Swindled
H arper Lang snagged a flute from the service waiter and cursed the vibrant white room. Why the hell did art installations have to be so damn bright? Thanks to long New York winters and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them summers, her pasty complexion hadn’t seen sun in the ten years she’d lived in the city. Nor had her face seen this much makeup. She probably looked like a street hooker working her way to professional escort. Well, she was working. A smile tickled her lips while the bubbling champagne did the same to the back of her throat.
Yep, she was a naughty girl. Drinking on the job.
She downed the remainder of the sparkling wine in an unladylike gulp, set the glass on a planter that looked like it had contracted red and white polka-dotted measles, and strode toward the nearest excuse for art. Her public school upbringing didn’t count the pile of day-glow vomit in the shape of an extra-large housefly as art.
Vincent. Claude. Michelangelo. Those were her guys. Igmon Yeaveas, the featured artist of the night didn’t hold a candle to their talents. That fraud didn’t lure her here tonight, but for some incomprehensible reason, he attracted the Big Apple’s nobility and their pocketbooks. And they drew Baron Magnus Declan.
At least, Harper hoped they did. Otherwise, she’d wasted three hundred bucks on a half-priced cocktail dress and two hundred more on four-inch stilettos. Maybe, when she needed a pick-me-up, she’d wear the curve-hugging lace and spikes around her closet-sized apartment.
Her gut vibrated with excitement. After months of research and two near misses, this was the night she’d arrest the world-renowned swindler. She’d earn a stripe on her shiny new detective’s shield and maybe get assigned to one of the good cases. Missing persons, rape, homicide. The possibilities stiffened her nipples. Not the atrocities, but catching the real scum of the earth. Who cared about some Rico Suave talking rich broads into bed and out of their inherited dough?
Harper tugged the low-cut fabric toward the ceiling to conceal her peaked twins. The black material managed not to move an inch.
“Quit fidgeting,” her partner’s smoke-scarred voice crackled in her ear through a tiny comm link.
“How the hell are you inside? Is he here?” she whispered.
“Nah, still in the car. I swing my potbelly in that place, and we’d lose Declan forever. I just know you, girly. Anytime you get dolled up, you wring your hands like a perp.”
She smoothed a hand over her bosom and down the narrow curve of her hips. These double-D cups belonged on another woman’s body. A stripper’s, perhaps. They only brought lecherous attention and grief on the force. People thought big boobs equaled a small brain. Even women. So, yeah, she’d kept them on lockdown for so long she didn’t know how to act with them on display. Yet, for the first time, Harper appreciated her chest. They’d landed her this gig. Russell had twenty-five years on the force, but didn’t possess the goods to ensnare the thief. She had the rack, half-a-million in borrowed diamonds, a rented limo, and a silver clutch worth more than the gun inside and the one strapped to her thigh combined.
“We’ll get this guy, Lang. All we need is some damn proof.”
Shoulders back. Chin up. Mouth pursed like the captain showed you. Interested, but not impressed. Boobs in. Think high society. Be upper crust.
By the time she lapped the room, the fizz allayed her discomfort. The hot stares from two Wall Street suit types helped too. Harper’s gaze roved the sea of sequins, feathers, tweed, and skin in search of her quarry.
“You see him yet?” Russell barked. “All I got are alley rats, a homeless guy, and waitstaff.”
“Nothing.”
The glass door opened and closed frequently, bearing couture-labeled couples like the stadium turnstile produced Yankee fans. But no Declan.
* * *
T hree hours later , the crowd thinned , her feet ached, and an edgy
H arper Lang snagged a flute from the service waiter and cursed the vibrant white room. Why the hell did art installations have to be so damn bright? Thanks to long New York winters and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them summers, her pasty complexion hadn’t seen sun in the ten years she’d lived in the city. Nor had her face seen this much makeup. She probably looked like a street hooker working her way to professional escort. Well, she was working. A smile tickled her lips while the bubbling champagne did the same to the back of her throat.
Yep, she was a naughty girl. Drinking on the job.
She downed the remainder of the sparkling wine in an unladylike gulp, set the glass on a planter that looked like it had contracted red and white polka-dotted measles, and strode toward the nearest excuse for art. Her public school upbringing didn’t count the pile of day-glow vomit in the shape of an extra-large housefly as art.
Vincent. Claude. Michelangelo. Those were her guys. Igmon Yeaveas, the featured artist of the night didn’t hold a candle to their talents. That fraud didn’t lure her here tonight, but for some incomprehensible reason, he attracted the Big Apple’s nobility and their pocketbooks. And they drew Baron Magnus Declan.
At least, Harper hoped they did. Otherwise, she’d wasted three hundred bucks on a half-priced cocktail dress and two hundred more on four-inch stilettos. Maybe, when she needed a pick-me-up, she’d wear the curve-hugging lace and spikes around her closet-sized apartment.
Her gut vibrated with excitement. After months of research and two near misses, this was the night she’d arrest the world-renowned swindler. She’d earn a stripe on her shiny new detective’s shield and maybe get assigned to one of the good cases. Missing persons, rape, homicide. The possibilities stiffened her nipples. Not the atrocities, but catching the real scum of the earth. Who cared about some Rico Suave talking rich broads into bed and out of their inherited dough?
Harper tugged the low-cut fabric toward the ceiling to conceal her peaked twins. The black material managed not to move an inch.
“Quit fidgeting,” her partner’s smoke-scarred voice crackled in her ear through a tiny comm link.
“How the hell are you inside? Is he here?” she whispered.
“Nah, still in the car. I swing my potbelly in that place, and we’d lose Declan forever. I just know you, girly. Anytime you get dolled up, you wring your hands like a perp.”
She smoothed a hand over her bosom and down the narrow curve of her hips. These double-D cups belonged on another woman’s body. A stripper’s, perhaps. They only brought lecherous attention and grief on the force. People thought big boobs equaled a small brain. Even women. So, yeah, she’d kept them on lockdown for so long she didn’t know how to act with them on display. Yet, for the first time, Harper appreciated her chest. They’d landed her this gig. Russell had twenty-five years on the force, but didn’t possess the goods to ensnare the thief. She had the rack, half-a-million in borrowed diamonds, a rented limo, and a silver clutch worth more than the gun inside and the one strapped to her thigh combined.
“We’ll get this guy, Lang. All we need is some damn proof.”
Shoulders back. Chin up. Mouth pursed like the captain showed you. Interested, but not impressed. Boobs in. Think high society. Be upper crust.
By the time she lapped the room, the fizz allayed her discomfort. The hot stares from two Wall Street suit types helped too. Harper’s gaze roved the sea of sequins, feathers, tweed, and skin in search of her quarry.
“You see him yet?” Russell barked. “All I got are alley rats, a homeless guy, and waitstaff.”
“Nothing.”
The glass door opened and closed frequently, bearing couture-labeled couples like the stadium turnstile produced Yankee fans. But no Declan.
* * *
T hree hours later , the crowd thinned , her feet ached, and an edgy
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