Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3) Read online

  The one thing they hadn’t counted on was an inside threat.

  Vito Verrazano, one of their own crew, double-crossed them. Vito shot Rusty, left him for dead, and disappeared with the diamonds. Eighty million gone in the blink of an eye.

  And there was nothing Jack could do about it.

  Because his deal involved a guilty plea for passport fraud, he could never hold another passport again. Not legally, at any rate. He still had one expertly forged passport that he could use should he ever need to escape. The other was hidden in his villa in Tuscany, which he obviously couldn’t get. At least not without incredible risk.

  Jack told Megan this and, to her credit, she didn’t judge him. Megan knew who and what Jack was and had accepted it. Jack came to realize that the source of his rage wasn’t just that he’d lost an actual fortune in stones but that someone had outsmarted him. For Jack’s entire professional career, he’d earned a reputation for staying several steps ahead of the competition, ahead of the law. Now, one of his own, a cagey seventy-year-old no less, pulled the one move Jack never anticipated. That burned him as much, if not more, than being arrested by the FBI.

  When it first happened, Jack, Enzo, and Rusty spoke daily. They were searching for Vito. Rusty scoured the dark web for any trace of the double-crossing bastard from his recovery bed in Switzerland. The plan was that Jack would use his last passport, they’d steal the diamonds back, and then they’d slowly sell them off over a number of years so they didn’t arouse suspicion. But when Megan reentered his life, Jack finally admitted to himself that he had something to lose.

  Jack never shared this to his partners, but it became a simple calculus of risk versus reward. Before Megan, he was prepared to run. If Jack’s passport was burned, he could leave his winery and his “Frank Fischer” life behind. It would hurt, but he could do it. But Megan McKinney was the one thing he wouldn’t trade. She loved him not for who he had been but for who she believed Jack was now and who he had the potential to be, a person she wanted to see him become. Their relationship over the last ten years was confusing, a hot and then cold affair that was equal parts elation and gut-wrenching pain. When he thought about it, Jack likened it to what it must be like to land an airliner in bad weather. It was hope and despair, usually, it seemed, in unequal amounts and anchoring on the latter. But Megan was back now, and it felt like this was permanent. Jack had exorcised the demons of his previous life, the thing that had kept her away.

  That didn’t end the pain of betrayal, and it didn’t make it any easier to accept what happened. But it did force Jack to acknowledge that he now had something to lose. More than that, it forced him to take stock of what he did have: a way out. Jack had a real life, a new identity, and a business that both employed many and made many more happy. He was making something.

  The worst, though, was the guilt. Rusty was nearly killed over the diamonds. Enzo, Jack’s oldest friend, was tortured by Andelić’s men while Jack, Vito Verrazano, and Rusty were stealing the stones from the bank. Rusty and Enzo paid a debt in blood that Jack could never repay. He owed them. A three-way split of eighty million dollars would have gone a long way to settle those scores. There were times when the guilt was crushing.

  Eventually, the daily calls with Enzo and Rusty became weekly ones. Then, less frequently than that.

  It’s not that they had moved on. Enzo had a woman and a small olive orchard in Calabria overlooking the Mediterranean. Jack had met her once. They didn’t live together, Enzo would probably never trust another woman that far, but he seemed happy enough most days.

  Rusty, less so.

  He’d lost everything on their last job. The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service was actively pursuing him, as was the FBI, for his passport-forging operation—not to mention whatever the FBI was after him for already. Rusty had a very lucrative business in Europe working as a fixer and troubleshooter for criminals like Jack (and, on occasion, certain intelligence services). That was all gone now. Rusty was a full-time fugitive, and the entire time he was recovering from the gunshots Vito left him with, he was thinking about nothing but payback. Even the diamonds were secondary.

