A Beautiful Heist

by Kim Foster

  I didn’t know where to look. Are you kidding me? He struck a catlike pose, without a hint of irony. There was just way too much flesh and bits and pieces and hair, and it was altogether an entirely alarming sight. The room was hushed. People were quietly contemplating his form, taking out their charcoal sticks and starting to sketch.

  For me, contemplating and sketching the sight before me was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. My deepest wish right then was to squeeze my eyes tight and scrub away the image I feared was permanently seared onto my brain. Memo to self: Wikipedia, Cat. A little background research on what, exactly, is involved in figure drawing might have been useful preparation.

  Somehow, I forced myself to raise my eyes again and hold my piece of charcoal as steadily as I could. Oh God. How do people do this? More importantly: why? I started moving my charcoal over the page, concentrating on his left foot.

  “Okay, people,” the instructor called out with an artistic wave of his hand. “Remember: move your hand quickly. Fly over the page. Don’t just draw. I want you to capture the essence of the model’s gesture. Not just the physical body, but the mood.”

  I had my own approach: attempt to forget what I was looking at and instead pretend I was drawing a bowl of fruit. Okay, so it was a large, fleshy, hairy bowl of fruit, but still . . .

  After a few minutes, Mr. Nude changed poses and settled into a reclining position on a chaise lounge. Everyone flipped to a blank page. I took the opportunity to turn to Nicole and glance at her first sketch.

  “Hey, that’s really good,” I said.

  Nicole flicked a brief glance in my direction. “Thank you.” Her voice was tight; she kept her torso turned away from me.

  “That highlighted bit—how did you get that effect?” I asked, pointing to a body part I’d rather not name.

  “Chalk.”

  Hmm. This was going to be tricky. Somehow, I needed to get her to relax and open up. While I brainstormed on this, I kept drawing. The instructor advised us to stay loose and draw quickly, which I tried, until—“Whoops!” I cringed. “Oh, that’s not good,” I muttered to myself. “Pretty much every guy’s nightmare . . .” No man likes to see that particular piece of his anatomy portrayed at one-third its real size.

  Nicole glanced at my drawing and a smile twitched on her lips. We made eye contact and both grinned, suppressing laughter.

  But then, under her gaze I had a moment of panic. What if she’d seen a file on me? What if she recognized my face? It was a little late for these thoughts, of course. I was all in now.

  I pointed to her sketch with my piece of charcoal. “Yours is good,” I said. “You’re an artist?”

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head dismissively. “I just do this for fun. My day job is much less artistic.”

  “Oh? What do you do?” I kept my voice light and chatty.

  She hesitated briefly. The guard had not been fully dismantled. “I work in criminal investigation, actually.”

  “Cop?”

  “FBI.”

  “No kidding,” I said. I did my best to sound impressed and interested, while fighting down the natural impulse to flee in terror at the sound of someone introducing themselves as an FBI agent.

  I did note that Nicole’s spine straightened as she said the word. She was still a little suspicious—normal for an agent, I imagined—and although she tried to be discreet, it was obvious she was proud of this.

  “Yeah, I do this sort of thing as an escape,” she said, resuming her sketching. “Although I have to admit, some weeks are more pleasurable than others.” She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “You should have seen the guy who was the model last week . . . .” She flashed me a wicked smile.

  “Good?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Think Ryan Reynolds.”

  “Wow,” I said, smiling back. “Nice.”

  Hmm. So she had good taste in men. Interesting. We continued working on our sketches.

  “So how about you?” she asked me. “What do you do?”

  I suffered a sudden paroxysm of coughing, and then strove to keep my heart rate steady and my voice even as I said, “Oh, I’m a grad student at the University of Washington. French lit.”

  Actually, this was true.

  Naturally, I maintained a mild-mannered alter ego. Every self-respecting felon has a cover. Mine was a graduate student in nineteenth-century French literature, to be specific. Hugo, Flaubert, Dumas . . . all those great, romantic writers. For me it was more than a fake cover, however. I really did enjoy it.

