Thick as Thieves

by Jillianne Hamilton

  I covered the bottom of the door with a towel from the bathroom to block the smoke and pulled off my gas mask to survey the room. It was a mess. A pile of dirty laundry lay in the corner and take-out boxes littered the floor. It obviously hadn’t been cleaned in a while. A suitcase lay open on the second bed.

  Rhys pulled off his gas mask and gestured to the condom wrapper on the bedside table. “I think Delacroix has been cheating on you.”

  I put the back of my gloved hand to my forehead and feigned a swoon. “Say it isn’t so!”

  Rhys and I moved quickly, going through every drawer and searching every shelf. The front closet, between the bed sheets, the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom, between the mattress and the box spring—we searched it all.

  I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm, looking around the messy room.

  “I don’t think it’s here,” I whispered. “Delacroix may not even be our guy!”

  I dropped to my knees and peered under the bed. Something flat was taped to the underside of the bed with duct tape. I squirmed under the bed on my back and peeled the tape away at the bottom corners. I aimed the flashlight on my phone—it was definitely a canvas. Through the canvas, the faint outlines of the Picasso were visible. I slipped my phone back into my pocket.

  “Rhys, I think this is it!”

  I heard the click of the door.

  “Rhys?”

  Before I could peel the tape away at the top corners, two hands wrapped around my ankles and dragged me out from under the bed. My eyes went wide as Delacroix aimed a gun down at my face.

  Behind him, a man pressed the mouth of a pistol up to Rhys’s temple. The man holding the gun was Stan’s second-in-command, Carl.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Delacroix’s nostrils flared as he stared down at me, his eyes glowing with fury, his finger resting firmly on the trigger. “I don’t think things are going to work out between us, love.”

  I opened my palms to him to show him I was unarmed. I was still lying on the floor after being dragged from under the bed, making me extra exposed and unsafe.

  Delacroix shook his head. “You look better as a redhead, Ella.”

  “Ella?” Carl repeated. “Her name is Molly Miranda, and she’s a professional burglar.”

  Delacroix shook his head again. “You even lied to me about your name? Wow, this relationship really is doomed.”

  Carl smirked. “You were after the Picasso the whole time. I knew it.”

  Rhys gave me a look. “Who the hell is this guy?”

  A damn traitor, that’s who. Stan would never order this. He’s going out on his own. I have to warn Dad and Stan somehow.

  “One of Stan’s goons.” I looked at Carl. “Does he know you’re friends with this scumbag?”

  Delacroix lowered his gun closer to my nose, so close I could see straight down the barrel. “You should be nicer to the man who’s got a gun to your head, bitch.”

  I smiled. “Or what? You can’t shoot me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Because any second now, firefighters are going to be scouring every inch of this building. They’re probably already here. You can’t shoot me without them hearing. You can’t clean up evidence or hide our bodies before they get here. So what happens now?”

  Rhys was trying to hide his fear from our captors, but I could tell by his eyes he was panicking.

  Delacroix and Carl looked at one another, equally annoyed and unsure. Delacroix grabbed my arms and pulled me to my feet, shoving me down on the bed on my stomach, pulling an arm behind my back.

  “You like it rough, don’t you?” he whispered into my ear as he held me down.

  “Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit.”

  I turned my head sideways and wriggled, trying to get him off of me, but Delacroix just pushed me down harder. I felt him wrap and fasten a plastic zip tie around my left wrist, cinching it tight.

  I couldn’t make eye contact with Rhys from this position. At least there was that. Seeing him see me in such a vulnerable position with Delacroix and not being able to do anything about it would hurt too much.

  Delacroix pulled me up off the bed and dragged me to Rhys’s side. He went to work putting a zip tie on Rhys’s right wrist while Carl’s eyes and gun darted from me to Rhys and back again.

  “Can you please stop doing that? I think we’ve already established you’re not going to shoot us,” I said.

