Excerpt of Take Me Two Times by Karen Kendall

Chapter One

Gwen Davies had a license to steal. Though she’d once been paid to re-cover furniture, she now got paid to recover missing art. For all intents and purposes, Gwen was a high-class repo man; just one who wore Dolce & Gabbana instead of a bad toupee. She stole for justice, on commission, and because it made her feel alive.

But a thief–even one with a permit–often encountered people who objected to her activities, so she had to stay in top shape. That explained why she was in this brutal joke of a gym on Brickell instead of at a coffee house with a venti Mocha and a nice, fattening Danish . . . or on Miami Beach, watching the sun come up.

Gwen was also there to kill off a relentless, recurring dream . . . starring a man she never wanted to see again—naked or not. Quinn Lawson wasn’t welcome between her sheets, but he turned up there almost every night she turned them down. He’d never been a man who waited for an invitation; he’d engraved his own right underneath her skirt.

On her fourth set of crunches, the tiny hairs on the back of Gwen’s neck rose, despite the fact that they were drowning in sweat at the end of a murderous workout. She couldn’t hear a sound over her own labored breathing and the groan of her muscles, but she acted on pure instinct.

Gwen hurled her body to the right with all the stamina she had left. She spun on her tailbone, raised her feet and kicked out, taking her would-be assailant down with a solid hit to the knees.

Armando Valys, a.k.a. “Cato,” crashed to the ARTemis gym floor and lay blinking for a moment before he grinned up at her, his spiky bleached hair making him look like a hung-over Miami sun. A very muscular, Cuban sun. “Not bad, Princess.”

Gwen grimaced at him, re-filled her lungs with the cold, fake gym air and flopped onto her back. She caught a whiff of stale sweat and eau de rubber from the mats under the fitness machines, as well as the more pungent odor of paint from the room’s freshly touched-up trim.

She sucked in another lungful of air and ignored the ripe odor emanating from Cato, despite the valiant efforts of his deodorant. He must have gone for a run in the Miami heat.

She stared up at the scratches and smudges on the bottom of a punching bag above her. Beyond it stood all the other exhausting equipment: the weight circuit, the elliptical, the treadmill and the rowing machine.

The sight of it all was enough to scare any self-respecting slug right back to the Godiva shop in the mall. Gwen briefly fantasized about her former days as a not-so-busy interior designer. A leisurely latte, a book of fabric swatches, a manicure followed by a long lunch . . .

And you were bored to tears. Remember?

Then there were the clients you wanted to tar, feather and ride out of town on their own custom curtain rods. Not to mention the battles with workrooms . . .

“Yep, not bad at all,” Cato said, sitting up in one fluid motion. His torso was a perfect isosceles triangle of buff, South Beach male.

“Not bad? You mean it was great.” Gwen shoved her feet under the toes of his trainers and finished her set of crunches. “Not only did I anticipate, but I brought you to the floor.”

“Don’t get a big head, missy. I caught you napping last week,” he reminded her.

“It was an off time of the month.”

“Oh that old excuse . . .”

Gwen sat up and leveled her gaze on him. “Listen, Cato–”

“Yes, Inspector Clouseau?”

“If you’d ever had PMS or cramps you’d understand. You got me one time out of the last, what, thirty attempts? Give me a break.”

“It only takes once. And a dead art recovery agent is not an effective art recovery agent.”

“Yes, Cato. Thank you, Cato. May I have another scare, please, Cato?”

“You bet, Mamita.” He winked at her and got up. “That’s my job: to keep all of you worthless agents in shape and on your toes.”

“And here I thought my Jimmy Choos took care of that.”

“They do, they do. But me and Jimmy? We’re like this,” Cato said, holding up two fingers close together. Then he laughed. “And we both make your ass look good.”

Gwen shook her head at him and wiped her face and neck on a towel. “Go do a sneak-attack on someone else.”

He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Gladly. I can’t believe I get paid to have this much fun.”

# # #

An hour later, Gwen walked into the Miami offices of ARTemis, Inc., Art Recovery Specialists. Outside, the breeze off the water was unseasonably humid and the royal palms yawned languidly under the insistent sun. Like most of the city, they weren’t eager to wake before ten a.m.

