Thief for Hire

by Jillianne Hamilton

  “Lovely! Our honeymoon suite is available.”

  “Sounds perfect!” Rhys said before I could interject.

  I am going to straight-up kill this man.

  * * *

  The honeymoon suite was a stone cottage set back from the main inn. The loft had a king-size bed and an en suite bathroom while the first floor had a sofa, TV, fireplace, kitchen area with a table … and a heart-shaped hot tub.

  I glared at it, then at Rhys, and dropped my suitcase.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why—”

  “Because recently married couples like to shag in hot tubs.” Back to the Scottish accent. He opened the fridge. “Complementary bottle of whiskey. Nice.”

  “Not the hot tub. I was going to ask why are we staying here?”

  “A man and a woman who are not a couple staying at a country inn seem suspicious. Remind me to give this place a good review on TripAdvisor.”

  “We could be here on business.”

  “If we were here on business, we’d be staying in the city, not out here.” He picked up his suitcase and went upstairs. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, honey buns.”

  These games with Rhys were irritating. The seamless accent switch, the wedding ring bullshit. Most importantly, my name just being thrown around.

  I turned on the television and considered what it might be like to kill a man. This man, specifically.

  Would anyone really miss him? I highly doubt it.

  I skimmed the channel menu. Channel surfing in a foreign country is like reading a restaurant menu in a language you don’t speak: some of it looks familiar but two thirds of it just looks bizarre. I totally don’t get British humor at all. These people are so weird.

  I opened my nearby suitcase and picked up the wig I had brought with me: shoulder-length, golden brown. I couldn’t wear it around the inn in case the owner saw me.

  I tugged at the ring on my finger, spinning it around to loosen it. I breathed on it to build up sweat to slip it off. It would. Not. Budge.

  “Fucking piece of shit,” I whispered. “Ow, ow, ow, ow.”

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  Nate: Just checking in. Everything all right?

  It was nice of him to be concerned, even if it was for a made-up relative. I heard the bathroom door and pocketed my phone.

  Rhys came back downstairs, now clean-shaven. He looked like a completely different person than the one I’d met this morning. He was actually handsome. Still an asshole, though.

  He rubbed his cheeks and chin. “Glad to be rid of that beard.”

  “That’s why you acted the way you did on the plane,” I said. “People will remember an Italian with long hair and facial hair, but not you. Smart.”

  “‘Brilliant,’ I believe, is the word you’re looking for.”

  It was time for me to be assertive. “Why did you call me ‘Molly’ earlier?”

  Rhys riffled through his suitcase. “Because that’s your name.”

  “Why do you think that’s my name?”

  He shrugged. “Audrey told me.”

  “No, she didn’t. She knows me as Betty Bruce. That’s my name.”

  Rhys smirked. “Betty Bruce sounds like a superhero name. Also, that’s the name on your fake passport, not your real name—”

  “No, it’s—”

  “Your name is Molly Miranda. You live in New York. You own a flat in Manhattan and you live with a waiter named Nate.” He looked at me. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  Damn it.

  “We’re just friends,” I snapped. “And don’t say ‘waiter’ like it’s a big deal because I’m from New York. Half the people in New York who are in their twenties work in food service. Nate and I are just—”

  “Vermont.”

  “What?”

  “You said you’re from New York, but you’re not. You’re from Vermont.”

  My chest was heaving and my knuckles hurt from squeezing my fists. “How do you know all this stuff about me?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Now what kind of professional would I be if I didn’t check up on the young ingénue I’d be sharing an assignment with?”

  I stared at him. “Go on.”

  “Audrey told me your name is Betty Bruce. First I hacked into the American passport database and found Betty’s passport and acquired your photograph.”

  Like all passport photos, mine was terrible. I looked like an annoyed zombie.

  Rhys spoke quickly and without any hesitation. His Scottish accent wasn’t thick enough for me to misunderstand him.

  “Betty Bruce doesn’t have much of an online identity—no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever. So, I used the FBI’s facial recognition software to cross-reference it with anyone else with an American passport.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “FBI?”

  “Oh yeah. Lovely little program. I made some adaptations to the program myself and made it even better. It’s pretty hush-hush, so don’t go telling all your friends about it.” He grinned and continued. “There was no match there, so I went about searching the crime records for each state using your passport photo. Up comes information on a college student, Molly Miranda, who was charged with breaking and entering. I’m not sure why you would break into your professor’s house but that doesn’t really matter.”

  I sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at him, shoving my hands under my thighs to make them stop quivering.

  “From there I found your social media accounts and the deed to your flat. Actually, I was able to gain access to information for everyone living in your building. Did you know the person in the flat right below you is an heiress? I would get in there and poke around if I were—”

  “Focus, Rhys. Focus.”

  “Right, of course. Since you haven’t had any more brushes with the law, or a normal job since college and your parents are far from rich, I figure you make a pretty healthy income from doing this job.” He shrugged. “So I feel pretty good about this partnership.”

  “He wasn’t my professor,” I blurted out.

