Chapter Ten:

Mildred didn't have anything to do. There was no filing to be done, no more tax returns to pore over, and no old cases to type up, no false paper trails to create. Nothing to do but think about her boss and his mentor and her other boss and their client. Not for the first time, Mildred wished she were twenty years younger and able to follow her employer during times like these.

Every five minutes or so she'd drag her eyes from the clock and pick up her purse, intending to go after them, but just as suddenly, she'd put it down again. She'd just picked it up for the thousandth time when the first of the merry robbers arrived.

"Matt!" Mildred shot of her seat and practically tackled the lawyer. "How's the boss? Ms. Holt?"

Matt collapsed onto one of the couches and closed his eyes. He'd spent three hours walking in a disrupted line away from the mansion before hailing a cab to the agency. "I passed Laura as I was leaving. She's fine but not happy. I don't know about the others. I lost track of Steele around the vault, but Chalmers was still going."

Mildred breathed deeply. Those watchdog instincts were acting up again. She was just about to begin another onslaught when Steele and Laura walked through the door.

"…I do not see how dressing like a prostitute was the only thing I could have done to keep him occupied, Mr. Steele!" Laura was saying for the third time that night. The hours between driving to the agency seemed to have done little for her mood.

Mildred jumped in before Steele could aggravate Laura's current mood even more. "Well, Boss, did you get it?"

Steele grinned his toothy smile. He lifted the plain brown package Mildred had failed to notice when they'd first walked in.

"Is that it?"

"It had better be!" Laura said shrilly, making Matt wince.

"Yes it is," Steele replied, laying the Rembrandt gently on the coffee table in front of Matt's couch.

"Well done, my boy! Any unforeseen problems?" Chalmers had slipped in without anyone but Matt noticing.

Steele moved aside to let Mildred open the painting like a teenager at Christmas—she was trying and failing to keep in her excitement—to address his mentor. "A few. We forgot about getting out."

"You didn't do anything to damage—"

"It's beautiful," Mildred interrupted, her voice soft in awe of the mastery in front of her.

"—our reputation," Laura continued where Chalmers had left off.

"Of course not!" Steele sounded scandalized.

"So there's no way they can trace us back to the robbery?" Matt cut in.

Chalmers fielded that one. "There never was."

"I don't know," Mildred said, unhelpfully.

"Mildred!"

"But Chief, I know you said he won't call the police because it was already stolen, but isn't he big enough to track us down by himself? I mean, the covers Mr. Chalmers' contacts and I made are good, but a rich scumbag like him has to have someone just as good at that kind of stuff."

Matt's stomach dropped like a shot duck as the meaning behind Mildred's words sank in. He hadn't even considered the possibility of Epps tracking them down through darker channels and wreaking havoc on his life. He turned slowly to face Steele, preparing to pummel the life out of him unless he came up with a good response to her inquiry in the next five seconds.

Steele cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his ribs, wondering when he'd become the man in front of the mob. "Well," he began. "That's what the disguises were for."

"And if he tracks us anyway?" Matt countered.

"Then you're in trouble," Steele agreed, and everyone, save Chalmers, stared at him, dumbstruck, before talking at once.

"But," Steele continued over the tumult. "I doubt he'll be able to make the connection to you, Mr. Murdock." Matt had to nod at that. After all, his blindness was the perfect alibi.

"And you?" Laura had gone ashen at the thought of the man who stood in the spotlight for Remington Steele Investigations being arrested for thievery. She'd never get another client!

"He won't chase us," Chalmers broke in for the first time. Everyone looked at (or turned to, in Matt's case) him. "The Rembrandt does not exist—in the art world of course. To the, shall we say, law-abiding citizens of the world, this particular self-portrait was destroyed in a fire in 1751. From then on, it has been passed from thief to thief. It holds no monetary value, only the reward of knowing that you have it until the next takes it from you. It is meant to be stolen, and therefore not retrieved once lost."

The room was silent until Matt spoke again. "What about the money you took for the Ruben's?"

"Why, I'm sure Mr. Epps will understand, right, Harry?"

OOOOO

Colin Epps' furious gaze landed on the thin envelope next to the painting he'd bought from that damn Duke or Lord or whatever he was called; the pain blasting into his skull with every beat of his heart was muddling his thoughts—damn brandy.

His hands shook almost imperceptibly as his fingers opened the envelope his useless head of security had given him. He stared at the contents for a long moment, his scowl frozen.

"We will catch them, sir. They—"

"No," Epps broke in.

Rickman knew his job was already on the rocks, but he had to get his employer to see reason. The men that had had the audacity to steal not just from Epps but from him, had to be taken down. It was that Duke, it had to be. There had been something wrong with him; he hadn't trusted him and his sniveling lawyer. And the two men he'd sent to ruffle the man's feathers had said some strange things… "But sir, the Rembrandt—"

"I said no!" Epps shoved the contents of the envelope at the stubborn Rickman. "None of this every happened, do you hear me? None of it!"

Rickman watched his employer of ten years, the man he'd respected for longer than that, exit the vault. He looked down at the paper Epps had given him. It was neatly typewritten note: "It's our turn now. Enjoy the Ruben's."