Nicholas said, “Isn’t five thousand two hundred dollars a month a lot of money in rent on a museum docent’s salary?”

“According to her personnel file, even once she was bumped up to curator, her annual take-home was sixty-two thousand dollars. So her salary didn’t even cover her rent, much less anything else.”

“It’s very possible the person who hired her is paying her way.” He leaned against the window. “And paying her a bucketload, you can be sure of that.”

“At least we know Anatoly isn’t the buyer.”

Mike joined him at the window, took a last glance at the city, cold and silent beneath her. She handed him a pair of nitrile gloves. “All right. Let’s take it apart.”

Mike started in the bedroom. She pulled out empty drawers and checked underneath. Nothing. No clothes in either the dresser or the closet. The bathroom cabinets and shower were empty, too. She tossed the rooms carefully and found exactly zip.

“Nicholas, are you finding anything?”

“No,” he called from the second bedroom. “This place is clean as a whistle.”

They met in the kitchen. Nicholas opened the refrigerator door. Cold inside, still running at maximum capacity, but empty, wiped clean.

“She knew she was taking off. Cleared everything out. The drawers are empty, bathroom’s spotless. Heat’s off. She thought of everything.”

Nicholas stood quietly, thinking. What would I do if I were Victoria Browning? If I needed to be completely undercover, off the grid? He said, “She never lived here.”

“But this was the address on her application; the leasing agent remembered getting her the place. And it matches the fake driver’s license she gave Tanya Hill.”

“She rented it, sure. But she never moved in. No one can keep a place this clean, not if they’re living here. It’s more proof the Fox is no zebra. She arranged a very precise identity, a full complete background—the works. We can run DNA in here, but we won’t find anything, at least that belongs to her. We know Victoria Browning is a false name. Why shouldn’t everything attached to her identity be false as well?”

Mike thought about it. “Do you think there’s a real Victoria Browning out there who’s an archaeologist? Who has no idea someone stole her name?”

“I’ll start running the name through all the databases while your team does a forensic sweep.”

“Knock, knock! Yoo-hoo!” Gillian Docherty was back, with three FBI crime scene techs. “I found them for you, Inspector Drummond.”

“Ah, Ms. Docherty. Brilliant. Thank you.”

Mike took her techs aside. “Find me something. This woman has already put two of our people in the hospital. If there’s DNA, fingerprints, anything, you pull it and call for me immediately.”

“Roger that, Mike. If there’s anything here, we’ll get it.”

“Thank you.”

She stepped back and watched them get to work. Nicholas was asking more questions of Gillian Docherty, but it was like trying to get blood from a stone. She didn’t know anything, was only playing along so she could flirt with the hot Brit.

Mike tuned everyone out, stood in the living room, looking out over the city, and ran through it again.

No zebra, Dad. What’s more, I’m missing something, something really big. If I were a master thief, how would I pull all this off?

A small tingle started in her back, at the base of her spine.

A big job like this, I’d plan it down to the very last detail, then I’d befriend someone who would help me. Someone on the inside I could use, then discard when the time was right.

Someone like Inspector Elaine York.

Surely sometimes zebras could be as devious as lions, too.

38

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Friday, 1:00 a.m.

Savich had called for some late-night pizzas to be brought in, a veggie delight for him and any other vegetarians, and plenty of pepperonis and sausages for the carnivores. Sherlock was chowing on a piece of pepperoni, happy as a clam. He joined her at a small computer desk.

“Careful. You don’t want to spill any of that on your gorgeous dress.”

“My gorgeous dress already smells like tear gas, and I doubt that’ll come out. And, to be honest here, I’m too hungry to care.”

Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” wailed from his pocket. “Good timing. There’s Nicholas now.” He answered the call, put it on speaker. “Before you say anything, Nicholas, a sweep of the Met security offices upstairs showed several cleverly placed bugs. Browning was able to monitor everything we did tonight. We’ve dismantled them all, but you might think to tell the techs to check her place for bugs as well. She is a very thorough woman.”

Mike said, “So she could be listening now? Well, if you are, Victoria, we’re coming for you. Savich, give us a minute, we’ll step outside the apartment.”

There was a brief delay, then Mike came back on the line. “We’re clear.”

“Did you find anything at her apartment?”

Nicholas said, “The apartment Browning leased was never lived in. Security cameras from the building don’t show her entering or leaving anytime in the past month, and it’s all they have; their cameras recycle the tapes on the thirtieth of each month. Right now, this woman is a ghost.”

“That explains why we’re hitting dead ends ourselves,” Savich said. “There’s nothing on the transportation grid—she didn’t get on a plane or train or bus, or we would have found her by now. She may be on the road, driving north to the border, but the facial-recognition system needs more time to process all the faces at the northbound tollbooths. We’ve alerted Canadian customs to the BOLO, sent it to the highway patrols as well. We’re going to need a wider net.”

Nicholas said, “She may be hunkered down somewhere in the city, letting her buyer come to her. We do believe she’s stolen the diamond for someone, not for herself. If we’re right, she stands to gain a great deal of money.”

Savich said, “It’s nearly two in the morning. I think it would be best to shut down for the night, let everyone get some rest, and start fresh in the morning. We’re having a meeting at 26 Federal Plaza at eight a.m.”

Mike said, “Yeah, you’re right, but I hate letting her get more hours ahead on us.”

Zachery leaned over from the workstation. “Time for a break, Mike. Sleep, get some food in you, and I’ll see you in a few hours. We need to give the databases time to catch up to her. We’ll find her, I know we will. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

They clicked off, and Savich stowed his phone, yawned.

Sometimes the only answer was getting a fresh start.

39

Over the Atlantic Ocean

Kitsune listened to Mike and Nicholas discuss her whereabouts with Agent Savich. She was sorry not to have met him; he sounded interesting.

Her staged apartment was bugged, he’d been right about that, with mikes in all the rooms, like she’d done at the Met. But he didn’t realize how thorough she was—she’d also bugged the hallway outside her apartment, all the way down to the elevator. It was a pity she couldn’t have miked 26 Federal Plaza, then she could have heard everything the Feds were planning.

She laughed. Mike Caine thought she had only a few hours’ head start? She had two years on them. The flat was a total dead end, $5,200 a month well spent. No DNA, folks, except for that fat leasing agent’s, so you might as well hang it up and go get some sleep.

If they found her real place, she’d know immediately; the door was rigged to blow, and an alarm would be sent to her phone.

But she doubted they would. It was many blocks away, in Hell’s Kitchen. She’d worn wigs and the clothes of a student down on her luck, plus a baseball cap, every time she went in or out. The rent was paid for another year, and she could disarm the bomb remotely if needed. Kitsune knew exactly how to cover her tracks. She’d been doing it for so many years it was second nature.