Chapter 19
Nineteen
John wrapped his hand around Vivian’s as they strolled from the ballroom.
“You’re surprising today,” she said.
Great, more Vivian observations-that-weren’t-insults. “How so?”
They descended from the ballroom and entered a hall leading to the lobby level guest restrooms. The hall also led to the housekeeping supply room that, based on the blueprints she’d shown him earlier, contained a duct that would take them to the gallery.
“Friendly in Marseille, helpful on the rooftop, playful during the exhibit preview, and then in our suite…”
“A beast?” he suggested.
“Attentive,” she countered.
He’d take it.
“Jealous in the casino, aggressive in the auction, then suave in the disco. I didn’t know you had all that in you.” Vivian held the staff security badge against the supply room’s sensor. Green lights signaled admittance. “It’s surprising.”
That word could go either way.
“Surprising like finding twenty bucks in your pocket, or—”
“What the hell are those?” Vivian gestured to a collection of shelves with hand cranks on them. “They weren’t on the blueprints.”
“They’re space savers. We’ve got them at the museum. They must’ve been installed after the blueprints were filed.” He scanned the wall. “Where’s the vent supposed to be?”
She stepped down the row, then stopped. “Here.”
As he reached for the crank, Vivian shouted, “Stop!”
He jerked his hand back. “Why?”
“Fingerprints.” She handed him an N95 mask and surgical gloves. “The mask’s in case the fog machine doesn’t deploy. Not a top-notch disguise, but it’s something.”
He snapped on the gloves, then spun the crank on the mobile shelves. They parted like the Red Sea, revealing a two-foot by two-foot register at the base of the wall.
“Perfect. Should be a twelve-foot crawl.” She presented the naked column of her back to him. “Get the hook above my skirt’s zipper? The skirt’s detachable, and I don’t want to wreck it.”
Courtesy of working with fasteners every day, his fingers found and undid the hook quickly. His reward was an eyeful of Vivian’s ass as she folded the silk.
“Thanks. I need the screwdrivers. Oh, and ditch the jacket.” She darted her eyes around the room, then handed him her skirt and heels. “Bury everything under that bathrobe stack. They don’t get replaced as often as other linens.”
While he stripped and hid the clothes, she converted her purse into a backpack with its hidden straps, then knelt to unscrew the vent. After a tense minute, she pried it free.
“I’ll go first, and you follow. But go backward so you can position the vent in front of the duct. And set the timer on your watch—twelve minutes. We need to be fast.”
No shit.
After she disappeared into the duct, he reverse-crawled into its cold metal embrace, then positioned the vent like she’d instructed. The duct was narrower than the one at her office.
“This’ll make me claustrophobic,” he said.
“Unlikely unless you experience a traumatic event.”
“Being here is a traumatic event.” His feet bumped into hers. “Why’d you stop?”
“’Cause we’re there. I’m getting the vape pen.”
“Not a great time for a smoke break.”
“It’s to see if the lasers are on.”
Behind him, a whooshing sound was followed by a gentle crackling and popping. A lemon-mint haze shrouded him.
“Are they on?” he asked.
“On Amina’s painting, yes. And that giant ball of string. Tough angle, so I can’t see much more.” More rustling. “Good thing I brought super bouncing balls.”
“I’m confused by that sentence.”
“The balls’ movement will trigger the fog cannon. Once the room’s full of fog, we can enter and inspect the paintings like we planned.”
Right, they’d walked through this in the room this afternoon.
Then stripped naked and… Focus. He’d been horny in a ton of places, but a duct seemed like a not-great location to add to the list. The unmistakable chaotic sound of rubber balls smacking against parquet erupted behind him.
He prayed they didn’t bounce against the artwork.
“Here comes the fog,” she said.
White mist joined them in the duct. She’d assured him it wasn’t toxic, but he was glad he was wearing a mask. Nerves buzzed through him. He could do this. For Vivian, and to stop the information on those drives from ending up in the wrong hands.
The vent clattered against the gallery’s floor.
“It’s go time!”
He scooted backward. As he emerged, feet first, Vivian’s hand was on his calf, his thigh, his ass. Her touch was reassuring as he stood in the opaque, breathable fog.
“I feel like I’m floating in space,” he said.
“Here.” She placed the infrared glasses in his hand. “I’ll hold on to your belt.”
He put on the glasses. Nothing but white.
They fogged with his breath. Dammit, he’d forgotten about that inconvenience with masks.
Stress made his vision swim. After a deep, calming breath, he made out the art’s faint heat signatures.
