Sweet Revenge

by Nora Roberts

  It was rare for him to sleep at all before a job. The problem with some professions was that they never became routine or ordinary or boring enough to be taken for granted.

  The Sun and the Moon. There would have been a time, in the not so distant past, when the idea of holding it, of taking it, would have satisfied him for weeks. Now he wished the damn thing were over, that he had Adrianne tucked up in Oxfordshire before a cozy fire with a couple of wolfhounds at his feet.

  Must be getting old.

  Must be, God forbid, becoming conventional.

  The truth was he was in love, and it still wasn’t easy to swallow.

  He ran a fingertip over the ring she wore, the diamond circle he’d slipped onto her finger during the circus that had passed for a wedding. It meant something, more than he’d ever expected, or wanted, such an ordinary symbol to mean. She was his wife, the woman he wanted to take home, to show off to his mother, to plan the future with.

  Plan the future. He lifted his free hand to drag his hair back from his eyes. He’d taken a big leap in a short time from planning the next evening’s entertainment to thinking of children and family dinners. But he’d taken leaps before and always, until now, had landed on the balls of his feet. A good cat burglar needed balance as well as dexterity. He’d need both tonight.

  A pity it couldn’t have been a simple wedding night. Champagne, music, and madness until dawn. Though he’d had to admit there’d been madness enough before they’d slept. She’d been like a volcano, smoking, dangerous, and the ultimate eruption had left him trembling like a teenager in the backseat of a car. The hesitations and fears she’d brought to their first bed had been swallowed up by the passions he’d seen smoldering in her eyes. The tensions they’d both lived with since coming to Jaquir had been forgotten, if only for a few hours.

  They were partners in bed, and now, for better or worse, they’d be partners in revenge. He touched a hand to her cheek, murmured her name. She woke instantly.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Just after one.”

  With a nod she was up and dressing.

  They’d worn white that afternoon. Tonight it would be black. There was no need for words as they checked tools, secured belts. Adrianne slung a thin pouch crossways over her breasts. In it were wire clamps, a remote control, a padded box, her files, and a brass key.

  “Give me thirty minutes.” She checked her watch, then punched in the stopwatch mode. “Don’t leave the suite before two-thirty or you’ll risk running into the guard in the east wing.”

  “We wouldn’t have to separate if we moved quickly enough.”

  Like him, she snapped on surgical gloves. “Philip, we’ve been over and over this. You know I’m right.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Just concentrate on the combinations.” She rose on her toes to kiss him. “Luck.”

  Yanking her back, he kissed her harder. “Only the best.”

  Like a shadow, she was out of the room and gone.

  She had to think of it as she did any job, coolly. She’d planned it that way. She’d waited that way. Now that the night she’d waited for all her life was here, she was jittery as a first-time shoplifter at Macy’s on a slow day. She moved fast, keeping close to the walls and listening, listening, listening.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, and here and there were patches of moonlight where a window hadn’t been latticed. There were fortunes in the hallways and small parlors—Indian ivory, Chinese jade, French porcelain. They interested her no more than trinkets at a flea market. The guards interested her. Adrianne hurried down the staircase to the first floor.

  Here was silence. She listened to her own pulse. Flowers that had been shipped in from Europe for her wedding added a sweet scent. A pair of white doves slept in a gold cage in the midst of a thousand petals. Adrianne slipped past them, past the salons, the great hall, the offices. The door to the security room was built unobtrusively into a corner. Guests should be protected without being bothered with mundane matters such as alarms and weapons. Holding her breath, Adrianne slid the hidden door aside.

  She waited five beats, ten—but the darkness and silence remained constant. Her rubber-soled shoes were noiseless as she stepped inside and closed the door at her back. Here the stairway was steep and open. If her timing was off and she was caught, there would be no place to hide and no excuses to be made. Without a light, with no banister to guide her, she couldn’t go quickly and risk a fall. Cautious, too slow for her peace of mind, she descended.

  Because her heart was hammering when she reached the bottom, she forced herself to take long, deep breaths. A glance at her watch showed her she had twenty minutes to deal with the alarms before Philip touched the first dial. Time enough. Taking out a small, wide-beamed flashlight, she scanned the room.

  There were packing crates stacked as high as two men. The layer of dust told her they weren’t new. Taking up one wall was a glass cabinet, double locked. In it rifles were stacked like soldiers. Oil gleamed on the barrels. On the opposite wall was the alarm. Trying to ignore the guns at her back, Adrianne went to work.

  The system for outside security she left alone. It took her five sweaty minutes to unscrew the plate on the alarm and identify and clamp the first wire. There would be twelve in all, four for each lock. Precisely, with the specs of the alarm focused in her mind, she wove through, going through the color codes in order. First white, then blue, then black, then red.

  She glanced up at the ceiling, wondering if Philip was in position yet. Two alarms were disengaged, but the tension remained a solid knot at the base of her skull. The slightest error now, and a lifetime of planning would be dust.

