by Lila Dubois
Jasper moved and started going through his bag, thinking as he quietly sorted his gear. He needed a distraction. Irina’s raised voice got his attention.
“I am pulling the fire alarm in twenty, nineteen, eighteen—”
“Hold on.” Jasper adjusted the volume on the headphones so he could hear them clearly, but dropped one earphone out, tucking it into the edge of the mask, so he wasn’t completely deaf to what was happening around him.
“Where are you?” Eli demanded.
“I’m in the building. On the first floor. I think I know where the Rodin is. I have two guards. They look more military than secret service.”
There was a pregnant pause. “Get out.” Irina’s voice was sharp.
“I’m setting up a distraction, then I’m going in.”
“Can you hear us?” Eli’s voice rumbled with irritation and a hint of alarm. “Irina, who is a professional, said get out.”
“She’s a professional protector of people. I’m a professional protector of things. We’re talking about art. My area. You two follow my lead.” Jasper kept his voice low, but let the steel seep into his words. He did not enjoy being questioned or directed. Not in the middle of a heist.
There was a pregnant pause.
“You need a distraction?” Irina asked.
Jasper plucked at the mask as he considered. He was so used to working alone, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask them to create the distraction. This was definitely the other side of the double-edged sword that was working with a “team.”
“Yeah, I do. You got something?”
Eli’s groan was audible. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“You’re not going to be involved.” Irina’s tone was firm, brooking no argument. “I don’t want to draw any more attention to you. We’re going to find you somewhere to stay out of sight.”
Jasper filled his pockets with what he thought he’d need while he listened to Irina. He crouched, hand on the doorknob, head down, backpack zipped and on, when she made her move.
Eli put his back against the wall. He’d thought he was nervous when he’d waited to meet his trinity, but those feelings were nothing compared to the heart-exploding level of anxiety he was currently dealing with as he listened to Irina leave.
“Excuse me, excuse me!” Her heels clicked as she ran toward the front door. Eli started to lean to the side to listen to Irina’s retreating voice, before he remembered that he’d be able to hear what happened next through the earpiece.
Eli inched farther into the shadows. He was standing in a short hallway that dead-ended in a battered door. The renovation of this space into an event venue clearly hadn’t included a full revamp of every nook and corner of the first floor. They’d turned away from the main route that took guests from the front door to the elevator while talking to Jasper. Irina had checked the corridors, hallways, and alcoves, before designating this as the safest place for Eli to wait.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” The speaker’s voice coming though the earpiece was faint, but audible.
“No, my bracelet. It’s gone.” Irina’s tone was worried, bordering on panicked.
“Bracelet?”
“Yes. I have to find it.”
“Are you sure you were wearing it?” The man’s voice sounded calm and professional, not at all concerned. Eli thought it was the same event planner they’d dealt with two other times tonight.
“Yes, I’m sure. It’s a Grande Gioielli cuff. It’s on loan from a jeweler in Boston.”
“On loan.” Now a note of alarm crept into the man’s voice. “What does it look like?”
“Rose gold. White and black diamonds. It’s a large piece. Please, my fiancé is looking around upstairs, but there’s no way he’ll find it with all the people. Can you make an announcement?”
“We’ll help you look. Javier, stay here. The rest of you, come with me.”
“What if someone stole it? Where’s the guest list? Has anyone left? Are there security cameras?” Irina’s voice rose with each question.
There was a pause, then the man Irina was speaking to said, “I’m sure it simply fell off. Give me a moment to gather everyone.”
There was a moment of silence, then the sound of people talking, but they were far enough away from Irina that they weren’t understandable.
“He’s speaking with someone,” Irina reported, sotto voce. “Now he’s on the phone.”
Eli was so focused on what he was hearing from Irina’s feed, he almost missed the faint sound coming from the door beside him.
He stopped breathing, hoping that would help him hear better, but the distant sound of voices coming through the earpiece made it hard for him to tell where sound was coming from. He took out the earpiece, closing it into his fist.
The sound came again, a thump, as if something had hit the door from the other side.
Eli stared at the door in horror. Should he move? He didn’t know if Irina’s plans depended on him staying where he was. He might throw the proverbial wrench if he left this spot.
Then again, being discovered here would raise questions they didn’t want to answer.
Eli looked at the door. He had to squint, because there was no light in this short hall. The only illumination bounced from the fixtures around the corner into this dim little space. The door was drenched in shadow. Pulling his phone from his pocket with his free hand, Eli held it up, using the soft light of the screen, not the flash, to examine the door in detail. It was covered in layers of paint that had flaked away in places, revealing the strata of color choices and, in a few places, exposed metal that was weak with rust. This door was not often used. Based on the way the paint formed an unbroken seam along the edges, it looked like this door had been painted shut long ago, and not opened since.
Eli took two careful steps closer to the door, and leaned until his ear was almost touching it. There was another thump, tinged with the high ringing sound of metal. Something was hitting the door.
Legs tensed to bolt out of there, Eli held himself still and continued to listen. Now he could hear voices—faint, indistinguishable, like the muffled sound of a radio playing in a car two lanes over.
