Elemental Thief

  She pulled her head back. “That’s it? You believe that someone has a reason to shoot one of us, but you’re happy to move on without explaining any further?”

  “There’s nothing to explain.”

  “Are you kidding?” She gripped his shoulders and gave him a small shake. “Why do you think someone might want to kill me?”

  Archer sighed, his eyes sliding shut for a moment as Ridley lowered her hands. “Okay. It was me they were shooting at. Not you. Now it has nothing to do with you, so you shouldn’t have any more questions.”

  Though the situation was far from funny, Ridley started laughing. “Oh, you have no idea how many questions I have. You return to the city with zero fanfare—which is interesting enough on its own—end up at the scene of a murder right outside my home, have a cryptic conversation with the mayor’s son after trying to steal an envelope from him, almost wind up getting shot, and you think I shouldn’t have any questions?”

  “Fine. You have questions. Doesn’t mean you’re getting any answers. Especially not after you stole from me.”

  Ridley folded her arms across her chest. “Did you know him? The man in the alley. The one who was killed.”

  “No.”

  “But you were talking to him. What did he say? Why was he following me?”

  Archer hesitated, his eyes narrowing. “You saw him following you?”

  “Yes. Earlier that afternoon. I thought I got away from him, but I must have been wrong, seeing as how he showed up outside my place.” She gestured to him. “Now your turn. You answer one of my questions.”

  “No. Now you tell me where the figurine is.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Where were you for the past year and a bit?”

  “France,” he answered, a little too quickly.

  “What were you doing there? And why’d you come back now?”

  “Where is the figurine?”

  “How is Lawrence Madson involved? Why did he take the envelope that man was carrying?”

  “The figurine, Ridley,” Archer growled.

  “Tell me what’s going on!” she shouted.

  He walked away from her and stood by one of the windows. After looking down, he turned back to face her. “I didn’t want to have to do things this way, Ridley.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What way?”

  “If you refuse to return what you stole, I’m going to have to go to the police and show them the proof of exactly who it was that broke into our home and stole from Alastair Davenport’s private art collection.”

  Ridley pressed her lips together and sucked in a long breath. “Blackmail. I see.”

  “You’ve given me no choice.”

  “Uh huh. Well, getting the figurine back is going to be a little difficult.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I sold it. And I have no idea who the buyer was.”

  16

  “You sold it?” Archer’s hands balled into fists. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Ridley pushed herself away from the desk and stood a little straighter. “The money went to a little girl who needed cancer treatment and to an elderly couple about to end up on the street because they can barely afford their rent. You should be happy.”

  “I’m not happy!” Archer yelled. “I mean, I’m glad a little girl will get treatment and an elderly couple won’t be homeless, but you could have stolen something else to fund your illegal donations, Ridley. Anything else.”

  Ridley stared at him, finally seeing past his anger to the desperation in his eyes. She began to realize that perhaps this really was about more than the fact that she’d stolen something from the all-powerful Davenport family. “It’s that important?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “And you won’t tell me why?”

  “No. I … I can’t. All I can say is that it will affect many people—many innocent people—if I don’t get it back before it ends up in the wrong hands.”

  “And you really expect me to believe that you, partying playboy Archer Davenport, care about these innocent people?”

  “Yes, of course. I—” He pushed his shoulders back and pressed his lips into a tight line before saying, “I’m not the same person who left the city over a year ago. I’ve changed.”

  Ridley started laughing, partly at Archer and partly at herself for almost being taken in by his act. “Oh, come on. Are you kidding me? I might have believed you if you hadn’t pulled out that tired old cliché. You haven’t changed a bit, Archer. You came back to the city and let someone else take the fall for murder without batting an eyelid. You’re exactly the same as you were before.”

  “That was—” He cut himself off, exhaling sharply. “Out of my control,” he finished quietly.

  “Sure it was.”

  “You’re a criminal,” he countered. “Does that mean you don’t care about other people?’

  “Of course I care about—”

  “Exactly. So think whatever you want about me, but I’m not so terrible a person that I’ll let loads of people die if I can stop it.”

  “Die?” Ridley eyed him doubtfully. “And this is all because an ancient gold artifact might end up in the wrong hands?”

  “Yes.”

  Ridley sighed. “Well, crap.”

  “What?”

  “It might be too late then.”

  Archer stepped closer, fixing his intense gaze on her. “Why?”

  “Because …” She swallowed but refused to look away. “It wasn’t by chance that I stole that particular artifact. Someone asked for it.”

  “Someone asked for it?”

  “Someone was offering a lot,” she rushed on, “so I wasn’t about to turn down the job. I didn’t realize that thing was so important. I thought it was just an ancient piece of art from hundreds of years ago that some other collector really wanted. But maybe … maybe the buyer knew about whatever makes this figurine so important.”

  “Yes, Ridley, if someone specifically asked for it, then of course they know why it’s important.” He moved closer—far too close for comfort—and said, “You’re going to get it back. You might not know who bought it, but there must be some kind of trail. Information you can follow.”