Gwen had traded her gym shorts for a silk Pucci dress with an empire waist, no pantyhose and a pair of cream sling-back sandals. She’d dried and gelled her short hair; the soft orange streaks picked up the tangerine hues in her dress. She looked pretty good for a repo man.

“Hiya, Doll-Face,” said Sheila. Sheila Kofsky was the ARTemis office manager and looked like a trendy white raisin with a cloud of improbably blond hair. She presided over the reception area and the wardrobe room, her inch-long acrylic nails striking fear into any would-be interloper’s heart.

Sheila always cut a somewhat astonishing figure. Today’s reading glasses were electric blue with little hot-pink flamingos painted at the top outside corners of the rims. She wore matching hot-pink lipstick and nail-polish, tight black pedal pushers, a tight black cleavage-revealing top and a hot-pink faux-linen jacket. But the pieces de resistance were the electric blue calf-hair mules that she had to have dyed herself.

Gwen still hadn’t figured out why anyone had hired Sheila. She swore like a sailor, had no couth and didn’t fit into the elegant atmosphere of the office. But she never missed a day of work and was a true genius with the recovery agents’ wardrobes and when necessary, disguises.

“Hi, Sheila. How are you today?”

“Never mind that. There’s another package for you from Sid Thresher.” Sheila reached under her desk and handed Gwen a box from Van Cleef and Arpel.

“You opened it?”

“Of course I opened it, doll. It’s part of my job.” Sheila grinned.

“It is not part of your job to unwrap it and steam open the personal card,” Gwen said, wondering why she bothered. Sheila was incorrigible.

“Saves you the trouble. Sid’s begging you to taste just a little of his Subversion and he wants you to wear these with the satin bustier and thong he sent last week.”

Subversion was Sid’s world-famous British rock band. Gwen had been targeted for seduction by an older, uglier, less stable Mick Jagger. She sighed and opened the box.

Inside was a pair of diamond chandelier earrings so long that they’d bang her shoulder blades if she were to put them on. They glittered in the fluorescent lighting.

Agent Eric McDougal sauntered through the front door, took a look and raised his ginger eyebrows. “Gwendolyn,” he drawled. “Whatever did you do to earn those?”

Gwen ignored him, shut the box with a snap and turned to Sheila. “Please return these immediately. Send Sid a computer-generated note saying thanks, but I can’t possibly accept.”

“Such a nice girl,” McDougal said sardonically. “So well brought up.”

Sheila closed the mouth she’d left hanging open. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No.” Gwen dropped the box on her desk.

“Listen,” Sheila said. “Why waste the postage? Just let me keep ‘em.”

“Send them back. I don’t want to encourage him. Sid is crazy and he makes my skin crawl.”

“Doll, I could do a lot of lying back and thinking of England for these beauties and maybe the matching necklace too . . .”

“Now there’s a visual,” said McDougal. He turned to Gwen. “Coming to the assignments meeting?”

Gwen nodded and followed him down the hall to the conference room. She sat down at the long maple table as if she belonged there with all the other art recovery agents.

She sipped at her morning fruit smoothie and reminded herself that she did belong there. Today she’d get her first solo assignment. She was a newly minted coin, just being put into circulation—and it was up to her to prove her worth.

Gwen scanned the faces of the other agents on the team.

Dante di Leo, who looked as if he owned the place but didn’t, leaned casually against the end of the table, reviewing his notes for the meeting. Since he was out of the field for now as he struggled with a broken leg, he ran the presentations and handed out assignments. Gwen much preferred Dante to McDougal. Dante looked out for her, tried to help her.

McDougal, despite the fact that he looked like a hot cross between Prince Harry and a young Paul Newman, could go kiss a speeding MTA bus. His wiry auburn hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed in a week—probably the last time he’d stopped partying and slept. On the table, he tapped out the rhythm to an unknown song with his thumbs, laser blue eyes far away.

Avy Hunt typed furiously into her Blackberry. Dressed in slim, dark leather pants and a snug T-shirt, her chestnut hair piled messily on top of her head, she did own the place—or at least half of it.

Little blond Chloe seemed hip and studious with her black, rectangular trendy eyewear and smooth asymmetric haircut. As usual, she had a Starbucks cup in her hand.

