Three Fates

  into his palm converter, then took out the keys he’d had made as the security system shut down.

  “We’re clear,” he said softly, then unlocked the door.

  After they slipped inside, he relocked the door, reengaged the outer alarms. “And we’re in. Go,” he ordered, but Rebecca was already dashing for the stairs.

  Guided by the beam of her flashlight, she raced up to Anita’s office. She took the key out of her pocket and, trusting she and Jack had succeeded in realigning the security, unlocked the door.

  After closing the drapes over the window facing Madison, she switched on the desk light, then sat down at Anita’s computer. And rubbed her hands together.

  “All right, handsome, let’s make love.”

  Downstairs, Jack reconfigured the security system. It would go back on-line, complete and better than ever, after he and Rebecca were clear. While he worked, he listened to Malachi through his headset.

  “They’re at the airport. She’s been dropped off at the curb. Gideon’s finding a place to park. He’ll pick her up again inside the terminal. What’s your status there?”

  “Coming along. Put Tia on. I want to run the first checklist.”

  “You’re up.” Malachi handed her a headset.

  “Jack?”

  “I’m giving you the first encryption. Key it in.”

  Behind her, Cleo yawned. She lifted one earpiece so the muffled sound of bass and drums beat into the air. “Everything cool?”

  AT THE KEYBOARD, Rebecca hacked her way through Anita’s computer security. It was, she thought with some glee, pathetic. No more than a simple password lock and easily dispatched. She found the insurance file in her first document search. Opening it, she searched out the inventory list and claim form Anita had generated that day.

  “Tsk-tsk. Padded the claim already, didn’t you? But so conservatively. We’re going to improve on that.” Out of her pocket she took the short list Jack and Tia had made. And got to work.

  As she doctored the claim form, she heard her brother’s voice in her ear. “He’s caught up with her. She’s just walked into the first-class lounge. There’s an hour and fifteen before her flight.”

  “I’m into the file. I wonder what the devil the Nara period is, and why some plaque from it’s worth so flaming much money. Jack, you can check that piece, and the Chiparus figure. Are you going to get to the earbobs?”

  “I’ll get them. Log them in.”

  “Don’t forget the bugs Tia planted.”

  “Working on it. Be quiet. Tia, set to run next encryption.”

  Within fifty minutes, Rebecca finished listing and detailing the items Tia had selected on her wanderings through Morningside, had adjusted the computer’s date and time to stamp the work for earlier in the day. At a time, thanks to the little mic under the chair, they knew Anita had been alone in her office.

  After printing out the claim, she wiggled her fingers, then signed the bottom of the form with a fine—if she did say so herself—forgery of Anita’s signature. She dated it, then typed up a detailed instruction list for the assistant.

  She had the clock reset, the computer shut down, the mic Tia had put under the chair in her bag and the drapes open again when she heard Jack coming up the stairs.

  “We’re set here.”

  “Check again,” he ordered.

  “Yes, Mr. Anal-Retentive Sir. Drapes, computer, lamp, flashlight, mic and articles suitable for framing,” she added, waving the file in her hand.

  She relocked the office door before strolling over to lay the file on Anita’s assistant’s desk. “Being an efficient soul, the girl will likely have this sent off first thing in the morning. I should tell you she’d already added a couple of things to the claim. Some sort of plate that’s apparently worth some twenty-eight thousand American dollars.”

  “Added to this . . .” Jack tapped the bag on his shoulder. “That takes her claim over two million. She’ll sure have a lot of explaining to do. Security’s reset. We’ll bring it back on-line when we’re clear.”

  “Then our work here is done. Let’s go.”

  “There’s one more thing.” He dug in his pocket, took out the ring box. When he flipped open the top, Rebecca leaned in to study it in the beam of her flashlight.

  “That’s a lovely sparkler. Did you steal that from here?”

  “No. I brought it in with me. Want it?”

  She looked back up at him, cocked her head. “You’re asking me to marry you here, in a building we’ve burglarized?”

  “I’ve already asked you to marry me,” he reminded her. “I’m giving you the ring here, in a building we’ve technically burglarized. It belonged to my great-great-grandmother. She was wearing it when your great-great-grandfather saved her life.”

  “That’s lovely. That’s all-around lovely, Jack. I’ll take it.” She tugged off her glove, held out her hand. “And you.”

  He slid it onto her finger, dipped his head for a kiss to seal the bargain.

  “That’s a very sweet moment,” Malachi said through the headpieces. “Congratulations and best wishes to you both. Now would you mind getting your asses out of there?”

