The Taming of the Thief

Published by:

Heather Long

120 E. FM 544 Ste 72

P.O. Box 338

Murphy, Texas 75094

The Taming of the Thief

Copyright © 2012
Heather Long

Cover Art by
Kendra Egert

Editing by
Noel Varner

ISBN: 9781452453262

All rights reserved.
eBooks
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Author’s
Note
: This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s
imagination. Any resemblance to a person or persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

First electronic publication: July 2012

Visit Heather Long on the Internet at
http://www.heatherlong.net

The Taming of the Thief

The Fortunate Buddha #2

By

Heather Long

http://www.heatherlong.net

 
Dedication:

For every man who learned that the secret to stealing a woman’s heart
lay in giving
her the
key to his own.

 
   
Acknowledgements:

E
very project is a labor of love and while
writing may be a solitary business, I couldn’t do it without the strong support
of so many including Brandy, who keeps me sane, Jenn for taking such smashing
photos, Kendra for her beautiful cover work, and Noel for editing. In addition to
the professional support are my personal cheerleaders like Ruthie, Jaime, Virg,
Patti, Jeanie, and more than I can name here—I really couldn’t do any of this
without all of you.

 
   
The
value of the Fortunate Buddha is not the precious stones or metals, but the
legend of good luck it brought to the temple visitors who made a wish and a
prayer while rubbing its ruby-studded belly.

 
   
What
we think, we become.

 
   
–
Buddha

 
   
A sharp crack snapped the silence in half.
Sophie shoved her fist into her mouth, determined to strangle the scream
clawing its way up from her belly. If it had only been just a sharp crack, she
could have dismissed it. The museum’s basement was overpopulated with more
artifacts than three lifetimes worth of curators had been able to catalog. The
harsh snap could have been a displaced shelf, a fallen item or even the old air
recycling system kicking on.

 
   
The body crumpling to the floor shot down
any other reasonable possibilities. Royce Hinkley, curator, art expert and head
of the Seven Fates exhibit lay dead. His empty eyes stared across the open
expanse between the stacks. Sophie tore her gaze away from him and stared at
the hard metal support for the shelves housing minutiae from dozens of Egyptian
excavations.

 
   
A shuffle step and the man with the gun
stood between she and Professor Hinkley. Sophie shrank against the stacks,
holding her breath. She prayed that the shadowy depths of the archivists vault
would hold her secret as deeply as it held the ancient’s.

 
   
“
Non
.
” The
distinctly melodic French splashed the reality of the situation at her. “
He was trying to double cross us. He did not
have the Buddha.
Oui.
I will check in tonight.”

 
   
The Buddha.

 
   
Sophie flattened herself against the metal
struts, her pulse hammering her into place. The man’s gun vanished and he bent,
seizing Professor Hinkley under the arms and then hoisted him.

 
   
Dear
God…he killed him already. What more could he want with him?

 
   
Professor Hinkley’s head flopped, bouncing
like a bobble head as his assailant balanced the corpse’s weight over his
shoulders. Sophie swallowed back the gorge that burned up her throat. He
turned, heading away from the Egyptian stacks and towards the Mesopotamian.
Sophie kept herself as still as possible, holding her breath until the last
shuffling step faded away.

 
   
Only then did she look down at the Buddha
peeking out from the bottom of the cart. The golden man seemed to be winking at
her.

 
   
“D
octor
Kingston, I believe you.” Detective Bryant leaned against the corner of the
desk, staring down at her with sad brown eyes that told a tale of pity and
patience. He wore an air of disappointment like a rumpled, stained tie,
discoloring his disposition. “I understand what you think you saw and I
appreciate that you took the time to report it. But our crime scene unit has
been over the vault, we’ve talked to your co-workers, we’ve spoken to the
director, Doctor Hinkley is on a leave of absence,
he
began it this morning.”

 
   
“Leave of absence?”
Since when?
Professor Hinkley had been excited about
new possibilities for his Seven Fates exhibit. If he’d planned a sabbatical, he
would have had to find coverage for his projects.

 
   
The Detective shrugged. “We’re trying to
contact him, but his sabbaticals seem to be something of a legend among your
co-workers, no one else is reporting him missing and unless the lab turns up
any trace evidence, I’m afraid there’s not much else we can do.”

 
   
Sophie opened her mouth, and then shut it
again. The clock on the distant wall ticked past 8 p.m. Twelve hours since
she’d seen the Professor’s dead body. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw
his head bounce as the shooter picked him up. She could hear the dulcet French
intonation of the words as the man spoke into a phone.

 
   
She’d hidden in the stacks like a coward for
more than thirty minutes before daring to make an escape and call the police.
Despite arriving quickly, sweeping through the vaults and inspecting the crime
scene, they’d found nothing.

 
   
Not even blood.

 
   
It wasn’t possible.

 
   
She’d seen the professor shot. She’d watched
him crumple to the ground. Sophie swallowed the gorge that threatened her once
more.

 
   
Could
I have imagined it?

 
   
The thought pinged against her conscience.
It simply wasn’t rational.

 
   
T
he
six-floor walk up over the bakery had never seemed as long as it did tonight.
Sophie's legs burned with each floor, the fatigue dragging her under like a
riptide on a summer beach. She'd declined the walk to the door by the
detective, all too aware of the sympathetic glint in his gaze. She'd answered
his questions for hours, but with no success. No body, no crime.

 
   
A bang behind her sent her pulse rabbiting.
Sophie looked over her shoulder to see Mrs. Bruno tugging her overpacked, two
wheel shopping cart up the stairs,
one
thump at a
time. Keys looped over her fingers, Sophie pivoted and darted down the steps to
grab Mrs. Bruno's cart before it overbalanced and carried the old woman and her
groceries down the stairs.

 
   
“And where is your grandson?” She asked in
lieu of a hello. Mrs. Bruno's well-lined face wrinkled up into a smile.

 
   
“He had a hot date with Eppsie's
granddaughter!” She
huffed
a laugh, leaning against
the wall to catch her breath before charging ahead. Freed of her burden, her
fifth floor neighbor was quite spry.

 
   
Sophie put her back into it and tugged the
shopping cart behind her. “I thought she was dating the Lemmons' grandson.”

 
   
“Oh, she was.” Mrs. Bruno paused at the
fourth floor to let Sophie catch up. “But he's going off to college in California
next year and told her they should date other people to experiment.”

 
   
Laughter burst the sick bubble of exhaustion
souring Sophie's stomach.
“Seriously?”

 
   
“Seriously.
So my
grandson, he called me and said he'd asked her out and she said yes. He didn't
want to give her a chance to change her mind or her stupid boyfriend to wise
up.” Mrs. Bruno's eyes twinkled cheerfully. “My grandson is smart, like his
grandfather. You don't hesitate when a lady says yes. You hesitate, you lose.”

 
   
“Well, I hope it works out for them.” They'd
reached Mrs. Bruno's floor and Sophie tugged the cart over to her door. “Do you
need some help putting groceries up?”

 
   
“No dear. You need to go upstairs, shower,
freshen up and take yourself out to Tony's. Or you can head over to Popa's by
NYU to catch one of those Professors.”