  I yanked the conversation back around to her. “So, being with the FBI must be pretty exciting,” I said. “Have you been doing that for long?”

  “A few years.”

  I nodded. I needed to pace my questions a little. “You hunt serial killers and stuff?”

  “No, I’m in property crimes. I head the jewel theft team.”

  “Wow, how cool is that?” My voice was unnaturally high. “A whole team for jewel theft.”

  “Yeah. Although our department needs a bit of a whip-cracking. We’re completely disorganized, and totally bogged down with work.”

  Perfect. Disorganized was good. I smiled and then quickly schooled it. “Lots of jewel theft in Seattle?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Mmm,” I said, nodding, and concentrating hard on my drawing, hoping I wasn’t displaying an inappropriate response to that. “I’m sure I would.”

  As I applied the finishing touches to a particular piece of male anatomy (and doing not a bad job, if I do say so myself), I stopped to consider my sketch, and started giggling.

  “God, it’s a good thing I don’t have a boyfriend anymore,” I said offhandedly. “I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be that I’ve been staring at another man’s naked body for the past hour.”

  She laughed. “My boyfriend thinks it’s hilarious.”

  I looked at her; she was glowing. “Sounds like a good guy.” Must be nice to have one of those, I thought. Although I suppose I did, once upon a time. My mood darkened a shade, smeared over with charcoal.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He is a good guy. He’s FBI also.”

  “Really?” I said, turning to her. “You work together? Isn’t that difficult?”

  “Sometimes. But it’s fun, too.”

  “Huh,” I said, considering this. “I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never actually dated anyone who does the same thing that I do.”

  She looked at me with a frown. “But you’re a student. You’ve never dated another student? Ever?”

  Shit. I was supposed to be disarming her and getting her to open up—not the other way around. “Umm, no. I mean in my exact discipline. Other students, sure, but nobody in French studies.”

  “Ah,” she said.

  When the class ended, we packed up our supplies. Despite the fact that I was probably scarred for life from the experience of figure drawing, it was very fruitful talking with Nicole. Getting the inside track on your adversary was always time well spent.

  We walked outside together. The sun had set now, and the sky shimmered with gauzy twilight. The air was fresh and cool.

  “Hmm . . . where is he?” Nicole glanced around, frowning slightly.

  “Who?”

  “My boyfriend. He’s supposed to be picking me up . . . .” And then she smiled over my shoulder. “Oh, there he is. Hi, honey.”

  I turned and found myself looking into the face of Jack Barlow. My ex. The man who, two months ago, completely crushed my heart.

  Shocked, I dropped my portfolio. Out tumbled one of my drawings: a perfectly artless—but nonetheless recognizable—portrait of a big, fat, naked guy in full-frontal pose. It fluttered down like a feather and landed at Jack’s feet.

  Jack bent down and picked it up with one long, carved arm. I froze as he studied it with a smirk. He looked into my face with those melting brown eyes that had so often turned my knees to syrup, and handed me the drawing. “Is this yours
, miss?”

  And just like that, I was dying.

  I walked across the darkened parking lot in a trance; my cheeks still retained the remnants of a hot burn. At least I could comfort myself with the knowledge that Jack was not going to rat me out to Nicole. He’d kept up the charade that he didn’t know me.

  Good guy, I thought. And that, right there, was our problem. Right from day one.

  It might seem improbable that a thief and an FBI agent could become romantically involved in the first place. But ours had been a pretty typical love story, really. You know how it goes: Boy meets Girl (by investigating the crime ring to which she secretly belongs). Boy and Girl fall in love (while Girl tries madly to keep her true vocation hidden from Boy). Boy loses Girl (partly due to his utter shock at catching her red-handed, but mostly due to his decision to arrest her for a major felony). Then, of course, we get: Boy covers for Girl, lies to his supervisors, arranges for her release because he’s realized that he really does love her after all and will somehow have to come to terms with her criminal tendencies but for now is simply going to whisk her away to Paris.

  In other words: Boy wins Girl back and the two live happily ever after. Well, that’s what was supposed to happen. The happily-ever-after bit. Unfortunately, in the true version of the story, the romance ended rather prematurely, when Boy finally realized he just couldn’t tolerate Girl’s criminal lifestyle.