  Refusing to be intimidated, she raised her hands to Archer’s chest and pushed him away. “Yes, I can probably find out from my dealer. But if the figurine is already in the wrong hands, then—”

  “It’s not too late. No one knows how to open it, so we might still have time.”

  “Open it? There’s something inside?” When Archer showed no sign of answering, she sighed. “Fine. But if someone knows why this thing is so important, then they probably also know how to get inside it.”

  Archer shook his head. “No one knows.”

  “Well … what if they just break it?”

  “That won’t work. At least … I hope it won’t.” He unlocked the door leading to the stairway, then crossed the room to the window behind the desk. Sliding it open, he said, “Send a message to your dealer and ask to meet.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. Have I somehow failed to communicate the urgency of this situation to you?”

  “Someone just tried to shoot one of us,” Ridley reminded him. “And now you want to go back out there?”

  “I’m not planning to hide in Principal Colson’s house forever, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “No, it’s just …” Ridley threw her hands up. “I’ve never been shot at before, okay? I don’t know what to do in this situation.”

  “You do what I tell you to do.”

  “Wow, that makes me feel so much better,” she deadpanned.

  “Or we go to the police. Together. We can tell them all about how someone tried to shoot us, and I can also update them on the details of the robbery that took place in my home a few nights ago.”

  Ridley placed her hands on her hips. “Obviously I’m not interested in that option.”


  “I thought so.” Archer nodded to the window. “Let’s get moving.”

  “But we have to do something about it, right?” Ridley asked as she moved toward the window. “Because if someone wants one of us dead, they’ll probably try again.”

  “Then we can deal with that problem after we find the figurine.”

  “Hopefully we’re still alive at that point,” she muttered. She stopped in front of the window and added, “Can I at least text Meera? She’s going to worry about the fact that I disappeared straight after a shooting.”

  “Stop stalling!” Archer exclaimed.

  “I’m not!” Ridley sat on the windowsill, swung both legs over, and balanced herself on the sloped, tiled surface. She hung onto the window frame with one hand and pulled her commscreen from her pocket with the other. “My friend cares about me, so I need to tell her something.”

  “Then make it quick.”

  Ridley looked at the device’s screen and found three missed voice calls, one missed video call, and multiple text messages—all from Meera. Without reading any of them, she touched a button, raised the commscreen to her lips, and said, “I’m so, so sorry. I had to leave. I’ll explain later. And if my dad asks, please tell him I’m fine.” The words appeared on the screen almost instantly, and she tapped to send the message. “I should text my dad as well—”

  “Just do it so we can get moving,” Archer said as he climbed out of the window.

  “Dad, I’m fine,” Ridley quickly dictated into her commscreen. “I’ll be home later.”

  “Great.” Archer balanced beside her. “Now contact your dealer to arrange a meeting as soon as possible.”

  She shook her head. “No can do. Not with this commscreen. I have an old one at home that I use to contact him. And even if I did message him from that device now, he’d ignore me. We never arrange meetings on such short notice.”

  Archer raised an eyebrow. “You’d better have a backup plan then.”

  “I know where he lives,” Ridley said, hating that she was about to betray Ezra in this way. “That’s my backup plan.”

  “Good. If we have to, we’ll wait at his place until he returns home.” Archer began pulling himself up the sloped roof. For a moment, Ridley considered vanishing, running away, hiding from Archer and whatever problems she’d caused him. But she banished the thought immediately and followed him. Archer knew where she lived, which meant she couldn’t hide forever. And there was the possibility that he was serious about going to police with the videos of her stealing that figurine and sneaking into his bedroom.

  “I assume we’re taking the roof in case someone’s looking for us down on the streets?” she asked.

  “Yes. And I assume you don’t have a problem climbing across a roof. Being a thief and all that.”

  Ridley decided not to reply and instead focused on not slipping. Her flat-soled pumps weren’t the best for climbing, but at least she hadn’t chosen to put heels on. She and Archer scrambled their way to the top of the roof, walked tightrope-style part of the way across the narrow ridge, slid down the other side, and jumped easily onto the flat roof of the neighboring building. Archer was correct that Ridley had little problem with this particular terrain, but it appeared she wasn’t the only one who found it easy. He seemed as comfortable up here as she was, and she wondered yet again what he’d spent his time doing since he left the city.

  “He lives quite far from here,” she told Archer once they’d climbed onto yet another roof. “It’s going to take a long time if you’re hoping to get there without setting foot on the ground.”

  “Don’t be silly. Two more buildings and then we’ll climb down. My driver will pick us up there.”

  “Your driver? Seriously?” Ridley paused beside a chimney. “You’re hoping to get into the grimiest part of the city unnoticed in the type of car that probably hasn’t been seen there in … well, ever?”

  “No. We’ll drive until you decide we’ve reached a good point to get out, then we’ll continue on foot. No public transport. I’m too recognizable.”

  As much as she wanted to, Ridley couldn’t argue with that. Pretty much everyone knew who the Davenports were.