  Carl lowered his gun, his thick sausage arm dropping to his side. “We’re gonna shoot both of you, just not here.”

  “Oh good,” Rhys said under his breath.

  I looked over my shoulder and down at my wrist. Delacroix was tying Rhys’s wrist and my left wrist together, palm to palm.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” I raised an eyebrow at Delacroix.

  “We’re taking you downstairs, and you two are going to be holding hands like lovebirds. Got it?” Delacroix tightened the zip tie on our wrists.

  Rhys interlocked his fingers with mine and squeezed it. I tried to give him a reassuring look, but his eyes still looked fearful.

  Carl put his gun back into his coat pocket and directed us to the door. The fog from the smoke bomb had faded from the upper hallway, but the air on the lower levels was still thick and gray. The four of us, Rhys and I in front and Tweedledum and Tweedledee behind us, walked down the hall and down the staircase.

  We heard the pounding footsteps of the firefighters in an adjacent hall, yelling short, French phrases to one another from nearby guest rooms. We managed not to run into them as we moved quickly between hotel floors.

  I hadn’t come up with a plan by the time we reached the main floor. If we got to the parking garage and into a vehicle, Rhys and I would be dead. We had to act fast.

  On the main floor, Carl directed us to the main lobby, the gray mist thinning. We pulled our shirts up over our faces to avoid breathing in too much. The door to the parking garage was to the right of the main doors. I gave Rhys’s hand a double pump and subtly nodded to the main doors. A crowd of people had gathered across the street from the building—they had to be hotel guests waiting for the bomb squad to give them the all clear. Surely Carl or Delacroix wouldn’t dare shoot us in front of so many bystanders. We had to go for it.

  Rhys gave my hand two tight squeezes, a signal that he understood my plan. As we neared the main doors, the two of us bolted across the carpeted lobby floor, pushing the double doors open with our tie-free hands.

  “Shit, they’re getting away!” Carl yelled from a few strides behind us.

  “Hey! Stop!”

  My heart was beating out of my chest. The street directly in front of the hotel was closed to vehicles, so we could run across without having to dodge cars. I usually hate seeing police around where I’m working, but on that day, I was relieved. We calmly joined the crowd of people across the street.

  Carl and Delacroix didn’t follow us. They must have gone back to the parking garage, or worse, gone back to the room to move the painting to a more secure location.

  Dammit.

  I realized Rhys was still gripping my hand tightly, but he hadn’t said anything yet. My hand was starting to sweat, so I pulled my palm away from his, which hurt a bit because we were still bound together at the wrist.

  Rhys leaned his head down to mine. “How did Carl know you were at this hotel?”

  “He and Stan dropped me off here the other night,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

  This is bad. I’m never trusting anyone ever again.

  “Carl must have put two and two together once he saw you were staying here.” He sighed, staring up at the hotel. “I think we better call it a day.”

  “What do you mean? We got so close.”

  Rhys stared at me. He pulled me away to a grassy patch several yards away from the crowd.

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “Do you have a death wish? Because I don’t.”

  “But we kno
w where the painting is. It’s right in there, under that bed. I touched it. If we’d found it a few minutes earlier, we could have been out of there and gone. We could have—”

  “But we didn’t. Instead, we almost got killed.” He shrugged. “We got a nice fee from Sophie for our time. It’s time to go home before something bad happens. It’s not worth it.”

  He may be right.

  I took a moment to call Dad and tell him what happened.

  “Carl always did hate being Stan’s sidekick,” he said. “I’ll kill him.”

  “No, Dad. That’s not your shtick.”

  “Do you want me to have someone else take him out?”

  “Just make sure Stan knows what’s going on. He might not be safe.”

  “Forget about Stan. I’m worried about you. Get out of Paris right now.”

  I said goodbye and pocketed my phone.

  We went to a nearby snack stand, and Rhys asked the shopkeeper in French if he could possibly cut our hands loose. The guy didn’t look surprised, just a little annoyed.

