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button for the penthouse.

    Nick placed the blasting caps in the Semtex putty and emerged from Milton’s office just as “The Look of Love” was ending and the last of the crew members slipped out the front door with their bags. He glanced at his watch. They’d pulled off the heist with eleven seconds to spare. He walked across the living room and checked on the progress of the wedding ceremony outside. Caroline was radiating sex at the altar, and Milton was beaming.
    Nick felt his cell phone buzz with a text message from his crew leader.
The FBI is here! They’re everywhere!
    Nick calmly went back to Milton’s office, passed the safe rigged with plastic explosives, and strolled out onto the empty, city-facing side of the penthouse deck. He looked over the edge and saw the task force vehicles on the street. The building was surrounded.

    The elevator opened at the penthouse, and Kate stepped out into a short hallway. Two caterers rushed at her, knocking her out of the way. They jumped into the elevator, the doors closed, and the elevator descended. Kate walked through the living room and peeked out at the rooftop garden, where the ceremony was coming to an end. She scanned the crowd for Nick.
    “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” a jowly,black-robed minister asked the bride’s cleavage.
    “I do,” she said.
    “By the power vested in me by the State of Illinois,” the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
    The bride and groom kissed. The band and the singer belted out “Sweet Caroline.” Fireworks erupted over Lake Michigan, and the penthouse shook.
    Kate knew it wasn’t fireworks that rocked the building. It was a blast that came from the other side of the penthouse. She hurried across the living room, slipped on a splotch of spilled cocktail sauce, and clipped a tray of canapés that had been left on a serving table. Kate and the canapés went down to the floor in a clattering mess of tiny meatballs, avocado and spinach dip, smoked duck in soy sauce, and prosciutto cheese balls.
    “Freaking fudge!” Kate said. “Damn.
Mother fornicator
.”
    She scrambled to her feet and limped into the short hall that led to the master suite. Smoke was spilling out from under the closed and locked mahogany doors. Kate kicked the doors open, saw the scorched wall and the blown-open safe, and knew why Nick had planned a finale of fireworks. It was genius, Kate thought. You had to admire the man’s style.
    French doors opened off the master suite onto a balcony on which Kate could see Nick Fox facing her. He was sitting on the four-foot-high masonry balcony wall, his back to the city skyline. He smiled at Kate and gestured to her shirt.
    “I see you tried the canapés,” he said. “I made them myself.”
    Kate looked down at her splattered jacket and shirt, swiped up a glob of green and white goo and tasted it.
    “Avocado and spinach dip,” she said. “Needs salt.”
    “You’ll have to let me cook you dinner sometime.”
    “I’ll pass on that. I’m not crazy about prison ingredients.”
    “Neither am I.” He glanced over his shoulder at the twenty-story drop to the ground.
    Kate didn’t like what the glance implied. “Don’t do it, Nick.”
    “Would you miss me?”
    “Yes!”
    “How much would you miss me?” he asked her. “A lot?”
    “Don’t push it.”
    “Admit it, deep down inside you like me. You think I’m cute.”
    Kate narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to jump, or what?”
    Nick smiled, sent her a little wave, swung his legs over the wall, and disappeared from view.
    Kate felt her heart give a painful contraction. “No!” she shouted. “You idiot! I didn’t really want you to jump!”
    She crossed the balcony to the wall and peered over at Nick in time to see his customized handheld parachute open. She watched him for a minute as he glided toward the skyscraper canyons of downtown Chicago, ate a meatball that was stuck to