by Lila Dubois
Jasper checked his watch, then whipped around and got to work.
“Stop playing with it,” Jasper snapped.
Eli was in the backseat, crate cradled on his lap. He set the lid back in place when Jasper yelled at him. He was holding a Rodin in his lap. A new Rodin. Well, it wasn’t new, but it was new to the art world. Oh, the peer-reviewed papers he would write…
Eli grinned and hugged the box.
“I’m out,” Irina reported via the com link.
Fifteen minutes ago, she’d raced Eli’s car into the alley, then jumped out and run back into the party, leaving the car to Jasper and Eli, who had hauled their loot into the alley, thrown it in the car, and taken off.
“Let’s get the story straight,” Irina said. “Eli, I told them that you’d gone home to check for the bracelet, and that you’d called to say you found it. I then said I was taking a cab home. That explains your absence, but there are huge holes in the timeline.”
Eli hadn’t even thought about their “story,” let alone worried about getting it straight. The giddy feelings inspired by the Rodin started to fade.
“We’re about five minutes out,” Jasper said. He was driving Eli’s car, and Irina was driving Jasper’s rental.
“In and out,” Irina reminded them. “We wouldn’t be going back at all if we could help it.”
Eli’s stomach clenched at her words. “What are you talking about?”
“We’ve got to get out of town.” Irina’s voice softened. “It’s not safe here, Eli.”
“Why?”
“Because we left a trail a mile wide for them to follow.” Jasper braked for a yellow light. He was following every possible rule of the road. “It will take them less than ten minutes to connect the theft to you, Eli.”
“And to me. I used my real name to register for the event.” Irina sounded disgusted. “I was introduced to half the attendees as Eli’s fiancée.”
“That guard we taped up will be able to ID you from a picture.” Jasper looked at Eli in the rearview mirror as he spoke.
Eli shook his head. “Wait, when you say it like that, it makes it sound like—”
“Like you just planned and executed an art heist.” Jasper’s voice was flat. “You RSVP’d at the last minute, with a woman who you claim to be engaged to but whom you’d never talked about before tonight. You asked questions about a specific piece of art. You were missing from the party during the time that same piece of art was stolen. The private security was pulled away by a crisis manufactured by your supposed fiancée.”
Eli’s whole body flushed cold then hot. “No, that’s not…”
“That’s exactly what it looks like. And it means either cops or private security will be at your house any minute now.” Jasper pulled into Eli’s driveway. “I’m going in. I will be out in three minutes. We will unload this car, and as soon as Irina gets here, load everything into the rental.”
Jasper was out the driver’s door, running into the garage, which he’d opened with the remote.
Eli looked down at the box in his lap.
“Eli?” Irina’s tone was worried. “You okay? I’m coming.”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He’d just lost everything, and hadn’t even realized it.
“Eli, say something. I need to know you’re okay.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did you two do this?”
Irina pulled into his driveway. She jumped out at the same time that Jasper came out of the house, suitcases under his arms.
Irina yanked open Eli’s door. “We’re going to talk about this, but for the next ninety seconds we have to focus on moving. Will you agree to that, for the next ninety seconds?” Irina was calm and focused, the soft, inquiring tones of a moment ago gone, replaced by short, sharp questions to which the only answer was yes.
Eli got out, holding the crate with the Rodin. The sculpture was small, the crate roughly two and a half feet square. Eli crossed the few feet between his car and the rented SUV, climbing into the backseat and placing the sculpture beside him. He felt like he was moving underwater—his limbs were heavy, sounds muffled.
He saw Irina and Jasper exchange a glance.
If he were moving in slow motion, they were in fast-forward. Jasper loaded their suitcases into the back. Irina tossed Jasper’s backpack from Eli’s car into the rental, then opened the trunk.
“Uh, what else did we steal?” she asked.
There were painting crates and two small sculpture crates in the back of Eli’s car.
“Eli insisted we take them.”
Jasper drove Eli’s car into the garage, closing the garage door as he turned off the car. Less than a minute later, he emerged from the house and ran to the rental car. It was already in gear, and Irina started reversing before Jasper had the passenger door fully closed.
Eli stared at his hands, rubbed the gold of his Trinity Masters’ ring with his thumb.
Life as he knew it was over. He’d made his interest in the Rodin clear to everyone at the party. He hadn’t been wearing a mask or hood like Jasper was. It had never occurred to him, because he’d gone there to look at a piece of art, nothing more.
Jasper had planned to steal it all along. Eli was his fall guy.
“Shock?” Irina asked Jasper. Her eyes were on Eli, who she could see in the rearview mirror.
“I think so.” Jasper twisted just enough to look over his shoulder at Eli, who sat like a monolith in the backseat, staring at his hands.
“It’s hard to imagine that having gone worse,” Irina said.
“No one got shot.” Jasper was trying for lighthearted but it fell flat.
“Was that a possibility?”
“Yes. I didn’t realize there was a third guard who’d stayed behind in the room.” Jasper rubbed his hands over his face. “Eli did. He was hiding on the other side of some back door no one seemed to realize was there. He heard the guard still in the room. Tried to warn us.”
