Saving Mr. Perfect

by Tamara Morgan

  Another lengthy pause ensues before Christopher shifts position and tries again. “From what I can tell, there’s just the one near the back of the room. Eight reflectors—three on the left, five on the right. We can’t see the pattern of the lasers, but I can make a good guess based on the angles. You think it’s as easy as redirection?”

  Redirection doesn’t sound easy to me, not by a long shot, but Christopher is already playing with the mirror in his hand, flexing it on its hinge until it separates from the powder half. Regret at wasting this man’s talents by sending him to prison twinges in my stomach until I remind myself what he’s done. He might play well, but he doesn’t play fair.

  “I see what you’re saying, but I’d need a second reflective surface to make that work,” Christopher says over the earpiece. He turns to me. “I don’t suppose you have another mirror down the front of your dress, do you?”

  Alas, even my bag of tricks comes to an end. I shake my head.

  “I could try breaking it in half,” he says doubtfully.

  Shattered shards of glass seem like an unstable resource—not to mention a safety hazard—so I shake my head again, this time with meaning. Hitting a dead end this far along is the worst. It’s a door slammed in the face, a knife stabbed in the gut—

  “Oh, wait!” I cry, louder than I intend. More moderately, I add, “I do have this,” and reach for the bottom hem of my dress. I feel another pang that it’s Christopher here with me instead of my husband, because I have never felt sexier or more badass than when I expose the length of my thigh and unstrap Cheryl’s shiny letter opener from my leg. God bless that woman’s foresight. “Here. Will this do?”

  Christopher smiles in full dimple mode. “Oh, yeah. That’ll do fine.”

  My role after that is to occasionally blow a puff of compact powder into the air when Christopher requests it, watching as the particles dance and shimmer in the light of the laser beam. It’s pretty in a dangerous, this-could-be-the-thing-that-sends-me-to-jail-forever sort of way.

  “Okay, I think I have it calculated.” He hands me the mirror. “On my mark, you’re going to place this on top of that display case at this exact angle. We’re going to redirect the laser to this knife, which will then bypass the laser beam straight to the detector. But we have to time it perfectly, or it won’t work. There can’t be a delay.”

  “That sounds hard.”

  “It is hard, but no more so than any of the other tasks you’ve pulled off this evening. I assume you have a plan for getting the necklace out of here undetected?”

  I can’t help but grin. “Did you see the magician outside the bank getting ready for his show? He’s got all cameras blocked. We’re clear.”

  His glance is sharp but admiring. “You set that up?”

  He pauses as I assume Riker corrects him as to the true power behind that piece of work. Another one of those deep, dimpled smiles greets my eyes, and Christopher holds up his fingers.

  “On my count of three. Ready?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, here goes nothing. One. Two. Thr—”

  We place the mirrors, our movements swift and sure, our hands steady in a way that belongs solely to surgeons and jewel thieves. There’s no way to see the lasers being redirected, so all we can do is stand and wait for the inevitable alarm. When it doesn’t come, I pull out the compact and give the powder one final blow.

  The lasers sparkle and shimmer…a good five feet away from the center of the room.

  “It worked,” Christopher says in a stunned voice.

  “Of course it worked.” I lead the way to the Starbrite Necklace with a confident step, borne mostly of the fact that I’m just as stunned by our success as he is. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Knowing firsthand what an ugly piece of craftsmanship the necklace is, I offer the compliment to encourage Christopher to make the first move at smashing through the glass.

  Which is why it comes as such a surprise when I finally look down to see it.

  “Wait—where’s the necklace? Why is the case empty?” I look to my new partner in alarm. He’d been within eyesight all evening, so there’s no way he could have already snuck up here and stolen it.

  An accomplice? An earlier heist? A setup?

  My heart thuds heavily. No. It can’t be.

  “Are you sure it’s supposed to be in here?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!” I look around the rest of the room, eyes narrowed as I try to pick out the glint of jewels in the dark. The rest of it appears to be there—the jade and the emeralds, the chunky metalwork I remember so clearly from my last visit—but when I whirl back to the Starbrite case, it’s still very much empty. “Did they move it? It has to be there! I need it to—”

  I glance at Christopher, hoping to find some sign of guilt on his face. But if he feels any, it’s well hidden. “Yes, Penelope?” he prods. “You need it to what?”

  To put in his pocket so I can send him out the door and into Simon’s waiting arms. To end this thing once and for all.

  As if on cue, the overhead fluorescent lights turn on in a bright flash of white. The laser system, so neatly bypassed by Christopher’s adept ministrations, goes off in a whirlwind of sirens and warning lights. I don’t have to look to know that Pierre is standing in the doorway, flushed and frantic at having found himself relieved of his key card, flanked by heavily armed guards on both sides.

  “You!” he cries, striding forward as if he’d like to waltz me into oblivion. “Little Lily Dupont! How could you do this?”

  I moan, wishing I had an answer other than stupid pride and even stupider folly. Grant warned me that this would happen, that Christopher Leon only wanted a fall guy and would go to any lengths to secure one, but I, in my stubbornness, refused to believe that such a disaster could befall me.

