“Yep.”
“I’ll go upstairs. You look down here,” he said heading upstairs.
“Don’t get sidetracked,” I said. “We here to steal what’s in that safe, not the kitchen sink.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. The kitchen sink would never fit in my pockets.
Before I searched the bottom floor, I went back to the front door. I double checked if anyone was around then whistled for the waiting Alex. “What was that?” she asked when she reached me.
“A whistle…” I said.
“Sounded like a sick bird,” she said.
“Why don’t we look for that painting?” I asked.
“Kay,” she replied. She gave a low whistle as she looked around the living room. Her whistle was the first whistle of the night that did not sound like a sick bird. “This guy is loaded.”
“Loaded times two,” I agreed.
“Oh! A shower!” She had found a spare bedroom with its own bathroom. She went to the closet.
Clothes of all kinds hung in the space. Clothes that were clean and for both sexes. She looked back at me hopefully.
“We’re stealing from this guy!” I said. “Not spending time at a salon.”
“I know…you’re right…It’s just…I miss hot water….I miss shampoo…”
“Up here!” Spider called over her rambling.
“Soap…I miss not smelling bad...and a toothbrush!”
“Did you find it?” I asked Spider heading upstairs.
“Yeah. In his study room thing,” Spider said.
“Warm lathery water…I miss the fresh feeling after a shower…and warm fluffy towels…”
“Study room thing?” I asked Spider.
“Well it’s more like a…”
“War room?” I asked.
There were maps along the walls and rolling cork boards full of faces and names. A lot of the faces had a shopping list of weapons and ammunition next to them.
“And pajamas…I miss pajamas straight from the dryer…hot baths with a book…”
“Is she okay?” Spider asked pointing at Alex.
“She’s fine,” I said.
“Here’s the painting.” Spider pointed at it. The woman in the dress was beautiful. The clothing, along with the hair style, hinted at the 1920s though the picture was in rich, colorful detail.
“She’s pretty hot,” Spider added.
I rolled my eyes and took the picture off the wall. What I saw was not comforting. I didn’t know much about safes, but the one in front of me was large and silver and looked entirely
intimidating.
“This is…impossible,” Spider said.
“Define ‘impossible,’” I said.
“What else can ‘impossible’ mean?” he asked.
“Never mind,” I said, missing Daniel horribly in that instant.
“Lavender bath salts…clothes that don’t have holes…”
“Oh, just take one!” I snapped at Alex.
She jumped happily and kissed my cheek. The water in the bathroom off of the war room was
running before I could turn back to the safe.
Spider paced back and forth gnawing on his fingernail, oblivious to Alex and me as he thought over the best ways to crack the safe. “I don’t have the technology to break it the easy way. It would cost a year’s worth of stealing. Doll, go get me a glass.”
“Come on,” I said to the dogs, so I didn’t have to wander around the big house by myself. They followed me, their tails wagging.
I jumped the last three stairs and went to the kitchen. The clock on the pristine stove counted down our disappearing time as I searched for a glass. Hopefully, Spider’s plan wouldn’t take long; getting put in prison would only make what I was trying to do harder. Before I went
upstairs, I looked through all the cabinets for food, the habit of the past week’s, ‘take what you can get,’ mentality making it instinctive. They were empty though, and I knew that this guy ate out all the time or he was a Watcher. If he were a Watcher, I knew I had more to worry about than the police. If he caught us, he would kill us. Upstairs again, Spider took the glass I offered him and set it against the safe to listen.
“What are you listening for?” I asked.
“When you get near the right number it makes a click,” he said starting to move the dial slowly.
“You missed it,” I said rocking up and down on the ball of my feet, feeling nervous and full of energy. I just wanted to get this part over with and get my information. I wanted to leave before the owner came back and found us here.
“You can hear from there?” he asked.
The amplified hearing had been happening more often than not. It was rarity to be without it now. I nodded a ‘yes.’
“You do it,” he commanded, placing my hands on the dial.
The sound of the first click was unmistakable to my ears. I spun it the other way slowly, feeling more confident with every slow click. The dogs settled at my feet and Spider started roaming the room. He stuck small things in his pockets when he thought I wasn’t watching and appreciated the beauty of the rest of the things he couldn’t fit into his pocket.
“Spider...” I said at one point.
“Yeah?” he asked, turning to me.
“If you take one more step toward that bathroom I will make sure you understand the word
‘eunuch’ better than you understand the word ‘thief’.”
He stepped away from the bathroom door, where he had been trying to spy on Alex through the glass shower door and sat on the leather chair behind the large desk. “Clare…” he said after a moment.
“Yeah?”
He swirled around in the chair thoughtfully then put his feet on the elegant desk. He clasped his hands over his stomach and looked at me seriously. “Tell me about your mom…about living in a real house with a family.”
