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In 1997, Sophie is Sarah Desmarais, a half-French, half-English art historian residing in Chartes and available for tours of the cathedral for visiting busloads of visitors, as long as you reserve two weeks in advance. She’s a good guide, drawing people’s attention to tiny, delightful carvings that might go unnoticed otherwise. She’s lovely in a girl-next-door sort of way, with her cheerful printed skirts and floral bohemian tops. Most people who leave her tours refer to her as “that sweet young woman,” or “the nice lady who showed us the cathedral.”
Her nights, however, are spent either charming the overawed son of a local politician, or the not-so-easily swayed but bored and neglected wife of a trucking line magnate. Sometimes, Sophie-Sarah closes her eyes, and forgets who she is kissing. When she slips away one night, several hundred thousand francs and one priceless ivory casket from the thirteenth century richer, she vows never to overschedule herself like that again. Work should be fun, after all.
*****
Sophie encountered Tara for the first time in a basement in Prague. The basement was supposed to be empty, and the safe which has taken her long hours to suss out the combination to is supposed to be buried in the floor. But when Sophie slides into the dark room, she discovered that she was wrong on both fronts. The safe turns out to be in the wall, and apparently there’s someone in the neighborhood with access to good-quality explosives, because the door is hanging sadly from one bent hinge, creaking slightly. The interior, of course, is quite empty. Sophie hissed a curse under her breath, and a shadow in the corner laughed.
“Too late, sweetie. What terrible timing.” The accent is American; the tone dry and amused.
Sophie turned to face the speaker, playing the flashlight in her direction. It was a tall blonde with a vulpine face, lean body, and a dangerous mouth. Also, a gun, although she doesn’t look too interested in shooting Sophie, who can generally tell the difference.
Sophie shrugged elaborately, arching her back just a tiny bit for effect. “Three months wasted. Damn and blast.”
“Were you after the gold?” The blonde stepped forward, holstering her gun. A canvas tote sat at her hip, no doubt the new home of all the goodies. “I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.” She let a smile crease the edges of her mouth and crinkle up her eyes, just enough to show the tiniest hint of warmth. Sophie noticed, her own lips quirking up in response. Oh, this was more fun than she had expected.
“Not the gold, actually - although that would have been a lovely little addition. I wanted the signet ring. Needed it for something further down the road. I’ll have to find a way around it, I suppose. I’ll consider it a lesson in proper humility.”
“What, this?” The blonde fished in her tote, her eyes never leaving Sophie’s face. She held out a heavy man’s ring with a dark red gem. It gleamed as the beam from Sophie’s flashlight found it.
“Tell me why you wanted it.”
Sophie laughed lightly. “I need to pass as a member of a very old family. That was going to be my unassailable evidence. I’ll tell you all about it, if you like. But I don’t think you’ve got the patience to run that particular game, sweetheart.” She looked pointedly at the exploded safe. “You look like the impatient type to me.”
“Impatient, impulsive...and definitely not interested in the long con. Tell me how it goes when I see you again.” The ring arced through the air, and Sophie caught it neatly. The blonde blew a kiss, and stepped out through the door. It would be another year before Sophie saw her again.
****
It’s a gorgeous spring day in 1989, and Sophie is presenting an equally pretty picture of English womanhood as she sits demurely in a green rowboat, parasol over her head. Her ruggedly handsome oarsman knows her as an architecture student named Ronnie (short for Veronica) and believes that she’s the pampered only daughter of a politician. He is attempting to con her, hoping she will be a willing source of money to fund his quite over-the-top drug habit and only slightly smaller gambling addiction. Once married to him, he assumes she’ll be the source for all the money dear daddy has suddenly become so stingy about. In fact, she has already gently coaxed out of him information that will be used to fleece his family out of two Renoirs and a fine collection of medallions from the Italian Renaissance, not to mention a pair of absolutely ravishing diamond earbobs the family has had in their possession for two centuries. But that’s still a bit in the future, and right now she’s enjoying herself without too much complication, trailing a hand in the greenglass water of the lake and watching the swans paddle past.
