Sting

by Jude Watson

  The housekeeper let the round tray fly. It spun in an aggressive, perfect arc, straight toward him. He could only stare with horrified certainty that it was about to take his head off.

  From her perch outside, Jules grabbed his collar and yanked him out the window. The clang of the copper was louder than the alarm. It fell to the stone floor in a William Tell Overture–bashing, clanging, rolling, firework-accompanying smash.

  “So much for a clean getaway,” Jules said. They were on a narrow stone sill, high above the street. She gave a quick look below, then scanned the building above. “You said I’d never have to do this again. You promised.”

  “I don’t think I promised, exactly,” March said.

  “What does ‘I promise I’ll never ask you to do this again’ mean?”

  “It means I’m really hoping we never have to do this again. And can we discuss this, you know, below?” March steadied himself against an iron railing that felt rickety.

  Jules spoke into her headset. “D? We can’t rappel down, all the lights are on. We’ve got to get to the roof. You see a way?”

  Darius spoke, his voice urgent. “You went out the same way as the dude who broke in. He got up to the roof. Got to be a route. Look up.”

  “Genius, D.” Jules scanned the roofline. “I see a hook.”

  “Okay, we’re going to do some recon, see if there’s a way to get you down in a safe spot. Those sirens are getting closer.”

  “Why is it always up?” March muttered.

  “What kind of a jewel thief are you anyway?” Jules grimaced as she reached into her waist pack. “I can hook a carabiner onto the figure-eight descender and toss it up there. If I can hook around that baby, we’re set. Of course, it’ll be tricky,” Jules said, lifting out the silks. “I can’t test the hook. It could be rusted, or not able to hold the weight. And there’s no swivel, so the silks might twist —”

  March swallowed. “You’re telling me that you don’t know if the hook can hold us, but you’re going to try anyway?”

  “If I didn’t set the hook, I don’t trust it,” Jules said impatiently. “But chances are it’s good.”

  March felt his stomach twist. “I don’t like chances when I’m a hundred feet above the pavement.”

  “Me neither, but it’s our only shot. Unless you prefer prison.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it. Three squares a day.” March reflected that the joke would have come out better if his voice hadn’t wobbled like a scaredy-cat.

  Jules hesitated. “You can do this. You’ve been working on the silks for a year now.”

  She knew why he was so scared. March had seen his father fall off a roof. He’d heard the sound of him hitting stone. He’d seen the blood. Alfie had died holding his hand.

  A roof was not March’s favorite place to be.

  “And we don’t have options,” Jules said. “What did Alfie say?”

  “‘If you don’t have a choice, take it,’ ” March said.

  Jules gauged the distance and tossed the carabiner. It landed on the hook. She tested the silk.

  “I’ll go first,” Jules said. “If something goes wrong, better me than you.”

  “Wait. Why?”

  Jules grinned. “Because I’m better in a crisis. Haven’t you noticed?”

  She climbed up the silk. March watched, his heart in his throat. The silk swayed, and Jules almost hit the building, but she made it to the roof and hooked one leg over the edge. In another moment she was safe above him.

  She looked down at him, then motioned.

  March heard the blare of a police siren, even louder now. Wee-oh, wee-oh!

  It was either this or duck back in and get decapitated.

  March chose the silk.

  March started to climb. One hand at a time, the next grip, the next one after that. Jules had taught him well, but he still wasn’t comfortable … dangling. His arm muscles shook with the effort.

  Finally he was in reach of Jules’s waiting hand.

  “You gotta let go with one hand,” she said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Look at me.”

  He looked into his twin’s eyes. Their history together wasn’t much. They’d been toddlers who shared a language. Then separated until they were almost thirteen.

  Trust hadn’t come easy for them. Now they had it.

  He let go.

  She grabbed him, hand to wrist, a C grip that she’d taught him a year ago as they hurtled through the darkness on a private plane, heading for another city, another heist. He hadn’t known her that well then. Just well enough to know in his bones that she was his twin, that once she’d been as much a part of him as his own hand, his own arm.

  He slid over the lip of the roof and landed on his face. March breathed in stone and metal and tar. He watched as a drop of sweat left his nose and pinged against the roof. He flipped over, drained.

  Jules crouched next to him. “What’s a cakewalk anyway?”

  He groaned as he lifted himself up. “Not this.”

  Jules wrapped up the silk and stuffed it into her pack. She ran her hands through her short black hair. Sometimes he felt like he was looking in a mirror when he saw her. Pale skin, gray eyes, dark hair, thin face. But he guessed Jules was prettier. She was taller than he was, too, gaining two inches over him in one year. He tried not to mind.

  March peered out over the city, the twisting streets and wide boulevards of Paris. He saw revolving red lights heading their way down the Boulevard Raspail.

  Not good. He could feel panic surging up from the soles of his feet, but he fought it. Panic messed up your thinking process. He focused on the problem to keep his head clear. Just like Alfie would have.

  “Darius? We need some help here.”

  “Okay, bro. You got to get to the north side of the roof. Next door to the gambling club. There’s a parking lot — it’s quiet. I think you can make the jump to the other roof.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s your best shot,” Izzy broke in.