  They traversed two more rooftops, climbed down a fire escape, and found Archer’s driver already waiting in a shiny black electro-limo with tinted windows. The driver jumped out, opened the back door, and Ridley climbed in ahead of Archer. She slid across to the other side of the seat, putting as much distance as she could between herself and Archer.

  As the car pulled smoothly away from the curb, Ridley turned to the window. The disorienting feeling of being thrown back in time was so overwhelming that she shut her eyes and let the memories wash over her. In her head, for just a few moments, she was a little girl again, sitting in the back of a fancy car with one parent on each side. They were driving to a movie premiere Dad had been invited to because every crown in the royal ball scene had been designed by him. She remembered the city lights flashing by, the feel of the leather seat beneath her hands, the cold air conditioning raising goosebumps on her arms and legs. Mom had tried to get her to put on a coat before they left home, but Ridley had refused. She didn’t want to hide the butterflies on her dress. The butterflies with wings made of water droplets.

  “Look here,” Archer said, pulling Ridley from her memories. Her eyelids snapped open as she faced him, and he held his commscreen out for her to see. A news alert on the screen said something about Lawrence Madson being taken in for questioning regarding the murder outside Ridley’s home. “He won’t tell the truth,” Archer said quietly. “At least, not all of it. And they won’t be able to question him for long. Terrible publicity for the mayor though.”

  “I assume it was terrible publicity for your family too,” Ridley said.

  Archer shrugged as he put his commscreen away. “Not really. My family’s not trying to convince anyone to let them continue governing Lumina City. Besides, it fits the Archer Davenport image. I think everyone was more surprised to see that I’d returned than they were to find out I’d been arrested as a possible suspect in a murder.”

  Ridley frowned. “You must have known there was someone else in that alley. You knew it wasn’t you or Lawrence, that someone else must have thrown that knife. So why didn’t you say anything when you were arrested?”

  “The best thing to do when arrested is say nothing at all. Later, when I spoke to my father and the lawyers, they told me what I should say.”

  “Why did you go along with it though? What was the point in creating that other video to pretend Shen was there? It seems a whole lot of effort for nothing.”

  “For nothing? You think hiding the fact that the mayor’s son was there is nothing?”

  “So … it wasn’t your father or your lawyers who decided that video should be doctored? It was the mayor?”

  Archer turned his face to the window. “It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. All that matters now is finding the figurine.”

  They drove another few minutes in silence before the car came to a stop. The window that separated the back section of the car from the front rolled down. “Excuse me, sir,” the driver said. “We’ve arrived at the street your companion suggested we stop at.”

  “Good,” Archer said, reaching for the door handle. “We’ll get out here.”

  They climbed out of the car and crossed the street, and Ridley looked back to orient herself. The limo drove away, revealing the veggie hot dog stand on the other side of the road and the family clustered in front of it.

  Shen. His parents. His two younger siblings.

  Ridley had to blink more than once to make sure she was seeing correctly. She let out a surprised laugh, a wide smile stretching her lips. She stepped down off the sidewalk. Archer must have known she was about to race across the road, because he gripped her arm, leaned closer, and said, “Let him enjoy this time with his family. You can talk to him when I’ve got that figurine back.”

  Ridley’s smile was gone
in an instant. She wanted to argue with him. She longed to run across the road and fling her arms around her friend. But Archer was right that she should let Shen enjoy being with his family now. “Fine.” She wrenched her arm free of Archer’s grip. “And stop manhandling me.”

  “My apologies.” Archer held his hands up, though he hardly looked sorry. “Where to next?”

  “This way,” she muttered, turning away from the Lin family and marching forward. As she and Archer rounded the corner at the end of the block, she couldn’t help throwing a glance back over her shoulder. They all looked so happy, as if everything was right in the world. And then they were out of sight, and Ridley had to turn her mind back to remembering the way to Ezra’s apartment block. She’d been there several times, but rarely using the same route. She was fairly certain she knew where to go though.

  A man sitting on the sidewalk strumming a guitar called out to the two of them as they drew near. He continued singing, and though it sounded terribly out of tune, Ridley patted her pockets, hoping to find a few coins. But it seemed she had nothing. “Sorry,” she said, giving the man an apologetic smile as they passed.

  “I don’t have anything on me,” Archer said quietly.

  Ridley’s only response was to raise her eyebrows. She doubted Archer would even have noticed the man if Ridley hadn’t been there.

  After turning several times and walking at a quick pace for another few minutes, they reached the building Ezra lived in. As they faced the neglected apartment block with the dilapidated sign that read Jasmine Heights, Ridley wondered for the first time why Ezra lived in such a run-down part of the city. Surely he made enough from all the stolen items he sold to afford something nicer?

  “This is where he lives?” Archer asked.

  Ridley looked at him. “Yes.”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “What?” she asked. “You know this place?”

  “Let’s just get inside.”

  Ridley was getting tired of Archer not answering questions, but she managed to keep her irritation to herself as they entered the building through a security door with a broken lock. She led Archer up the stairs to the first floor, where she turned left. She couldn’t remember the apartment number, but she knew it was the seventh door on the right, so she counted until she reached the correct one.