Chapter 5
Five
After a long morning of meetings, Ciaran was going to lose his mind if he didn't get outside at lunch. He stretched his legs on the short walk to Washington Square Park, its magnificent white marble arch a shining beacon drawing him in. He stepped under the white and red striped awning of his favorite café and sat down at a table near the railing that bordered the sidewalk where he’d done some of his best people watching.
When the server came around, he ordered a coffee and a sandwich and returned to scanning the crowd for a familiar tan hat and tried not to be disappointed when the server returned and he hadn’t spotted her yet.
He had, however, managed to spot a half dozen people she would have targeted had she been there. Some people really were oblivious.
His fingers tingled as he wrapped them around the coffee cup as a woman passed by in a blue NYU hoodie and a white backpack slung over one shoulder, its main pocket gaping open to reveal a glimpse of textbooks and a bright yellow clutch purse shining at him like a beacon.
“Excuse me!” he called, setting his cup down with a clatter and half-rising from his seat.
The woman stopped a few feet away and half-turned looking around for who had called. If the hoodie wasn’t already an indication, the fact that she stopped pegged her as a non-native.
Ciaran waved to draw her attention then pointed at her back. “Just wanted to let you know your bag is open.”
She glanced over her shoulder and her jaw dropped. “Oh, my goodness, thank you so much.” she replied, her voice thick with a Southern drawl as she zipped it up. “That could have been bad.”
Ciaran smiled and nodded, flexing his fingers reflexively. If only she knew.
“Thanks again!” she called with a wave and walked away.
He settled back in his seat with a satisfied sigh as his good deed for the day disappeared around a corner.
The cafe had been his favorite place to people-watch, ever since he'd moved into his apartment nearby. It had also been a place to test himself. At first, it was making it through a day without dipping his hand in to an unguarded pocket, like an addict avoiding a hit. Then, it was a week since he’d picked a lock, even his own, just to make sure he still could.
A month. Until one day, he had sat at this very table and watched Jal pick three pockets and a purse in the time it took him to drink his coffee, and for the first time in two and a half years, the hairs on his arms lifted, adrenaline buzzed in his blood, and seared her face into his memory.
It wasn’t just her appearance that drew him in.
Even from a distance, the quick, practiced movements of those talented hands mesmerized him.
From that day on he watched for her, and when she did appear, he studied her, marveled at her choice of targets, and the cunning mind it took to plan out steals that he never would have attempted had he had her delicate hands.
Weeks, and sometimes months, passed between sightings, but she always reappeared. This last time, it had been the latter, long enough that he was starting to wonder if he would ever see her again. But part of him refused to believe that, even though he didn’t even know her name. Yet.
But then he'd spotted that tan slouchy hat, near bursting with the dark hair she sometimes tucked inside, and he had shot up out of his chair.
His next conscious thought was her plowing into him, sending them both sprawling to the pavement.
He'd swiped her ID as he helped her to her feet, fully aware that she had taken his wallet too.
He knew better than to have anything more than a little cash in it, something he found she hadn't learned at thief school when he opened hers to find cash, cards, and… a driver's license.
Jal Morrow.
Ciaran had tasted the name on his tongue dozens of times since then, and there was something melodic about it that made him want to say it over and over again.
It only took a little searching in the right corner of the internet to confirm that the address was genuine. She should have known better than that.
He ignored the cold glare and snapped words she flung his way for she was even more beautiful up close.
Now, he could see the slender, muscular build that was mostly hidden under a baggy jacket.
The hair that had fallen from under her hat was long, curly, and black as night.
If he thought he hadn't been intrigued before, he certainly was now.
Three days ago
The small black zippered wallet stared at him from its place propped against his monitor and Ciaran just stared right back at it as if willing that zipper to open and tell him what to do next.
No more stealing. It was a promise he'd made to himself as soon as he'd stepped foot on the plane at Glasgow Airport bound for New York. His past would stay in Scotland, and that included his former profession. Yet there in front of him was glaring evidence that, after six years, he’d relapsed.
All over a woman who had absolutely no qualms about stealing from him.
Heaving a sigh, he picked up the wallet and opened it, reading again the name and address on the ID.
Hers was an unusual name and he wondered where it came from even as he admitted that it suited her.
The address, which he had already memorized, was somewhere on the outskirts of East Harlem, halfway across the borough from his converted townhouse apartment.
He tossed the wallet back down on his desk and a few of the cards slipped free to fan across the wooden surface.
Ciaran gathered them up and zipped the wallet shut, replacing it carefully where it had been against the monitor and forced himself to raise his attention to the screen and get back to fleshing out the wire-frame skyscraper taking shape on his computer.
Yet, his mind kept drifting uptown. He should just go and knock on her door. He'd practiced over and over what he would say if she answered. She'd dropped her wallet, and he was just being neighborly. It was the right thing to do. It was what the new Ciaran would do.
But that part of him that had reawakened just a little had a different idea. One that the rational part of his brain should have dismissed immediately. But the bastard had buggered off arm-in-arm with his common sense and most of his sanity. What was the saying? In for a penny…
Within an hour, he had the impulse control and concentration of a toddler, squirming in his chair, bouncing his leg, jumping from task to task.
His coworkers probably thought he had lost his mind, or had enjoyed something much more illegal at lunch than coffee and the almost forgotten rush of adrenaline at the prospect of getting caught.
At the stroke of five, he sprung out of his chair as if shot out of a cannon.
He meant to go home, he really did, but the soot-stained eight-story building he found himself staring at twenty minutes later was not it. He didn’t even remember making a conscious decision to take the 6 Train uptown instead of walking home.
The entrance, a wide wooden door with opaque glass fortified with chicken wire, was tucked between a laundromat and a fried chicken restaurant.
The door was unsurprisingly locked, so he leaned against the building and scrolled through his phone.
It was an unseasonably warm day, and with his tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, he looked like he could be someone catching some fresh air while waiting for their laundry.
When a food delivery driver was buzzed inside, Ciaran followed him in.
The elevator had an "out of order" sign on it, but the driver didn't even try to use it, pivoting instead to an open doorway and the stairs inside as if he'd done it a hundred times.
He also didn't spare Ciaran a glance as he disappeared through the second-floor door, leaving Ciaran to continue to climb the dingy, cracked stairs.
Three stories later, his heart pounded from nerves as much as from exertion.
God help the people who lived on the top floor.
Apartment 516 had three dead bolts installed over the original skeleton lock.
He had to give her credit there, no thief, not even him, could pick all three quickly and quietly enough to evade the Busy-Body Neighbor.
Every building in this city had one, their only job was to make noise complaints and keep one eye firmly pressed to the peep hole into the hallway, the police ready on speed dial.
Ciaran retraced his steps and ducked into the alley next to the laundromat, skirting trash and puddles best left unidentified.
He waited until a man at the mouth of the alley finished his cigarette and disappeared back out onto the street before scrambling onto a dumpster with far less grace than he'd once had and pulling down the ladder.
His heart inched into his throat as he crept up the creaking flights of stairs back to the fifth floor, glad for the cover of approaching darkness.
He took a moment to get his bearings, and realized that hers was the last apartment on this side, so the first few windows had to be hers.
He stopped at the first window, its paint worn and flaking and pressed an ear to the single-paned glass.
When the only sound was the rush of blood through his own ears, he moved on to the next set to find them uncovered, revealing a large living area, and no sign of Jal.