The Lady Is a Thief (22 page)

 
   
She could recite the story with him, but she
didn't interrupt, taking his almost papery thin hand in hers and rubbing it
between her palms. “So you found a way to take the train from Paris to India—an
exotic journey to be certain.”

 
   
He coughed and grinned. “Exactly so and from
there, we hiked or borrowed cars until we reached the mountains. We were nearly
out of funds by the time we got to Thailand, but we didn't care—it was a lark,
an adventure, a wild ride.” But his smile faded. “We found the temple, studied
it,
knew
when the monks prayed and when they were out
in their gardens. We knew the security layout, the location, and we were
ready.”

 
   
It didn't matter how well she knew the tale,
her heart always began to hammer when it came to this part. Another impact—this
time a clang—punched through the sound barrier of the door. She glanced back,
but found the door to his room remained shut.

 
   
“It was late and dark. The
monks
final prayers were done. We climbed up the rocky
slope, scaling it like three
drunk
fools without rope.
We could handle it—plenty of crevices and places for us to get handholds. It
went fine, we made it into the temple and there he was—all golden and waiting
for us. I picked him up—he's smaller than you might expect, but the
craftsmanship—it's as though he winks at you.” Sebastian coughed. “I was about
to put him in my bag when the army showed up.”

 
   
This part of the story he blurred the lines
between reality and guilt. “They flooded into the room like ants. I still had
the Buddha in my hands. We raced to the wall overlooking the ravine. I'd barely
slung a leg over when they grabbed Jim. He yelled for us to keep going and Pete
gave me a shove—but I dropped the Buddha, it wasn't quite in my bag and then
they had Pete. I let go of the wall and slid down the rocky outface, cutting my
hands and arms, but I made it to the bottom and away—they didn't.”

 
   
He sighed, coughing until she could get a
cup and straw to his lips. He drank, but his watery gaze remained shrouded in
sorrow. “If I hadn't dropped it—they would have gotten away. The luck would
have held and that's when everything went wrong.”

 
   
“I know Grandpa.” She set the cup down.

 
   
“And it's not for me that I wanted Louis to
fetch the Buddha. You know that—we have to break the cycle. Your mama wouldn't
have left you if it hadn't been for me.”

 
   
She didn't have the heart to tell him her
mother's addictions were not the fault of some Asian artifact. They’d argued
this point before. Her grandfather believed it. Just as he believed that by
dropping the Buddha, he broke his lucky streak and sentenced his friends to die
in prison far away from home. Losing that job broke something in him, something
he'd never been able to repair.

 
   
“Grandpa…”

 
   
“This is important, Kitten. You have to get
Louis to help you find whoever took the Buddha from him. I know he paid
someone—I gave them all the instructions, the layout—everything. But the man
ran off with it rather than give it to Louis.” He tried to sit up and she
pressed a hand to his shoulder, but it was too late. He shook with the coughs
racking his body.

 
   
“Grandpa, listen to me—you with me again?”
She searched his face and when he nodded slowly, she helped him take another
drink before picking the bag up off the floor. “Louis wasn't bringing the
Buddha to you and never intended to. He was auctioning it to the highest
bidder—” Twice she wanted to add, first to the French Ambassador and then later
in Geneva after he smuggled it home from Morocco. She intended to intercept it,
but the diplomatic pouch he used cut short her plans.

 
   
“No. He promised, Kitten…”

 
   
Her chest squeezed in sympathy. “I know, but
he lied. The Viscount is a thief, Grandpa. A thief and a liar and a cheat—but
it doesn't matter.”

 
   
“It does—I wanted to fix it for you—fix your
mama and make sure when I finally kick off you aren't left with my bad luck.”

 
   
She sighed. “Grandpa, that's what I'm trying
to tell you…I—” She stopped trying to fumble the explanation and bent down to
open the box inside the bag. Nestled carefully amongst the packing materials,
the golden Buddha winked up at her. It was cool to the touch, the metal
smooth—almost liquid satin in its softness. Made from pure gold, the monetary
value of the Buddha was incalculable—but that wasn't what her Grandfather
wanted nor was it why she'd devoted so many man-hours in the last year to
getting it back for him.

 
   
“I have something for you, Grandpa.” She
lifted it up and set it on the bed between them. Taking his hand, she wrapped
his gnarled fingers around the Buddha's hip, his fingertips brushing its belly.

 
   
“That's it—” He wheezed, pulling himself up
right before she could stop him. He lifted the statue and stared at it, the
exhaustion and grief in his face transforming to something rapturous. All the
worry and anxiety in her gut washed away as he began to smile. “This is the
Buddha, Kitten. You have to rub its belly.”

 
   
“I'm fine, Grandpa. You rub his belly.”
She'd held the Buddha a half-dozen times this year, each time it weighed more
heavily on her soul. She just wanted to grant him this last wish and then she
would take it home—correction. She and Jarod would take it home.

 
   
“I'm sorry,” Sebastian whispered, but he
wasn't talking to her. His gaze remained fixed on the Buddha in his hand. “I'm
really sorry I tried to take you—and that I left you all behind. Please forgive
my family—and make it better for them.”

 
   
Tears gathered in her eyes and she fought a
losing effort to keep them from escaping. Sebastian leaned back against the
pillows, cradling the Buddha like a baby. “It will be okay for you now,
Kitten…” He wheezed a long, raspy breath at the end of the word and stopped.