He stuck the earpiece back in.
“…make an announcement upstairs, and everyone we have is helping search.” The man was back, talking to Irina.
“Thank you. I have to find it. I just have to. I’m going to call the police, just in case.”
“You’re of course welcome to do so, if that’s what you feel is necessary, but let’s just check and see if you dropped it.”
Eli didn’t like the tone the man was taking with Irina—patronizing and irritated.
“Asshat,” Jasper whispered.
“Agreed,” Eli replied in his softest voice.
Irina didn’t respond directly to their comments, for obvious reasons, but said, “Thank you.” There was something in her voice that made Eli think she was fighting a smile. “You’re probably right. I probably dropped it…”
“The guards are doing something.” Jasper’s voice was crisp. “They’re going out of a door or down another hallway.”
Eli, still leaning toward the door, heard a few thumps, louder than before. The sound of voices was louder too. Eli strained to make out what was being said, but didn’t catch any of it. The thumps sounded like they were moving things—there was a rhythm to it.
Pause. Talking. Thump, thump. Pause. Talking.
It went on for what felt like half an hour, but was, according to his phone clock, only three minutes. Then there was a sound Eli could positively identify. The sound of a door closing.
“It was definitely a room,” Jasper said. “I just heard a door close.”
Eli blinked. He and Jasper were quite literally looking at two sides of the same issue. “Jasper, I think—”
“Now they’re walking.” Jasper spoke quickly, bowling over the top of Eli’s comment. “They’re gone. I’m going off com. I need fifteen minutes, Irina.”
Irina didn’t reply. She was talking to someone, but the conversation was muted, as if she’d covered her com in some way.
“Jasper?” Eli waited, but there was no reply. “Irina?” Again no reply.
Eli willed himself to calm down. His arm muscles were twitching again. Wherever Jasper was, he was able to see the outside of that door Eli heard close.
A radio squawked. A muffled voice spoke.
Eli’s eyes widened. He took two oh-so-careful steps away from the door, covered his mouth and whispered, “Jasper, there’s someone still in the room. Don’t go. There’s someone still in the room.”
No response.
“Irina, what should I do?”
No response.
“What the hell is the point of this stupid ear thing if no one but me is using it?”
No response.
Jasper and Irina were both drastically better prepared to handle this situation than he was, so there was probably no need for him to do anything. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that he—an academic—would be able to do something Jasper or Irina weren’t.
Jasper was going to do…something, then bust open the door to the bad guy’s room.
Eli blinked, then straightened. It wasn’t just the bad guy’s room. If there had, until a moment ago, been men at the door, and there was currently one person still in the room, this was the room where they were storing the art. In his panicked, adrenaline-addled state, he had lost track of what was really important.
The Rodin was on the other side of this door.
Filled with the godlike fury of a righteous academic, Eli grabbed the knob, put his shoulder against the door, and shoved.
Chapter Six
Jasper used the trusty credit card trick to open the door he’d been hiding behind. The door had been locked, but it was an older interior door, and popped open easily with the application of a flexible store loyalty card—he’d found they worked far better than actual credit cards for this particular B&E method.
The door popped open, and Jasper let it swing on its own, his left side pressed against the wall. There was no reaction to the open door, so he slid into the light.
After ten minutes spent in the dark, the hallway beyond seemed glaringly bright. Once his eyes adjusted, the reality was that sporadic low-wattage bulbs gave the hallways a sickly yellow cast. There were folding chairs at the far end of the hall, where another door, this one with a cracked glass panel, had been propped open with a toolbox. The floor was dusty, and that dust was like an archaeological record, telling the story of movement.
All along the hall were inset doorways. Each of them was a potential danger point—the alcoves were deep enough to hide a person. Hidden guards seemed unlikely. More dangerous was the possibility that there were cameras mounted in the shadows. Jasper used gloved fingers to make sure the mask was riding high on his cheeks, and pulled the hood forward. It wasn’t the perfect camouflage, but it would have to do.
It was easy to identify the door he wanted, due to the unusually clean floor in front of it. Head down, he walked quickly but quietly to the door. His hands were in the pouch pocket of his sweatshirt, credit card in one hand, lock pick in the other.
He crouched, put his hand on the doorknob, and twisted. He wanted to listen to the sound the door made when the lock caught. If you knew what you were doing, the sound a lock made could tell you what you were up against.
But the doorknob turned under his hand. Jasper wasn’t expecting it and lost his balance, tipping forward from his crouch onto his knees, effectively shoving the door open.
“Hands up!” There were three thudding steps and a guard appeared, gun already drawn. “I’m armed and will shoot you if you give me cause.”
Jasper froze, head and hands rising slowly.
The room was packed with wooden boxes. Anyone who’d ever seen a heist movie featuring art would recognize the boxes for what they were—art crates. Packing and transporting fine art was an art form of its own. Jasper should know; he was a consultant for one of the larger packing and moving companies. Art crates were custom-made of specially fumigated wood, and lined with foam and anti-friction and anti-static fabric. The people who made the crates usually had training as furniture makers.