  After our breakup I did consider giving up my career, leaving my life of crime. But I just couldn’t do it. Every time I contemplated it I felt repelled by the idea, like a reverse-polarity magnet was pushing me away. I’m sure it was because of Penny, because of promising myself that I wouldn’t quit until I’d made amends. Although, in my darkest moments, I’ve wondered if there was something else.

  I didn’t stay long in that cozy triangle outside the art class, making small talk with Nicole and Jack. I extracted myself as quickly as possible. And now all I wanted to do was get to my car, get home, and nurse my wounds with a bubble bath and a vodka.

  Midway through the parking lot I got a prickly feeling of being watched. I glanced around. Nothing moving. Nobody to be seen. Only a scattering of motionless cars and minivans, and a pair of battered garbage bins, barely illuminated by the single, dim yellow streetlight. Ruffling maple trees bordered the parking lot, their vibrant autumn colors transformed to black silhouette against the darkening sky.

  Okay, Cat. Just your imagination. I kept walking.

  And then all the hairs on the back of my neck lifted upward. There it was again.

  I ducked down between two cars, crouching low. I scanned for moving shadows and listened hard for footfall. Still, nothing. I began creeping toward my car.

  This parking lot was empty, I told myself. Deserted. Okay, fine, my sensors must have been thrown off from the trauma of seeing Jack again.

  I reached my car. There was a note taped to the driver’s door:

  Go to the diner across the street. You will see a man with a white rose in his lapel. Sit down at his table.

  I snatched the note and looked quickly around. I knew it. But still, I couldn’t see a soul anywhere nearby.

  In spite of myself I was impressed. Whoever this was, he was good. I glanced back at the note. It was a small square of heavy bond. The message was scrawled in thick, fountain-pen black ink. I didn’t recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t Templeton. It wasn’t any of my friends or anyone else I knew.

  Well, this guy certainly favored the cloak-and-dagger routine. Which was fine by me, of course. Cloak and dagger? Totally my thing.

  I squinted across the street and spotted ROXY’S DINER written in neon, flickering slightly above a low building with glowing plate glass windows. Looked like my bubble bath would have to wait.

  Chapter 5

  The door chimed as I entered the diner. Which was unfortunate, because I’d wanted to slip in. I was wary as I stepped into the warmth, with tense shoulders and senses going full throttle, but I was also bursting with curiosity. My eyes swept over the red vinyl-covered stools lining the Formica counter, the red vinyl booths with chrome trim, the chalkboard listing the specials. The diner smelled of coffee and onion rings and chicken noodle soup.

  Within seconds I’d assessed the degree of danger in there. I scouted the exits (one by the restroom, and another through the kitchen) and the other customers (a family with two teenagers, three grizzled road workers at the counter, a retired couple at a booth in the corner, and a smattering of single diners sitting alone huddled over their platters of French fries and country-fried steak).

  But where was Mr. White Rose? Maybe he wasn’t there? Maybe this was just someone’s joke?

  No, wait—there he was.

  Hmm. What made me think this would be a man? This was a kid. No older than twenty, I would have said. Sporting curly brown hair, John Lennon-esque glasses, and falling asleep in his seat.

  But I wasn’t ready to approach him yet. I ran my gaze over the other customers there. Yes, the man seated by the window was clearly a lookout, judging from the tension in his body, his hyper-alert gaze that didn’t belong in a diner at supper time. And there was another, lingering by the restroom. His weight was just a little too far forward, a little too ready to make a move if necessary.

  Despite this, I didn’t see an imminent threat. Their eyes were wary, but not malevolent. There was no finger twitching, preparing to grab a weapon. These guys were just watching. They were leery, but then so was I.

  I strolled across the diner and slid into the booth to sit across the table from Mr. White Rose, keeping track of the watchers in my peripheral vision. I observed Mr. White Rose for a moment. His head lolled forward, a small line of drool was escaping his mouth, and his face was smooth, slack, and peaceful.