  She’d located the last wire and was reaching for a clamp when she heard the footsteps. With no time to panic, she pressed the shield back into place and finger-turned a single screw to hold it before she dove behind the crates.

  There were two of them, each armed with a pistol snug in a shoulder holster worn over a throbe. Their voices, pitched at a normal range, sounded like gunshots in her head. Adrianne rolled herself into a ball and held her breath.

  One was complaining about the extra night work required because of the wedding and guests. The other was more philosophical and bragged about a recent trip to Turkey where he had sampled the whores brought in from Budapest. His wife now had the syphilis he’d passed on to her.

  The lights came on before they stopped less than a foot away from where Adrianne tried to meld with the crates. With a laugh the second man drew out a magazine from under his robes. On the cover was a woman, naked, legs spread, with her hand at work between them. Palace guards or not, if the matawain had discovered the book, they could lose a hand or an eye. Sweat dripped down Adrianne’s neck as the minutes ticked away from her.

  A Turkish cigarette was produced and lit while both men pored over the pictures. The smoke drifted over Adrianne and made her head spin with whatever it was laced with. One man reached down to stroke himself before passing the cigarette back to his companion.

  She listened to the grunts and the remarks that might have made a long-time prostitute blush. One man shifted so that the hem of his throbe almost brushed her foot. She could smell the sweat on him. Bargaining ensued, good-natured at first, then more intense. She didn’t dare shift, even enough to look at her watch. Philip would be overhead now, perhaps with his fingers on the first dial. At any moment the alarm could scream. Everything would be lost.

  Money changed hands. The magazine disappeared. The cigarette was extinguished and the butt secreted away. Through the pounding in her ears she heard their laughter. They moved on and she waited in torment for the light to go out.

  The moment it did, she was up. There was no time for caution now. The dial on her watch showed her she had only ninety seconds to clamp the last wire.

  Her mouth was dry. Both that and the nausea were a new experience. When she pulled off the shield it nearly slid through her n
umb fingers. Forty-five seconds. She braced the shield between her knees and picked through for the wire. Her hand was steady, so steady it seemed to belong to someone else, not the woman whose skin was soaked with sweat. With the delicacy of a surgeon she looped it. Twenty seconds. She slid the clamp over the loop, turned, fastened.

  Adrianne rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth before she looked at her watch again. Two seconds. She waited, counting them off. Then she stood, patient, counting off another full minute. No alarm broke the silence. She stopped praying long enough to reattach the shield.

  Philip’s fingers were nimble, and his ear was keen. He worked with the patience of a master jewel cutter. Or thief. Part of his brain asked the same question over and over as he listened for the click of tumblers. Where was she?

  It was fifteen minutes beyond the optimum time they’d calculated for her passage through the halls to the vault room.

  Through her amplifier he heard the satisfying clatter that meant the first lock was freed. She’d dealt with the alarm. It was some small comfort. He caressed the second dial, tilted his head, and kept his eye on the door. Five minutes more, he promised himself. If she didn’t show in five minutes, he’d go find her and the hell with the necklace. He flexed his fingers like a pianist about to arpeggio. The first tumbler fell just before he heard the doorknob turn. He was behind the door and pressed flat when Adrianne stepped in.

  “You’re late.”

  The giggle escaped and told her how close her nerves were to snapping. “Sorry, I couldn’t get a cab.” She reached for him, held on, and that was enough to steady her.

  “Trouble?”

  “No, not really. Just a couple of guards with a dirty magazine and some Turkish dope. It was quite a party.”

  He tilted her head up to his. Her eyes were clear and steady but she was pale. “I’ll have to remind you you’re a married woman now. Next time you don’t go to a party unless I’m invited.”

  “It’s a deal.” She pulled back, amazed at how quickly the fear had drained. “Any luck?”

  “What a thing to ask. Better start working on the key, darling. I’m almost through.”

  “My hero.”

  “Keep that in mind.”

  They worked side by side, Philip on the last combination, Adrianne on the unwieldy key. Twice he stopped her because her filing distracted him.

  “That’s that.” He stepped back. “I’d almost forgotten what a delightful sound tumblers make.” With a quick check of his watch, he grinned. “Thirty-nine minutes, forty seconds.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “You owe me a thousand pounds, darling.”

  She swiped sweat from her brow as she glanced up. “Put it on my tab.”

  “Should have known you’d welch.” Sighing, he bent over her shoulder. “Nearly done?”

  “I gave you the easy part,” she muttered. “It’s a very complicated design. If I take too much off at once, I won’t be able to make it work.”

  “I could try my hand at picking it. Might eat up an hour.”

  “No, I’m getting closer.” She put the key in, turned it gently left, then right. She could feel the resistance in her fingertips. With her eyes closed she could almost see the brass rubbing against the fittings. Pulling it out again, she filed a fraction here, a fraction there, adding drops of oil, then switching to sandpaper for the more intricate work. Her fingers cramped like a surgeon’s during a long, tedious operation.

