To Catch a Thief. Christina Skye

took her arm and shook his head, one finger covering her lips.

      The doorbell rang again.

      “F.B.I. Ms. MacInnes, open the door.”

      Dakota felt her flinch as if she’d been hit. “Did you call them?” she whispered.

      He shook his head and pulled out his cell phone.

      “Ms. MacInnes, please answer the door. We know you’re in there. The doorman saw you come home.”

      Dakota’s hands tightened on her arm. “Ask them for names and badge numbers,” he whispered.

      Nell looked at him as if he was crazy. “You think it’s someone else out there?”

      “I told you there would be other men coming.”

      Nell swallowed hard and then asked for their ID numbers. Dakota quietly relayed the information to Izzy via cell phone, then nodded. “They check out. You’d better see them. I’d suggest you tell them no more than necessary and leave out what happened in the alley unless they ask directly. Leave me out, too.”

      A muscle worked at her jaw as she watched him grab his file and backpack and move quietly into the bedroom, closing the door partway.

      The doorbell rang again. Dakota found a position where he could see the middle of the room and the couch and then he waited, still and silent.

      The FBI was supposed to be updating Izzy on all developments, but government agencies were well-known to play power games. Dakota’s rule was to trust no one until you had solid proof or clear orders to do otherwise.

      He watched Nell open the door warily.

      “Nell MacInnes?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’m Agent Fuller and this is Agent Kolowitz. May we come in?”

      “Do I have a choice?” Nell said coldly.

      “We could come back with a warrant and twenty other agents and trash your apartment.”

      “There’s no need. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Nell held open the door, reading the woman’s badge. “Agent Amy Fuller. I’ll remember that name.”

      Agent Fuller was a thin woman with sharp gray eyes. She scanned the apartment, then tossed a sealed envelope onto Nell’s coffee table while her partner, short and heavily muscled, sat down on the sofa.

      Nell stared at his holstered gun, visible beneath his jacket. “What do you want?”

      “Tell us what you know about the da Vinci,” the female agent said curtly.

      Nell frowned. “The one in the Louvre? The ones in the Uffizi? Which da Vinci do you mean, Agent Fuller?”

      The woman’s face reddened. “Patience was never my strong point, Ms. MacInnes. Either you cooperate now or I’ll have your ass locked up in a cell so you don’t see daylight for five years. Do we understand each other?”

      “Perfectly.”

      The agent opened a small notebook. “Do you know a man named Vincent de Vito?”

      “He’s an old friend of my father’s.”

      “Vincent de Vito of San Francisco—alias Vincent Mosconi, alias Vito Corso.”

      “I wouldn’t know about any aliases.”

      “But he works with your father, using his criminal contacts.”

      “I wouldn’t know about any criminal contacts. He is just a friend.”

      “That must be very convenient, having a known organized crime figure on tap for a favor. Did he help you and your father set up the theft from the National Gallery last month?”

      Nell’s expression turned stony. “I’ve never heard a more outrageous and ungrounded set of lies. Does speculation pass for field research these days at the FBI? If so, Agent Fuller, I can see why we haven’t won the war on terrorism yet.”

      “We’re losing nothing.” The federal agent tossed a set of photos on the coffee table. “Take a look at those surveillance photos, Ms. MacInnes. They show your father and Vinnie de Vito having dinner at the Golden Szechuan restaurant in Berkeley last week.”