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Copyright © 2017 by Tamara Morgan
Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover art by Tricia Cramblet
Photography by Shirley Green
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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Fax: (630) 961-2168
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CONTENTS
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
1. The Heist
2. The Husband
3. The Guard Dog
4. The Celebration
5. The Game
6. The Call
7. The Necklace
8. The Safe
9. The Library
10. The Bombshell
11. The Whiskey Room
12. The Other Woman
13. The Date
14. The Escape
15. The Plan
16. The Couch
17. The Kiss
18. The Interrogation
19. The Challenge
20. The Holiday
21. The Proposal
22. The Stakeout
23. The Lamp
24. The Rescue
25. The Fight
26. The Break-In
27. The Agreement
28. The End
29. The Fallout
30. The Wedding
31. The Promise
32. Epilogue
Exclusive Bonus Scene from Stealing Mr. Right
Grant
An Excerpt from Saving Mr. Perfect
1. The Heist
2. The Office
3. The Lion
4. Grant
5. The Suspect
6. Grant
7. The Partnership
8. Grant
9. The Crew
10. The Outing
11. Plan B
12. Grant
13. The Luncheon
14. The Deal
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
For Travis. There’s no one I’d rather plan heists with.
1
THE HEIST
Whoever said confronting your fears head-on is the best way to get over them obviously never had to spend eight hours wedged inside an air duct.
It wouldn’t be so terrible if I was on a temporary journey, pushing my way through the metal like a tube of lipstick. I might even be able to handle it if the fan at one end turned on and started sucking me toward an untimely demise. At least then I’d know my agony would soon be over—a rainbow of human parts awaiting me at the end.
No such luck. Not only am I well and truly wedged, but I have to remain wedged until I get my cue to move.
The only thing keeping me company in the meantime is my fear of confined spaces. Well, my fear of confined spaces and a bladder so full, it’s drowning my other internal organs, one by one. I indulge in the luxury of a quick peek at the phone I was issued this morning, but it doesn’t help. Only ten minutes have passed since the last time I looked.
Ten long minutes. Ten painful minutes. Ten minutes drawn into a time warp and stretched into infinity.
Tight spaces have a way of magnifying everything that way: time, fears, sounds. It’s that last one that accounts for my being in here at all. If it were possible for me to climb through the ducts and get in place without sounding like a stampede of elephants, I might actually enjoy my job. As it is, I have to be in place long before business opens for the day.
Watching. Waiting. Wondering why I ever thought a career as the world’s most claustrophobic jewel thief was a reasonable life choice.
Since I already have my phone out, I decide to distract myself with my favorite pastime. My fingers fly over the touchscreen as I text my coconspirator. Tell me a joke.
It takes all of fifteen seconds for Riker to respond. Stop clogging the communication lines. What’s your status?
A quick glance through the slats of the vent currently serving as my veranda allows me to size up the situation below. Two clerks behind the counter. A security guard posted at the door, his vigilance waning as the afternoon wears on and his protruding stomach digests his lunch. Three shoppers overall—two men in nice suits, looking at matching gold watches, and one young woman with a knockoff scarf, gazing wistfully at engagement rings.
I want to tell her not to bother—to buy herself a nice cat and take up knitting instead—but not at the cost of giving my position away. Sometime in the next half hour, they’re going to open the safe in the basement and bring out a diamond necklace worth two million dollars. That young woman’s happiness is important, but not at the cost of a cool two million.
I’m not saying anything until you tell me a joke, I text back.
We count three shoppers inside. Can you confirm?
I shift a little too much inside my metal prison, and my elbow hits the side with a clang. For a second, I think I’m made, that I’m going to have to haul out of there like a rat driven by smoke, but the lilting background music that’s been playing on repeat all day covers the sound.
Relieved—and sweating out only mild profusions of anxiety—I text back, Even a knock-knock joke will do. I’m bored.
All I get this time is a series of random letters and numbers, which means Riker either smashed the phone against his forehead in irritation or gave up entirely and chucked it out the window. It’s easy for him to be full of righteous anger. He and our getaway driver, Oz, are comfortably set up in a utility truck down the street, with room to stretch their legs and pee into a coffee cup, should the need arise.
Relax, I text. It’s all going according to plan. What do you call a sleepwalking nun?
He won’t respond, of course. Riker doesn’t approve of humor on the job—or anytime, really. Cracking a smile might mean someone will mistake him for a human being, which is something he actively strives to avoid.
A roamin’ Catholic. I wait a second. Get it? She’s roamin’? Roman?