  “Oh, stuff it, Mal.” Rebecca leaned up for one more kiss. “We’re on our way.”

  When they got back to the van, Cleo slid the partition open so she and Rebecca could change places. “Let’s see the bauble,” Cleo demanded. Impatient, she tugged off Rebecca’s glove. “Whoa. Some rock.”

  “Save the girl stuff for later.” Jack strapped into his seat. “Bring the system on-line.”

  “Now that we’re engaged, he’s full of orders.” Rebecca stepped through and took over the controls from Tia. “Booting it up.”

  As she worked, Malachi bent over her, pressed his lips to the top of her head and made her smile. “I’m going to get all gooey and sentimental in just a bit.”

  “Me, too.”

  “It’s a beautiful ring.” Unable to resist, Tia leaned down to get a closer look. The diamond flashed as Rebecca’s fingers raced over the keyboard. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “We’ll have a party tonight, won’t we? For all sorts of reasons. Primary’s up, backup booting,” she announced. “And there we are. All neat and tidy.” She leaned back, took the bottle of water Malachi offered. “We’ve done it.”

  “Time for Act Two.” Cleo propped her feet on the dash. “We got time to grab a pizza?”

  GIDEON SAT IN Kennedy Airport, reading a paperback copy of Bradbury’s Something Wicked. He’d settled into a gate area where he could easily observe the first-class lounge.

  The flight to Athens was on time and had already started to board. He was beginning to feel a bit twitchy, yearned for a cigarette.

  He shifted in his seat, turned a page without reading as Anita strolled out of the lounge. He let her get another gate down before he rose and wandered after her.

  Like dozens of other travelers, he pulled out a cell phone. “She’s queuing up to board,” he said quietly. “Flight’s on schedule.”

  “Let us know when it, and she, are in the air. Oh, by the way, Becca and Jack got engaged.”

  “Did they?” Though he kept his attention on the back of Anita’s head, Gideon grinned at his brother’s news. “Official and all?”

  “She’s wearing a ring with a diamond fit to blind you. We’re heading toward the second target now. If all goes well, we’ll meet you back at base on schedule. You can see it for yourself.”

  “Good thing I’ve got me sunglasses. She’s just going down the jetway. Thirty minutes to takeoff. I’m sitting down here, going back to my book. I’ll ring you back.”

  THEY PARKED THREE blocks away, and waited.

  “See, I told you we had time for pizza.”

  Jack slanted Cleo a look. “Why aren’t you fat as a cow?”

  “Metabolism.” She took a Hershey’s Big Block out of her bag, unwrapped one end. “It’s the one useful thing my mother passed on to me. So, are you and Rebecca
going to live here, or over on the Emerald Isle?”

  “Some of both, I imagine, and here and there. We’ll work it out.”

  “Yeah. It’s handy you’ve got a gig where you bounce around a lot.”

  “What about you? You going back to dancing when this is over? With your cut, you could buy a chunk of the Rockettes.”

  “Dunno. Probably hang loose awhile.” She munched on chocolate. “Maybe I’ll open my own club or a dance school. Something that doesn’t keep me hauling butt from audition to audition. Right now, I can’t think further than making Anita pay for Mikey.”

  “We’ve got a good start on that.”

  “Man. He’d get such a rush out of all this shit. Jack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if it’s not in there? What if she took it with her or something?”

  “Then we go to Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?”

  “I’ll let you know when we get there.” He looked at her as Malachi’s signal came through his headset. “She’s in the air.”

  “Curtain up,” Cleo said, and stepped nimbly out of the van.

  “You want to go over anything again? Floor plan, hand signals?”

  “No, I got it.”

  “We’ve got two people in the building this time,” he reminded her. “Two live-in servants. We have to do this quietly.”

  “I’m a fucking cat. Don’t worry. Do you think this is some kind of record?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Breaking into two places, for a total of three B and E’s in twenty-four hours, without actually stealing anything.”

  “We’re taking the Fate.”

  “Yeah, but it already belongs to Mal, and Tia, I guess. So that doesn’t count. I think we could get into the Guinness guy’s record book for this.”

  “A lifelong dream of mine.”

  They walked by the house once. The lights were off on the second floor. “Looks like they’ve settled in for the evening. Servants’ quarters there, south corner of the house.”

  “Housekeeper and butler, check. You think they get it on while the boss is away?”

  Jack scratched his jaw. “I’d rather not get that image stuck in my head just now. We go up the east side to the bedroom terrace. We’ll be exposed about fifteen seconds.”