  Then the world stopped. They found Vito in that lost year. Ultimately, it wasn’t hard work for Rusty, himself an ex-FBI agent and counterintelligence specialist. They initially tracked him using his cell phone to the shores of Lago Maggiore in Italy’s lake country, not far from the Swiss border. Then, shortly after he arrived, all trace evaporated. Vito had ditched his phone. From there, Rusty started looking at other indicators, for example, property that was purchased in late 1997 or early ’98. Jack knew that was when Vito was supposed to have been arrested along with the rest of the School of Turin, but instead they learned he had paid off a corrupt judge and disappeared. They were able to use that data point and others to figure out where Vito was living and under what alias.

  Rusty, who was hiding in Lucerne, showed extreme restraint in not showing up at Vito’s door and exacting revenge.

  With the world locked down, the three of them agreed to wait. Verrazano couldn’t move the stones even if it’d been safe to travel. Vito had been a crew dog in his prime, a working thief who moved from job to job. He didn’t have the kind of connections that one needed to safely and securely fence a score that size. Time, it seemed, was on their side. Though Jack hadn’t yet told his friends that he wouldn’t possibly take the risk of traveling abroad, wouldn’t risk losing what he’d gotten back. Jack spent so much of the last year weighing his options. Vito betrayed them, and that was a sin that couldn’t go unpunished, but Jack also couldn’t reconcile what he’d have to risk to get the diamonds back. Back in Rome, when all he had was the score to think about, Jack had been prepared to leave everything else to get them. Now, it was exactly the opposite. It wasn’t that he had something to lose, he had everything to lose.

  That weighed on him daily, dragged him down and caused him as much internal strife as how to keep a winery in business during a year when no one could visit it.

  Megan appeared at his side, a soft hand on his shoulder. There were two plastic water bottles in her other hand, one of which she handed to Jack. He opened it and took a drink.

  “Thank you,” he said, with smiling eyes. Megan was the rare woman who didn’t defy age but assumed it gracefully and grew more beautiful every day. Her auburn hair was tucked beneath a dark and dirty ball cap with the pony tail extending out the back. Even with her face shadowed by the hat, Jack saw the playful line of freckles running across the ridges of her cheeks. She wore a UC Davis T-shirt and dirty, ripped blue jeans over boots. Megan was splitting her time between overseeing the last throes of harvest and the crush, the process of extracting the juice from the grapes they harvested.

  “Are you going to call Eagle Ridge today? That guy has left about four messages on my phone. Today,” she added ruefully.

  “Yes,” Jack said at length. “I’ve already contracted the rest of the Sine Metu allotment, though. I’ve told him as much.” Jack took another sip, and his gaze traced out to the black oaks that surrounded the property and to the neat rows of vines that gently climbed the rolling hills of their estate. “Told him in July.”

  “You have to do it,” Megan said. “Negotiating is the only thing around here you can do better than me.” Jack saw a smile crack the right side of her mouth.

  “True. Your version is, ‘I said there’s no fucking grapes.’”

  “I’m not that bad.”

  “Well,” Jack said, drawing the word out.

  “Okay, I’ve got to go check on Lincoln. I’ll see you at round-up.” Round-up was their end-of-day meeting with the heads of the various teams that ran the winery. It usually started in mid-August as they were getting ready for harvest and continued through October when harvest and crush were finished. They circled up to review the major events of the day and cover what needed to happen the next. Everyone enjoyed a glass or two of whatever bottles were open in the tasting room, leftover from
that day’s service. Megan gave him a playful kiss and headed off for the vines.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Corky is trying to get ahold of you. They are a little short-handed in the tasting room.”

  Jack patted his pockets quickly and realized he didn’t have his phone on him. Another sign of changing times.

  “See you,” Jack said as she left. Though they were still figuring out what exactly their relationship was, Jack and Megan could at least admit to themselves what everyone at the winery had known for a decade—that they were wildly in love with each other and were the only person that the other could tolerate.

  Jack finished his water and tossed the bottle in a recycling bin, enjoying the moment of solitude. He walked across the road to the winery’s main building. It was a two-story, mission-style construction with the tasting room on the main floor and winery offices above. There was a large patio they’d put in about two years ago, using much of the money Jack had from the Andelić job (he’d told people it was a divesture from an old business venture). The patio was a wide semicircle of dark granite with a low wall, about three feet tall, that separated it from the parking lot. There was a roof of reclaimed wood, built in a ramada style, over the patio with slowly turning ceiling fans.