Valeria wore a smug feline expression, her black hair gleaming blue under the fluorescent lighting. She looked well-massaged and oiled, as if she’d just stepped out of an exclusive spa. As she dug into her Vuitton satchel, the diamonds on her fingers glittering, Gwen couldn’t help but hope that Cato would go after her next.

They all waited for Dante to start the meeting. Avy glanced at her watch and then at him.

Dante met her gaze calmly and took his time, maneuvering on his crutches to the laptop computer that would run his power-point presentation. “Lights, please.”

Gwen got up to hit them, but Sheila chose that moment to pop in. “Communiqué from Kelso.” She looked a little self-important over the bizarre reading glasses.

“And what does our fearless and invisible leader have to say?” Avy asked. Nobody had ever seen Kelso, though he owned 51% of the company. He operated off the grid and out of the ether—rather like Liam, Avy’s former thief fiance.

Sheila employed a hot pink nail to shove the reading glasses higher on her nose. “Word on the street, Ave, is that the Greek ambassador you got arrested is out for revenge. Kelso doesn’t know how or when, but he says to keep your eyes open. Possible mob connections.”

Avy nodded. “Is that it?”

Sheila stared at her. “Yeah, Sweet-Cheeks. The mob could be after you, that’s all. No biggie.”

Avy’s face remained serene. “Okay. The phone’s ringing. Will you shut the door on your way out, please?”

“I serve at your pleasure,” Sheila growled.

“And you give me so much of that, Kofsky.” Avy said it with a grin.

Sheila snorted and stomped out.

“Ambassador?” Gwen asked.

Avy nodded. “Three years ago, way before we brought you in to train, I did a recovery through Lloyd’s of London that ended with the arrest of Constantin Tzekas, the U.S. Ambassador from Greece. He was prosecuted for the theft of a Massaccio painting and deported in disgrace.”

“And now he’s out to get you?”

Avy shrugged, seeming unconcerned. “Apparently so.”

Gwen shivered. Avy was her former college roommate at Sweet Briar. She was close to fearless, but Gwen was not. She didn’t like the idea of anyone being after her best friend. Particularly not anyone with mob connections.

Dante looked concerned as well. He gestured with his head towards the lights, though, and Gwen turned them off. The first slide flashed up on the screen. “Toulouse-Lautrec,” Dante said, “circa 1892. Worth just shy of eight-hundred thousand.” A damning portrait of a night on the town in turn of the century Paris, the painting exhibited the ghoulish, overly painted faces of tawdry women in a nightclub and the men who leered at them. The hues were weird and bluish; the contour lines exaggerated—half witty, half menacing.

“This was stolen from the home of an elderly couple in Paris. There was no sign of a break-in and one of the possible suspects is their bachelor nephew. They want this kept quiet—no police. Chloe, you’ll take this one. The insurer is Giroux Freres.”

Chloe nodded, looking pleased, and Dante slid a file down the long table towards her.

“McDougal, you’re going to Scotland.” Dante flashed the next slide. “An entire suit of armor, 16th century, has walked out of the Great Hall at Edinloch Castle. It belonged to the current Duke of Edinloch’s ancestor, who fought in the battle of Arkinholm while wearing it, so he wants it back. It’s not insured.”

Dante’s lips twitched. “As he put it, “Ach! Why the fook would I insure a bloody bit o’ tin?” So he’s paying us a flat ten percent fee for the recovery plus expenses.”

“Just tell me the ancestor’s bones aren’t still rattling around in there,” said McDougal, yawning. “What’s the tin man worth?”

“Conservative estimates put it at four-hundred thousand.”

Dante sent another file folder spinning towards McDougal, who didn’t look as pleased as Chloe.

Poor guy, he’d collect a mere forty thousand for his troubles. Gwen would be lucky if they gave her a piece with a five or ten thousand dollar commission.

The sight of the next slide produced a couple of audible gasps within the room.

A Venetian mask stared sightlessly out at them. It was not made out of painted paper, but of pure gold with stylized peacock feathers picked out around the eyes in diamonds, sapphires and emeralds. A fringe of faceted diamonds, sapphires and emeralds poured like a priceless waterfall from the bottom of it and would completely obscure the face of the wearer.

