“Adrenaline is nature’s way of telling you life’s about to get pretty interesting.”
Anna Collins
The Disney prince had waved to me. He waved. And smiled.
The thought was a drumbeat in my head as I climbed the trellis the builders had so thoughtfully anchored to the side of the Gray mansion.
He waved. He smiled. At me.
Perseveration was most useful for mindless tasks like climbing and running. My problem was that I kept wincing after the ‘at me’ part, because he didn’t wave and smile at me, the house-breaking, diarrhea-mouthed, engineer boot-wearing bounty hunter named Anna. He smiled and waved at pink dress, lip-slick wearing, girly-girl interior designer Colette.
Colette, who would be at the kitchen door in ten minutes.
Drumbeats and winces got me to the roof of the garage fairly easily; it was the jump from there to the tiny Juliet balcony off the second floor hallway that would require my rogue skills.
The character I’d made up for lunchtime D&D games when I was fourteen was a human rogue named Honor. At the time, I’d thought I was being clever and ironic, as fourteen-year-old invisible girls must be to be relevant when they have beautiful sisters, because Honor was a thief who roved with rogues and brigands and was therefore Honor among thieves.
I know, right?
Oddly, my character grew into her name. Her comrades could always count on her caper-planning skills, her moral code, and her fearlessness in the face of danger. She had taught them all a thieves cant so they could speak in code, and she seemed to excel at Robin Hood missions involving stealing from the rich to give to the poor. I wanted to be like Honor in real life, so I learned to climb and jump like she could – starting with the monkey bars, quickly moving to rock walls, and eventually free-climbing the ‘easy’ part of El Capitan on a trip to California after college. I’d stayed in climbing shape by scaling the back wall of any building I lived in, and from my current home I could do exactly three roof-jumps before I’d be stuck and have to climb back down the fire escapes of nearby buildings. Climbing was a useful skill for my bounty hunting work, and was the primary component of this breaking and entering plan.
Two minutes to go. I lined up my jump and then backed up the length of the pitched roof. The top was wider than a balance beam and put me high enough so that I’d reach the balcony rails on the top of my arc if I got enough speed.
Collette’s taxi arrived and dropped her off out of my sight. I could hear her come around the back of the house though, and I checked my watch. Exactly one in the morning. Punctuality was one of the few identical things about us besides our genetic code, and I blew a kiss into the breeze for her.
I inhaled and let the drumbeat start again. He waved. He smiled. At me. I pumped my arms and pushed off hard at the end of the roof. He waved. He smiled. At meeeeeeee.
I flew the brief distance between buildings and grabbed at the Juliet balcony railing, gripping it with all the strength in my rock climbing fingers. My heartbeat hammered in my chest, and the drum in my head silenced as I listened for the sound of Colette’s knock on the back door. There—
The murmur of quiet voices drifted up from below as my arms quivered with the tension of holding my body utterly still. The moment the door closed beneath me, I dragged myself over the railing onto the balcony.
I paused for the barest moment to catch my breath before I opened the glass-paned door that I had unlocked earlier, and then stepped inside the second floor hallway. I slid the locks home just as an electronic voice announced that the alarm system had been armed.
I sighed, knowing it had been too much to hope that Sterling would leave the house un-alarmed while Colette was there. It meant I would have to stay until she left.
There was a reason I didn’t have long, heavy drapes in my studio. Two reasons, actually. First, they’re fricking expensive, and the designer kind that perfectly matched a slipper chair or the headboard were the approximate cost of my first car. But more importantly, creatures could disappear behind them, and I had spent far too many sleepless nights hiding my neck from the vampires that lurked in my grandmother’s curtains.
Happily, the Gray mansion had the perfectly designed floor-length heavy drapes that matched the antique gilt chairs on either side of the naked ballerina. I slipped behind one and twitched it closed around me. The hallway was lit by dim wall sconces, and I was wearing my stealthiest skin-tight, all-black house-breaker clothes, including a black balaclava to cover my face and hair that I counted on to make me anonymous in case the cameras actually were transmitting.