  Once free, I asked Rhys why he gave us that look.

  “Did you tell him we had recently been tied together by bad guys?”

  Rhys shrugged. “No, I just said it was a sex thing.”

  Oh, good grief.

  Some time later, when the hotel staff were given the all-clear by the bomb squad, the guests filed back inside. With so many people around, Rhys and I felt safe to go back in too.

  Minutes before, we’d called Sophie and told her we knew who had the painting, but fearing for our safety, we wouldn’t be able to continue the job. She was disappointed but said she understood.

  Back in the room, Rhys rushed to his suitcase, unzipping it and pulling his laptop case out. He slid his laptop out of it and breathed a loud sigh of relief.

  “Oh, thank god.”

  His prized possession. Of course.

  I finished packing my suitcase and sat on the bed, staring straight ahead at the wall we shared with Delacroix’s room. A hot ball of hatred and anger rose up in my throat.

  How dare they aim a gun at us? I want them dead.

  The image of Carl putting a gun to Rhys’s head flashed into my mind. It stayed there as I put my ear to the wall and listened for movement. It was quiet. My heart quickened as the events in that room throbbed in my mind.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked at Rhys. “I’m fine.”

  Delacroix’s words came rushing back into my head.

  You like it rough, don’t you?

  I closed my eyes, and before I knew what was going on, my clenched fist was embedded half an inch into the wall. My knuckles ached, a trickle of blood leaking out of the ripped skin on my fingers as I pulled my hand away.

  “Jesus!” Rhys exclaimed, staring at my shaking hand. “What the fuck?”

  I looked down at my roughed-up hand, tears forming in my eyes. “Ow.”

  Rhys rolled his eyes and hugged me. “It’s gonna be okay, kid. You never have to see that son of a bitch Delacroix ever again.”

  I looked up at him. “That’s not why I’m mad.”

  The sound of his voice as he held me down. The thought of Rhys getting hurt. I just … I just can’t.

  “Then what’s up, kid?”

  “I … I’ve never lost this much money on a job before.”

  Rhys dropped his arms to his sides. “I think you’ll be fine.”

  “Audrey is never going to hire me again because I’ve been ignoring her emails, and this one could have led to a lot more jobs.” I shrugged. “It was a big loss.”

  Rhys frowned. “We should probably get out of here before hotel staff find the hole you just put in the wall.”

  * * *

  We booked flights to New York and London for the next day. I didn’t feel safe staying in the hotel, so we moved back to the apartment for the night.

  Rhys’s fingers flew over his keyboard laptop that night as I watched a movie on the sofa beside him. It felt weird to know we’d be parting ways the next day after spending a couple of weeks together.

  Rhys’s cell beeped, and he checked the text message. He sighed. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Carl just bought a plane ticket to New York. For tomorrow. Jeez, he even got on the same flight as you.”

  “Why would he be going there? He doesn’t even live in New York. He lives in Los Angeles. I figured he’d be sticking with Delacroix at this point.”

  “I think he’s probably going to New York to look for you.”

  “What is he gonna do, knock on every door in New York until he finds me?”

  “If you think you’d feel safe in New York right now with that psychopath walking around with a plan to kill you,” Rhys said, “be my guest.”

  “Shiiiiiit. What should I do?”

  “I can hack into his account, cancel his flight to New York and keep him in France.”

  “No way,” I said. “I don’t want him in Europe either. I don’t want him anywhere near—” I stopped myself before I said ‘you’ “—that painting.”

  “You could go stay with your dad in Florida,” Rhys said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to put him in the line of fire, too.”

  Rhys thought for a minute and went back to his laptop. After a few minutes, he punched the enter key and looked back at me.

  “I just bought you a ticket to London. You’re staying with me for a while.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Rhys’s home was in West Kensington on a street lined with narrow, tall, white-and-tan stone houses.

  As he unlocked the door, I looked down the tightly packed street and smiled wide, excited to see his house for the first time.