“You are gazing at five point four million dollars,” Dante said. “This mask is a Columbina Oriente dating to 1508. It was created for a cousin of the Borgia family who resided in Venice. He was being cuckolded by his wife, who had a much younger lover.

“While the wife enjoyed her fresh meat—-please pardon the expression–the husband plotted revenge. He had the mask painted inside with a lethal poison, just in time for the Venetian Carnivale, a celebration before Lent.”

“Not coincidentally,” Dante added in dry tones, “the term Carnivale literally means to ‘remove meat.’”

A ripple of laughter went through the room.

“Ecco lo,” he continued, “The wife’s lover, delighted to receive such a lovely gift from his inamorata, donned it immediately and paraded about—only to die writhing in agony hours later. And voila,” Dante said with a flash of white teeth and a flourish. “The husband’s rival meat was . . . removed.”

As Avy’s Blackberry vibrated on the conference table, Valeria said avidly, “I want this recovery.”

Dante didn’t even cast his hooded eyes towards her as he shook his dark head. “The mask, as the plum assignment, goes to Avy.”

Avy wasn’t even listening, her gaze intent on the screen of her Blackberry. She began to type a response with her thumbs.

Valeria blew out an audible breath of resentment and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Of course. I should have known.”

“This mask was, until recently, part of the corporate art collection at Jaworski Labs, right here on Brickell. It was stolen from there two nights ago–”

“Wait,” Gwen interrupted. “Why would a pharmaceuticals company have an art collection? Isn’t that odd?”

“Not at all,” Dante said. “Banks, insurance companies, technology giants—-many of them seek to diversify their assets through acquiring art. And in the case of Ed Jaworski, the founder of the lab, his wife was an artist. So the old man began stockpiling art in the ‘seventies, before the insanity of the ‘eighties market. Smart move. That art collection is one of the only reasons the company’s been able to ride out some of its storms.”

“Like the recall of their cholesterol drug and the resulting class action suit,” McDougal said.

Chloe frowned. “Wasn’t there some kind of scandal with Jaworski about a year ago, something about a painting?”

Avy finally punched ‘send’ on her Blackberry and looked up. “Yeah, you could say that. The CEO of Jaworski was taking great care of a Renoir original acquired with company funds—-he hung it over the couch in the living room of his Fisher Island home. He claimed, of course, that he only had it at his place for safekeeping.”

“Nice,” Gwen murmured.

Avy stood up and shoved her Blackberry into her battered Dior saddlebag. “They found other irregularities, too. Old Jaworski is still on the board and he made sure the guy got canned. He brought in some whiz kid to run things. The guy’s only thirty-five.”

She looked around the table and drummed her fingers on top of the file folder Dante had slid down to her. “I’m sorry but I have to catch a plane. I’ll be in Europe for a couple of weeks but I’ll stay in touch.”

Her eyes came to rest on Gwen’s face. She nodded once decisively, and then turned to Dante. “Give the mask assignment to Gwen. She can handle it.”

Dante’s jaw went slack as he stared at her. “Gwen’s a rookie!”

“Green as a god-damned salad!” said McDougal.

Around her, Gwen could feel the resentment pulsing in the room as the other agents simmered. She couldn’t really fault them. “Ave, I don’t think–”

“Gwen will do the recovery on the mask,” Avy repeated. “This isn’t up for debate.”

Valeria stared coldly at Gwen. Her eyes were baleful and promised trouble. She turned her gaze back on Avy. It didn’t get any friendlier.

“You’re the boss,” Dante said at last.

Avy headed for the door. “Glad you remember that.” Her departure didn’t ease the tension in the room and nobody would look at Gwen.

She felt exhilarated. Guilty. Terrified. Alive. And possibly unworthy. Her first assignment had a commission of over half a million dollars? Crazy.

Dante switched to the next slide. “Valeria, you’re going to Brazil . . .”

Gwen opened the file folder Avy had pushed at her and stared down in silence at the mask. The thing was breathtakingly beautiful; the epitome of mystery and glamour. It spoke of sultry Venetian nights, elegant debauchery, freely flowing wine . . . and evil.

The mask was instantly recognizable. Once the alert went out and it got listed on the International Stolen Art Register, the mask would be impossible for anyone to sell on the open market. It would be almost as challenging to unload the piece on the black market. So who had stolen it–and why?

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