Lorna Tedder Read online

  I knew to steer clear of Caleb, my most dangerous mistake. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, even now, I could still feel his thumbs on my throat, could still feel the gray fog of unconsciousness seep into my vision. I hated him for that, almost as much as he hated me for refusing to let him touch me ever again. He’d sworn to kill me if he ever had another chance. That was but one more reason to finish this heist and put an end to my connection to the Adriano family.

  If Simon will let me go.

  The moans from the master suite subsided, then started again. I ignored the actress’s shrieks and fidgeted with my belt until I extracted a safecracker’s key no bigger than a penlight on a key chain. I held the cylinder close to the panel on the wall next to the safe. The red digital letters, SECURE, scattered into dots and reformed in a bright green OPEN.

  The vault door clicked. I slid it open and expelled a sigh of admiration. Paintings—originals—lined one corner of the vault. Some were strictly black market and might have been worth my effort to—shall we say—liberate. But I had no time for such pleasures.

  The package I’d been told to retrieve seemed to sizzle on its own shelf. Exactly as Eric had described, the soft-sided briefcase with the long shoulder strap covered a hard plastic case of…something…wrapped in a protective liner. For once, Eric had been correct about something. I understood at last why he had insisted I deliver the package to Simon “off the grid,” even though it would take me weeks to return to the Adriano compound in Italy. No airport in the United States would dare let me board a jet without forcing me to open the package or, at the very least, to shove it through an X-ray machine. The Duke, when he’d first told me about this job, had been adamant about my not letting the package out of my hands and especially not allowing it into the hands of anyone in authority, such as a customs agent or that woman from Interpol who seemed to be two steps behind me no matter where I went.

  Slowly I backed out of the vault, the briefcase tucked under my arm, its strap over my shoulder, and closed the door to the safe. I swung the tapestry back into place and turned just in time to catch the wide-eyed shock of a blond woman walking out of the master suite and dressed only in a satin sheet.

  “B-b-burglar!” she screeched at the same pitch as her fake orgasm. Her overly pouty lips trembled, but she was too terrified to say more.

  I didn’t know whether I should be proud or hurt that she found me so frightening. For pity’s sake, I wasn’t even carrying a knife or a revolver. I was fully twenty pounds lighter than she, twice as disheveled and equally barefoot.

  “Bill!” she screamed loud enough to pierce my eardrums.

  I didn’t hang around to get a good look at the guy who was probably just turning over for a good snore. I bounded for the window on the far side of the room, for the fire escape I could slide partway down, for my taxi waiting discreetly below. I’d be gone by the time she called the front desk to complain about an intruder. I flicked the window latch with my thumb.

  It wouldn’t open.

  “Error number four,” I whispered. The window didn’t lead to the fire escape. It led nowhere. The blueprints were wrong again. I slammed my palm against the cold glass and it cracked under the force. “Damn you, Eric.”

  I dipped behind the marble table with the lilies on top and slid toward the elevator, pounding the button with my thumb. I glimpsed the blonde as she threw herself at the fire alarm on the wall. I couldn’t let her do that. I couldn’t let her pull that alarm. If she did, the elevator control panel would lock up, and the elevator car would glide to uselessness on the ground floor. Even if I could find the stairwell quickly, I’d never make it down the stairs on a bum knee without being caught.

  There was no need to kill her. Not if I had any choice. I’d killed before, twice, but then only in self-defense against men who earned their living in the death trade. This woman wasn’t a plant, wasn’t a bodyguard, wasn’t an assassin. She was an innocent. A bumbling innocent who didn’t deserve to die for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I wouldn’t sacrifice her for myself.

  Twirling around, I shoved her backward—hard. She hit the marble floor and slid the length of the room, letting out a little “Oof!” as she bumped into the wall.

  I scrambled toward the elevator, still looking over my shoulder. The blonde sat there, dazed, then shook it off and clambered to her feet. The elevator doors opened, and I fell inside, breathless but with the briefcase in tow. The last thing I saw before the doors closed was the blonde making a wild grab for the fire alarm. Sirens erupted throughout the building.