My hand hesitated on the safe at his request. The sadness and curiosity in his thoughts was surprising. The wistfulness in his voice was opposite the impression he had left with me while he had been busy organizing the others and helping us break into buildings. He had never gotten the chance to be a kid and, while he had made the choice to run away, he yearned for the existence of carefree youthfulness. Not that anything about my childhood had exactly been ‘carefree’. He longed for a family, however, and that was something I had always had.
“Sure,” I said, starting to turn the dial on the safe again.
All the cities I had been to, the places I had explored, and, more importantly, all the memories of Ellen came pouring out. He listened quietly, leaning back in the chair as he absorbed my
memories. His eyes roamed the richly decorated room as I told my stories, the flash of green bright against the dark light from passing cars and street lamps. Lost in the stories, I was surprised when the safe clicked and the door popped open.
“Ha!” I said surprised even with myself.
“We’re lucky he didn’t have a digital combination…” Spider said popping off the chair. “What’s in there?”
We both stared into the vault. A manila envelope sat exactly in the middle. Neither of us had expected the safe to contain so little. We shared a mutual look of concern then Spider shrugged.
He reached in and pulled the folder out, his body ready to run. Nothing happened; no trap was sprung with the removal of the documents. Before he could open the envelope, I pulled it out of his hand to look for myself. It was something else unexpected in a day full of surprises.
Chemical equations lined the crisp white paper the envelope contained; equations that I only understood the beginnings of.
“What’s it for?” Spider asked over my shoulder.
“Bad stuff,” I said. I shut the folder. “Alex! Are you done? We need to go.”
She stepped out of the bathroom. Steam boiled out from behind her, the light from the room illuminating the mist and gave her a halo. She was wearing the same clothes she had before, but her curly
hair was wet and her tan skin was perfectly clean.
“Better?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Tons,” she agreed with a smile. She sniffed the air. “It wouldn’t hurt you two, either.”
“I’ll just get dirty again,” Spider said with a shrug.
“The stink helps me fit in…Come on,” I said. I shut the safe and locked it again, using my shirt to wipe away the finger prints. I made sure the picture was perfectly straight before we left. With any luck, our theft would go unnoticed for a while.
“Spider, reset the alarm before we go,” I said. “Let’s not give away our theft quite yet.”
“Sure,” he agreed.
I rubbed the dogs’ chests again, sad I had to leave them to a master who neglected them. They licked my hands and face with their rough tongues in response, their brains not getting that I was leaving. Spider held the gate for Alex and me to squeeze through, then followed us out. The dogs whined as I walked away.
My stomach was filled with excited butterflies as I joined Alex and Spider in the car. We had done it! We had actually gotten away with it. The car started with a low purr, accentuating the feeling running through my gut. Alex flipped through the file curiously as I carefully pulled away from the corner.
“Why would Serenity go to such lengths to get this?” Alex asked. “It looks like my unfinished chemistry homework.”
“Do you know what it’s about?” I asked. “I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“I understand one thing,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We’re right in the middle of things we shouldn’t be,” she said.
“What else is new?”
The bouncer at club Maquis was huge, his broad face intimidating. There was a long line of partiers all dressed to the nines waiting to get in. When we stepped to the front, ignoring the desperate crowd, his eyes remained bored and disinterested. “Back of the line,” he said pointing at the line which turned the block.
“We’re not here to party,” I said. “We have a meeting with Serenity.”
“Name?” he asked.
“Clare,” I said.
He poked his head in the door and checked a list that was hanging on the wall. “All right. Tell Mick at the bar who you are, and he’ll let you up.”
Angry yells from the people waiting in line followed us through the door. The bouncer ignored them and re-crossed his arms, his face still impassive against the insults. I navigated through the moving bodies, the pounding pulse of music creating a sense of purpose to the madness of
movement. I kept a firm grip on Spider’s arm not wanting to lose him in the madness. Alex kept a firm grip on his other arm. We squeezed our way through the people to the back of the club, where the bar was busy with orders as men and women, both, prowled for fun.
Mick was a tall, handsome man with sharp bone structures and the olive skin of someone from the Mediterranean. His dark eyes went beyond normal darkness. It was hard to tell in the dark room, but their darkness suggested they were black. When he caught my eye I instantly
recognized him. He was the bum from the park, though he was cleaned up, his beard gone. He poured three drinks at once and slid them down the counter in a steady rhythm of capable habit.
He smiled slightly when I leaned in to speak.
Around the rhythm of his non-stop pouring I said, “I’m here to see Serenity.”
“Clare,” he said. It was weird how he said. It wasn’t the way a person would normally say a name. It was like he was calling me out on something. He poured another drink and leaned
toward me. “You have gorgeous eyes.”
“I was born with them,” I said, my face flooding with heat.
The disarming sensuality I had noticed when he had been less kempt was intensified with his clean appearance and the close way we were talking. Too, I hadn’t been told I had gorgeous anything for weeks. He smiled and raised the bar for us, kicking behind him twice on a solid seeming wall. A door swung open for us, and he gestured us to go up. He turned away and
poured another drink, dancing back into his rhythm without missing a beat.
