Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [91]
“No, but I'd seen her picture; he has it here in his study.” She shook her head and settled onto the arm of the chair when he would have put her somewhere else, adding in a murmur, “I won't be able to think if I sit on your lap.”
His eyes gleamed at her. “That's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me, sweet.”
“Mmm. Anyway, in the museum today—I mean yesterday—I was looking at the four of you, and I realized it was the first time I'd seen you all together in the same room. I think I knew then, subconsciously, but it didn't really hit me until later.”
“That I looked more like Max's mother than he did?”
“Something like that. You were talking to Max, and Jared was talking to Wolfe . . . and there was something about the way you all stood, or the way the light was hitting you. . . . A bell went off in my mind. Later, when I realized, I remembered seeing Elizabeth's picture here, and I thought either Leo or Ken might have too; they've both been here. I knew Max and Wolfe were half brothers, and I knew their mother had been married several times, so it was at least possible. Nightshade, he might think of it, might have even seen her photograph here. It scared the hell out of me.”
“When did you know Leo was Nightshade?”
“When I went out looking for you. I did—used—tapped into—that thing between us. That connection. And it was really strong this time. I could almost see Leo, and I knew without a doubt that's where you were.”
Quinn didn't comment on her use of the connection between them, though he did smile a bit wryly. But all he said was, “Which is why you came creeping through Leo's garden?”
Sighing, she said, “Well, it occurred to me that if Max didn't know it was Leo you were after, and he didn't know that Quinn and Nightshade were supposedly in cahoots, then he probably also didn't know that it would be important to make sure Leo didn't find out you guys were brothers. Because if he knew that, he'd be certain that Max's brother would never steal from him. I mean, you just wouldn't. And he'd know that. So he'd know it was a trap.”
Before Quinn could respond to that tangled explanation, Max said rather bitterly, “Obviously, there was too damned much that Max didn't know.”
Morgan glanced around the room, finding the others beginning to settle into chairs and couches. Dinah and Storm, both having spent the previous evening here getting to know Elizabeth, were handing out coffee to the others. There were a number of expectant faces in the room, and more than one frown directed at Quinn.
Somewhat hastily, Quinn said, “Jared, why don't you start the ball rolling?”
With a faint shrug, Jared did, setting up the situation very briefly by explaining how he and Alex had believed they could construct a trap to catch Nightshade.
“We know that,” Max told him, very patient. “What we don't know is at what point Alex identified Leo as Nightshade.”
“Ask him,” Jared advised dryly.
Quinn sent him a glance, and murmured, “Traitor.”
Max, unamused by the byplay, said, “Alex?”
“It was . . . fairly recently.” Quinn hurried on, hoping Max wouldn't demand too many specifics. “I thought I might have some luck if I approached him directly and proposed a partnership. After all, I was a virtual stranger here with no professional contacts, and it was well known—within the trade—that Nightshade tended to avoid sophisticated electronic security systems, while I specialized in them. It seemed obvious a partnership would be mutually beneficial.”
Quinn shrugged. “Of course, from his viewpoint it was even simpler and far more attractive a proposition, since he always intended for me to take the blame. He was too close to Max, too close to the art world here in San Francisco, to take the chance of pulling off the robbery unless he could pin it on someone else. Someone the police could be counted on to believe was capable of pulling it off.”
“Someone who would seemingly vanish in a puff of smoke afterward,” Wolfe said. “Quinn.”
“Exactly,” Quinn confirmed.