Voices drifted up the staircase as Sterling and my sister climbed, and I calmed my heartbeat to something I could eavesdrop over.
“I love what your decorator has done with the house, Sterling. She has excellent taste.” Colette managed to climb stairs and purr at the same time.
I was reminded of the cat I’d met earlier, which must have conjured him, because suddenly he was there, winding himself around my ankles with an even louder purr than Colette’s.
Oh no.
“I have excellent taste. She has connections,” Sterling answered with a degree of confidence that sounded smug to my ears.
The cat kept swirling around my ankles, making the curtain move alarmingly. Sterling and Colette had just reached the landing, and I sincerely hoped the naked ballerina would distract them from the ghost curtain.
Apparently she didn’t dance down the hall for them, which sucked for them, and sucked for me, because Sterling’s footsteps stopped.
“What the …?”
“Reow,” I called out in my best imitation of feline distress. It was all I could do, and my muscles twitched in anticipation of the fight or flight I was about to engage in. Everyone froze – Sterling, my sister, and the cat.
Sterling took a cautious step toward my curtain, and I nudged the cat with my toe. It darted out with a hiss of pure feline annoyance.
“Aaahh!” he yelled, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Colette didn’t have my self-control, which was ironic in the extreme, and I almost threw something at her. She had the most contagious laughter of anyone I’d ever met; it was pure torture to anyone attempting stealth mode. Happily for me, it only took a few seconds for Sterling to join her. I was shocked to see that the man was actually laughing at himself.
“Come here, baby.” Colette knelt down and cooed the cat into her arms. He purred with the approximate volume of an outboard motor, which was apparently the fate of all male creatures who ended up in my sister’s arms.
She moved off down the hall in front of Sterling. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of this beautiful—”
Pussy, my mind supplied.
“—cat,” she finished with the barest pause, as though she knew exactly what I would not have been able to resist saying. Apparently Sterling had the same thought in his head, because I could hear the snicker in his voice as they walked away.
“I’ve never been able to resist … cats.”
I rolled my eyes and sent my sister invisible hearts for distracting the guy with his own imagination. Also, for taking the cat with her.
When they had turned to go up to the third level, I pulled the first mini spotlight out of my pocket and slid it down the hall so it was approximately in front of the first camera. I hit the remote, and it flared to life. Then I eased myself out from behind the curtain and slunk along the opposite wall until I was in range of the second camera. I did the same thing with mini spotlight number two, then made my way down to the bookcase where I slid a third spotlight just across from it. When that one illuminated, I reached up, tugged on Moby’s Dick, and was inside the room within seconds.
I said hello to Aunt Alexandra and my mom in their painting, but I started at the computer first. A standard video feed array showed a small window for every camera in and on the house. I studied the various feeds and isolated the ones that would have captured my entrance into the mansion. Cameras 14, 15, and 17 would have caught me, but the mini spotlights glared so fiercely that the shadows were nearly black in comparison. None of the other cameras were aimed in the right direction to view my catwalk on the garage roof, though several cameras had views of the exterior doors. I switched the feed, and camera number 24 was aimed directly at an image of my sister and Sterling Gray kissing in the master bedroom.
Ugh. I didn’t want to watch. Colette had told me she would enjoy tonight. She thought Sterling was handsome, and even when she was dating Mac, she’d been intrigued by Sterling’s pursuit of her. Mostly, though, she looked forward to treating him like a one-night stand, never picking up the phone if he called, and generally pretending they were barely acquainted if she ran into him at a party. She said it’s what men like Sterling Gray did to women all the time, so she would be happy to give him a dose of his own medicine.
Keeping my eyes averted from the screen was approximately as easy as not saying the thing that made people wince, which for me was pretty much impossible. Colette wasn’t as tall as Sterling, even in heels, but she was the one in charge of the kiss. Her hand trailed down his arm, then up his back, and his arm snaked around her and pulled her in close. She pushed him back with one hand, even as her other hand reached down and stroked him through his jeans.
Wow. My sister had moves.
And I felt like a dirty old man for spying on her.