  Jack cut a quick path through the outdoor tasting area. It was a Saturday, and they had a good crowd today. He greeted a few guests, recognizing a few regulars and club members. Jack also made a point to seek out some new faces to welcome them as well, introducing himself as Frank Fischer. Megan knew Jack’s real name, knew that “Frank Fischer” was a cut-out, and when Jack first told her, about eight years prior, it was an obvious (and understandable) fracture in their relationship. But, over time, she’d come to understand why he chose to keep those lives separate and decided that it was simply part of the package.

  So long as Gentleman Jack Burdette stayed retired.

  She called him Jack in private and Frank everywhere else, and she didn’t seem to mind the duality.

  “Hey, boss,” a jovial voice called from behind a counter in the center of the tasting room. He had a round face, bright eyes, and steel-colored hair.

  “Corky,” Jack said, smiling. Corky was a nickname he’d picked up while serving in the Air Force. He’d never explained to Jack what it meant, just that Jack wouldn’t get the story. Corky was one of their first employees. Originally, he’d worked part-time, just looking for something to do now that he’d retired from the military, but eventually he promoted to running the tasting room and now was in charge of all hospitality operations and the wine club.

  He diverted his attention momentarily to pour a tasting flight for a small group of customers at counter. “This is our Osprey, which is our Cabernet that we grow here on the estate. Our wines get warm sun throughout the growing season, but the marine layer comes in at night and cools everything off, which really helps the grapes rest and produce more sugar. You should pick up blueberry, black cherry, and a little chocolate on this one.” Corky turned back to his boss. “If you have twenty minutes, could you do the tasting for that couple at the end of the counter? Jenny is outside helping, and they’re both double-covered. I tried to get someone from Megan’s team to help pour, but she yelled at me.”

  Jack laughed. He scanned the bar behind Corky for what was open and interesting, not necessarily what matched their scripted tasting. Jack sold more wine on the stories behind the bottles than he did talking about tannin or flavor profiles. Jack also grabbed a glass for himself. It took him a couple trips back and forth to get everything set up.

  “Hey, folks,” he said with a wide, genuine smile. “My name is Frank Fischer, and welcome to Kingfisher. I’m sorry you had to wait a little. If you don’t mind, we’re going to go off-script a bit, and I’m going to share some of my favorites with you…”

  Jack put the thoughts of diamonds and urgency out of his head. He didn’t know why he stressed about it as much as he did. The one thing he could take comfort in was at least he and his partners were all on the same page.

  Wait it out until they had time to make the right play. This wasn’t the sort of thing you should rush.

  2

  Lago Maggiore, Italy

  The son of a bitch lived well, but this was not a home for a thief.

  There were far too many windows and too many blind corners.

  The house itself was two-story Mediterranean style, the color of an unripe peach. It was built on a terrace that overlooked Lago Maggiore from the west. The home was long and somewhat narrow, with the main living and dining areas extending out in a curved fashion that must have afforded incredible views of the lake. From where Enzo crouched beneath the stone arches surrounding a covered patio beneath the curved part of the house and facing the lake, he could see a small pool. A waist-high iron fence ran the length of the lawn. It was hard to tell because it was dark, but Enzo guessed it was a straight fifty- or seventy-foot drop from there. There was a steep slope and more trees that all spilled toward the lake. There was a Z-shaped stone staircase that led down to a dock. It was lit, but not well.

  Vito at least had security spotlights installed down below that shone up from the lake level.

  Enzo guessed the house was at least forty years old, perhaps more.

  The neighbors were close. Vito’s property butted up against them on both sides. The house next to Enzo, a yellow villa about half the size of Vito’s home, was dark and had the look of a vacation property. The one on the other side, Enzo hadn’t gotten a good look at. There were trees between them and a bit of a gap, but he could still jump from Vito’s wraparound balcony to the other one. Even at his age.

