He
shrugged. Toying with a thick strand of her hair, he tucked it behind her ear,
then traced its whorl. Shivering, she pushed at his hand. “Are you hungry?”
    As if drawn back in time to St. Anton, her pupils dilated
and she sucked in a breath. “Are you?”
    “I could use a snack. A bite of your neck will do for now.”
    She shoved away. “Not here.”
    “My room then.”
    “I meant, not in your parents’ home.”
    “Why not? They obviously have had sex here. The twins,” he
added at her blank look. Tugging on her hand, he sat on the window seat,