She reached into her jacket and pulled out a second card. Identical. “This is a duplicate. I want you to take it, walk out the front door, and lead Vane’s men on a merry chase through the city. You’ll be the decoy. I’ll take the real painting—the real card—out through the service elevator.”
“Dinner is for survivors, Chris.” She pressed the elevator call button. “Try not to die before dessert.” chris diamond miss lexa
“The owner is tied to a chair in his wine cellar wearing only his golf socks,” Miss Lexa said, standing. She moved like a panther with a headache. “I know. I watched you on the thermal feed from my car. Lovely technique with the lockpick, by the way. Very theatrical.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out a second card
“But you wanted to.” Lexa smiled, and it was worse than her frown. “That curiosity is exactly what I need. Inside that frame is a micro-SD card. Not a painting. The painting is a forgery—a very good one, painted by a forger in Prague who owes me his life. The real payload is the data on that card. Bank accounts, offshore holdings, and a list of every dirty judge on the federal bench.” I want you to take it, walk out
“The original deal,” she continued, pouring herself a glass of the owner’s Macallan 30, “was for you to steal this painting and deliver it to a dead drop. But I had a secondary objective. A test.”