by Kyanna Skye
“Pascal owns me,” Erika began quietly. She picked at her nails to avoid making eye contact.
“That’s illegal, you know,” he said.
“Smart ass,” she said. “Not exactly like that. I owe him.”
“What for?”
“Okay, so to explain this I have to go back a bit. My mother and I lived from place to place when I was growing up. I don’t know what she was running for, but I have an idea,” she said. “But I’m not going to tell you about her because if I do it sounds like I’m blaming her for something and I’m not. When I was a teenager, I ran with a crowd of kids who used to cheat tourists. We were living in Prague. A group of us would scan the crowds and pickpocket people around all the tourist traps: in the town square, around the monuments, taking pictures inside museums. There were days when you would only get a few dollars’ worth of money, and others when you would hit a well-heeled mark and pull a few hundred. The police in the city always warn tourists but they don’t really do much about the problem; that is unless you just get picked up and they want to make an example of you.
“That money was what I was pretty much my entire income, that and the sporadic wires of money I would get from my mom. But she was always moving, and I couldn’t depend upon it all the time. So I learned pretty quickly to supplement my income with other means,” Erika continued. “I lived in a flat with five other kids. All of us were working the streets in one way or another. I had enough to pay my small portion of the rent, keep myself fed, and buy the occasional treat now and again. I would go out for dinner at one of the local clubs after a long day, have hot coffee and goulash with bread. Simple things kept me happy.”
“How old were you when you started living on your own?”
“Sixteen. Don’t look at me, there’s plenty kids on the streets far younger than that.”
“I guess I was just wondering why you would be on your own at that age.”
Erika shook her head. “My Mom had her own stuff she was dealing with. She trusted that I could take care of myself.
She paused and took another drink. Alec could tell she was somewhere between buzzed and actually a little drunk. It made him wonder again how long this story had been secret. He knew it couldn’t have a good ending to it.
“I got caught one day. They picked me up and they brought me to jail. My mother wasn’t in town. I didn’t call my friends because I knew none of them would get me out. It was a house rule. It was better to spend a few days in jail than having the police come sniffing around our flat or decide to start asking questions. Anyway,” she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I was ready to sit my few days out. But someone bailed me out.”
“Pascal?” Alec asked.
“No. It was a man named Emery. He’s one of Pascal’s henchmen. He was waiting for me there at the station. Once I got outside, he put a gun to my back and told me that he had a proposal I needed to hear.
He took me to a diner and bought me dinner. He told me that his employer had presented my bail money and that there was some work he wanted done. He was gathering a group of people who wanted to take their careers as thieves to the next level.”
“What did that mean?” Alec asked.
“I asked the same question,” Erika replied with a shrug. “Emery gave me a sales pitch. He said, ‘how would you like to make five times what it’s taking you to make over a whole year in one night? And you’d only have to work once a month.”
“I told him that I was happy with my life as it was and that it sounded dangerous. His reaction to that was I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t want to cooperate, he would see to it that I landed in jail again, but this time for a serious offense which I would not get out of.”
“What did they make you do?”
Erika stared at him for a time. He could tell she was weighing whether or not she should really tell him the truth. Just when he thought she had decided not to say anything further, she spoke up.
“Pascal was putting together a team of people who could be trained to be thieves for him. He had us start out as burglars, and then we worked our way up from smash and grabs to more serious thefts; rich people’s homes and after that, museums. We had mentors and worked in teams. Mine was Emory. He taught me how to deactivate security systems, crack safes, all of the different skills which go into a heist. Now, you want to hear the rest? Because it doesn’t get any better here on out.”
“Might as well. He turned you into a real, seasoned criminal.”
“You could say that. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. He was forcing me in, and once I was in, he made it clear that there’s not really a lot of ways for me to get out. I concentrated on doing what I had to do to keep me out of trouble.”
Hard work taking advantage of other people, Alec thought. “Continue.”
“I didn’t start to really think about getting out until this last year,” Erika said. “I wanted to have a life on my terms. I gave Pascal and his people a lot of years of my life. And yes, I’ve made plenty money doing it in the meantime. Enough where I wouldn’t have to work for the rest of my life if I didn’t want to. And I started thinking more frequently about the kind of time I might be facing if I ever got caught. One of my friends was working a heist that went awry, and he ended up getting sentenced to twenty years in jail. That really made the risk more real to me. When I was younger, maybe I didn’t think about the future as much. But at some point, you have to wake up and realizing you only get one chance. A small misstep is the difference between freedom and spending the rest of your life locked up. I’ve been lucky for a long time now. A long run of good fortune can only take you so far.
She took a deep breath before continuing.
“You’re telling me you’re an international jewel thief?”
“Art thief,” she corrected and reached for the bottle, which was getting dangerously low.
