I can see the glitter of tears in her eyes. Quieter, and less sure, she asks, “Was it all a lie?”
I cup her face, releasing her hands slowly as a sign of trust. “No. It’s not all a lie. I swear it.”
She sniffs, pouting and hurt, and I can see the deep pain beneath the puffed-out lip. “I don’t believe you.”
I swallow and let it all drop. I have to now. “If it was all a lie, I wouldn’t be here now. You’ve got your laptop back, and you more than covered for me with my family. If this wasn’t real, I would’ve already moved on.”
I run my thumb over her lip, hating the pain I’ve caused. Her eyes narrow, scouring my words for half-truths and lies. She’s looking for loopholes, the way she does her book plots, making sure every nuance is sealed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that next door is a cover home, a place to hole up away from my actual house so I don’t leave a trail. I’ve lived in a dozen or more places like that over the past few years. Poppy, I stayed because of you. If not, I would have blown out of here a week ago.”
She huffs. “I hate it when you use logic on me, especially when I’ve got a good fit happening. For a damn good fucking reason,” she reminds me with one last love pat, this time to my cheek. Even as she snaps at me, her anger is waning. She sags, slipping off my lap to the couch beside me. “Tell me the full story. All of it, every detail.”
That’s hard, and I sit silently for a moment before I get up and start pacing her living room, one way and then the other, as I try to put my thoughts into words. Nut and Juice follow me the first lap, but then they lie down in their bed and watch me walk, occasionally looking to Poppy for a clue about what’s happening.
I wish I knew too, but I’m as lost as they are about how we all got here.
“What I told you before wasn’t a lie, except by cutting the tale short. I did get started with pickpocketing and petty theft stuff. I got caught once, as a juvenile, for shoplifting, but my parents helped me get out of it. There was lots of volunteer work to make restitution. But they never let me forget it. From that point on, I was the black sheep. A criminal. Ungrateful for all they’d done for me. I could’ve chosen to be better, prove myself worthy to them. But I didn’t. I figured if they’d already written me off, then why bother trying to prove otherwise?”
I clear my throat, mentally staring off into the past. “Ironically, it was during all that community service that I met people who appreciated me. There were other juvenile delinquents, and they accepted my point of view and taught me things. They gave me some new connections. I fell further and further.”
“Connor, I know it’s going to sound bitchy, but right now, I don’t care about your spoiled rich kid problems,” Poppy says, rolling her hand expectantly. “Get to the art heist part.”
“I’m getting there, trust me. After I got those connections, I had a corner I’d hang out on, pickpocket the tourists. One day, I overheard this guy in a suit talking on his phone about a gallery showing. He said he was prepared to pay $10,000 for this painting if he could get his hands on it. I don’t know why I did it, but I followed him, saw where he worked and the name on the door.”
I think back, shaking my head at my stupid luck at my first art job. “The next day, I went to the gallery he mentioned and looked at the art. I’d been to museums on field trips, but that was the extent of my art knowledge then. But I had balls bigger than my brains and figured I could swipe it. So, I watched, waited, and in the end, it was easy.”
“Easy?”
I shrug. “You have no idea how slack security can be at galleries. They don’t even realize it because most of the customers are law-abiding, good people who aren’t going to swipe things. In the end, I literally slipped it right under my sweatshirt and walked out. Later that day, I showed up at that guy’s office, told him I had something for him.”