Page 32 of The Diamond Thief
He senses my hesitation. “There is certainly at least that much honor among thieves,” he says. He leans forward so that his hand reaches more closely to mine.
I can see each of his nails, the creases of his knuckles. I remember those fingers on my body. My throat involuntarily swallows.
Besides, he can’t kill me now. He doesn’t know where his swords are.
I reach out and take his hand. He holds tightly to a branch above him, giving me leverage to shift my weight to the new branch and move beside him.
“Now, isn’t that better?” he asks.
Jacob turns to grin at me, and I can’t help but feel like we are two kids playing in the backyard. It’s the most unusual feeling.
I’m not usually this comfortable around other people in general. I mean, I used to be, but ever since I joined the Den, there has been a lot more to my anxiety about getting close to other people. We are actual villains, and it’s impossible to know who to trust.
But I don’t feel distant with Jacob. In the hierarchy of villainy, he sits squarely at the top. He doesn’t kill people, as far as I know, but he has stolen a lot of things. Pretty much everything he owns has been built on an empire of someone else’s riches.
The thing I cannot forget, however, is that he is playing me. Same as I played him a week ago. There will be a reckoning for all that soon, but unless he plans to dispatch me from a tree and never learn the location of his swords, I am relatively safe.
In fact, I’m completely safe as long as I don’t tell him anything. And that’s pretty much exactly what I intend to do.
“I haven’t climbed a tree in ages,” he says. “Probably not since I did a job on an individual in Central Park in my, oh, mid twenties?”
“You did a plain old stick ‘em up? That doesn’t sound like a job by Jacob Holt.”
“So you know my style.”
“Of course,” I say. “Anyone who’s from the Den knows you.”
I guess we’re going to ignore the elephant in the room. Or the tree, I guess. The fact that he also knows me. I don’t get why he’s not admitting it. But I will continue to go with it. I want to get to the bottom of his game.
“Were you a tree climber as a kid?” I ask.
“Absolutely. My friend Peter and I would always try to build one tree house or another in the acreage out where we lived.”
“Oh, so you didn’t grow up in Manhattan?” I always picture people like Jacob Holt being born literally with silver spoons in their mouths. A silver spoon stolen from someone else, of course. It is generally known that the biggest and most successful members of the Den come from a long line of family in the profession.
“No, I was just a normal kid who had normal parents. My dad, Arnold, worked at a shoe factory. My mom, Imelda, sold jars of jam and pickled things on the side.”
Okay, that story is clearly fake. “Arnold and Imelda? Shoe factory and pickles? So exactly what 1950s sitcom did you get the story from?” I ask.
He laughs. “It’s ridiculous because it’s true. Small farming community. They had square dances.”
“Do you square dance?”
“I could manage a properdo si doin the right circumstance.”
His grin is pure mischief, and I wonder if I’m seeing a side of Jacob that is rarely shown. Or if it’s still all part of his plan. Establish a rapport with the victim. Antony taught us that, for the close-up stuff. If they like you, they have a hard time suspecting you would screw them.
“So tell me about yourself,” he says. “You never said what interested you most from the collection.”
I decide not to kid around. “The Fife tiara,” I say. “It’s been like a ghost crown for over a century.”
“It’s quite beautiful. I saw the image.”
“It’s more than beautiful. It’s…” I falter. I can’t quite describe my fascination with it. “It’s heavenly.”
“So why tiaras?” Jacob asks. “Did you play a lot of princess as a girl?”
I brush a bit of bark off my pants. A bird settles on a nearby branch, black-winged and glossy. “Quite the opposite, actually. I was discouraged, if not outright banned, from feminine pursuits. Unlike you, I come from a long line of thieves.”