  But here I am. The necklace is gone. I’m standing in the room where it went missing, where it’s only my word against a federal agent and the museum curator that I didn’t do it.

  And in this damnable red dress, about a hundred people saw me come up here.

  “I didn’t…” I begin feebly, but no one is listening to me.

  What happens next is a blur, emotion and panic combining to overwhelm me, but there are two things I know to be true. The first is that Christopher Leon, the man who shot my husband and set me up as the Peep-Toe Prowler, inexplicably inserts himself between me and the security guards. The second is that with the sudden illumination, I can now see a panel cut into the wall opposite the pedestal—the faint outline of an opening carved into the drywall, into the insulation, into the metal siding, layer after layer painstakingly cut away to provide an alternate access route. That must have been how Christopher’s accomplice got in.

  I’m screwed.

  Or so I think until Christopher speaks up. “Stop right there,” he says. “I’m FBI.” And then, harsher, “Penelope, go.”

  I spin, confused by the sound of that command. It’s Grant but not Grant, his voice of authority and concern in a place he can’t possibly be.

  He lifts his hands as the guards move forward, shifting to keep his bulk between me and them. “You need to go,” Christopher says, shattering all my expectations. Saving me. “Now.”

  I don’t hesitate the second time around. With no more thought than my own selfish, cowardly survival, I fly to the panel someone else cut into the wall and pull it aside.

  And then I do what Penelope Blue has always done best.

  I squeeze myself into the smallest shape possible and crawl.

  32

  THE ESCAPE

  The tunnel leads, as most tunnels do, nowhere good.

  As soon as I pop my head out the end of it, I realize there’s nothing preventing me from falling twenty feet to the ground outside the Conrad Museum except a rope that dangles from the rooftop. Since I’m unable to fly, and heading
back inside doesn’t sound appealing, I kick off my shoes and climb that sucker so fast, I’ll bear the rope burns on my upper arms for weeks to come.

  Only to find myself climbing over the roof’s edge to stare at none other than Tara Lewis.

  For the first time since I’ve had the misfortune to know Tara Lewis, I’m dressed better than she is. My ball gown is a stark contrast to the black shirt, black leggings, black beanie, and—hey, are those my boots?—she’s wearing. If it weren’t for the perfect makeup and wisp of platinum blond hair trailing out of the bottom of her hat, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her.

  Especially since she’s pointing a gun at me.

  “Oh, my God.” I don’t try to move off the outer ledge where I’m perched, opting instead to remain perfectly still so as to avoid being shot and sent hurtling to the pavement below. I wish I could say that the only thing I feel right now is fear for my life, but I’m aware of another sensation creeping through my veins.

  Disappointment. And for Tara Lewis, of all people.

  “It really was you?” I ask. “This whole time?”

  “Penelope?” Her gun comes down a fraction. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Fleeing for my life, obviously.”

  Even though I’m not fleeing—I’m not moving at all, to be honest—she doesn’t balk at my confession. “Where’s Christopher?”

  “Why do you care?” I ask. But then I pause, aware of one very good reason why she might care, and my confusion mounts. I’m having a hard time following the thread of my own suspicions, as Christopher and Tara and potential unnamed accomplices take shape around me. “Does this mean he’s your partner after all? You guys planned this together?”

  This time, she does balk, her brow lowered as she tries to puzzle out my meaning. “I don’t understand. Where’s Jane?”

  “Jane Bartlett?” I don’t wait for an answer. Since Tara doesn’t seem to be on the verge of pumping me full of lead, I climb down from the ledge to the rooftop below. Having that small barrier between me and the swirling vertigo of death goes a long way in lowering my heart rate, but my pulse is hot and frantic at the base of my throat.

  “I think she’s still at the party,” I say as soon as I’m on solid ground. “Unless they’ve started evacuating people by now.”

  I take my eyes off Tara long enough to spare a glance to the sidewalk below. It doesn’t look as though the guests are streaming out in panic and fear, but that doesn’t mean the police won’t arrive soon to clear the building. Oh, how I wish I’d thought to get the earpiece back from Christopher. I could use my friends right about now.

  “Then we need to move fast,” Tara says. “Here.”

  In the five seconds my attention was distracted, Tara silently closed the distance between us and reached for my hand. The gun is now tucked securely in her waistband—I think that’s my utility belt, too, the thief—but her grip is so strong, she manages to drag me halfway across the roof before my bare feet find enough purchase on the rooftop tiles to stop her.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, digging my heels in. “Where is it? Did you shove it down the front of your shirt? Or did you pass it off to someone else before I got up here?”

  “For God’s sake, Pen, I don’t have it—and neither will you, if you don’t hurry. She’ll get away with it. She’ll get away with it all.”

  The action of the past few hours is taking its toll on me, because I still don’t understand. “Who will get away with it all?”

  “Jane. Your new best friend. I thought I got up here in time to catch her, but apparently, I didn’t. Come on. She can’t have gone far—and the only way off this rooftop is through the museum.”