  It took thirty more long minutes. At last she slid the key in, turned, and felt the lock give. For a moment she could only kneel where she was, the key still in her hand. All of her life she’d been driven toward this moment. Now that it was here, she couldn’t move.

  “Addy?”

  “It’s a little like dying, you know? To finally accomplish the most important goal in your life. To know that when it’s done, it’s done, and nothing else you ever do will have the same impact.” She drew the key out, then placed it back in her pouch. “Still, it’s not done yet.” Taking out the remote control, she punched in the code. The light blinked red. The diamond on her finger flashed as she set the bypass. The red light winked out and its mate lit in a steady green.

  “That should do it.”

  “Should?”

  She turned to smile at Philip. “It didn’t come with a warranty.”

  Because he understood, he stepped back and let her pull open the vault door herself. There was a rush of hot air. Adrianne could almost hear it. Perhaps it was the long-dead queen weeping. She swept her light into the vault, where it glinted on gold and silver and precious stones.

  “Aladdin’s cave,” Philip said. “Every thief’s ultimate fantasy. My God. I thought I’d seen everything.”

  Gold bars were stacked in a waist-high pyramid, silver ingots beside them. There were cups and urns and platters made out of the same precious metals, some crusted with jewels. A woman’s headdress with rubies dripping like blood was set beside a crown starred with diamonds. In a chest which Adrianne opened were uncut stones deep enough so that a man could reach in and bury his arm to the elbow.

  There was art as well, works by Rubens, Monet, Picasso. The kind of paintings Abdu would never display in the palace but that he would be wise enough to invest in. They caught Philip’s eye, taking his attention away from the flash of jewels. He stooped, playing his light over canvases and thinking.

  “The king’s treasure.” Adrianne’s voice echoed dully. “Some bought with oil, some with blood, some with love, some with treachery. All this, and my mother died with nothing but what I could steal for her.” He straightened and turned to her. “And the worst, the worst is that she died still loving him.”

  Gently, Philip ran his thumbs over her cheeks to dry the tears. “He isn’t worth it, Addy.”

  “No.” With a sigh she rid herself of the rest of the grief. “I’ll take what’s mine.”

  She turned her light on the opposite wall, skimming slowly. When she found it, The Sun and the Moon seemed to explode with life.

  “There.”

  She moved toward it. Or perhaps it pulled her. Now her hands did tremble, but not from fear, not from grief. From excitement. It was enclosed in glass, but the glass couldn’t dim the fire. Love and hate. Peace and war. Promise and betrayal. One had only to look at it to feel the passions and the pleasures.

  All jewels were personal, but none would ever be so personal as these.

  Philip played his light over the necklace, crossing and merging the beam of his with hers. “God, it’s more than I imagined. Nothing I’ve ever fantasized about taking compares to it. It’s yours.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Take it.”

  She lifted it out and held it. It was heavy. Somehow the weight surprised her. It looked like an illusion, as if it might pass through the hands of anyone who tried to claim it. But it hung heavy in hers, pulsing with life, glowing with promise. As the light ran over it, she could almost see the flow of blood that had washed it so many years before.

  “It might have been made for her.”

  “Perhaps it was.”

  That made her smile because she knew he understood. “I always wondered what it would be like to hold my destiny in my hands.”

  “And?”

  She turned to him, the necklace draped over her hands like a promise. “I can only remember how it sounded when she laughed. My one regret is that I can’t give it back to her.”

  “You’re doing more than that.” He thought of the rat-infested building in Manhattan that Adrianne was going to turn into an abuse clinic. “She’d be proud of you, Addy.”

  With a nod she took the roll of velvet out of her pouch and laid the necklace inside. “He’ll come for it.” She covered the diamond, covered the pearl. Her eyes were as passionate as the necklace. “You understand that.”

  “I understand that life with you won’t be boring.”

  She took a last sweep with her light. Some carving on the wall behind the empty case caught her e
ye. Moving over, she studied it. It was old but still clear enough. It might have been carved into the wall with a diamond.

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s a message from Berina. It says I die for love not shame. Allahu Akbar’” She reached for Philip’s hand. “Maybe now she can rest in peace as well.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was going to hurt. Adrianne continued to pack as Yasmin wandered the room, stopping here to sniff at a bottle of perfume, pausing there to toy with the petals of a wilting flower. The sunlight streamed through the window and fell over the bright stripes on Yasmin’s dress, glinted on the gold she wore on her wrists, her fingers, and at her ears. Adrianne wished it had been the sun that made her eyes ache and tend to water. It had hurt when she’d left Jaquir before, but she’d survived it.

  This time she was taking the necklace with her. But she was leaving more behind than she’d ever thought possible.

  “You could stay longer, another day.” Yasmin watched Adrianne fold a long skirt into a suitcase. It didn’t seem fair that she should be given such a beautiful and fascinating sister only to lose her again so quickly. Her other sisters were boring, if for no other reason than she’d known them all of her life.