Irina clenched the steering wheel. “I took my earbud out so I wouldn’t distract you.”
“I wasn’t on either. He realized I was walking into a trap and busted in through the back door. Him distracting the guard is probably the only thing that stopped me from getting shot the instant I opened that door. If he hadn’t come busting through like some avenging art god, I would be in custody.” Jasper sucked air through his teeth, leaned his head back. His next words were so low, Irina barely heard them. “And in exchange, I framed him for a felony and destroyed his reputation.”
“You didn’t frame him…at least not on purpose. I never would have suspected this operation would go sideways like this. I wish I’d been more prepared for it, but no one can be prepared for everything, all of the time.” Irina knew she was right, and self-recriminations and second-guessing, though natural, weren’t helpful. That line of reasoning did nothing to lessen the ball of anxiety in her stomach. Five hours ago, she’d been sure they were about to ID some bad guys, and in the morning they’d be on their way back to Boston to be formally bound.
Now they were on the run, no closer to their goal, and they’d destroyed Eli’s very nice life in the process.
“But you got the Rodin?” she asked, trying to find the good.
“We did. And whatever is in those other crates.”
“What if those are legally purchased pieces?”
“Then we fucked up. We didn’t stop to run a pro and con list.”
Irina shot Jasper an irritated glance. “I’m not saying you should have.”
Jasper held up his hands. “Sorry.”
There was silence as Irina navigated them south out of the city. Right now her only goal was to get away from Denver. The question was, which way to run. Interstate 70 ran east-west across most of the country. Interstate 25 crossed I70 in Denver and went through New Mexico almost all the way to the Mexico border, and north into Wyoming before joining with 90.
Going east offered the
m the best options as far as populated areas they could hide in, but she lived in D.C., so anyone after them might assume they’d head east. West meant going through the Rocky Mountains, which meant long stretches of road where there was nowhere to turn off, and sporadic small towns all the way through Utah. The route north was similarly isolated.
She got on I25 south. The car was filled with the ambient sounds of driving, just loud enough that the silence wasn’t deafening. They could head to Albuquerque, but that seemed too obvious. They could jog east and head into Texas, but the rural northern part of Texas was fairly uninhabited and wouldn’t provide options for hiding the way more populated areas would.
“I grabbed the computer.”
Irina was lost in her planning, so it took her a minute to process what Jasper had said.
“What?”
“They were monitoring their supplementary security cameras via a laptop. I grabbed it.”
“And you’re just saying this now? That should tell us everything we need. Okay, maybe not everything, but at the very least we’ll be able to figure out who the security company is. From there, maybe we can backtrack to the client, or maybe there’s some client info on the computer.”
“I just wanted to stop them from using the security video they have of me.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee that grabbing the laptop means someone doesn’t have that information. Standard procedure for my company is to have all data backing up to an online server every fifteen seconds.”
Jasper sighed. “These were professionals, so let’s assume the worst.”
“They have you on camera?”
“I only looked at the laptop screen for a split second, but there were four feeds. One for the back door, one in the lobby covering the guests. The other two were of what I assume was the second floor. Looked like a gallery.”
“If they were recording the front door then they have Eli and me there.” Irina pressed her lips together, then shrugged that off. “So they have a recording of us loading the crates into the car in the alley.”
“No. I knew the camera was there from earlier, so before we went out the back door I cut the power supply for the camera, and as soon as the door opened, I yanked it down and trashed it. If it had a backup battery, the most they have is a video of my hand. Maybe my arm.”
She processed that, then lowered her voice. “Eli will be the only person who’s on video coming in the front door, but never shows up on video leaving.”
There was silence for twenty miles. Irina kept checking on Eli in the rearview mirror. He was staring out the window, motionless.
“There’s an address.” Jasper’s voice once more broke into her thoughts. “On the inventory slip.”
“What inventory slip?”
“Inside the lid of the crate there’s a piece of paper—it’s got the information for the piece of art inside that box. When we were opening boxes looking for the Rodin, I realized there’s an address, the same address, on every slip.”
“You think it’s the owner’s address?”
“Doubtful. They’re too security conscious for that. It might be the storage location, or an intermediary company.”
“I can look into it.” Irina felt a few faint strings of hope. “Get me the address.”
“Now?”
“We need gas. We’ll stop in Colorado Springs and I’ll call it in then.”
It was another twenty minutes before they actually stopped. She didn’t want to use a gas station near the freeway. They’d cruised through a few residential neighborhoods, finally finding a massive shopping complex with several superstores.
It was nearly eleven, and the superstores were either closed or closing, employee cars scattered sporadically throughout the parking lot. The gas station was in the corner of the expansive parking lot, closer to the intersection.
“Pull up outside that store,” Jasper said.
“I think it’s closed.”
“No, it’s closing. I have ten minutes.”
Jasper ran in, emerging a few minutes later with a bag and a large gas can. He jumped in.
“Don’t pull up to the gas station. There will be cameras. We’re going to park there, where it’s dark.” He pointed toward the center of the lot. It was far enough from the respective front doors of the neighboring stores that it wasn’t a desirable parking location, and was deserted. “I’ll walk to the station for gas.”
