Free The Pleasures of Autumn by Evie Hunter Page A

that.’ He looked way too happy about it.
    She couldn’t resist payback. ‘I bet all your dates are cheap, especially if they wear skimpy clothes.’
    He winced. ‘Some of those are damned expensive.’
    Sinead speared a leaf of lamb’s lettuce and then wondered what to do with it. ‘You pay too? My. My. You get more appealing by the minute.’
    The waiter cleared away their plates and brought them coffee she had no memory of ordering.
    Niall peered at her over the edge of his cup. ‘So how long is it since you got lucky?’
    She spluttered a mouthful of coffee over the table. ‘Lucky? Some of us have more to think about than sex.’
    He would probably laugh at her if she said it was morethan a year. Or that the encounter had left her edgy and unsatisfied and she had spent hours staring at the ceiling hoping he would wake up and go home.
    ‘That long, huh?’
    ‘What do you mean that long? I’ll have you know that I … I … I don’t want to talk about this.’ She wanted to smack him.
    ‘Oh yeah, it’s been a loooong time, hasn’t it?’
    She looked around her at the other tables. They were definitely attracting attention. ‘Stop that, people are staring.’
    ‘Sure they are, at your sexy thighs.’
    ‘Oh. You are infuriating.’
    ‘One of my best qualities,’ he agreed.
    Sinead huffed a breath and turned her attention to her coffee, pretending to ignore him, but each time she risked a glance at him across the table, he was smiling.
    At the car park, they parted company. She would go back to her apartment and tidy it up, while he would return to the museum to start his investigation.
     

     
    On his second visit to Rheinbach, Niall was again struck by the contrast between the building’s fairy tale exterior and old-fashioned reception area – the main hallway’s marble floor, its panelled walls, the classical statues on either side of the cash desk – and its state-of-the-art security system. Once inside, the display rooms were modern, with hidden lighting and security cameras monitoring the glass cases where the more valuable items were housed.
    Niall examined an exhibit of rubies of different sizesand clarity and wondered what their combined value might be.
    Günter Rheinbach was eager to show him the case where the Fire of Autumn had been displayed. It had a special security system, more complex than the rest, with an access code that only Günter was supposed to know.
    Back in the lobby, one other old-fashioned feature was a flesh and blood security guard who checked everyone who entered or left the building. Jean-Baptiste Moutier was nervous about speaking to Niall, but certain about what had happened the night the ruby disappeared. ‘Mlle O’Sullivan came in, signed the book and went to her office.’ He held out the book for Niall to see.
    Niall flipped through it. Sinead had a pattern of working at night, often calling in and doing a couple of hours when the museum was closed. He examined the signature and frowned. It looked the same, but there was something a little off. He’d have an expert examine it, he decided.
    ‘Are you sure it was her?’ he asked Moutier. ‘It was a cold night, everyone was wearing bulky clothes. Could you be mistaken?’
    ‘Oh no. I see her often. I could not mistake her. Nice lady, always asks about my daughter’s dance classes.’ He frowned. ‘She wished me “Good night” that night, but I don’t remember her asking about Michelle.’
    ‘She was thinking about the theft, had no time for pleasantries,’ Günter pointed out.
    Niall asked a few more questions, but didn’t manage to get any more information. Günter tapped him on the shoulder. ‘If you’ve finished here, come to my office. Ihave a copy of the CCTV footage. You can see for yourself what happened that night,’ he told Niall.
    The image was low resolution, but the quality was good enough for Niall to see clearly. First, there was a quick image of a woman wearing a long coat and fur hat