The Lady Is a Thief (19 page)

 
   
He followed her to the door and waited while
she tapped in a series of numbers. The door lock hummed open and the interior
gate unlocked and parted wide enough to allow one person through at a time.
Refraining from comment, he pulled the door open and waved her through. Inside,
she walked to another keypad and punched in a second set of numbers. The door
locked and the gate slid back together—sealing them in.

 
   
The oblong room included two copy machines,
paper products, and a customer counter. Kit walked back to a number of private
gold-faced boxes lining the far wall. Three cameras monitored the room, but
none showed red or green lights indicating operation. Jarod followed her,
splitting his attention between her destination and the door. A storefront like
this likely had a back entrance, but it seemed to be hidden behind the customer
counter and the series of shelves decorating the back wall.

 
   
At the series of boxes she pressed her thumb
to a fingerprint scanner and a small keypad slid out. She hit a series of
numbers and four boxes swung out, revealing they were a faux front for a safe
door.

 
   
“Nice.” He admired clever craftsmanship. “Do
you own this place?”

 
   
“A subdivision of a shell
of a shell.”
She slid out a thick envelope and a plain cardboard box.

 
   
“You mailed it…” Astonishment turned to
pride and he grinned. “That's—brilliant.”

 
   
“Thank you.” She shifted the weight of the
box and stacked the envelope on top of it. Sealing the door shut, she led him
around behind the customer counter to a small office tucked against the
wall—out of sight of the main doors.

 
   
Addressed to the receiving shop, the box
bore a return address of New York and an NYPD stamp on the postage paid. Pride
at the absolute simplification of removing the Buddha from lockup grew in his
chest. She hadn't needed to sneak it out of the building—the post office did it
for her.

 
   
She slit open the manila envelope first. Out
came a wallet, a stack of cash and a cell phone. She slid the cell phone into
her purse, but she didn't turn it on, along with the cash and then flipped open
the wallet, he counted four credit cards and a driver's license—all in her
name.

 
   
Satisfied, she snapped it shut and added it
to her purse before zipping the whole thing shut. She dropped the envelope in a
shredder and then placed her hand on the box. “Okay, now what?”

 
   
“You still have another thirty hours or so.”
His palms itched to open the box and confirm its contents, but he gave her his
word and she'd let him come this far.

 
   
“If we take this out of here, you can be
charged as an accessory after the fact.” The closest to a confession she’d come
to in this game.

 
   
“You let me worry about that. Where do you
need to go now?” Trust required a leap of faith, one he'd already made.

 
   
“Bakersfield.”

 
   
He did some mental calculations. “That's two
hours from here. When do we need to be there?”

 
   
“I need to make a phone call and I can give
you that answer. But I need privacy to make the call.”

 
   
He studied her, she didn't look away and she
didn't flinch.

 
   
“Okay. If you'll let me out, I'll wait in the
car.” He didn't miss her blink of surprise or the ripple of relief easing the
tension her expression. He ignored the box and turned to walk to the door. She
followed him and pressed the code on the keypad. He didn't look back at her
until he slid behind the wheel of the car. The gates closed and she disappeared
behind the customer service desk.

 
   
She could run. Just because he hadn't seen
the rear entrance didn't mean there wasn't one. She could go out the back door,
carrying her prize, slip into a car she stashed and disappear. He slid the keys
into the ignition, but he didn't turn the car on.

 
   
The hardest part of a mission was not
deciding when to act, but when not to. At this stage of their game, she trusted
him or she didn't. Ten minutes later she rewarded his patience by walking out
of the building, box in hand. She locked up and opened the backdoor of the SUV
and tucked the box behind her seat. He waited until she climbed into the
passenger side and glanced back at the box.

 
   
The seal didn't appear broken. It had the
same address and stamp mark. But she could have replaced it—removed the Buddha
and—he cut the direction of those thoughts off. Trust meant believing she
didn't seek to deceive him.

 
   
“Thank you.” She murmured in an almost
melancholy voice.

 
   
“You're welcome.” He continued to practice
patience, backing out of the parking spot and heading for the highway before
asking, “When do we need to be in Bakersfield?”

 
   
“What?” she glanced at him, she'd left her
sunglasses perched on her head and the sadness in her green eyes tore at his
heart.

 
   
“When do we need to be there, Kit Kat?”

 
   
“Tomorrow morning.” She swallowed and looked
away from him again. It was mid-afternoon and they still had a two-hour drive
in front of them. “I didn't realize how late in the day it had gotten.”

 
   
“We'll get a hotel, some fresh clothes and
dinner—maybe not in that order. What time tomorrow morning?”

 
   
“Eight sharp.”

 
   
He looked at his watch. That gave them about
sixteen hours. He accelerated onto the on ramp and kept his attention divided
between her and their route. She folded her arms and leaned her head against
the glass. The quiet loneliness dragged at his soul, and worried him. Fifteen
minutes later, he reached over to pull her limp hand into his. Flattening her
palm against his bare leg, he stroked a path around her knuckles.