  Jules moved across the roof ahead of him, sure-footed and quick. It was a typical Parisian roof, all different levels, with chimney pots to jump, skylights to avoid, gables to scramble down. They rolled, tumbled, leaped, and swerved across the obstacle course. Despite his nerves, exhilaration shot through March. Getaways were the best rush in the world.

  Jules slid down a steep gable and landed on her feet. March followed, but suddenly he was on a slide going too fast, and straight down. Alarm stabbed him, and he grabbed frantically at an antenna, bending it almost to the roof as his heels scraped along the shingle.

  Jules’s hand shot out and saved him. She grunted as she pulled him to safety. March dusted the grit off his sweaty palms. “I totally had that, but thanks.”

  Darius stepped out of the shadow of a building below. It was hard to miss a six-foot-two fifteen-year-old with dreads to his shoulders. Izzy stood next to him, her curls tucked into a cap. She had just turned fourteen and barely came up to his shoulder. Izzy didn’t talk much, but she had the tech brain of a geek and the heart of a lioness.

  The police cars were closer now, moving fast on the empty street, their revolving lights flashing.

  “Okay, we got this now,” March said. “Time for Plan B. D and Iz, scatter.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until we know you’re cool,” Darius said. “Jump to the next roof, rappel down. We’ll keep an eye out. If the police get here, hide in a car.”

  “He’s right,” Jules said, gauging the distance. “Let’s get a running start.”

  March hesitated. “That’s got to be a fifteen-foot jump.”

  “Nah. Fourteen and a half.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Are we really going to quibble about six inches?” Jules asked, exasperated.

  “Yes, if it’s the six inches that mean I’m falling to my death!”

  Jules grinned. “Together,” she said. “One, two, three.”

  “Jump on three, or after
three?”

  “One … two —”

  They ran flat out, then jumped into midair.

  They landed on the sloping roof, and each grabbed a corner of a gable. March hung on, sweating. Jules fastened two ropes, each one secure on a chimney. Or at least he hoped so.

  “Toldja,” Jules said. “Fourteen and a half.”

  They rappelled down the side of the building. March’s hands were already sore, and he winced as he hit against the building and shot out again to rappel down.

  He was grateful now that Jules had teased, bullied, and cajoled him into working out on the climbing wall they’d installed in the basement of their town house in New York City.

  Home. As soon as he got back there, he would never leave again.

  Jules was already halfway down, and he pushed off again, wincing as his ankle twisted. The rope slipped in his hands, he overcompensated, and the rope somehow wrapped around his ankle. He lurched sideways, then pitched forward, losing his balance completely. For one long second all he could see was the concrete of the parking lot below as his palms burned along the rope.

  Then he gripped and yanked upward with all the strength he had. He stopped, upside down and swinging.

  And then the worst thing happened, worse than falling —the sapphire dropped out of his pocket. Horror jolted him as it dropped like a lead weight, straight into the backseat of a Mercedes convertible with its top down. March pulled himself straight, hit the wall, and plastered himself against it, cheek against stone. He had a secret pocket in his work clothes with a Velcro fastener. But for some reason he’d put the stone in his right pocket instead of his left. He’d never made a mistake like that before. Rusty.

  “Push off again.” Jules’s voice was calm, but he heard the urgency. “You’re almost there.”

  “The sapphire —”

  “I saw it.” Sirens screaming in his ears, March half fell, half rappelled down the remaining distance. He was never so glad to feel ground under the soles of his shoes.

  He saw the stain of the red lights against the stone of the building as he ran toward the Mercedes.

  “Stay put and find a place to hide,” Darius said in his ear. “Cops have arrived. Iz and me fading back.”

  The alley door to the club started to open.

  He didn’t even have to look at Jules. They both jumped at the same time, vaulting over the door of the Mercedes and landing in the backseat. They hit the floor just as running footsteps headed toward them.

  March and Jules leaned over, fingers frantically scrabbling along the carpet. It must have rolled under the front seat. March strained, his fingers splayed out, searching …

  Almost got it …

  Footsteps closer now …

  There! His fingers closed around it.

  The driver’s-side door opened, and they heard the creak of upholstery. The door closed with a solid thunk. This was followed by the echo of the passenger door. Thunk.

  Jules grabbed his hand, her eyes wide.

  The engine turned over. March and Jules flattened themselves like floor mats. He felt the surge as the Mercedes leaped forward.

  They were trapped.

  Still, was this so bad? They were escaping from the cops without even trying. The thought must have occurred to Jules at the same time, because she shrugged, then smiled.

  The driver was driving like a careful old dude, easing around the corner.

  March silently begged the dude to punch it, just a bit. The farther they got from the cops the better.

  He heard the sound of a cell phone alert, just one quick chirp, and the driver answered it.

  “Moving,” he said in French.

  Well, that was weird. Most people say hello.

  Jules raised her head a bit to shoot him a quizzical look. March was concentrating on the flow of French.

  He caught the word for diamonds …

  And alarm …

  He grabbed Jules’s arm.

  They were hiding in the getaway car!

  March couldn’t pick up much from the rapid French, no matter how hard he tried. Random words fell into the backseat like pebbles pelting him with stings of fear.

