WHEN TILDA got back to the office, she saw Gwen out in the gallery with Mason and Clea. She sat down on the edge of the couch, still shaking, and Gwen came in with a backward glance at Mason, followed by Steve, who spotted Tilda and lunged for her in ecstasy.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with that man,” Gwen said, as Tilda scooped up the little dog. “He’s looking at every old file in the place and he’s enjoying it. He’s like a kid. It’s like his whole life, he’s always wanted to look at gallery files.” She stopped when she got a good look at Tilda. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything.” Tilda sank down on the couch, holding on to Steve’s long wriggling body for comfort. “There was a man there. I never saw him before, I knocked him out by accident. Davy’s still there, fixing it, and he’s going to get caught.”

“Okay,” Gwen said, looking rattled. “Be calm. Because you’re never like this and you’re scaring me.”

She went to the cupboard and got out the vodka and poured a healthy shot into a glass.

“Oh, God, yes, thanks.” Tilda let go of Steve and held out her hand in time to see Gwen knock back the glass.

“You want one, too?” Gwen said.

“Yes,” Tilda said. “Listen, I can’t do that again, go into somebody’s house and steal. I am not designed for that. I’ll fix this some other way.”

“Okay.” Gwen handed over the glass and the bottle. “Okay. We’ll think of something else. Where’s Davy?”

“I told you, he’s still there.” Tilda heard her voice crack from guilt. “He told me to go. Oh, Gwennie, he’s a mess, but I don’t want him in jail because of me.” She poured the vodka with a shaking hand.

“He’s not a mess,” Gwen said. “Do you think he-”

“Gwennie!” Mason called from the gallery. “Did you know Tony sold to the Lewis Museum?”

“Really?” Gwen called back. “Imagine.” She turned back to Tilda. “He’s driving me crazy. He thinks this dump is Disneyland. Do I still have to keep him here?”

“Yes,” Tilda said. “Until Davy gets back safe. It’s the least we can do for him since he’s out there…” She knocked back her own shot and felt the alcohol seep into her veins, calming her a little. “You want another one?”

“No.” Gwen looked through the glass door at Mason. “I have to go pretend nothing’s wrong. I have to go pretend I like it here. I have to go pretend that I don’t want to throw up when he talks about the good old days.”

“Gwennie?” Tilda said, taken aback by the anger in her voice.

Gwen shook her head. “I’m having a bad night.”

“Me, too.” Tilda said as Steve crawled back in her lap. “I am not cut out for a life of crime.”

“You always were more my daughter than your father’s,” Gwen said, and went back to the gallery.

“No I wasn’t,” Tilda said miserably, but Gwen was already gone.

Davy came into the office and kicked the door shut behind him, looking frazzled and carrying a brown-paper-wrapped eighteen-inch-square package, and Tilda forgot everything else and let Steve slide onto the couch as she sprang up to meet him.

“Are you okay?” she said, pressing the glass and bottle into his chest.

“Yes.” He held up the painting so she could see the torn corner with the sky and the edge of a brick building, and then he put it on the table and took the vodka.

“I can’t believe you stayed,” Tilda said. “I can’t believe-”

Davy drank a belt straight from the bottle, and she offered him the glass as an afterthought.

“What happened?” she said. “Did he come to? Did you get caught? Are you okay?”

“Shut up, Betty.” He slopped some vodka into the glass and handed it to her. “I dragged him into an empty room, found your painting, and left. I am not cut out to be a thief. Let’s not do that again.”

“Oh, God, no, let’s not,” Tilda said. “And you got the painting. You’re a good, good man.”

“I looked before I took,” Davy said. “Stars and houses.”

Tilda clutched her vodka, her eyes closed in gratitude.

She didn’t even want to see the painting, she never wanted to see any of them again, she just wanted her old, boring, mural-painting life back. “Thank you, God.”

“Hey!” Davy said and pointed to himself.

Tilda opened her eyes to look at him. “Thank you, too. I’m sorry I was so bitchy, I’m sorry for every lousy thing I ever said to you, I’m sorry-”

“I got it,” Davy said. “You’re sorry.” His voice was calm now, and he had a rueful half-smile on his face. “You’re an interesting woman, Matilda Veronica.”

“No, Matilda Veronica is a bitchy control freak.” Tilda turned away from him to look into the gallery.

“That, too,” Davy said. “Where’s Gwennie?”

“Out front,” Tilda began, and then she stopped.

Clea Lewis was looking through the window in the door, her face slack-jawed in surprise.

“Where?” Davy said and then followed Tilda’s eyes. “Hell.” He lifted the bottle in a toast to the door. “Hey, babe,” he said, and Clea’s eyes narrowed and she jerked her head toward the street door to the gallery. “Oh, yeah, I want to talk to you,” he said, but he put the bottle down on the table. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Tilda and went out the side door.

Tilda sat back on the couch and caught Steve as he scrambled up beside her and licked her on the chin. There was something to be said for a male who loved you desperately, was always glad to see you, and never made you mad. “I’m glad we’re keeping you, Steve,” she told him as she cuddled him close. “You’re the only good man I know.”


CLEA STOOD out on the sidewalk, tapping her foot with impatience. “What are you doing here?” she snapped as Davy came out the side door. “Are you trying to ruin my life?”

“I have no interest in your life,” Davy said. “I want my money back.” He looked her up and down slowly, and Clea braced herself for the insult. “You’re looking really good, Clea.”

“Thank you,” Clea said, slightly mollified. He looked really good, too, for a treacherous son of a bitch. Hot memories came back and she stifled them. “Look, it’s my money,” she told him. “You stole it from me three years ago, you know you did. It’s mine.”