  Earlier that day, Enzo had driven by to get a look at the front. The house was built on the strip of land between the road and the cliff, along a two-lane north-south road that ran along the lake. Vito’s driveway was about as long as a stubbed-out cigarette, just enough room to pull in and enter the gate code. If the police or any of his enemies showed up one day, the only fast egress Vito would have was by boat, and even then, it required running through the house, exiting the patio, navigating those stone steps (God only knew what they’d be like in the rain) and then down to the boat at the dock.

  All that to say, it was a bad house for a thief.

  It was a house for a man who didn’t think he could be found.

  Enzo had been staking it out for two days.

  It rained off and on throughout the afternoon and the sky was still thick with dark clouds, creating a velvety blanket around the area that seemed to absorb all light. He’d made his way along the lakefront starting around eleven that night, and once he’d determined that Vito didn’t have any security cameras or motion sensors down here, Enzo snuck through the bushes to the stone staircase and quickly ascended, finding more than enough shadow. The house had been designed to maximize the views of the lake with as little obstruction as possible. So far as Enzo could tell, there was nowhere in the house one could actually see the stairs that descended to the water. Once he was up there, he moved along the rounded stone exterior to the covered patio and made sure that Vito wasn’t having a late-night swim or a cocktail.

  There were exterior lights here, which appeared to be more for decoration than security, but none of them were on. Enzo had seen Vito leave and return earlier that day. Enzo wanted to follow him, but he wasn’t practiced in tailing people and knew his limitations. That was hard enough to pull off with a single car, harder still in an off-season resort town. When he’d driven by the house earlier, Enzo slowed to make sure that Vito’s two cars were still there. One was a black Maserati Levante, the automaker’s luxury, high-speed SUV. The other was a Ferrari 246 Dino GTS in metallic midnight blue. The Dino was the first car that Ferrari produced in large numbers, and most aficionados believed it was one of the finest sports cars produced in the 1970s, with its sweeping and elegant curves. The car looked like a high-end escort. An interesting choice for someone with a nearly unlimited amount of money to spend. Or would have, once
he could get access to it. Between the house and the cars, Enzo was beginning to wonder whether Vito had found a buyer.

  Once he was sure it was clear, Enzo moved to the iron gate that led to the house. It was locked, but he picked the lock and opened the gate in less than ten seconds. The metal door was old and needed oil. When you were trying to be silent, every noise sounded like a scream, and this one sounded like a particularly aggrieved, unquiet dead. Enzo slid through the gate and closed it but didn’t engage the lock, just in case he needed a fast exit. There was an actual door on the other side of the gate, and at least this one had a high-quality lock. That took Enzo about twenty-five seconds.

  There was no security system. No cameras, no wires.

  The absence of a security system didn’t surprise him. Last thing a professional thief wanted was a device that sent a signal to the cops, but Enzo didn’t understand the lack of cameras.

  With the tools he carried, tightly packed in his backpack, Enzo could have made it through most home security systems, though the serious, professional-grade ones were beyond his ability. Enzo’s speciality was safes, and there were few better than he.

  There were no lights on in the house, and Enzo couldn’t see a damn thing in the hallway. There were no windows. His eyes were semi-adjusted to the dark already from being outside, but this was like staring into deep space. Enzo waited a few more moments, breathing slowly and quietly to calm his heart rate, but it was hard standing here in a dark hallway with no cover.

  He had no idea of the layout of Vito Verrazano’s house, no idea where a safe might be.

  Jack normally planned these things, worked out the details. Enzo’s job was the safes; the rest he left up to others.

  Left up to Jack.

  He wished his friend were here, was sorry that he wasn’t. But Jack wouldn’t listen to reason. And he was dead wrong to let these diamonds just sit here in Vito’s safe for two years. Maybe Jack was right and it would be very difficult, almost impossible, for Vito to move them, but “almost impossible” wasn’t certainty. The hardware in the driveway suggested that. Enzo knew he should have done this a long time ago. They’d waited way too long in trying to figure out a way to get the diamonds, and every day that ticked by was one more that said Vito Verrazano was going to find a buyer. You didn’t do something like he did on a whim.