  Damn.

  The elevator locked up and dropped quickly, speeding toward the hotel lobby fast enough that my ears popped. I knew what would be waiting for me below.

  Freedom or capture.

  Chapter 2

  A fire alarm might have been a perfect cover for me to leave with a crowd if I had been dressed like a normal guest and hadn’t just heisted what Simon had alluded to as the “artifact of the second millennium,” but I couldn’t risk the likelihood that the blonde’s companion would be intelligent enough to call hotel security and have them waiting at the elevator doors in the lobby.

  Thankfully, I had a long ride down. Bare feet against the brass handrails in the elevator, I climbed one mirrored wall, punched at the plastic grating in the fake ceiling until I found the access door, thumbed the screws loose and then pulled myself and the briefcase onto the top of the elevator car just before the doors opened and the grate fell back into place.

  Two security guards poked their heads through the door and checked the blind spot near the control panel, shook their heads, and backed out without looking up. Chest heaving, I tried to keep my breath quiet and under control. I watched through the plastic grating as they stood in front of the elevator for a few seconds, then bolted off in a different direction. I started to lower myself into the elevator.

  “Stay by the elevators,” I heard one of the security guards order between sirens. “She’s here somewhere. What goes up must come down.”

  Meaning me. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see anyone through the open elevator door, but I could hear the chaos of hotel security barking orders and hotel guests oddly demanding information instead of fleeing the building, but I couldn’t tell why. I tucked the briefcase closer to my heart. Everyone in the hotel would be looking for a barefoot woman in a black leotard and a briefcase. How would I ever get out of the building? And when the three hours on my taxi’s meter ran dry, so did my chances of escape.

  Except…

  Elevators have always been one of my specialties. They’ve been around for many decades and yet people still fear them, especially getting trapped inside or dropped or bisected by the doors. Even rescuers hate them because it’s so difficult to extricate people when they’re trapped inside or between floors. Most people don’t know how to get out. There are at least fifty different manufacturers, and every elevator model is different, which is why good intel is so important before a job like this.

  The elevator car was stationary and likely to stay that way as long as the alarms were blaring off and on in the building. The elevators were controlled by a central computer system, so a fire alarm would send every elevator car in the building to the ground floor. From inside the building, the only way back up would be through the stairwell—or the elevator shafts.

  I peered up the darkened silo and tried to remember the blueprints. Maybe something about them was right. The lighting was dim, mainly from the fluorescent bulbs below and a few slits of light above. The longer I blinked into the shaft above me, the more accustomed my eyes became, and I could discern a thin metal ladder on one wall leading upward to the next floors and eventually to the roof. An escape from the roof wasn’t feasible, not without my ropes. And as much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t blame even Eric Cabordes for the elevator.

  I’d have to improvise to get to my taxi. Standing carefully, I kicked at the emergency toolbox amid the equipment on top
of the elevator car. It held a short ladder for rescues, too short to be of any use to me. Instead I grabbed a screwdriver, clenched it between my teeth, slung the briefcase over my shoulder by its strap and then started the climb up the shaft.

  I’d done my share of rock climbing, and this would have been easy had my knee not screamed with every push upward I made. That and the fact that I had to be careful of everything I touched so I didn’t electrocute myself.

  I reached the second story and leaned in front of the doors, hanging on to the ladder by my feet as I worked to pry the doors open with the screwdriver. The blare of the alarm blasted through into the quieter elevator shaft. I slid the doors open just enough to see that the hall was clear and then tumbled out onto the carpet.

  Too bad my daughter couldn’t have seen me do that. I would have been the hit of show-and-tell. Then again, those show-and-tell days had ended years ago, and I’d missed seeing what had come after them.

  At least I’d found what I was looking for on the second floor—the gym. The one place I could be dressed like a gymnast on a mission and no one would take me for a thief.