He’d been right about where the art was. He’d been wrong about all the guards leaving. A tall man, hair cut in the classic high and tight, pointed the muzzle of a gun at Jasper’s head. His face was terrifyingly blank—the mask of a trained soldier.
“Stand up. Face the wall. Keep your hands above your head.”
Jasper shifted his weight, planted his left foot on the floor.
Deep in the room, behind the stacks of crates, something thudded. The uppermost crate in a floor-to-ceiling stack wobbled precariously.
The guard flinched at the sound, and moved to keep Jasper in sight while he also examined the stacked boxes. He shifted to a one-handed gun hold, and raised his free hand to the radio on his shoulder.
Another thud; the top crate wobbled then fell.
The eighteen-inch square crate tipped off the stack, landing edge-first on the smaller stack in front of it. The box teetered there, balanced for a moment. Something moved near the back wall.
Yet another thud, and Jasper could see a thin wedge of dim light widening with each sound. There was a door back there.
The teetering crate tumbled forward, cracking against the guard’s head. He staggered to the side, the hand that had been on his radio grabbing his head. For a moment it seemed that he might crumple from the blow to the head. The guard stumbled a few steps and braced himself on a table, leaning on the gun.
Jasper jumped up. This was no time for a fair fight—a concept Jasper found laughable at best and stupid at worst.
Grabbing the wrist of the hand on the man’s head, Jasper jerked his arm back. The guard reared up, since his shoulder didn’t give him the option of rotating with the movement.
Jasper used the shift in the guard’s center of gravity against him, yanking hard on his arm and then jumping out of the way.
The man managed one stumbling back step, and if he’d had space might have recovered his balance, but he tripped over the box that had cracked him on the head.
When he hit the ground, the gun fell out of his hand.
That was what Jasper had been waiting for. He snatched up the gun then yanked the radio free from the guard’s shoulder clip. A few quick twists and he’d separated the hand mic and cord, rendering it useless.
Pressing the gun against the guard’s temple—the man was still conscious but in too much pain to do anything—Jasper looked up for the secondary threat. While he’d been disarming this guard, there’d been additional noises coming from deeper in the room. Jasper planned to hold the guard hostage to keep his partner in check.
But it wasn’t another guard that had been making all that noise.
Eli looked like an avenging god. His jacket was gone, his dress shirt strained against his muscles, and his face was streaked with dirt or dust—whatever it was, it evoked war paint.
Jasper started to say something, stopped. He couldn’t have been more shocked if Elvis had popped out of a box and started singing.
“Where’s the Rodin?” Eli demanded.
Jasper winced. The guard was suspiciously still, his eyes closed. He wasn’t unconscious. He was playing dead and listening. Eli had just given away why they were here. “Hopefully it’s not in the box that fell on this guy.”
Eli’s gaze dropped to the man Jasper held at gunpoint. Eli’s complexion didn’t lend itself to blanching, but his eyes rounded in horror. “My God.”
“Don’t worry, he didn’t lose consciousness. We just need to—”
“Did you check the box? What is in it?”
“And clearly you’re worried about the art, not the man who almost killed me. Fair enough. There’s duct tape in my backpack. Get it.”
Eli pulled the blood-spattered crate into the light and examined it.
/> “Or don’t be helpful. That’s fun too.”
Jasper shifted the gun from hand to hand as he shrugged out of the backpack straps. The roll of silver tape was easy to find one-handed.
Eli had gotten the box open. It was empty except for carefully formed foam and padding and a plastic sleeve mounted on the inside of the lid with an inventory sheet.
“Hey, you,” Jasper hissed. He threw the tape at Eli. “Help.”
With Eli’s assistance, they bound the guard’s hands behind him with tape. They did the same for his ankles and then hog-tied him by taping ankles to wrists. They wound tape around his head, gagging him.
Jasper looked at the guard and shook his head.
“What?” Eli asked.
Jasper tugged him to the corner. “We’re out of time. It’s been fifteen minutes.”
“That’s it? Feels like it’s been hours.”
“The other guards could come back at any time. We’ve got to leave, and we’ll be coming out hot.”
“Not without the Rodin.”
“There’s no time. The fact that there was a third guard we didn’t know about—”
“I knew.” Eli crossed his arms. “I heard him. I tried to tell you. Both of you. No one was listening.”
Jasper whistled. “I fucked up.” He frowned as he realized something. “You realized I was about to walk into what was effectively a trap?”
Eli didn’t reply.
“Well shit. I really fucked up. Thank you.” Just as he’d done at their binding, Jasper grabbed Eli and kissed him, hard and quick. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Not without the Rodin.”
“There’s no time.”
Eli ignored him and turned to the crates.
Jasper considered pistol-whipping Eli, but he was too big for Jasper to move as a dead weight. Sticking the buds into his ears, Jasper said, “Irina, we have a bad situation. Buy us fifteen more minutes.”
The chatter coming from Irina’s feed seemed loud in the quiet room. “Ten,” she whispered.
“Ten, if you get the car and meet us in the alley by the back door.”
“Be there at nine twenty-one,” she said.