Smoking Hon was the biggest in the room, closest to the vent, and the drive’s likeliest source.
“This way.” He tugged Vivian to the four-by-eight-foot plywood.
With a grunt, he lifted the hundred-pound framed painting from the wall.
The room remained quiet as fresh fallen snow.
Gently he set the painting on the ground, then swiveled it around. “No alarm.”
“She’s gotta be the dead drop,” Vivian said.
“You go low, I’ll go high.” As he spidered his fingers along the painting’s top edges and corners, she knelt.
“Fuck,” Vivian said. “Splinter. Find anything?”
“Not yet. Where was the first one?”
“Wedged inside the frame on the back.”
A lightning bolt realization hit him. “This is a floater frame. It attaches directly to the back of the painting. There’s no room to hide anything. But there’s a gap that borders the front. It’s perfect for hiding a flash drive. I’ll turn it back around.”
“Do it,” she said.
Another grunt, and he turned the painting. “Check the gap on the bottom.”
Up top, he dipped his pinky into the quarter-inch gap between the frame and the plywood’s edge. A third of the way down on the left, something stopped his progress.
“Give me a screwdriver?” he asked.
“Okay.” She patted up his body ’til she found his arm, then pressed a flathead screwdriver into his hand. “Hurry.”
Working by feel, he wedged the screwdriver against whatever blocked his pinky. Carefully, like he was popping a staple from a Jackson Pollock, he eased what he’d found from the frame.
It felt like a flash drive. “Got it.”
“Holy shit, really?” Joy suffused Vivian’s voice.
“Yes.” He traced his fingers from her wrist to her palm. “Here.”
He placed the drive in her hand, then curled her fingers closed over it. If it weren’t for the masks, he’d use one of their precious minutes for a victory kiss.
“Give me a second to put the painting back.”
He lifted Smoking Hon and hooked her back onto the cable. Impossible to return it to exactly the right place, but hopefully security wouldn’t immediately notice.
“You go first,” she said.
They felt their way toward the vent. Visuals were terrible in here, too.
As he army-crawled back to the housekeeping closet, he snagged his pants.
The linen shredded along his thigh. At the end, he climbed into the housekeeping closet.
The small amount of fog that had traveled here finally dissipated.
He removed his mask and the infrared glasses, then helped Vivian up as she emerged.
His fingers shook around hers. “I can’t believe we fucking did that.”
“Not done yet. We still have to get away with it.” She spun the screws back into place. “The fog’ll take an hour to clear, but they’ll already be looking for perpetrators. You can’t wear those pants to the party… So, plan B. We’ll lay low at the pool.”
She tossed a bathrobe to him, then slipped into one.
“Plan B was in DC. This is more like plan Q,” he said. “Let’s grab the car and go.”
“The valet would have to bring us the car. People who immediately leave after a theft are suspicious as hell. We want to stay, relax.” She frowned. “Why are you still dressed?”
“Because the shorts don’t leave a lot to the imagination.”
They were Daniel-Craig-emerging-from-the-ocean in Casino Royale shorts. He wasn’t body-conscious, but he also wasn’t Daniel Craig.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” She winked.
“Not you I’m worried about.” He peeled off his shirt and dropped his pants.
Vivian wolf-whistled.
“Was that necessary?”
“Completely. They look good on you. I’ll take the stuff from your suit pockets. My bag has room. The drive, however—” she tucked it into her bodysuit’s bra cup “—stays on me.”
All he had in his pockets were his money clip, his Zippo and Jean-Michel’s poker chip.
“Here.” He handed her his money clip and lighter.
The poker chip went into his tiny shorts’ zipper pocket. The tips of his ears heated with the idea of explaining to her that he’d kept it as a memento. Every time he looked at it, he thought of beating that smarmy asshole at blackjack and taking his money.
She wrapped a towel around her purse. “Once the noise dies down, we can leave.”
He stashed the clothes they’d shed behind a tea service. After they stepped out from between the shelves, he spun the crank, sealing the vent and their clothes within.
“If anyone stops us, act drunk and lost, okay?”
He could use a drink, that was certain. “Yeah.”
“Here we go.” Vivian opened the door, then swiveled her gaze.
She gestured for him to follow. Soon his nose tickled with the scent of chlorine.
They pushed through the doors.
John’s heart should be thundering. They’d broken into an art gallery, yanked a piece from the wall, pried a flash drive containing bioweapons data from its frame, escaped, and were now hiding from security.
But this view.