Blake punched the gate in frustration, which accomplished nothing except making his knuckles hurt.
“The whole East Coast?” Kaia repeated.
His attention swung back to her. He’d been about to tell her that he couldn’t erase the past and ask for her to give them another chance. He still needed to say it, and more, but he’d have to wait until later.
“Yes.” He brushed a few stray hairs from her damp cheek and leaned forward to kiss her, but she was already shifting off his legs.
“That means it’ll be hours before the power comes back on.”
They stared at each other. If ever there was a cue for one of them to give a cheesy smile and say, “However will we pass the time?” this was it. But he could only think that it also meant hours with all those people downstairs and Blake caught behind the gate. Hours with his professional reputation on the line and nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even communicate with Luke. He felt like punching the gate again when he should be holding Kaia and savoring what they’d just shared. She’d always liked the cuddling part, he remembered.
He reached for her to try and make up for his abrupt mood change, but heard rustling as Kaia rearranged her dress. “Kaia, come he—”
“You said Luke was your best guy?” she interrupted. Her back was to him as she stuck her leg through whatever underwear thing she was wearing.
“Yeah.” He hesitated, feeling like a jerk. Grabbing his shirt, he drew it over his head and jammed his arms through the cuffs. “But I’m sure he’s still wondering where the hell I am.” Luke would notice that Kaia was also missing and make assumptions. He knew of their past. No way would he send somebody looking for them.
“You told him he was in charge.”
Blake remembered. “But the circumstances have changed.” Understatement. “I’m looking really bad, here.”
“Honestly, I think you look pretty good.” Kaia got lightly to her feet.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Kaia leaned against the wall, watching as he finished dressing.
She was fast. His eyes had adjusted to the dark enough for him to marvel at how cool and serene she looked when minutes earlier, she’d been anything but.
“What would you be doing if you were downstairs?” she asked.
Blake got to his feet. “Working on getting us out of here.”
“By doing what?”
“I don’t know—trying to start the generator. Something.” Truthfully, there wasn’t much he could do, since that was the way he’d designed the system.
“If there’s a generator, why isn’t it running?”
“It’s programmed to require manual activation if the security system deploys.”
“I know you’ve got men stationed outside,” Kaia said. “Why haven’t they started it?”
Blake exhaled as he strapped on his holster. “It needs a code, too.”
“Wow,” she said. “You put a lot of thought into this.”
That made him feel kind of good. He gave a last shake to the gate and admired the installation. “I guess that’s the bright spot. At least I know I’ve designed a foolproof system.”
A couple of beats went by. “There are always ways around a system.”
And she’d taught him those methods. “Not this system. No one can get in or out until we want them getting in or out.”
Kaia laughed. “I can.”
Her words hung in the silence between them.
Did she think he’d forgotten all the little tricks and techniques she’d revealed to him? “Well, sure, if you blow holes in the walls.”
“Oh, please.” She grimaced. “I’ve got more finesse than that.”
Now she’d piqued his curiosity. “You, ah, took a look around?”
She lifted a shoulder. “A little.”
“And you seriously think you can get out?”
“And back in.”
In the background, Blake heard a shrill voice going on about medicine and Luke’s calm reply. He couldn’t make out the words, because Luke wasn’t trying to be heard above the crowd, but he knew the drill. Luke would be reassuring the woman that they were doing everything they could and so on and so on.
From here on out, the situation would only deteriorate. “Okay.” Blake knew Kaia wasn’t going to offer; he was going to have to ask. “Show me. Please,” he tacked on.
Without a word, Kaia took off down the hall toward the bedrooms, leaving Blake to trot after her. He’d turned on his flashlight, but she didn’t appear to need one.
She led him to the sauna in the home gym. “This is one of two possibilities. It depends on whether you want to re-enter the house or not.”
Blake was disappointed. He pointed to the interior window facing outside the house. “That’s not ordinary glass.”
“I know.” She walked inside the sauna and gestured for him to join her. “I’d use weights to smash it—but only if I were in a hurry and didn’t care if anyone heard.”
“And then what?” He looked out into the blackness. “That’s a sheer drop to concrete.”
“I didn’t say getting out would be easy. I’d either go up and find a better place to climb down, or I’d rappel down.”
Right. He waved his flashlight at her. “And you just so happen to have rappelling equipment on you.”
She simply looked at him.
I’ve got a lot in my pockets… A whole bunch of ugly emotions started swirling within him: distrust, betrayal, wariness, and doubt. Blake exhaled heavily and blew them away. This time, he was going with his basic gut feelings. “Okay, I’m a Boy Scout. You’re a Girl Scout. What’s the second way?”
“The bathroom.” She started walking toward it.
“What? The little window?” He’d measured it and the one just like it in the hall bath. “Nobody can get through that window.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Blake had a feeling he would be.
“Besides, I could put jewelry in a canister and shoot it outside and pick it up later.”
He followed her into the master bathroom. “But you’d still be caught inside. And then we’d know to search and locate the canister.”