  I cleared my throat. He awakened with a start.

  “What? Oh! Miss Montgomery.” He sat up, flustered and wild eyed. “Was I asleep?” He raised a hand to rub his face and spilled his coffee across the table.

  I nodded, mopping up the mess with a wad of napkins from the tin dispenser on the table. “Looks like you just dozed off a little,” I said. I struck a casual tone here, but my brain was churning. He’d used my name.

  “No problem, no problem,” he said, straightening his glasses and wiping the crusted drool from the corner of his mouth. Could this possibly be the person who so skillfully drew me here? No, surely the true mind here was behind the scenes. I flicked a surreptitious glance at the lookouts; nothing about them said “leader,” however. Was someone else involved? At that moment a waitress in a peach-colored apron arrived. She placed a fresh cup of coffee on the table, refilled the spilled one, and said she’d return for our order.

  I lifted the warm mug and sipped, watching him over the rim. I didn’t usually drink coffee black, but fiddling with packets of sweetener and little pots of cream would have created the wrong impression at a clandestine rendezvous, I felt. Bitter, strong flavor punched my tongue, but I swallowed it down.

  “So, Miss Montgomery,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning toward me, “I’m here to ask for your help.”

  “Oh?” I said lightly. “You need a French lit tutor?”

  He smiled but shook his head. He lowered his voice further. “We know who you are and what you do.”

  My gut squeezed. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow,” I said, keeping my features smooth. Who was this guy?

  “Please, Miss Montgomery. We know you are skilled at . . . procuring certain items.”

  I glanced swiftly around. No other patrons were within earshot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. Does the Camelot Diamond sound familiar? The Bianca necklace?”

  I tightened my jaw. Those were recent jobs of mine. “Maybe you’d like to tell me who you are,” I said sharply. “And who you mean by ‘we.’ Other than the lookouts you’ve got posted by the restroom and that table over there.” I flicked my eyes in the direction of the two men I’d spotted
.

  His eyes widened. He blinked. “I must say, Miss Montgomery, they told me you were good, but I’m impressed.”

  I maintained a cold stare. “You were about to explain who you are, exactly.”

  “Yes, of course. My apologies. My name is Sandor.” He rubbed his chin and pressed his lips together. “My family is—well, have you heard of the Romanovs?”

  At that, my mind conjured images of imperial Russian splendor, snow-covered Saint Petersburg, and the lavish Winter Palace.

  “Are you telling me your ancestors were the czars?”

  Sandor nodded. He slid his coffee cup on the table, rolling it between his hands.

  “But—they were all killed,” I said. “In the revolution. A mass execution.”

  “Well, that’s what you were supposed to believe. But you know as well as I do that the public story is often completely different than the private one.”

  A good point.

  “Okay, fine.” I took another sip of coffee and shifted in the slippery vinyl booth. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, that this is all true, and you really are who you say. How do you know who I am?” Little fluttery shocks of anxiety were going off inside me, like the uncomfortable zips you get with static electricity. I had a lot of questions besides this one—like who else besides Sandor knew these things about me.

  “A family like ours has a lot of resources and connections,” Sandor said. “How do you think we’ve survived all this time?”

  “Fair enough.” I folded my arms over my chest, leaned back and narrowed my eyes at him. “So, what do you want, exactly?”

  He bolted down the remainder of his coffee. But he winced slightly as he did it. It was endearing, really, to watch this kid try to play the big man. I was starting to get the picture. I imagined the patriarchs of his family pushed him forward for this task. I wondered why him, though. Did they think he would be the least intimidating? Were they trying to disarm me? What?

  “Have you heard of the Fabergé Eggs, Miss Montgomery?”

  “Of course.” Any self-respecting jewel thief knew all about the Fabergé Eggs. They were masterpieces, designed by the virtuoso jeweler Fabergé for the Russian imperial family to give to each other as Easter gifts. Today, a Fabergé Egg is worth several million dollars. The Rothschild Egg was sold by Christie’s auction house a few years ago for nearly nine million pounds sterling.