  I squinted through the floor-length windows. The treadmills and recumbent bikes had been abandoned. Good.

  The alarms still shrieked at intervals. I ignored them and bounded through the glass doors with the gym’s hours etched in white.

  My plan was to hide in plain sight because they would be looking for someone in a defensive posture. I’ve always had the kind of looks that people notice. Not the best feature for a thief. The security guards, and by now the police, would be looking for black leotards, bare feet and a briefcase. Surely the blonde would have gotten that much of a description right. Those three things, if nothing else, would have to be hidden.

  I tore through the locker room, finding it empty, as well. Someone had left a navy-blue gym bag on the changing bench, smelly shoes included. The bag looked generic enough not to be spotted by its owner. The briefcase was a perfect fit, but I could tell by looking that the shoes were too small for me.

  Using the screwdriver, I jimmied open one locker and then another, finally pulling out a pair of expensive athletic shoes. About one size too big, but if laced up tightly, they’d do fine. I salvaged a bright blue sarong from the pool area and turned it into a skirt that hid the legs of my leotard and made the top look like a swimsuit. I dampened my hair and threw a white gym towel over my shoulder.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  I spun at the voice, screwdriver hidden in my palm. A well-muscled security guard eyed me frantically from the gym door.

  “Can’t you hear the fire alarm? Come on! Go, go, go!”

  Before I could say anything, he grabbed my elbow and escorted me into the hall. His gait was a little too fast for both my oversize shoes and my knee injury, so I pulled away from him, nodding as he pointed to the stairwell.

  I limped down the stairs both flustered and relieved. Every footstep ached. For the kind of bashing my knee had suffered, the worst thing in the world for it was walking down stairs. But the good news was the security guard hadn’t recognized me.

  Free, I thought. I’m going to make it. This time.

  I had barely enough time to get to the first floor and out the door before my taxi was scheduled to leave, with or without me. He’d been paid cash in advance, with a nice bonus promised for waiting the full three hours if I returned. I’d always found it best to use cash as an incentive, a little something I’d learned from the Adrianos.

  The alarm stopped, but it still rang in my head. The scene in the lobby was a little less of a zoo than it had been when I’d almost descended into it earlier. Hotel guests milled around, some grumbling about being kept downstairs and others looking bored. Some wore pajamas or bathrobes, and one man with shaving cream on half his face had obviously hastily tugged on a trench coat over his flip-flops and God knew what else. The lobby was so thick with people that I had to stop a few times to wait for someone to inch around me.

  As for me, I did my best to fit in, something that’s never been an easy chore for me. I made shy eye contact with a couple of guests as if I were an old friend, shrugged and waved and kept walking through the crowd until I had passed the danger of being caught. The main exit was straight ahead. None of the security guards or police seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary about me. I was just a normal guest whose swim had been interrupted by the fire alarm.

  “Ma’am?” An auburn-haired security guard stepped in front of me. He was older and not as buff as the one who’d dragged me out of the gym. “You can’t go that way.”

  I swear I batted my eyelashes at him. “Excuse me? I thought there was a fire. We’re supposed to stay inside a burning building?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean…” He blushed. “I mean, no, ma’am. You must have missed the announcement. It’s just a false alarm. Some prankster pulled the alarm, but we have to check it out. You’ll have to wait down here for a few more minutes.”

  Hmm. So the hotel management didn’t want it known that they were looking for a thief? The guy I’d taken the briefcase from must have been pretty important to get this kind of service. I wondered if the hotel employee in front of me was important enough to know who had pulled the alarm and why. Judging by the presence of police officers in the lobby, I guessed that even if he didn’t know, the ones guarding the doors had an idea that they had a dangerous thief in their midst.

  I looked past him at the front doors to the hotel. Another twenty feet and I’d be free.

  “Ah,” I said, “a false alarm. So that’s why I didn’t see any firefighters running through the building.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’d rather no one left the building until we get it sorted out.” A flimsy excuse, but it was working for the mangle of guests in the lobby.

