Chapter 37
37
Once she heard the distant boom and the lights went out, it took her about fifteen seconds to kick out the grate. Another couple seconds to stick it back against the vent. And close to ten seconds to flat-out run toward the closing gate of the Treasury Room. As Celeste sprinted, her nonslip socks gripped every step and pushed her perilously closer toward danger. Toward her goal.
Ahead of her, the bottom of the gate was only two feet from the floor.
Adrenaline rushed through every nerve ending and blood vessel of her body as her arms pumped at her sides. Her only focus was what lay ahead of her, nothing else.
One.
Run...
Two.
Faster...
Three.
Now!
When Celeste drew closer to the gate and had enough momentum, she dropped to her side, slid against the polished hardwood floor, and the world slowed down. From behind her night-vision glasses, she saw the bright green line of the gate just above her. As she slid beneath the gate, Celeste angled her body so that her torso lay flat against the floor and her arms stretched wide on both sides. She held her breath until her head passed through the narrowing gap.
But it closed just as her hand made it through.
Celeste was shaken up, out of breath and sore...but she, sure as hell, made it to the other side. She couldn’t help the broad smile that spread over her face as she scrambled to Freya’s display.
Doing this work in the dark was going to be challenging and forced Celeste to work slower than she wanted. So she focused her gaze on the display case as she quickly pulled her tools from her backpack and found Beatrice’s EMF device. After muttering a quiet prayer under her breath, she pressed it to the plexiglass and waited for the light to flicker on. When it lit up, she nearly cried with relief.
“It works,” she told Beatrice. “It fucking works.”
Now that localized security measures were turned off, Celeste could wrap the length of nylon rope around the entire pedestal and pull it from the wall. She yanked with both hands and managed about five inches of space between the display and the wall. “I’m going to pop the top now,” she panted.
It hadn’t occurred to Celeste that no one was answering her until she wedged a glass cutter in the impossibly narrow seam of the plexiglass. “Hey, anyone there?” she asked.
Silence.
Celeste frowned as she opened the acrylic case and began switching out the jewelry.
Why was no one speaking to her?
When she pushed the two real diamond-and-pearl earrings up the back of her wig, her hand brushed against her ear and her heart immediately dropped. Celeste dug her finger into her ear and felt the absence of an earpiece. When had she lost it?
Most likely in the sweaty scramble to get out of the vent, or while sliding under the gate. Somewhere in that distance, it must have fallen out of her ear.
“Fuck,” she swore, sliding the diamond-and-sapphire necklace down the front of her dress. The metal and jewels scratched her skin as they settled between her breasts. Next, the tiara... Celeste hitched her flowing skirts up her thigh and carefully wrapped the delicate crown just above her knee.
She had no idea how much time she’d spent inside the Treasury Room, nor how much time until the lights would come back on. It was Beatrice who walked her through the jobs, who kept her focused on the prize. Celeste was now on her own and hated every second of it. She wanted to retrace her steps and find her earpiece but knew there wasn’t time.
She had to rely on Lawrence’s tracking device stuck to her thigh and the camera in her glasses. Even if she couldn’t communicate with the command center, they could still see what she was seeing.
So she took a deep breath and focused on placing Magnus’s reproductions under glass. With trembling hands, she hung the earrings from their metal poles, placed the tiara on the plastic stand and draped the necklace just below.
Repairing the case, shoving the pedestal back in place and removing the EMF device went faster than Celeste imagined, but a good thief always took time to wipe down surfaces and check her surroundings for leftover tools.
“CeCe?”
She nearly let out a yelp when she heard the harsh whisper in the distance behind her. She looked over her shoulder toward the darkened Turn of the Century gallery. “Mags?”
“Where the fuck is your earpiece?” His whisper-shout was loud enough to carry to her location.
Her heart floated when she recognized his annoyed voice. She grabbed her backpack and ran down the corridor. “It fell out of my ear,” she said as she drew closer to him. Magnus propped the door open with half of his body, frantically waving her down. She flew into his arms and let him pull her through the doorway. In the darkness, she shoved her backpack at him. “Hold this,” she said. “I need to put my shoes back on.”
“According to Beatrice, we have four minutes until the lights come back on.”
Celeste worked quickly to secure straps around her heels and ankles. “Did the explosion pull everyone to the entrance?”
“I think so,” he muttered. “I didn’t see anyone in the back.”
They descended the unlit stairway until they reached the back corridor and the offices of the museum. Magnus had one hand tight on her arm, and the other on her supply bag.
“Sluta!” shouted a voice coming down the hall, opposite them. “G? p? golvet!”
A sudden beam of light flashed across them, but through the darkness. A lone security guard quickly approached, his flashlight bouncing with each step. Celeste stopped abruptly behind Magnus, bumping into him hard. The light ahead of them was nearly blinding with their night vision, but Celeste could clearly see what waited for them.
The guard was about the same large size and build as the man who detained Santiago and he was pulling a gun from his holster. Magnus tightened his grip on her as he stepped back. “Hey, we’re just lost,” he called out. “My wife and I got separated. I was only looking for her.”
“Get on the ground!” the guard repeated in English. He was a few feet away from them, shining the flashlight in their faces.
Even while the man shouted at them, Celeste noticed that her bag had shifted from Magnus’s side to his back. “Run when I say run,” he said, pulling something from the backpack.
The tranquilizer gun.
Upon seeing it, Celeste’s heart jumped into her throat while the guard moved himself into firing position, shouting, “Drop the weapon!”
He didn’t.
Magnus shoved her into what she hoped was the storage room before pulling the trigger. She heard the soft swoosh of the dart, but the guard’s firearm was much louder. Celeste screamed at the sound and turned just in time to see Magnus’s body whip around from the impact.
She grabbed him by the lapels, pulled him into the storage room and slammed the door behind them. “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she cried, leaning him against the wall. “Oh, Mags, what have you done?”
He groaned. “I got him.”
“Goddamn it, he got you, too!” she said, feeling around his body for the wound. When she patted his arms, her hand came away wet and warm. Upon further inspection, she felt a hole in his sleeve. One in the back of his triceps, another in the front of his biceps. “Clean through, it feels like.”
“Bea says we have forty seconds of darkness left,” he said, holding his arm.
Jesus, there’s never enough time...
Celeste dragged him to the back door, all the while fervently praying that they could get outside before being spotted by surveillance cameras. “Hold on to me,” she whispered. The door he’d propped open was still a viable exit. Celeste nudged it open and breathed the largest gulp of fresh air. Sirens blared outside, but as far as she could tell, they were in front of the museum.
Back here, the loading dock was quiet. Just beyond the property was a side street and park. If she could just get them moving in the right direction, they’d be at the Grand in no time. “How are you doing?” she asked Magnus. He stumbled over his feet while leaning heavily on her shoulder.
“Dizzy,” he panted.
As frightened as she was, Celeste had to ignore her own feelings. Even though she knew he was losing blood, she pretended this was just another night of him on Ambien. She got him to the alleyway before propping him against another wall and removing his necktie. “I need to tie a tourniquet on your arm until we get to the hotel room,” she said, struggling to keep her voice flat.
“That’s a good idea,” he said.
She tried to ignore how pale his lips had become. “Please stay awake, Magnus,” she whispered as she tied his arm off.
“I will,” he said earnestly. “I’m not going to leave you.”
Celeste pushed down her tears as she slung his good arm over her shoulder. “Let’s get you out of here, husband.”
“Yes, wife.”