a hundred and fifty years old.
Mackenzie loved old maps, but she knew better than most that they weren’t always what they appeared to be. Forgery was a serious problem in her business…and so was theft.
“Where did you say you got this?” she asked casually as she put her magnifying glass to the map.
“I didn’t,” he said just as casually. “It belonged to a friend of mine. He’s had a hell of a lot of bad luck lately—he got divorced, then lost his job when the company he worked for shipped out to India. Last week, he lost his house.”
“So he was desperate and sold a family heirloom,” she concluded. “Or was he a collector? Maybe I know him.”
“A collector?” he scoffed, laughing shortly. “Not hardly. He’s into motorcycles and NASCAR. His grandfather left him the map years ago—he was just hanging on to it for a rainy day. He doesn’t even have money for an apartment. It’s not just raining—it’s a damn hurricane.”
“I see.” Continuing to examine the map, she saw, all right, more than he wanted her to. His story had lie written all over it and didn’t make a bit of sense. If the real owner had been saving it for a rainy day, the last thing he would have done was sell it to a friend when he was in desperate straits. Instead, he would have taken it to Sotheby’s or another high-dollar auction house that would have advertised it and gotten him a fortune for the sale.
If, she silently amended, the map was authentic. Looking at it under the glass, she had to admit that she had her doubts. There were file notations from the U.S. War Department on the back of the document that didn’t quite look right. And while that might not be enough to indicate that the map was a forgery, the fact that the present owner and previous one were strangers to her made her very uneasy. The people who collected the more valuable Civil and Revolutionary War memorabilia were a relatively small group. Everybody knew everybody else, for the most part, especially in the Washington, D.C./Virginia/Maryland area. And she had never laid eyes on the man standing before her.
If she had, she certainly would have remembered him. With his sharp green eyes, wavy black hair and chiseled good looks, he wasn’t the kind of man a woman forgot.
Especially when he smiled. Those dimples of his were downright dangerous.
Suddenly realizing she was staring at the sensuous curve of his lips, she stiffened. What was she doing? She didn’t care how good-looking the man was, he may very well be trying to selling her a forged map!
Deliberately pulling her attention back to the document spread out before her, she was tempted to buy it just so he couldn’t walk out with it and sell it to someone who might mistakenly think it was authentic. Just the idea of giving money to a crook for what was nothing but a forgery, however, outraged her.
Think! she told herself fiercely. There had to be something she could do. If she told him she had a customer who might be interested, but she couldn’t get an answer from him for at least three days, that would give her time to research not only the legitimacy of the map, but any recent news about it.
But even as the words hovered on her tongue, she knew she couldn’t let him walk out with the map with the promise that he would return in three days. The odds were he wouldn’t, and the map—if it really was authentic—would be lost forever. She had to do something now!
The decision made, she set down her magnifying glass with a snap and looked up at him with narrowed eyes that missed little. “What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” he replied easily. “But you can call me O’Reilly.”
Making no attempt to hide her suspicions, she said, “Where’d you really get the map?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And well you should,” she retorted. “You’re lying through your teeth and we both know it. The map, if it’s real—and I have my doubts about that—has file notes on the back. So tell me, O’Reilly, where did the map really come from? Did you steal it or create it?”
He didn’t even blink. “No.”
“It’s not stolen?”
“No.”
“So it’s a fake,” she concluded.
“I didn’t say that.”
No, it’s not stolen. No, it’s not a fake. That’s all he said…just no. Frustrated, Mackenzie couldn’t believe his audacity. No explanation, no nothing. Snatching up the map, she held it out to him. “I don’t believe you. Take it and get out. I don’t deal with thieves or forgers.”
Patrick had to give her credit. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! He almost believed her. It was her eyes, he decided. They were big and blue and bright with indignation. How could a woman with eyes like that, with the face of an angel, possibly be a thief?
Watch it, a voice in his head growled. If you’re not careful, you’re going to become obsessed with the woman.
It was the case he was obsessed with, he told himself, not the woman. But he’d been watching every move she made for the last three weeks without her even being aware of it, and it was her face he saw when he investigated the sales on eBay. It was her smile he saw through the lens of his camera when he set up surveillance and watched everyone who walked through the front door of her shop for days on end. And at night, when he left the office and the case behind and went home, it was the woman herself he couldn’t get out of his head when he crawled into bed.
He shouldn’t have come here today, he silently acknowledged. And he certainly shouldn’t have approached her without another agent with him to witness what went down. It was totally against procedure.
But the more he investigated Mackenzie Sloan, the more she confused him. She looked like a modern-day Princess Diana, for God’s sake, and there wasn’t a hint of scandal attached to her name. So how was she up to her pretty little ears in the sale of stolen antiquities? Frustrated, he’d been on the way home from work when he’d decided on the spur of the moment to stop by her shop and confront the lady face-to-face.
In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and mocked, “You don’t deal with thieves, huh? That might be easier to believe if you weren’t one yourself.”
Surprised, she gasped, “What are you talking about? I’ve never stolen anything in my life!”
“Oh, really? Then what would you call this?” And reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a second yellowed piece of paper.
Watching her closely, Patrick saw her eyes flare at the sight of a playbill from Ford’s Theatre that was given to theatergoers the night of Lincoln’s assassination. It was her nearly soundless gasp, however, that told him everything he needed to know. He wasn’t surprised she recognized the stolen document. She should have.
She was the one who’d sold it to a private collector on eBay.
Chapter 2
Outraged, Mackenzie couldn’t believe he was serious. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said coolly. “If you’ve never stolen anything in your life, what would you call this? This was Lincoln’s