“Why should I believe you?” Alec asked. “Maybe this is just your version of a tall tale. Something to shut me up.”
“You can believe that if you want to,” Erika replied. “Might be more convenient for me if you did think I was lying. But you asked for a story, so you got it. Long as you don’t go telling people about it. Though I’ve given you nothing specific enough to prove anyway. And people are more likely to think it was an overactive imagination and too much alcohol involved than to believe you.”
“I guess,” I said. “I’m sure people have said worse things about me.”
Erika continued. “I was doing a job for them in London about eight months ago. It was nerve wracking; an art heist at a very high-security gallery. There were about five of us running point, and I was tasked to get an original Mallet. It’s priceless, a lesser known piece which wasn’t even discovered until the estate sale of an elderly widow who lived in the British countryside back in the 1970’s,” she said, her eyes alight. Just talking about it, she seemed to be transported back to that place of time. He could see she loved the adrenaline. He was familiar with the feeling.
“Anyway, the more people you have involved in an operation like that, the more chances there are for things to go sideways,” she said. “There were a couple of close calls. If I were a cat I’d have lost three lives on that job. But in the end, we pulled it off. I brought Pascal’s men the painting, got my money, and promptly left London. No one thought anything of it at the time because we were always encouraged to leave the city right after a job. But Pascal always kept some form of contact with us; usually in the form of cell phones and email addresses. I tossed my cell phone, deactivated my email account, and left Europe for South America. I couldn’t be sure if he had private investigators on me or not, or worse, some of the thugs he used to take care of people who were a problem to him. I kept moving. I was on the run for about seven months before Emery found me in Canada. I remember how he smiled when he told me that I had managed to evade him longer than anyone else who had run from our boss. He let me know in no uncertain terms that any further attempts to le
ave would be severely punished.”
“Have you ever met Pascal?” Alec asked.
“No one meets with him, except his very oldest cronies, which would include Emory and a handful of other men under his employ. They talk about him like he’s this legend,” Erika said bitterly. “If you want to know what I think, he’s just a bully who uses other people to get his work done because he won’t risk his own flesh in anything that could get him hurt. He’s the same as any white-collar criminal, who takes from others but manages not to get dirt on himself.”
Unable to help himself, Alec blurted. “You have an interesting code of ethics.”
“It serves me,” Erika said. The bottle was empty. She got up, either to throw it away or get another bottle. She swayed on her feet, catching the arm of the chair for balance.
“Ah, don’t do that, leave it there,” Alec took the bottle from her hands and placed it on the coffee table. She sat down and he brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
She sat back down.
“You look kind of green,” Alec told her.
“I made a deal,” she said. “One last job. A big one. And Pascale agreed he’d let me go.”
With that, she launched off the couch and ran to the bathroom.
From the sounds he heard, she must have made it to just in time. He could hear her being sick. Feeling guilty, he sat for a while and waited. There was a lot of running water. She emerged a few minutes later, hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face blushed.
“You’re still here?” she asked.
“Wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said, getting to his feet. “So, should I call you?”
“What?”
“Should I call you?”
“You want to?” she asked. She frowned. There was a genuine look of confusion on her face that in other circumstances he’d have found humorous.
He smiled. “We’ll do a better job of things next time.”
“I don’t usually… I can hold my liquor most times.”
Alec stepped forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. Her skin was soft, cool, and smooth to the touch. “Water and aspirin,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
“I hope you’re not going to drive home,” she said as he headed for the door.
“No,” Alec said. “I’ll get a ride,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it. “Have a good night.” He pulled her gun out of his belt and handed it back to her. It was still unloaded; he’d left the bullets on her table.
Chapter 4
“I feel like a jerk,” Alec said. “I didn’t expect she would get sick.”
Jesse sat across the desk from him, with his feet up on his desk. One of the good things about their office space was it still maintained the feeling of a well-kept home. Alec had been up early that morning after not sleeping well the previous night and had finally gone into the office around seven. It was just Alec and Jesse in his office. David was absorbed with work on his computers in the next room.
“It’s a possible side effect. How much of the drug did you dose her with?”
“The usual amount, about a tablespoon. I spiked her coffee with it.”
“Probably it was the combination of a lot of alcohol,” Jesse said. “I mean, you really feel bad? She pulled a gun on you after all.”
“I guess it does make us almost even. I can’t say it wasn’t effective. She told me nearly everything there was to know about her, as far as the jobs she’s pulled. I had to email David some of the details before I went to bed last night before I forgot some of it. I had my share of liquor while I was at her place.”
Jesse grinned. “You got the information you came for. I have a question though. You’re not attracted to this girl, are you?”
The question surprised Alec. “She is attractive. But I’m just doing my job here.”
“Uh huh,” Jesse said. “Anyway. The thing is she’s in some serious trouble with this Pascale. I wonder if she actually knows more about him than she lets on. And what did she do to get him to agree to let her go after one more job?”