“Not if I had an accomplice waiting.”
Blake could visualize just such a scenario. He got the queasy bad-burrito-on-a-stakeout feeling in his stomach. “But you’d still be caught.”
“I know.” She pushed a vanity bench beneath the window. “That’s why it’s obviously not my first choice.” Kaia hitched up her skirt and climbed onto the bench.
Blake momentarily flashed to her hitching up her skirt and climbing onto him. Incredible. He could hardly believe it had happened or that he was ready for it to happen again.
He looked up at her and knew he was ready for a lot to happen again. Whether Kaia could get out of here or not, he was going to convince her to give them a second chance together.
No, a first chance. Wipe the slate clean and start with who they were now. No pretending. No lying. The past would always be a part of their history, but it wouldn’t define them.
Kaia was standing on her toes as she shined a concentrated beam around the windowsill. Her mini flashlight was better than his. He’d have to ask her where she got it.
“The window has been painted shut,” she announced as she dug into one of her voluminous pockets—the ones that made him nervous. She withdrew something, he heard a snick, and guessed she’d unfolded a pocket-knife which she was now running around the edge of the window.
She was very quiet and very efficient. Blake had never seen her in action before. He knew what she’d been and had listened when she’d told him snippets from her life, but he’d never actually visualized the details.
He felt a puff of welcome breeze and saw that she’d opened the window without him hearing. He should pay attention.
She pushed the window outward to the nine and three quarters of an inch clearance he’d previously measured.
“As
I said, nobody is getting through there. And I’d go so far as to challenge you to get the right angle to shoot a canister anywhere but straight down,” he said.
“You’d challenge me, would you?” Kaia was bent over, doing something.
Blake shined his flashlight at her in time to see her straighten. He heard a “psst” and a scraping sound. “Compressed air?”
“No.”
She didn’t elaborate. That was okay. He’d find out later.
After a wrenching creak, the entire window was in Kaia’s hands. “Hold this for me, will you?”
Stunned, Blake automatically took the glass from her and set it on the bathroom counter. When he turned back, Kaia was leaning halfway out the opening.
“What is that—eighteen…twenty inches? You still can’t get through that.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I’ve got quite a view here.”
She wiggled her rump and he laughed and lightly smacked it. He couldn’t resist.
“Hey, I am not into that,” he heard.
“Just checking. Are you stuck?”
She popped back down. “I’ve been through smaller. I was just figuring out which way I was going after I got out.”
As Kaia spoke, she tugged up the top of her dress, poking her arms through holes he hadn’t known were there, covering her shoulders and chest and skimming fabric down her arms. The material had unfolded like an accordion.
Next, she pulled off the silver and black belt and tested its strength.
The queasy, bad burrito feeling returned.
“Calm down,” she said. “Remember that I was hired to get Royce’s cuffs back.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” he asked, rather than deny it.
“Your breathing changed and you cracked your knuckle.”
He immediately unclenched his fist.
She straightened and pulled some more, tucked some more, and even though Blake shone his light on her, he couldn’t figure out how the evening dress she’d been wearing had turned into a long-sleeved shirt, tights and a backpack.
“How…how did you do that?”
“Practice.” She glanced up at him and kicked off her shoes. Ripping out the lining, she ended up wearing what appeared to be ballet flats. “Better for climbing,” she explained. The shoes disappeared into the backpack.
Only her hands and face were exposed. The rest of her was covered in form-fitting black. She looked like, well, a cat burglar. And she’d transformed into one with a breathtaking efficiency he wasn’t going to think about.
“I’m impressed,” Blake admitted.
“Yeah, and you’re worried, too.” She exhaled heavily and looked him right in the eyes. “I guess you’ll never completely trust me, will you?”
He hesitated. It wasn’t intentional, but she noticed. “I—”
“Don’t.” She placed a finger over his lips, then kissed him, lightly and quickly.
It felt like a goodbye.
Stepping onto the vanity bench, she waggled her fingers. “See ya.”
If Blake hadn’t seen what happened next, he would never have believed it.
Kaia raised her leg and poked it through the window. Then she stretched her arms over her head an impossibly long way and her shoulders seemed to disappear. There were a couple of twists, a pop—did she dislocate her shoulder socket?—and she was straddling the ledge. Balancing herself, she maneuvered the backpack through the opening, shifted her hips and head and finally, Blake watched her remaining leg snake upward and she was gone.
He’d watched her and he still didn’t believe it. Blake stepped onto the little vanity bench and looked out.
“Boo,” Kaia said, her head hanging inches away.
“Kaia, my God, the drainpipe isn’t meant to hold your weight!”
“It’s not.” She dropped and he barely heard the padded thud as she landed on the dormer to the left.
“Relax.” Her whisper drifted up to him.
Blake’s mouth was open so he must have gasped. He swallowed. “Don’t fall,” he managed to say.
“Don’t plan to.”