  I flashed him a smile. “But I need to leave the building.”

  He pointed to the concierge desk. “Just show the officer over there your room key or some kind of identification.” He must have seen the look on my face. “If you left it in the pool area, you’ll have to wait until that area is cleared and then you can go back upstairs for it.”

  Not what I had in mind. I could barrel through the doors and outrun the cops, lose myself in the sidewalk traffic, disappear between buildings and double back to the taxi. Yeah. I could do it.

  No, I couldn’t. Not with a bum knee.

  Nodding my thanks to the guard, I tucked the artifact closer to my heart and kept my head down as I rounded the corner toward a service exit I’d noted on the blueprints. Hotel guests wouldn’t be aware of the exit. I just hoped something Eric Cabordes had told me was correct.

  The briefcase seemed to hum with energy, but it was probably just my imagination. I myself was putting out a lot of heat and energy. I’d been told it was an artifact from the fifteenth century, but for all I knew, it was a bomb or a deadly biological agent. I’d have to get the briefcase back to Italy before I could find out what was in it. Simon had assured me that I was not to open it, not under any circumstances. Eric, on the other hand, had said no such thing.

  Through the glass partitions of the restaurant, I could see the red letters of an exit sign above a side door. Down one hallway and over another and I’d be there. I’d be free.

  The rush of adrenaline made me tingle all the way to my toes. I was so close! All the doubts of earlier in the evening started to fade. Over three hundred heists—thirty-five solo for Simon—and I was still the mistress of the game! Pain stabbed through my knee, but I couldn’t let it stop me. Never mind the money and the nice, safe retirement I longed for, I didn’t want to admit it, but I really did love the excitement of getting away with it one more time. I was addicted to the thrill of it and I had to admit, too, that even with all of Eric’s erroneous information, tonight’s job had made every cell in my body come alive, first with doubts and then with victory. Ever since I lost the life I’d had with my little girl, the adrenaline rush had been the only thing that m
ade me feel alive.

  I couldn’t avoid the smug twist of my lips as I focused on the marble tile of the foyer near the bank of public elevators. My taxi would be waiting for me across the street. I was practically home free. According to the blueprints, all I had to do was reach the service exit around the next corner and—

  Dead end.

  I stared at the framed sign: Pardon Our Dust While We Renovate. My heart sank. Sure, the new fountain and lounge would look great in another week, but my last-resort escape route had just been shot to hell and back. I spun to check my options.

  Damn, damn, damn. A move to the right and I’d run into the unyielding arms of hotel security. If I bolted to the left, I’d meet face-to-face with the San Francisco police at the public exits. In either case, the most likely person to come to my aid would be Analise Reisner, the Interpol agent who’d been right behind me as recently as two days ago. Not exactly the rescue I wanted, even if she did owe me one.

  I cursed under my breath. I was sick of the roller coaster this job had been. A minute ago I’d loved it, and now? Failure at every turn, then finding a way out, then failing again. It was almost as if someone wanted me to get caught red-handed with the artifact. Which made me wonder even more about the contents of the package.

  My lover used to say that when one door closes another one opens, but I’m not sure he’d meant it literally.

  I had to make a plan. I’m just that way. I can’t do anything on impulse. I had to think it through and know where I was going. Planning, analysis, studying the situation—it’s my scarecrow when I feel out of control. And yet, in the back of my mind something reminded me of how my plans for a heist were almost always perfectly executed whereas the plans for my life had gone awry at every opportunity.

  I stalked back to the lobby to look over the situation. The exits on the first floor were blocked. The roof was out of the question. I couldn’t take the stairs because they were blocked off now. Trapped. I was trapped. That’s the worst feeling in the world to me, having to stay somewhere I don’t want to be and being powerless, being controlled. Just like having to work for the Adrianos. Damn. I needed a place to hide until things cooled down.