On the monitor, my sister was still kissing Sterling, but they’d moved closer to the giant four-poster bed. I flipped back to the previous screen to look for any movement on the grounds. Everything was still except for the cat, which had made its way back down the stairs and was prowling the hall, throwing enormous cat-shaped shadows on the wall as it passed each of the mini spotlights. I was glad I’d closed the door to the panic room so the cat wouldn’t accidently be locked inside when I left.
I turned my attention to my mother’s painting. Its frame was heavy and made of gilt-painted carved wood, and was wired to the wall to prevent theft, so I left it alone. The painting itself was stretched over a thin wooden support frame, and it only took about three minutes with my very sharp pocket knife to carefully cut the canvas free, despite its surprising thickness. Once I had it loose, I rolled up Alexandra and Sophia and dropped them into the telescoping tube I’d pulled from the harness strapped to my back.
I had designed the harness for myself along the lines of the rig climbers wear, except it was for my back, shoulders, and waist. It was tight so it didn’t get hooked on balcony rails or grabbed by people attempting to thwart my timely escapes. The tube for the painting fit neatly under the straps at my waist and shoulders and ran down the length of my spine. It gave me an old crone’s lumpy back, but that only made the urge to cackle in a witch’s voice slightly stronger than usual.
With the canvas safely on my back and my knife tucked in my pocket, I turned back to the monitor. Still no movement in the hall outside the panic room door, and nothing on the grounds that I could see. I braced myself for one last look at Colette and Sterling, just to make sure they wouldn’t be roaming the halls anytime soon.
Whoa, nope. Sterling’s naked butt glared at me from the screen, and I slammed my eyelids shut attempting to scrub the image from my brain.
“Ick. Blech. Ugh. Nope. No. All the noes,” I muttered under my breath as I opened the panic room door and slipped out into the second floor hallway, where light-blind cameras now stood sentry over the naked ballerina’s shadow dance. When I’d passed all three cameras I hit the remotes, and the hallway was plunged back into dimness. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, then I scanned the floor for the lights. I was counting on their small size and discreet placement near the baseboards to render them invisible while I was still trapped inside the house. I could just barely see them from where I stood at the end of the hall. Good enough.
Sterling’s cat waited for me at the door to the balcony and wound his way around my ankles twice before I slipped behind the long curtain and tucked it around myself. I crouched down to stroke his soft fur, scratch his ears, and calm my heartbeat with his rhythmic purring.
The hard part of my job was done. Now I just needed to wait for Sterling to turn off the alarm to let Colette, and me, out of the house.
Now that I knew where all the cameras were aimed, I planned my escape route accordingly. I didn’t have to return to the garage roof, with its high potential for naked-eye visibility, and could instead drop down over the balcony railing and use the drain pipe to control my fall to the ground.
The cat nudged its way next to my hip and curled into a contented ball as I stroked its fur and tried not to think about how Colette had spent the past thirty minutes. She promised she would be fine, and I trusted her, but the thought of having sex with Sterling Gray held exactly point-five appeal on a hundred-point scale for me, and that was only because he had the good taste to build a secret bookcase door in his dad’s house. Now his friend the Disney prince was up somewhere near the seventy-point range, with room to move up or down based on factors like hygiene, sense of humor, the sound of his chewing, favorite movie, and how well he kissed.
I sighed. Darius Masoud was not for kissing. At least not for kissing me. Whoever he kissed would not be the kind of person who needed an alibi for anything, much less a naked sister alibi.
I spent the next hour planning D&D campaigns for Honor and her thieves, and was startled when the electronic “Alarm, off” voice murmured from the hall. I dumped the sleeping cat off my lap, pulled myself up off the floor, and stepped out from behind the curtain to open the balcony door. I’d just closed it behind myself when I heard the alarm re-engage, and didn’t even wait for the heart-pounding to still before I dropped down off the balcony, shimmied down the drain pipe, and sprinted away from the house. I bolted for the dark alley where I’d hidden my motorcycle behind a dumpster. The balaclava came off, my helmet went on, and a minute later I was an anonymous biker flying down the streets of Chicago.