  He translated the words in his head:

  problem

  stupid beast

  imbecile

  yes, we have diamonds

  some gems missing

  And the word he didn’t want to hear:

  kids

  They’d been spotted.

  Ask your protégé!

  The phone must have winged across the seat, because March heard it clunk against the passenger door.

  The sirens were suddenly loud and very close. A muttered curse rose from the driver’s seat. The passenger still said nothing. The car leaped forward as the driver slammed on the gas.

  The driver now made up for his earlier caution. March and Jules hung on to the carpet as the car squealed, turned, reversed, clattered down an alley (must be, the cobblestones rattling his bones), and made another quick turn.

  The car squealed to a stop. The passenger door opened, then closed. Then the driver’s door. Thunk.

  March and Jules silently asked each other the question what now? They raised their heads cautiously. The car was parked at a corner, one of those corners in Paris where one street rose and another went down and another angled off. A figure in a black jacket and wool cap hugged the shadows, climbing the hill and disappearing. In the other direction a slender man in a suit was hurrying away, hands in his pockets, trying to look casual. He looked back once. And saw them.

  “Oops,” March said.

  The man stopped. He stared, as though committing their faces to memory. He cocked his hand like a gun and aimed at them. Then he ducked down an alley.

  March swallowed. “Did you see that?”

  “Yeah.” Jules sounded shaken.

  Sirens screamed. A police car cut across three lanes of traffic and made a U-turn.

  Jules clutched his arm. “They recognized the car! What do we do now?”

  March vaulted into the front seat. “I’ll drive.”

  “You don’t know how to drive!” Jules cried as she scrambled into the passenger seat.

  “How hard could it be?”

  March put the car in gear, and it lurched forward, straight into a lamppost.

  “Hard!” Jules yelled.

  March searched for reverse. He backed up with a lurch, turned the wheel, and stepped on the gas.

  If he didn’t have to turn, he was okay. March raced along the boulevard. He suddenly realized where he was. He made a right that threw Jules against the door. “Sorry!” he yelled.

  Now the river was to his left. Traffic was light at this time of night, which was a bonus. The Eiffel Tower was in his rearview and ahead he could see the dome of Les Invalides, where Napoleon was buried. He was in the 7th arrondissement, the posh district. If he could just stay straight on this road, he would be okay for a minute. He ran through his options. He could cross the river and try to lose them in the streets of the Pigalle. That would require driving skills he didn’t have, however.

  “Where are you going?” Jules screamed.

  “I have no idea!”

  “Okay, just get there faster!”

  Where was the nearest metro station? He tried to remember, but he couldn’t think, not when he was driving so fast. Then he remembered that the metro was closed. It was past three in the morning.

  This wasn’t good.

  No matter how crazy the getaway, you’ve got to be clear.

  Thanks, Pop. All I hear is static panic. Like somebody is screaming, and it’s me.

  Jules grabbed his arm. “Turn up there.”

  “Turn? Do I have to?”

  “Yes!”

  “Where?”

  “There! Where the barrier is!”

  “But there’s a barrier!”

  Jules reached over and yanked the wheel. Tires screamed, and March joined them. The car squealed into a hard left, crashing throu
gh a plastic gate and jolting down the stone pavers to the pedestrian walkway by the Seine. March’s foot slammed on the brake. Only it was the gas.

  The car hurtled toward the river as March’s static panic turned into one long scream. Out loud.

  Jules screamed, “NOOOOOOOOO!”

  The car sideswiped a metal planter in a grouping filled with trees, teetered over the curb, and landed in the river in a burst of spray.

  “OUT!” March yelled. He grabbed Jules and pushed her into action. She clambered over the seat in a frenzy, and he scrambled after her, over the backseat and sliding, heart slamming, over the trunk of the car as cold river water sluiced over the metal. Jules jumped, then crawled up the embankment, and landed on the stone pavers.

  As the river soaked his pants, March felt something inside him shift. Some kind of dark veil dropped, and now he was under the river, unable to move, unable to breathe …

  “MARCH!” Jules sobbed the word from the shore, holding her hands out in the air. “JUMP!”

  March’s brain clicked into reality. He was on top of a sinking Mercedes, which was beginning to tilt forward. He had less than a second. With a giant leap, he landed on the walkway, skidding against the cobblestones and tumbling forward, collapsing at Jules’s feet.

  March thought about kissing the ancient stones, but they looked pretty gross. They watched as eighty thousand dollars’ worth of German engineering sank slowly in the Seine.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” March said. “They’ll double back.”

  Shivering, Jules jerked her head. “I know where I am. This way.”

  He trotted after her. Jules was moving fast, her eyes darting along the river. “I have a sort-of plan.”

  March stopped. Jules had fallen to her knees.

  “Your plan is praying?”

  “Help me!”

  He dropped down. Jules’s fingers yanked at a metal grate. “This is it, I’m sure of it.”

  He twined his fingers through the grate and pulled. With a soft thunk, it lifted, much easier than he’d imagined.

  Jules shone her phone light. He saw the rungs of an iron ladder leading down.

  “What —”

  “Just. Go.”