  The last place I want to go is back inside the building I just fled on hands and knees, but I follow Tara down the rooftop access stairwell as fast as my bare feet will allow. There’s still so much I don’t understand, but certain truths are starting to poke through.

  Namely, that I don’t have the necklace, and Christopher doesn’t have the necklace, and unless Tara shoved it somewhere no woman should place diamond spikes of that magnitude, I don’t think she has it either.

  But Jane?

  I expect there to be chaos and mass hysteria when we arrive back on the main floor, but the party appears to be in full swing. The lights are low, the champagne is flowing, and every other woman is dressed in black, making it difficult to pick anyone out of the crowd.

  “Wait, Tara, wait.” I force her to a halt. “What makes you so sure it’s her?”

  It’s clear from Tara’s furtive movements and tense grip that she doesn’t care to answer me, but she does anyway. “I’m not. It’s a hunch.”

  “A hunch? We’re lingering at the scene of a crime for a hunch?”

  A figure in black lace flashes by, and Tara’s eyes widen. “I think I see her. Come on.”

  We start moving again, this time skirting the edge of the room to avoid making a scene. We’re just two people trying to dash furtively along the walls of a party. I probably look like a woman who’s had too much to drink, but Tara is as out of place as they come. People are starting to notice.

  We make it outside the front doors—now abandoned by the guards—and to an alley on the side of the building before we catch up with her. The light sound of traffic indicates that we’re not alone, but this area is remote enough that we feel isolated.

  “Jane!” I call, mostly as a test.

  Sure enough, she turns around. My mom’s best friend, a woman Tara would have me believe is somehow both the owner of a world-renowned cosmetics company and a jewel thief, turns with a serene smile. She looks as cool as always, no sign of diamond spikes anywhere near her lady parts either.

  “Penelope, there you are,” she says. “I was looking everywhere for you. I thought maybe you’d gone outside for some air.”

  “Um. Well. No.” Her air of perfect calm is the opposite of Tara’s panicked plunge through the crowd, which has left me embarrassingly out of breath. “I was in the restroom.”

  “Oh, dear. I hope you’re not feeling sick again,” she says and raises her hand to my forehead for another maternal test of my health.

  Tara huffs in disapproval, drawing Jane’s attention.

  “And who’s this?” she asks. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Jane. Jane Bartlett. I was a friend of Penelope’s mother.”

  Not one to be outdone, Tara straightens her posture and glares the older woman down. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m Tara. Tara Lewis. And I am Penelope’s mother.”

  Jane laughs in clear disbelief, but I find myself looking at the evil stepmother I’ve hated for so long through bewildered eyes.

  “Penelope?” Jane asks. “What’s going on? Who is this woman?”

  “She’s my…” I struggle to find the right word to explain Tara. It’s not easy, especially considering the past few weeks we’ve had.

  “I told you,” Tara says. “I’m her mother.”

  “Nonsense. Her mother was Liliana Dupont. You’re much too young to have known her.”

  I halt at the sound of my real mother’s name, unsteady on my feet.

  “I never met the woman, but believe me, I know her.” Tara’s normally breathy voice is hard. “I know her better than I know myself. How many people loved her, how much her family would have preferred having her around instead of me. You could say we’re old friends that way.”

  Jane laughs lightly. “Don’t take it personally. No one could compete with Liliana. It was foolish of you to try. Tell her, Penelope.”

  I recoil from the command. Even though I agree with her—that I’ll never be as good as my mother—hearing the words aloud feels wrong. These past few weeks, I’ve heard so many conflicting stories of my mom’s personality. According to one side, she was impetuous and uncontrollable and defied a lifetime of careful u
pbringing for the sake of love. She caused mischief for no reason other than the joy of it and got away with it most of the time, too. According to the other side, she was kind and warm and the best person in the world. In fact, she was worth giving up a life of crime for.

  In other words, she was human. She was a complicated mix of good and bad, right and wrong.

  She was just like me.

  Noises from inside the building prevent me from telling Jane any of this. Raised voices and panicked shouts indicate that the standoff upstairs has come to an end. I don’t know who’s won, but I don’t intend to stick around long enough to find out. Jane and Tara hear it, too, and both women look to me to choose a side. The woman my mother called friend and the one I call enemy, both of them wearing similar expressions of expectation.

  I can’t do it.

  The sounds of mass evacuation hit us at once. An alarm from inside the museum starts driving people out the door and all over the place, robbing me of the time I need to make a decision. Jane and Tara tense and prepare to run with the crowd. One moves off to the right, the other to the left, splitting as neatly as if they’d planned it—splitting me along with them.

  One is telling the truth; the other is lying to suit her own ends.

  One is going to get away; the other is going to stay and face the music.

  And it’s up to me to decide which.

  Without waiting another second, I grab the gun from out of Tara’s waistband and point. “Don’t even think about it,” I warn. “You’re staying right where you are.”

  33

  THE END

  “Are you crazy? She’s getting away!”

  I don’t turn my head to follow the path of Jane’s gaze, which is trained on Tara as she blends in with the dispersing crowd. I’m too intent on holding the gun steady.