Blake glanced around the roof and sky. At least it wasn’t raining anymore. In fact, the moon was trying to peek out of the thinning clouds. But the tiles were still shiny and had to be slippery.
Kaia looped her makeshift rope and tossed it upward a couple of times before it caught on something.
Blake didn’t like how dangerous and iffy it looked. “Hey,” he called softly. “You don’t have to prove anything more. I’m convinced you could get away.”
“Don’t worry. This is nothing.” She looked upward a moment and added, “Well, maybe something. As far as difficulty, this is only a three or four out of ten. Maybe as much as a five because of the rain.” She tested her weight against the rope and when it held, she started climbing. “At least I don’t have to jump across open spaces or walk a tightrope. I really hate that.”
She was going to give him a heart attack with that kind of talk.
Just then, the moon poked through the clouds, and Blake got a clear view of Kaia easily climbing to the roof above them. At least she made it look easy, as only the most skilled can. Once on the ridge line, her figure in the tight outfit was silhouetted against the sky as she unhooked the rope.
She’d been so quick and so silent, in complete control of her body.
Blake knew that body. He’d recently been incredibly intimate with that body and yet he’d had no idea what it was capable of.
He watched, fascinated, as Kaia make her way across the rooftop, her movements gracefully sinuous. It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen and desire flared within him. He didn’t even try to tamp it down. He would never forget the sight of Kaia in the moonlight, scampering over the gleaming tiles, as silent as a shadow until she disappeared over the other side and out of sight.
Wow. Blake stared after her, still admiring the way she’d efficiently gone through an opening he’d dismissed as not worth putting sensors on.
He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Blake mentally redesigned some of his clients’ installations as he breathed in the humid night air and enjoyed the breeze. He’d have to ask Kaia for hints about the transportation side of his business, too. For pay, of course. She deserved it. She could make big bucks as a security consultant. Maybe he should hire her permanently. He tested the idea, liking it more and more. Seeing her every day would reinforce their personal relationship.
Blake closed his eyes, the breeze on his face, and recalled the utter surprise of making love to Kaia with the possibility of discovery. He could get addicted to the extra punch that brought to sex. Kaia…
Had not come back. The desire that had flamed to life again went out. Blake opened his eyes, waiting for her head to pop back into sight. He replayed their conversation and couldn’t recall Kaia telling him where she was going. Well, obviously she was going to try and get back into the house. But then what? They hadn’t discussed a plan because Blake hadn’t believed she could really escape. But she had.
He stared at the spot where she’d disappeared over the top of the roof, straining to hear. Would she find Luke and tell him what had happened? Blake should have given her a message…but if Luke saw her in that getup, would he listen to her?
And what exactly would she say?
Then again, why assume she’d seek out Luke?
Or Royce, for that matter. Suppose she was planning to keep the cuffs? Or maybe she made the whole story up and he’d just been conned by a thief.
Blake slowly stepped off the bench and sat on it, slumping against the wall.
Had he just made an incredibly stupid, stupid mistake?
What reason did Kaia have to return for him? Did he honestly think he was such a hot lover that it would make up for sending her to prison?
I guess you’ll never completely trust me, will you?
And the quick goodbye kiss. He felt sick—worse than any food poiso
ning. He wanted to trust her. He wanted to make up for not believing her before, but did that mean he should believe her now?
IT WAS A LOT HARDER to break in than it was to break out. From the other side of the roof, Kaia took a moment to gaze at the darkened landscape. Car headlights bounced slowly along the road and she could see pinpoints of light through windows or from someone walking outside with a flashlight. The night was quiet without the hum from the air conditioning units. She did hear the motor from a van in the drive below. It was unmarked, so it must belong to Blake’s crew. The crumpled valet awning blocked the front pathway to the house and she didn’t see anyone standing around.
Turning back to the window, Kaia removed it from the frame and carefully lowered it as far as she could inside before letting go. There was a thud and a rattle, but since she’d removed the wooden sill with it, the glass apparently survived. This window was easier to get in and out of since the architect had thoughtfully provided a handy decorative protrusion to stand on.
Seconds later, Kaia was inside the hall bathroom. Fortunately, it was vacant. She opened the door to the hallway and made a dramatic, “Ta da!” type entrance, but Blake wasn’t waiting by the gate.
Maybe he hadn’t expected her to be so quick. She waited for a couple of minutes before walking in the opposite direction to the open part of the hall that overlooked the party room.
Now that she was back inside, she noticed how warm it was getting in the house. She peeked over the landing’s banister to the room below and saw people sitting in chairs, surrounded by candlelight, chatting away, while others had staked out the couches and looked to be sleeping. A few of the younger crowd were on the floor. She didn’t see Royce, but she couldn’t see the band or the bar area from this angle.
No one was looking up, but Kaia didn’t want to attract attention. Keeping to the shadows, she moved down the hallway toward the stairs until she could see the far end of the room where Casper’s office was located.
Life would be so much easier if she could just nip downstairs, get into the office, and unload the snuffbox. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about Blake or anyone else discovering that she had it.
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