  “Do you ever get home a little tipsy and accidentally try to go into a house that’s not yours? They all look the same.”

  He laughed. “It’s happened a couple of times.”

  I dragged my suitcase into the foyer. The side of the staircase had been made into a bookshelf. The old wood floors were dark, and a unique light fixture, a bronze octopus holding a light at the end of each tentacle, hung above us. A long Persian rug guided visitors up the hallway, and framed photos of friends and family lined the staircase.

  When I’d imagined Rhys’s home, I expected something a lot more modern and minimalist. Maybe some chrome accents. But this place was charming and homey. Cozy, even. He’d obviously put a lot of thought and effort into his home. I hadn’t expected Rhys to be that type of guy.

  You are a man of mystery, Rhys Graham.

  He tossed his keys into a little dish on a nearby table next to a coat rack. The coat rack played host to a traditional English peacoat, an umbrella, and, I noticed, a woman’s sweater.

  Either that’s the girlfriend’s sweater, or Rhys has a cross-dressing hobby he hasn’t shared with me.

  Before I had a chance to compliment Rhys on his home, a scruffy terrier came bounding down the staircase toward us. Rhys scooped the wriggling dog up in his arms as it whined with glee.

  “Were you a good boy, Freddie? Were you a good boy?”

  Freddie licked the side of Rhys’s face, his tail wagging furiously.

  “I didn’t know you had a dog,” I said. “How do you have a dog when you’re away all the time?”

  “I pay friends to take him out a few times a day. They love him. During this trip, though, my—”

  “I’ve been staying here.”

  We looked up to see where that voice came from. An elegant woman stood at the top of the staircase. She was a brunette English version of Heidi Klum in a smart green dress and chic yellow heels. Her smile was barely there, like smiling wider might break her delicate face, and she didn’t just walk down the stairs. She floated.

  I glanced at Rhys. He hadn’t told me anybody would be here. I was wearing beaten-up sneakers, a No Doubt concert t-shirt from 2004 and I hadn’t showered yet that day. So I looked real good.

  “Molly, this is Danika. Danika, this is Mo
lly.”

  That’s the escort girlfriend? Day-um! I was expecting more Ginger Spice and less Posh Spice.

  Danika, a demure English rose, shook my hand as gently as humanly possible. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Nice to meet you too.” I smiled and glanced at Rhys.

  Freddie, totally ignoring Danika, stretched his little neck to sniff me. He gave my cheek a quick lick. Rhys put him down, and Freddie trotted off to the kitchen.

  Danika kissed Rhys. “How are you?”

  “A little groggy from the early flight. It felt much longer than it was.” He nodded to me. “Someone wouldn’t drink with me.”

  I laughed awkwardly. “Our flight was a little early for tiny bottles of hard liquor.”

  “Meh.” Rhys shrugged. “Molly is staying here for a while. It’s a safety thing.”

  Danika raised her eyebrows. “Oh, gosh. I hope it’s not serious.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “It’s just a precaution.”

  Danika, looking less than concerned for my safety, smiled at Rhys. “I’ve got to run, darling. I’m meeting a client in an hour, and I have to freshen up.” She kissed him again on the cheek and left.

  Rhys winced as he closed the door behind her.

  “She is stunning,” I said. “You’re a lucky guy.”

  “Yeah, well, the dude she’s off to shag is lucky, too.” He rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Anyway, I’ll show you the guest bedroom.”

  “Rhys, please. Let me just stay at a hotel. This is ridiculous.” I shook my head. “I should have just gone back to New York.”

  “Stop, it’s fine.”

  “I feel like me staying here when you’re having girlfriend issues… I feel like that may not help things.”

  “Those things are completely separate issues. It’s fine.”

  He carried my suitcase up to the second floor. After he left me alone, I heard him typing fiercely in a room nearby. I poked my head out and saw the light on in the room across the hall where the typing was coming from. I quietly tiptoed across the hall and peered in.