Still nothing. It’s too bad these temporary cell phones won’t let you download Candy Crush or something. I’m dying in here.
The sound of movement down below stops me before I make the mistake of sending Riker my favorite limericks line by line. The young woman has given up on her pursuit of the perfect emerald-cut diamond, and the two men have finally decided on a pair of Concords that look like gold bricks. Clerk A moves to help them while Clerk B picks up the phone and casts an anxi
ous look toward the back of the shop. His adrenaline spikes so much, I can almost feel the shift in the air, all of it drawn up into my vent.
Not that I’m judging him, mind you. He has every right to be nervous. Today is the first time in a decade that necklace will see the light of day, and it’s an anniversary we intend to mark in a big way.
When seen at a distance, Paulson Jewelers isn’t all that impressive. It has a small, lackluster inventory compared to its more upscale competitors in Manhattan’s diamond district. The building is crowded between a Laundromat and a discount shoe store, which doesn’t do much to boost its overall aesthetic. In fact, if it weren’t for the small, overlooked detail that it’s built on top of a former bank vault, it wouldn’t have anything to offer.
But, oh, that bank vault is worth notice. Hidden below the city streets and wiped from official records during Prohibition so it could be used as a distillery, that vault has been the secret hiding place of the necklace since it went missing after a botched heist ten years ago.
It wasn’t my botched heist. I was only fifteen at the time. Still, I’ve got what you might call a personal tie to the original thief. I’ve spent many long nights thinking about that necklace, dreaming of it, picturing what my life might have been like if someone had left that signature twenty-carat stone deep in the cavern it came from. I like to think there’d be ponies and wide open fields. Maybe even an Italian villa or two.
Since turning back the hands of time is outside my skill set, I’m stuck with option B—all two million dollars of it. It’s the only reason I’ve allowed myself to be crammed into this tin can like a human nut loaf. I mentally go over the plan in an attempt to distract myself.
As soon as the necklace is removed from the safe and brought upstairs to be picked up by its owner—a woman by the name of Erica Dupont—Paulson Jewelers will be plunged into a blackout. No cameras, no emergency generators, no phones. The doors will automatically lock, and the metal screens will crash down over the windows. This kind of safety feature means no one can come in, but it means no one gets out, either. A closed crime scene, the police like to call it.
With my trusty night vision goggles in place—they’re on top of my head, waiting for me to drop them over my eyes—it’ll be easy for me to lift the vent away. The screws have been undone for hours, waiting in my pocket for a quick return. I’ll slip down, snag the jewels, and be back inside my air duct before the sleepy security guard manages to locate his flashlight.
The best part is I get to hightail it out of this vent without regard for the clatter of escape. Jordan, our detonation expert and my best friend, is standing across the street, getting ready to set off a chain of firecrackers in a garbage can. She considers firecrackers the lowest form of explosive, and she almost cried when we told her she couldn’t bring out her homemade C-4 or flash bombs, but we don’t need the big explosives for this job. All we require is some noise to scare the clerks and security guard into thinking there’s a gunfight going on outside. They’ll be so busy trying to figure out what’s happening in the street, they won’t notice a few extra thumps as I make my escape.
And then? Freedom. Air. Two million dollars shoved down the front of my bra. It’s practically foolproof.
My heart picks up as a sleek town car comes to a stop in front of the jewelry store. Because of how narrow the storefront is, the car blocks the entire view out the window, and I can’t tell if Jordan is in place or if Oz is performing his requisite drive-by before Riker cuts all the electricity on the block.
I can, however, see a regal-looking woman in her seventies emerging from the backseat. Erica Dupont looks exactly how a person who owns a two-million-dollar necklace and buries it in obscurity for ten years should look—rich. Overdone from the delicate pink of her pantsuit to the leather handbag clutched at her side, this woman’s wealth is such an ingrained part of her, she could probably have necklaces hidden all over the city and never notice their loss.
It’s hard to imagine that kind of existence—to have so much money, it simply stops mattering. Most of my life has revolved around the idea that there never has been and never will be enough. Oh, I started out just fine, mind you, clothed and shod and poised to follow in the footsteps of one of the most successful jewel thieves this world has ever seen, but you could say there’s something about this particular career choice that breeds instability. All it takes is one bad job to change everything.
A new text flashes across the screen, stopping me before I fall too deep into the pit of my past.
Erica is on the move, Riker’s message says. Unnecessarily, I might add. I’m not the brains of this operation, but I’m not an idiot either. And she appears to be accompanied.