The stairs were narrow and crooked. The door Mick had opened for us swung shut as we stepped through to them. We all paused and shared a look as the door shut again, then focused on the purpose of our visit. Alex walked on my heels and Spider walked on hers as we walked up.
The hall at the top of the stairs was long and dimly lit with lamps, which matched the Persian feel of the place. A long row of doors stretched out of sight. Serenity stood in the middle of the hall checking messages on her phone, apparently waiting for us. “My, it did take you a while,”
she said.
“I didn’t know I was being timed,” I replied.
“What are these?” she asked, gesturing lazily with her phone at Alex and Spider.
“Those are humans,” I said.
“Charming,” she said, holding out a manicured hand for the folder.
“What is this really?” I asked, ignoring her hand.
“It is what I said: a weapon. Getting this will save countless lives.”
“You said that before. How do I know you won’t use it?”
“You don’t. Just know that you stopped a sniveling rat from selling these to the highest bidder…
namely Marcus.”
My fingers tightened on the papers. I didn’t want to give her a weapon, but I wanted her
information on Daniel. She had put me between a rock, a hard place, and my desire to see
Daniel. “How do I know I’m not handing it to a different kind of sadistic?” I asked.
She smiled oddly, liking that question. She didn’t reply, but I understood she didn’t intend to. I was either going to give the papers to her or I wasn’t. She wasn’t interested in talking about it.
“Where you gonna put it?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Somewhere secure,” she replied.
“Like a wall safe?”
She finally put her phone away and crossed her arms, giving me her full attention. It was
attention that felt deadly. “I don’t know how Daniel puts up with you…or why. Talking to you is like talking to a rock.”
“Rocks have more sense,” Alex muttered.
“You are a practical person, correct?” Serenity asked me, ignoring Alex.
“I guess…”
“If you don’t give me that folder, I won’t tell you what I know. Then, there is the fact that if I have to take that folder from you, you will regret it.”
A part of me really wanted to find a lighter and set the papers on fire then do a happy jig on top of them just to spite her. The overwhelming satisfaction of seeing her face loose that smirk wouldn’t improve my situation, though. After a long second of uncertainty, I handed her the folder. She opened it and her gold eyes lit with a dark fire as she surveyed its contents. “Club Paradise,” she said. “That’s where the nest is.”
“That’s only two blocks from here,” Spider provided.
“It’s convenient, at least,” I said.
“We could walk,” Alex agreed.
Serenity turned and swished her hips to her office door, the office we had burglarized yesterday.
She put her hand on the elegant handle. “If you don’t have any more questions, I think we’re even.”
“I have lots more questions,” I said,” but you’re not going to answer them the way I want you to.”
I understood what Daniel had meant about her. Talking to her was a study in talking in circles.
Besides, she had gotten what she wanted. Anything else she told me would be suspect at best.
“I have a question,” Spider said before we left.
Serenity looked at him in a question, her eyes perplexed at the oddness of the boy in front of her.
Perhaps, she sensed something familiar in him, too, because her eyes light up with recognition.
“Will you marry me?”
Spider asked.
I shoved him to the stairs with a roll of my eyes. Serenity’s golden eyes, which were full of suppressed laughter, followed us as we let ourselves back out into the hypnotic movement of the club and the night beyond.
Chapter 15
“No,” Alex said as soon as we were outside again.
“No, what?” I asked.
“We’re not going there tonight. We’re tired. It’s late. And we know it’s dangerous. They’re Watchers, so we need to approach this differently,” she said.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” I said.
I honestly hadn’t been. I was thinking about Mick and how his features were somehow familiar in another way than seeing him dressed as a bum. It was as if I’d had his face described to me. I had also been wondering if I had done the right thing by giving Serenity that folder. It didn’t feel like I had.
Alex’s face was skeptical, but she didn’t say anything else. Eli came out of the darkness as we walked toward the theater. “Well?” he asked.
“Club Paradise,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “I’ll go look.”
“Alex says we can’t go until tomorrow,” I said.
Eli looked at Alex, who blushed. “He can do what he wants,” she corrected. “I just don’t want you running off and doing something stupid.”
Eli’s face twitched with a funny jerk. “If you make her go back, she’ll get restless and leave when you’re asleep.”
“That’s probably true,” Alex said. Her blush hadn’t faded, and she avoided his eyes. It was so out of character that I found myself staring. She avoided my eyes, however, and I was left to guess at the possible meanings. “What do you suggest?” she asked him.
“I’ll watch her,” he said.
Alex yawned. “I’ll come, too.”
“Spider?” Eli said to Spider for help.
“You’re tired,” Spider said to Alex. “And if too many of us are hanging around, it’ll get noticed.
I really don’t think we want that.”
“Fine.” She pointed a finger at Eli. “If she does something stupid I am holding you responsible.”
“If I do something irresponsible it’ll be my choice, thank you very much,” I said.
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