 
   
Kit jerked up and looked at the machines,
which screamed an alarm. Swinging her gaze back, she found Sebastian's eyes
were closed and his face relaxed. “No—come on, Grandpa—no…”

 
   
The door flung open and a pair of nurses
came in. They ushered her back from the bed, one nurse plucked the statue out
of her grandfather's hands and passed it to her. She took it, holding it
loosely as she watched in numbed shock. Sebastian Kant died with a smile on his
face, the ache of more than fifty years of grief eased from expression.

 
   
After just ten minutes, a doctor walked in
and called it. He murmured apologies—so did the nurses. They talked to her, but
she didn't hear them. She could only see her grandfather's smile and hear the
quiet joy in his voice. She lost the last year of his life to this Don Quixote
quest, but she couldn't deny him that last chance to right what he felt went so
horribly wrong.

 
   
The Buddha warmed under her touch, but the
rest of the room faded. The voices of the doctor and the nurses drifted past
her from a great distance. She nodded when they paused and shook their hands.
All the arrangements for the funeral home were in his file, they would take
care of everything. They finally left her alone and she moved with wooden
slowness to store the Buddha back in its box. If she never saw the damn thing
again, it would be too soon.

 
   
His cheek was cool when she bent to press a
last kiss to it. “Goodbye Grandpa—I hope wherever you are—you're happy again.”
A hot tear escaped and she swiped at it. She wanted to stay here and just hold
his hand, but he was gone and what good did it do him anymore? Straightening,
she picked up the bag and tried to memorize the peace in his expression. She
wanted to hold onto that last memory—for both of them.

 
   
Leaving his room, she walked up the hallway
blinded by her tears. More nurses came out—one patted her arm, another rubbed
her shoulder, and a third—a stout woman who'd attended her grandfather from his
admission to the hospice eighteen months before gave her a hug. Kit murmured
some appropriate words to each, accepting their condolences before moving on to
the next wave. The sunshine blinded her as she walked outside, but she didn't
reach for her sunglasses.

 
   
It took every ounce of her willpower to put
one foot in front of the other. She was almost to the car when a man stepped
into her path. She looked up to see a stranger, his hand outstretched to take
the bag in her hand. She stared at him numbly, but he never touched her or the
bag. Jarod's arm snaked around the assailant's neck and the man grunted, and
slowly went to the ground—unconscious.

 
   
 
Jarod
tugged the man behind a line of bushes and came back to her. “Kit Kat?”

 
   
She sighed and burrowed into his arms,
giving him the bag and letting her tears fall.

 
   
“J
arod,
Louis
duMonde
knows my grandfather—Grandpa—Grandpa
blames himself for a heist gone wrong a long time ago. He's known
duMonde
since his teen years and he used to mentor him.
When he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, he called
duMonde
and told him how to get the Buddha—he has to know
that is where I am going.” She told him the whole story, including her
involvement after
duMonde
failed to deliver the item
as he promised. She'd traced the artifact, following Louis and the item from
Morocco to Geneva. She found the information on Anya in his safe and left it
for her, taking only the statue. She pulled strings to get the Buddha into the
States using a museum, but like her—Louis's training came from her grandfather.
He'd anticipated the move.

 
   
He turned a curator at the museum and sent
his men to claim the piece before she could. That was when Kit used her
friendship with
Pietr
to befriend Sophie and
cultivate her own connection. When the Buddha ended up in police evidence, she
charmed her way in and sent it out via the internal post system. Packages
entering a police station were scanned—not those leaving.

 
   
All she wanted was to grant a dying man his
last request. If Louis knew about the hospice, he didn't doubt that men would
be waiting for her. He'd sent her in—scouting ahead first to deal with the two
men in the lobby. She'd picked up a tail on her drive in and he dealt with
those men while she bid her grandfather goodbye.

 
   
Another pair
were
sleeping off a cocktail of sedatives in the stairwell.

 
   
The seventh and final now lay under a bush.
Jarod sent a text to an asset and let the man get the Bakersfield police to
pick these men up. He ushered Kit back into the car and stowed the bag in the
backseat. Silent and grieving, he let her cry and held her hand when her tears
turned to hiccups and finally to just empty despair.

 
   
The loss of a parent or a grandparent was
not an easy burden. She'd focused so much of her energy on giving the old one
man his last wish she'd hidden from the grief of losing him. He kept a wary eye
on the rearview mirror but no one followed them. As for
duMonde
,
he was on a plane confident his men would snatch the Buddha back for him. He'd
already arranged an alibi.

 
   
“In the early 1970s, the Cold War was in
full force and agencies on both sides of the pond worked to outsmart the
other.” He turned onto the freeway and headed for the airport and her private
plane. She would come back for the funeral, but for now he wanted her off the
ground in Los Angeles and away from any other messengers Louis might send until
he dealt with the Viscount. “My father was an up and coming analyst. He
discovered a group of foreign agents communicating via rare book auctions. They
would hide the messages on the blank pages in invisible ink—one agent would put
it up for auction and another would purchase it. He intercepted more than a
dozen before he broke the code.”

 
   
She sniffled and let go of his hand to claim
some tissues from her bag. “What did he do with them?” There she was. Beneath
the layers of sadness and regret, his Kit Kat began to rouse.

 
   
“He turned a report into his superiors, but
they didn't see how they could use it to their advantage. My father suggested
swapping one set of coded books out—intercepting them and replacing them with
the dummy information.”