“I don’t know. It’s the one thing we didn’t really get to discuss. I’m guessing it’s true. Maybe it’s better to tell her he’d allow her to go than fight her on it if he thinks she’ll disappear again. I mean, after all, it takes manpower to find her if she runs. She says she’s never met him. I don’t know. I believe her story when she says she’s been trying to get out.”
“I hate to say this, but why not just terminate her if she’s a problem?” Jesse asked. “If she doesn’t know anything about Pascale I doubt she could give the authorities information which would get him in trouble. She might be able to offer damaging information about Emery and the general running of their operation though. Seems a lot to risk for a person who isn’t completely on board.”
“Maybe,” Alec mused. “But someone like her is an asset, and they’ve spent little over a decade building her into a professional thief. You can change up people over time but thievery is a skill too. Not everyone is going to be able to handle the stress that comes in those situations. She didn’t say anything about it but I’m sure there were people who were killed because they were unsuccessful in pulling a job. It’s part of the business. I mean, she pulled a gun on me.”
“No telling how her brother is going to react once he knows you’ve found her,” Jesse said. “Are you speaking to him soon?”
“I’m going to let him know I’ve found her. That’s a conversation I’m going to need to feel my way through. Honestly, I am going to delay it a little bit.”
“Why?” Jesse asked.
Just then, David came in. “Hey, sorry to interrupt but I’ve got something you might want to take a look at.”
A few moments later Jesse and Alec were looking over David’s shoulder as he pulled up information on his computer.
“I thought you’d be really interested in this. So. Emery was one of the only names Erika gave you. Turns out, I was able to find a record of a man named Clayton Emery. He’s a well-known thief in Europe. He actually did a ten-year stint in jail back in the late eighties, early nineties.”
“Never got busted after that?” Alec asked.
“No. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t been plenty busy though. Check out some of these old pics of Erika,” he said.
Alec and Jesse leaned closer to take a look at the fuzzy image on the monitor.
“How the hell did you get that picture?” Jesse asked.
“I could tell you…but actually I can’t,” David teased. “This is a street camera from Toronto.”
What they were looking at was a man and woman sitting on the terrace of a restaurant. The man appeared in his early fifties, with silver hair. He wore sunglasses and a black suit. Erika sat across the table from him, legs crossed, arms over her chest, listening intently to whatever Emory was saying to her. He had a square jaw and a craggy face spotted with old acne scars. He leaned forward, with one hand flat on the table, shoulders squared.
“I’d love to know what they were talking about.”
“Intense,” Alec agreed.
“It matches up with the time period Erika was supposed to be in that city. I’m almost willing to bet this was when he found her after she ditched him,” David said. “So, Emery is the real deal. When he got caught it was only because one of his associates rolled on him. Apparently, he hasn’t made that mistake to date. But he would have been young back then, in his early twenties. Before that, he had a criminal record longer than your leg. And it included just about everything you can think of, excluding murder or rape.”
“He’s not completely without standards then,” Jesse snorted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d killed a few people by the looks of him. Did things effectively and didn’t get caught.”
“Grand theft auto, check forgery, burglary, aggravated assault. That’s all in the juvenile record. American born,” David said. “But the only addre
ss anyone can find for him is in London. It’s listed as his permanent address since 1996.”
“London. Where Erika’s mother lived for a time.”
“I thought of that too,” David said. “Not sure if that’s significant or not but I haven’t found any connections there. I’ll let you know if something comes up.”
“Were you able to pull up known associates for him? Anyone who could be this Pascale?”
“Not yet,” David sighed. “Give me a little time on that front. He appears to be excellent at keeping a low profile but I expected that. She has a legitimate reason to be afraid of this guy. I would be.”
David pulled up a second photo of the pair. “This one’s about a little over a year old. Notice he’s got a hand on her arm. Think he’s threatening her?”
“Possibly,” Jesse said. “Or leading her somewhere.”
This image was somewhere on a busy street. It could have been in any busy city. Erika was walking with Emery beside her, and he was leaning towards her, appearing to whisper in her ear. This might have been on a job but instinct told Alec that this was on their time off. He was dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and sneakers. She wore a casual dress and sandals. Her hair was down. Alec’s jaw clenched. He wondered if there were more personal reasons Emery had a hold over Erika.
“He’s an enforcer,” Jesse said. “Not just a hired thief. Mentor and father figure on one hand, but he’s the one who gets rid of anyone who doesn’t get into line. After all, the boss doesn’t trust his own people. He has to keep someone who will make sure no one gets out, speaks, or does anything that could bring suspicion back to them. That’s my assessment of him, anyway.”
David ran a hand over his head. “He’s bad news one way or another.”
“What’s worse,” Alec said. “We don’t even know who his boss is yet.”