  “Takes more than that to shake a former stripper, pal.”

  “Maybe you could do a number for my bachelor party.” He grinned as Rebecca’s pithy comment came through his headphones. “Or maybe not. Love of my life? Shut down the alarms.”

  He ignored the stream of cabs that drove by, and the radio car. At Rebecca’s signal, he clamped a hand on Cleo’s and pulled her off the sidewalk and into the shadows of the house.

  They hooked lines to harnesses and were rising up the side of the building, rolling over the stone rail and crouched on the terrace before another word was spoken.

  He gestured for Cleo to stow the gear while he crab-walked to the terrace doors. “Take out the locks, east terrace, second level,” he said quietly into his headphones. He waited until he heard them snick, then rose, exposing himself again to deal with the manual locks.

  From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small case, chose his lock pick from it.

  “Bet they didn’t teach you that in security school,” Cleo mentioned in a low voice.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  He dealt with the dead bolt, then, easing the door open, waited for Cleo to slip inside before he relocked it.

  A good crime-scene investigator would spot the job, he knew. But he didn’t think that was going to come up.

  “Obsession.” Cleo sniffed the air. “Her perfume. Fits, doesn’t it?”

  “Lock the doors. Hallway, straight ahead. Master bath on the left.”

  She moved through the shadowed light to oblige, and continued to whisper. “Should I ask how come you know so much about her bedroom setup?”

  “Professional knowledge only.” When the doors were locked, he moved directly to the closet.

  “Holy shit, this is bigger than my old apartment.” She fingered the sleeve of a jacket as she moved inside. “Not bad, either. Think she’d notice if I copped a couple things? I’m rebuilding my wardrobe.”

  “We’re not here to shop.”

  “Hey, shopping’s the only merit badge I ever earned.” She snagged one of a pair of snakeskin pumps off a wall of shelves. “My size. It’s fate.”

  “You’ve got a job to do here, Cleo.”

  “Okay, okay.” But she stuffed the shoes into her bag before she crouched to unroll his tools.

  Jack opened the panel to the safe and exposed the security pad. He interfaced his portable computer, engaged the search.

  “Sooner or later, she’s bound to figure out you’re the only one who could pull this off,” Cleo commented. “She’s going to be really pissed off at you.”

  “Yeah. I’m shaking.” He watched the readout as the first two numbers of the combination of seven locked into place. “What’s our time?”

  “Four minutes, twenty seconds. We’re skating right along.” While she waited, Cleo pushed through a rack of suits. “I don’t go for the lady-suit look. But hey, this one’s cashmere. Bet it’ll look sharp on Tia.”

  She rolled it up, added it to her booty.

  “Combination’s locked,” Jack told her. “Cross your fingers, gorgeous.”

  She did, on both hands, then stepped behind him. “Son of a bitch.” She breathed out audibly when he opened the door. Clotho glinted like a star. “There she is. You copy that, you guys? We’ve got her.” She held out the padded bag for Jack. “Rebecca? I’m giving your man a big, sloppy kiss. So deal with it.”

  When she was done, she reached for her bag again. “Don’t close it yet, Jack. I got a little present for Anita.”

  “We don’t leave anything behind,” he began, then stared at what Cleo pulled out of her bag. “What is that? Is that Barbie?”

  “Yeah. To replace the statue. I picked out the wardrobe on a quick trip to FAO Schwarz.” Gently, Cleo stood the black-leather-clad, buxom blond doll in the safe. “I call her Cat Burglar Barbie. See, she’s got a little goody bag. It’s got lock picks in it I made out of little safety pins, and this tiny plastic doll, pretty much to scale, I painted silver to represent the Fate.”

  “Cleo, you’re a regular Martha Stewart.”

  “I got hidden talents, all right. Bye-bye, Barbie,” she added, and blew a kiss as Jack closed the safe.

  They shut the panel, gathered the tools.

  “Okay, once we leave this room, no talking. Hand signals only. Out the door, to the right. Down the steps, to the left. Stay close.”

  “I’m practically riding piggyback.”

  “This part’s trickier,” he reminded her. “We get caught in here, it’s all for nothing.”

  “Just lead the way.”

  They slipped out of the bedroom. As they couldn’t risk flashlights now, they waited for their eyes to adjust to the dark of the second-level hallway. The house was silent, so silent Cleo could hear the ticking of her own heart. And wondered how it had managed to rise up into her throat.

  At Jack’s signal, they moved forward, footsteps soft over the Karastan runner.

  At the base of the stairs Cleo began to think the place was