  “No?”

  “Someone paid me to get the exam answer sheet for them.” I shrugged weakly.

  “And you got caught climbing out of a window by one of the neighbors.”

  My jaw clenched. “I was there. You don’t have to remind me.”

  “We’ll dig further into your criminal history later on, kid.” He checked his watch. “I want to show you something in town. Maybe we should grab a spot of supper while we’re there?”

  I’d rather kick you repeatedly. But duty calls.

  * * *

  The mealtime conversation was a little sparse. I’m sure the other restaurant patrons thought we were a couple in the middle of a big fight but trying to have a nice time anyway.

  I was exhausted from the two flights and mostly just wanted to get back to the hotel and go to sleep. But Rhys said he had something to show me.

  We sat by a big window at the restaurant, watching the rain pouring—still. Scotland seems to be one big soggy nation. Soggy kilts, soggy haggis, soggy bagpipes. Soggy everything.

  Near the end of the meal, Rhys pointed to the building across the street.

  “See that office up there on the third floor? The one with the chair in the window?”

  I nodded.

  He sipped his beer. “That’s his.”

  That could only mean one thing—our target.

  “How long have you been tailing him?”

  “Off and on for two weeks. And I happen to know he’s booked a train ticket for tomorrow night and a return ticket on Wednesday afternoon, so we know exactly what times he’ll be away from his house.”

  I forced myself not to be impressed. Then again, after discovering my real identity, finding flight information for a target likely wasn’t much of a challenge.

  “He’s been working late regularly since the divorce, probably because there’s no one to go home to anymore.” Rhys glanced at me, then b
ack to the window. “Speaking of divorce, where’s your father these days?”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t find much of anything on him during my research.”

  Research? Is that what they’re calling stalking these days? I suppose I did the exact same thing to Nate… Well, not exactly the same but damn close.

  “I haven’t seen Dad in years,” I said. I hoped he would drop the subject. I looked back at the office. “Do you want to go up there?”

  “Already done,” Rhys said, putting on his coat and nodding to the door. Time to go. “He keeps a bottle of vodka and a sexy photo of his ex-wife in his desk drawer.”

  “How sexy we talkin’ here?”

  Rhys shrugged. “Oh, I’d definitely fuck her.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  No matter what or who the target, I always wake up feeling pumped on game day. It’s that same feeling a kid gets on the first day of summer vacation—the fun is about to begin, the real world seems miles away and there is an ocean of possibilities in between.

  Waking up after a full night’s sleep in a soft bed doesn’t hurt either.

  I didn’t even have to wake up to an awful alarm. Instead it was to the sound and smell of crackling bacon. I winced as the morning light hit my sleepy eyes. Wiggling my toes, I looked around, slowly remembering where I was.

  I rearranged some crazy morning bedhead and dragged myself downstairs to the kitchen. Rhys’s pillow was still perched against the arm of the sofa where he slept the night before.

  I wonder what he sleeps in. Is he a pajamas kind of guy?

  “Breakfast will be done in five,” Rhys said, nodding at the corner. “Coffee’s there.”

  It was only after my first gulp of coffee that I realized how weird this situation was.

  “Have you ever done an assignment with a partner before?” I wrapped my hands around the coffee mug to warm my fingers.

  “Yeah. I work with another girl—er, woman—occasionally but she didn’t quite pass Audrey’s high standards for this assignment.” He flipped the bacon and it hissed in the pan. “Some jobs just require more than two hands. Like tonight’s.”

  “Should be a fun one.” Mmmm. Caffeine. “What do you know about these two paintings we’re picking up?” I licked my upper lip, savoring every drop of the delicious brew.

  “One’s a portrait of the ex-wife and one’s a portrait of their baby.”

  “They had a child together?”

  “Well, kind of.” Rhys smirked. “A terrier. It had to be put down around the time of the divorce. Probably made things even sadder than they were already.”

  “Who gets a portrait done of their dog?”

  “Rich people.” He put down a plate of bacon and toast.

  “You didn’t meet the ex-wife, did you?”

  “Of course not. Audrey would never let one of us near a client.” He sipped his coffee and sat down with a plate for himself. “Her name is Ivy Dixon. She’s well-known on this side of the pond.”

  I thought for a moment. “Isn’t she an actress or something?”

  “She used to be a supermodel. Big celebrity, lots of high fashion stuff, lots of sexy lingerie. Best Bod in Britain, I believe they called her.” Rhys chewed on some bacon. “Out of nowhere, she finds religion and becomes an advocate for modesty and traditional family values. She wrote a bestseller on being a good wife over having a career. She did a ton of publicity to promote it. She also bashed the fashion industry and specific people within it. It was around this time she married boring old Albert Chandler, our target.”

  Poor bastard. Well, poor rich bastard.

  “Needless to say, it angered a lot of people, especially people in the fashion industry. But then they got to have the last laugh when she had an affair and she and her husband divorced two years later. That was a few months ago.”

  “And where is she now?”