 
   
“Will you tell me why you pretend to be
someone else for
Pietr
and Sophie?” He barely heard
the quiet question.

 
   
“I don't pretend to be someone else for
them, specifically. That’s how they know me.”

 
   
“But why?”

 
   
“Because some things are
easier done when no one knows who you really are.”

 
   
“Yeah, I get that.” She roused from her
pensive stupor. “I've had to do that more than once myself.”

 
   
“I would think you do it all the
time—because you're not some featherheaded dilettante or a cutthroat
businesswoman—but you straddle that brilliantly when dealing with your father's
business associates.” Another facet he admired about her, the ease with which
she maintained control over a situation without ever appearing to exert her
influence.

 
   
“True. But I grew up under a microscope of a
security, society, and scandal. Learning to cater to expectations creates a
barrier.”

 
   
“Who is a real and who is only a part of the
cover?” He related to that dilemma. His assets wouldn't recognize Jarod on the
street—not as himself. He cultivated that relationship though, burying his real
identity beneath layer after layer of distraction and redirection.

 
   
She fell silent again, but her fingers
curled against his thigh. When he glanced at her again, her eyes were closed
and her head tilted back. She fell asleep. He held her hand and smiled. His
phone buzzed twice during the drive and he ignored it. He didn't want to
disturb her by moving. He spotted a nice hotel off the freeway and followed the
exit signs. They would swap cars before leaving, but he could take care of that
after dark.

 
   
Parking, he let go of her hand reluctantly
and checked the text messages.
duMonde
was in a rage and returned to his hotel in Beverly Hills. Jarod's heart bled
for him. The second text came from the asset in Malibu. He'd tracked down the
identity of her mother and her maternal grandfather. The mother resided in a
rehab facility in Sonoma. A shell corporation of Hardwicke Industries paid her
bills.

 
   
He glanced over at Kit's slumbering face.
Despite her mother's rejection, she still took care of the woman. The second
screen told him exactly why they came to Bakersfield. Her grandfather resided
in a long-term-care facility and suffered from congestive heart failure. He
wasn't expected to live much longer. But the name gave Jarod his second real
jolt on the mission.

 
   
Sebastian Kant.

 
   
Kant served two terms for petty larceny in
his youth, but not an hour after that despite a very lucrative career as a
jewel thief in the sixties. The man virtually fell off the map after his last
job went horribly awry. Jarod thumbed the phone off. He didn't want to read any
of the details. Not when the last job Kant took had involved
The Fortunate Buddha
.

 
   
“Kit Kat,” he brushed a hand over her hair
and down her cheek. She stirred and blinked at him. Dusk gathered outside the
car, the sun hovering low over the western horizon. “We're at a hotel. I'm
going to go get us a couple of rooms…”

 
   
“You don't need to get two.” She murmured,
rubbing her face and straightening.

 
   
“You sure?”
His
chest tightened at the implied invitation.

 
   
“Yeah.
I'm sure.”

 
   
“Okay. You want to come in or wait here?”

 
   
“I'll wait here. I don't think I'm really fit
for public consumption.” Her yawn split the sentence into a garbled mess, but
he understood it. Keys in hand, he went inside, checked in and returned in ten
minutes. Cash moved a desk clerk quickly. Fifteen minutes later, he led them
into their room and carried the box over to slide into the closet.

 
   
“You're really not going to open it and look
are you?” She stood in the doorway to the bathroom.

 
   
“No.” He shook his head. “Not for
another…twenty-two hours.”

 
   
“I've never met anyone like you.” She pulled
her sunglasses off and tossed them onto the bathroom counter.

 
   
He needed to move away, order some food, and
put her in the shower—but at the very least create some distance between them.
“Is that a good thing?” He narrowed the gap separating them. The red splotch on
her cheek remained a violent reminder of the lengths others were willing to go
to take, control or use her.

 
   
“Yeah.”
She nodded
slowly.
“A really good thing.”

 
   
He hooked a finger into the waistband of her
shorts and tugged her away from the wall. “I've never known anyone like you
either.”

 
   
“I don't know if I should ask if that's a
good thing.” She gave him a hesitant smile. Smoothing her hands over his chest,
he ached to strip the fabric out of the way. He wanted her to touch him.

 
   
“It's…it's an amazing thing.” The confession
should have cost him, but it didn't. He avoided personal entanglements for
years because he never knew when a call would come in or what third world
country he would wake up in the next day. After he left to make a life for
himself in the IAAR, he hadn't made a life for himself—he'd made one for Walter
Curry, divorcing Jarod from personal commitments.

 
   
One foot out the door, and always ready to
go. He could walk away, disappear, and his employers and assets would have no
idea where he went.

 
   
His foot wasn’t out the door with Kit. The
last place he wanted to go was away, or
disappear
, and
never see her again. “We're playing this for real now, Kit Kat. Not a game, not
a test for score, not a challenge to be overcome.”