Irina parked where Jasper had indicated then turned in her seat. She was going to ask Eli to hand her the lid of the box, but his body language hadn’t softened. Hopping out, she opened the back door, then carefully lifted off a crate lid. Curiosity got the better of her and she peered into the box. There wasn’t much to see in the faint dome light of the car, especially since most of the sculpture was cocooned in packing.
Irina powered on her phone. It was risky to do so, but she carried a new type of phone, which was harder to trace. She snapped a picture of the inventory sheet—just in case—then still holding the lid, she called the D.C. offices of Bennett Securities. After identifying herself, she was quickly connected to their information and research division. She read off the information and asked them to pull up everything they could on the address, especially the names of the owners or, if applicable, renters.
That done, Irina powered off her phone and looked at Eli. His hands rested on the back of the passenger seat and his head was bowed.
Jasper appeared at Irina’s shoulder. He dug into the bag and pulled out some clothes. “Here, I got you something else to wear. I had to guess the sizes. Eli, I got you some too.” Jasper held out a folded set of athletic gear to each of them.
For the first time since they’d left the Denver city limits, Eli spoke.
“I’m leaving.”
Irina looked at Jasper, who slowly lowered his arms.
“What do you mean, Eli?”
“I mean I’m leaving. I can’t…I won’t do this.” He opened his door and slid out.
“Eli, you can’t just leave.” Irina hurried around the back of the car. Jasper started to follow behind her, then changed course and snatched up the gas can, jamming the spout into the tank.
“Yes, I can.”
“Well, what do you mean ‘leaving’?”
“It’s been less than forty-eight hours and my entire life has been destroyed. I’m going to go and do my best to put the pieces back together.”
“You know what will happen if you disobey the Grand Master. If you think your life is ruined now—”
“We’re not married yet. I know it’s not common, but I have the right—we all do—to tell the Grand Master this trinity won’t work. That’s what the binding period is for. I’ll ask the Grand Master to reconsider this trinity.”
That stopped Irina in her tracks. Her heart clenched and her stomach curled from the rejection.
“My life may not seem like much. May not seem exciting. But I had to work very hard to get where I am. People look at me and expect me to be a retired athlete, a coach.” He looked up, and anger and hurt were there, just under the surface of his face. The mild-mannered professor was gone, replaced by something raw and achingly sad. “When I say I’m a professor, they ask if I’m a professor of African-American studies. When I tell them I’m an art history professor, that I’m fluent in Mandarin, people are shocked.” He tipped his head back, looking up at the stars, which seemed both closer and brighter here than they were in Boston.
“I’ve never really belonged before. Maybe that’s why I wanted to join the Trinity Masters. I’m not black enough to be part of that community. Despite being fluent in Mandarin, I was never part of the Chinese community. I’m a man without a home. The Trinity Masters was supposed to be my home. My trinity was going to be a place where I belonged, but now…”
Irina blinked and the tears that had gathered in her eyes fell. He still wanted a trinity, just not one with her or Jasper in it. Her heart was breaking for him, and for the impending loss of him.
She knew, in that moment, that she could love him desperately if given the chance.
“I’ll contact the Grand Master. If she says that I have to stay in this trinity, well, there are options. Not good ones, I know, but there are options.”
Eli stuck his hands into the pockets of his pants. He looked elegant and tragic, standing in the starlight in his slacks and dress shirt.
“Goodbye, Irina, Jasper.”
Irina watched him walk away with watery eyes. Beside her, Jasper began to curse creatively, most of the curses directed at himself. He yanked the empty gas can out and flung it away.
Irina was painfully aware of her part in fucking this up. She’d offered to create the distraction without thinking it through, without realizing that in doing so, she’d draw attention to Eli by association. Usually when she protected someone, she was anonymous—just another warm body playing a role in an expansive security net. The missing-piece-of-jewelry bit was a distraction technique she’d used before. Usually she did it to cause a commotion in one area, which drew attention away from another so that others on her team could escort the client out. She’d treated Eli like a client, making sure he was physically safe, but physical safety wasn’t what he’d needed.
“How could I have been so stupid?” Irina’s throat ached with suppressed tears. She fought the urge to race after Eli, who was almost at the edge of the parking lot.
“This is my fault. I thought I could get in, grab the Rodin, and get out, and it would be days before they figured out it was gone.” Jasper turned and slammed his fist into the car. It made a sickening noise.
“Even if you had, they would have suspected him. He was the one asking people about it. And then his stupid ‘fiancée’ made a fuss. He was damned the minute we walked in there.”
“I haven’t worked with a team…I don’t know how to be part of a team.” Jasper was massaging his hand.
Irina swallowed her tears and shook her head. “We’ve got to stop. We’re in fight-or-flight mode, and that’s affecting everything we’re doing or saying. And I’m including myself in that assessment. Now that the immediate danger is over, we’re releasing emotions as a stress outlet. That’s all this is—excess emotion. If Eli has never been in a violent confrontation before tonight his reactions are especially understandable. We need to get somewhere safe, and we need time to settle down, or engage in some physical activity, then we’ll talk.”