  “London, I believe. Despite the infidelity, she got a huge settlement from her ex. She’s probably working on another book about the importance of a faithful marriage or something.”

  * * *

  The best thing about breaking into an old manor like Chandler House is the lack of nosey neighbors. Vast gardens and grounds surrounded the red-bricked building on all sides. The closest house was about a mile away and the people who lived there didn’t appear to be home. It was perfect.

  It was past 11 p.m. Rhys and I sat in the dark under a tree on a hill overlooking the manor. Albert had long since departed for the train station and most of the staff had left. All but one.

  “I fuckin’ hate butlers.” Rhys lowered his binoculars and shone his flashlight at me. “Hold on a second… Why are you still wearing that ring? I’ll need that back, just so you know.”

  “Why do you need it back this very second?”

  “You never know when the right woman is gonna come along.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You are not seriously going to re-use this specific ring to propose to someone. That is so tacky!”

  “It’s a nice ring!” He smirked. “I stole it from Madonna.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “No way. You’re full of shit.”

  “Okay. I made that up. It’s still nice and I would like to have it back. So just take it off your damn finger!”

  “I can’t get it off my finger,” I snapped. “It’s too small.”

  “Are you sure your fingers aren’t just too fat?”

  “Shut up.” I adjusted my sitting position and wiped some blades of damp grass from my knees. My ass was going numb.

  “This chap isn’t a live-in butler and he doesn’t stay here when Chandler is out,” Rhys said, his face hidden behind binoculars. “I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

  I lifted my binoculars. “Looks like paperwork.”

  “For two hours?” He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  Or at least I assumed he rolled his eyes. We were sitting in the pitch-black night with only the stars and the thumbnail-shaped moon as company. Besides a few crickets and the whistling wind, it was quiet. I was relieved the rain had stopped.

  Something moved in the branches above us. Dropping my binoculars, I stared up.

  Rhys propped himself up on his elbows, looking up the tree. “It’s probably just a wildcat.”

  I looked at him. “A what?”

  “Scottish wildcat. They’re like small tigers.”

  My eyes widened. “That’s a thing?”

  “Yeah. They feast on the blood of Americans.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Calm down.” He laughed quietly. “I think it’s a squirrel.” Rhys took out his smartphone. “Security system is still off.” He typed something on the screen.

  I glanced at him and picked up my binoculars again. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking up porn.”

  “Now?”

  “Joking.” He smiled. “Speaking of which, are you some sort of deviant?”

  I whipped my head to look at him. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Your browser history.”

  I raised my eyebrow. He shrugged.

  “You occasionally read steamy erotica, that’s all.” He turned his phone so I could see the screen—and there it was. My browser history from my home computer. Everything. Books on Amazon I’d looked at recently, videos I’d watched on YouTube, things I’d searched on Google … and other stuff.

  My cheeks felt warm. I punched Rhys on his shoulder.

  “Would you knock it off?” I hissed. “I take it you don’t know the meaning of privacy.”

  “Not yours.”

  I could feel him grinning at me in the dark.

  I could murder him right after we get the paintings. No one needs to know.

  Rhys sat up. “I think he’s leaving.” He looked at his phone and I watched the butler type a four-digit security code into a panel located just inside the front door. I watched where his finger went as he pressed—bottom middle, top middle, top left and then
the first button on the second row.

  “The security code is zero, two, one, four.”

  Rhys nodded, still watching his phone. “How romantic.”

  I smiled. “Second month, fourteenth day. Valentine’s Day.”

  “Probably the day he and the ex-wife had their first date or something.” He looked up from his phone and showed me the screen. “Security system is on.”

  Hacking into a security system: there’s an app for that.

  Rhys clicked and typed on his phone while I watched the butler drive off. He’d left several lights on in the main part of the manor, and they cast a large circle of light around the building.

  Per my usual routine, I waited a few minutes to make sure the butler wasn’t coming back because he forgot something. This gave Rhys time to get into the alarm system and disable the security cameras located outside and inside the house.

  The butler still hadn’t come back after fifteen minutes.

  I nodded at Rhys. “Go for it.”

  He typed and tapped a few more times. “Aaaand…” Tap, tap, tap, beep. “We’re good.”

  I slid my fingers into a pair of thick gloves. We left our spot under the tree, making sure to stay low to the ground, just in case a car drove by on the nearby road.

  We headed for the back of the manor. As expected, the lights were off in those rooms.

  “Ya know, lots of people read erotica,” I whispered. “It’s very normal.”

  Rhys snickered and pulled on his own gloves. “You just keep telling yourself that, sweet cheeks.”

  He pressed the key code into the panel by the door and it beeped and turned green. Easy, peasy. Mounted above the door at the back entrance was a security camera, pointed directly down at us. The light by the lens was dark instead of red or green—Rhys hadn’t just paused the cameras, he’d killed them completely.

  Nice.

  We let ourselves into a long galley kitchen. Besides the sound of the tap dripping in the old basin sink, the house was deadly quiet.