***
Sophie meets Tara for the second time in a bar in Singapore. The music is pounding while strobe lights flicker rapid-fire against the walls, and Sophie almost doesn’t hear the rustle as Tara slides into the booth out of nowhere, still beautiful in that lean, fox-faced way, still radiating an aura of ever-so-slightly-smug amusement.
“How did it go?” As if they had seen each other last week, instead of a year. As if Sophie hadn’t been forced to use every resource she possessed to put a name to the woman’s face, to find out the barest of tidbits about who she was and what she did.
“Oh, very well,” Sophie shrugs, smiles. “Took a little less time than I thought it would, even.”
“And the ring?”
“Buried it with him.”
Tara’s teeth glint in the darkness as she laughs. “That’s my girl.”
She’s gone again, and Sophie sips her drink to keep from laughing aloud.
***
It’s the rainy season in Manila, and Sophie is Charlotte Horton, Australian proprietor of a tour company offering scuba trips to outlying islands. It’s a bit of groundwork being laid for the big con, which will require a change in venue to Hong Kong, a new haircut, some diplomatic credentials, and the poshest British accent she can muster. She’s currently browsing some boat and crew options and doing her best to select the best ones. It may be a funny thought that her temporary persona will be responsible for a lot of happy tourists, but Sophie hates doing things by half-measures.
She scrolls through her inbox and comes across an email she’s been saving, one with a jpeg attached. It’s a grainy photo, clearly taken from a security camera, showing a lean blonde woman slipping out the door of a bank in Moscow. The woman has a gun held down by her leg, and a sense of purpose that transcends the terrible quality of the photo. Sophie studies it for a few minutes, then clicks away, back to the list of jolly boat captains.
***
It’s...later than it’s supposed to be, and Sophie is pretty sure this might be the one job she won’t see her way out of. Her mark has fled, she’s unarmed, and there are gunshots outside, getting closer. The house, an expensive vacation cabin on the edge of a national park in Idaho, is sadly short of anything resembling a safe room, a hidden crawl space, or even a nice roomy wardrobe. Anyway, she’ll not be dragged out from under a bed - imagine the indignity. Dragged out and shot...no, better not to linger on those thoughts. These don’t seem like the kind of boys that negotiate, but while there’s breath, there’s hope, and Sophie has wormed her way out of tight spots before. This wouldn’t be the first time the fox slipped the pack of hounds. Still, she crouches down next to the sofa - small protection against stray bullets, but all she has at the moment.
Abruptly, the sounds of gunfire cease, and long minutes go by in silence. Sophie is straining to hear something, anything that may give her a clue about what the hell is going on now. Have they shot each other? Are they waiting for her to walk out and provide them with an easy target? Sophie clenches and unclenches her fists, trying to figure out what the sudden quiet means.
And then the front door opens and, with graceful insouciance, Tara steps through the door.
“Miss me, sweetie?” she says, and Sophie stands up from her crouched position near the sofa.
“Allow me a second to recover, please? What the hell are you doing here?” Sophie brushes at the wrinkles in her dress, buying herself a little time to cover her complete surprise.
“Oh, you know, things happen. It seems like you may have needed a little assistance.”
“Yes, awfully. I admire your timing.” Well, well, well. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one reduced to staring at horrible security camera images. Sophie looks up through her eyelashes at Tara, flirting unabashedly.
Tara steps closer, slides a possessive hand down Sophie’s arm, laughs at the goosebumps that rise in the wake of her touch. “You had a plan, I’m sure.”
“Not a very good one. I like this one better - you eliminate all my enemies and I walk away? That’s a far better than anything I can come up with.” She steps in closer, leans against Tara so they’re shoulder to shoulder.
Tara slides a hand around Sophie’s waist, and bends in for a long, cool, unhurried kiss. It’s everything Sophie had thought it would be, and she’s spent a long time thinking about it. The kiss turns more insistent, and Sophie feels a bit like she’s just been claimed, something that doesn’t sit easily with her. So she returns the kiss, nipping at Tara’s lower lip, making her own kind of statement with a hand at the back of Tara’s neck and the light scrape of fingernails on soft skin. Tara pulls away and laughs in understanding.
“I have a fast car and a spare passport. And a desire to be far away from here very quickly. How does St. Kitts sound?”
“Like heaven, actually.”
They walk out together, hand in hand.