“Not all of it.” Davy folded his arms and leaned against the storefront. “And you owed me. You dumped me, I took your money, that made us even until-”

“I left you years ago. Get over it. Move on.”

“You betrayed me,” Davy said, his voice tensing.

“Oh, I did not,” Clea said, exasperated. “Look, I’m beautiful, I’m charming, I’m expensive, and I give the best head in America.”

“True,” Davy said, looking taken aback. “But-”

“But I’m not faithful,” Clea said. “I never was. There’s no point in it. If somebody who can take better care of me comes along, I’m going with him. That’s just sensible.”

“It may be sensible,” Davy snapped, “but it’s pretty damn hard on the other guy in the relationship.”

“What relationship?” Clea said, mystified. “What made you think we had a relationship?”

“We were living together,” Davy said. “I thought-”

“No you didn’t.” Clea folded her arms. This was why men were a pain in the ass. They only thought of themselves. “You didn’t think at all. You looked at me and saw what you wanted to see, a faithful hottie of a girlfriend. You didn’t want to know me, you just wanted to have me. Well, you had me. It’s over.” He was looking at her as if she were speaking Chinese, so she spelled it out for him. “I’m not responsible for you not knowing me, Davy. It’s not my fault you never looked-”

“Oh, come on,” Davy said. “We were living together.”

Clea shrugged. “I saved a lot on rent. I don’t see what that has to do with this. I mean, did I ever say, ‘Davy, you’re the only one’?”

“No,” Davy said.

“Did I ever say, ‘I’ll never leave you, this is forever, you’re the love of my life’?”

“This is really depressing,” Davy said, leaning against the storefront again.

“So you’re mad at me for not being what you wanted me to be,” Clea said. “Well, I’m mad at you, too. I wanted you to be rich, and you weren’t, and I ended up with that bastard Zane.”

“If you’d been faithful to me, you wouldn’t have,” Davy pointed out.

“If you’d had money, I wouldn’t have,” Clea said. “It’s your fault. But am I still blaming you? No. I’ve moved on. You should, too.”

“I’d love to,” Davy said. “Give me my fucking money back.”

“It’s mine,” Clea said, amazed that he couldn’t see the justice of it all. “You stole it from me. You took my family home from me.”

“Oh, please,” Davy said. “You’d have burned the family home to the ground if you could, you hated that place.”

“It was worth money,” Clea snapped.

Davy went on, ignoring her the way he always had. “And I stole a third of what you took. Keep the original stake, but I want the rest of it back. Hell, Clea, you were married to two rich guys, you don’t need it.”

“You don’t know what I need.” Clea stepped back. She hadn’t been married to two rich guys, she’d been married to two poor guys, at least they’d been poor when they died, and she didn’t need that thrown in her face, thank you very much. “It’s my money, and I need it.” She looked through the gallery window and saw Mason take Gwen’s hand. “I want to get married,” she said savagely, “and rich men do not marry poor women.”

Davy followed her eyes. “You think you’re going to marry this guy? No. Guys like him marry Jackies, not Marilyns. He’s stringing you.”

“Very funny,” Clea said. “No, he’s going to marry me. He brought me home to Ohio with him.”

“Which does not make him the first man to transport you across a state line for immoral purposes,” Davy said. “I’ve done it myself.”

“But you never will again,” Clea said. “Now go away.”

“You really think I’m going to?” Davy said.

“You don’t have any choice.” Clea stuck her chin out. “There’s nothing you can do.”

He smiled at her and she felt a chill. Davy had been good at a lot of things, she remembered, many of them illegal. “Don’t spend my money,” he told her. “I’m coming for it.” Then he went back inside.

“Oh, well, that’s just fine,” she said to the empty street. It wasn’t enough that she was broke and aging and being ignored for a woman ten years older than she was, now she had Davy Dempsey on her ass. Well, she’d just have to be nicer to Ronald so he’d keep an eye on Davy, except that this was Ronald’s fault for telling Davy where she was. It was Davy’s fault for not taking care of her in the first place. It was Mason’s fault for not taking care of her now, she should have been married to him by now. She looked through the gallery window to see him talking seriously to Gwen, leaning close.

“Men,” she said and went back inside to retrieve her future.


WHEN DAVY came back into the office, Tilda was on the couch with Steve and her third shot of vodka, this one cut with orange juice for flavor. “You know, you never did tell me what you were looking for in her room,” she said, trying not to sound cranky.

“Money.” Davy picked up the vodka bottle. “My money. Clea seduced my financial manager into embezzling my entire net worth.”

“You had enough money to have a financial manager?” Tilda said, impressed.

“He was a colleague,” Davy said, looking for a glass.

Tilda got up and got him one from the cupboard while Steve fibrillated with separation anxiety on the couch. “So what is it that you do? With this colleague?”

“Consult.” He took the glass. “He told me he could show me how to double my money and instead he tripled it,” Davy went on as he poured. “His name is Ronald Abbott. Unaffectionately known as Rabbit for his ability to burrow into other people’s accounts. I was grateful and I got careless.”

It still didn’t sound right to Tilda. “How could he get into your accounts?”

“Rabbit is a genius with money,” Davy said. “Bank accounts are like toy boxes to him. He likes to open them and play with their insides. I cannot pretend to know the things he knows, I can only tell you that I made money in the market when I did what he told me to.”

“I can see where that would lead you to trust him,” Tilda said, sitting down again so Steve would calm down. “I guess. I mean, most financial managers aren’t crooks, right?”

“Actually, Rabbit has a record,” Davy said. “Guys who make a lot of money usually cut corners someplace.”

“He had a record,” Tilda said, incredulous. “You trusted somebody you knew was crooked?”