That’s also well within my powers of deduction. I can’t make out the face of the large male figure opening the door and ushering her inside, but he must be some kind of bodyguard she’s decided to bring along for security purposes. Which isn’t surprising, really. We’d half expected her to show up with an armored truck and a fleet of hired guns in tow, but she’s been making this really easy on us.
In fact, everything about this job has been easy so far. Fortuitous, I like to think—karma coming around and playing fair for a change. From the moment Riker heard about the necklace finally resurfacing after all these years—and managed to land us a two-million-dollar contract from a highly motivated buyer—this whole process has been like a series of dominoes falling into place.
Can you handle him?
Big means slow, and the nice suit he’s wearing means he isn’t expecting any action. I can handle him.
No sweat, I text back. The necklace is on its way up.
Good. Blackout in T minus two minutes. Cutting cell contact now.
That’s all I need to start my internal countdown. Two minutes should give the couple enough time to approach the counter. The clerks will be obsequious and distracted as they prepare to hand over the necklace. The security guard at the door will be busy keeping the shoppers off to one side, his eyes on the door for signs of any suspicious characters.
That leaves only me, ready to swoop in like, well, a suspicious character.
“Would you look at that?” A low whistle fills the air as the couple comes to a halt below me. “I knew it was an impressive piece of craftsmanship, but the pictures hardly do it justice.”
I almost drop my phone in my attempt to tuck it away in my belt pack. No. It can’t be. I must be hearing things.
“If I turn it like this, I can actually see my reflection in the big center stone. Do you think everyone looks this good in twenty carats?”
I’m delirious. Dehydrated and cramped. Losing my goddamned mind.
“We might as well have you wear it out. One thing I’ve noticed in the course of my career is it’s much harder to steal something from around a neck than you think. Necks and socks. Those are the best hiding spots. No one ever wants to go for the toes. Too afraid of fungus.”
There’s no doubt in my mind now. Only one person in the world has those kinds of inane theories. I fumble for the phone. ABORT, I text, even though I know Riker is no longer plugged in. Still, I have to try. ABORT NOW.
An ominous blank screen is my only reply. There’s nothing left for me to do but snap my eyes closed and wince as my internal clock hits the two-minute mark. Shutting my eyes against the inevitable is an awful lot like pulling the blankets over my head and hoping the monsters under the bed can’t find me, but it’s all I can do, short of tumbling out of the vent and turning myself in.
The man releases a showy catcall, and I can only assume he’s managed to put the heap of stones around Erica’s neck for an admiring glimpse against her décolletage. But even obscenely wealthy breasts aren’t visible in the dark, which means…
Cautiously, optimistically, I open one eye. Riker must have gotten my message, thank God, and I can finally pay enough attention to make out the fe
atures of the muscle-bound bodyguard below.
Dirty-blond hair, worn a little too long so it curls at the ends like a surfer after a day in the sun.
Rough features, with a broken crook to his nose and a heaviness to his brow that makes him look like he’s deep in concentration, even when he sleeps.
Large, deep-set eyes the inky-brown of coffee, with crinkling lines that extend outward whenever he laughs or smiles.
And the lips. I don’t need to see the lips to know what they look like. Feel like. Taste like. Grant’s lips have always been his best feature—the one soft spot in the thickheaded, hard-bodied exterior I know so well.
“What I wouldn’t give to let my wife catch a glimpse of that beauty.” Grant shakes his head at the stones around Erica’s neck. “She’d love it. She has a thing for diamonds like you wouldn’t believe—can’t seem to get enough of them.”
I have to close my throat around the rising sound of irritation. Of course I have a thing for diamonds. I especially covet the diamonds that caused my father to disappear from my miserable fifteen-year-old existence, leaving me for all intents and purposes alone in the world. One might even call it an obsession.
“Does she?”
“Absolutely. I’m more of an invest-my-money-in-real-estate sort of guy, but I can see how a necklace like this might have its advantages. I’ve always loved the curve of a woman’s neck right there.”
I almost tumble out of my duct again, but this time, it’s because I’m straining to catch a glimpse of what part he’s talking about. Unfortunately, all I can see is his broad back and the warning lights of a panic attack in my peripheral vision.
“You know what?” Erica says. “If she likes diamonds so much, you should buy her a bauble while we’re here. We can delay a few minutes if you want to shop around.”
“Really? You don’t mind?”
“Why not?” She releases a tinkling laugh, the sound like champagne flutes clinking against gold coins. “I’m not in a hurry, and you said yourself there haven’t been any signs of trouble.”
“If you’re sure.” Grant leans casually over one of the jewelry cases. “I’d like to get her something special. Believe me when I tell you—she has it coming.”
Stealing Mr. Right Page 1