15. Greer
Greer
The anger that rose up inside of Greer was an old feeling he hadn’t experienced in quite a while.
When he first discovered his love for martial arts, he had been an angry kid who got into fights and trouble with the law. His coach had taught him discipline. Thoughtfulness. Patience. He taught him to be positive, but also to walk a different road where his emotions didn’t rule him.
But when he saw the look on Tessa’s face, upset and utterly broken, that old road blazed to life again.
“Greer, it’s not possible. The guard won’t give us the necklace. He wouldn’t even look to see if he had it,” Tessa said in a voice heavy with emotion. He knew his woman was barely holding it together.
And that made him even angrier.
“Tess,” he said, stroking his palms down her arms, a move he’d learned tended to ground and center her. “What was it the general manager said?”
“Well, Tierney said she spoke with her,” Tessa said, biting her lip and trying to remember the exact words. “And that she was going to box it up and leave it with security. In their office.”
“Okay,” Greer said, examining the room they were in very closely.
The museum didn’t seem to be one of the grand places that the tourists flocked to, which was good.
More of an educational institution than one with high-end artifacts.
And a brief glance around said that the security was minimal.
A camera here or there, plus alarms on the windows and doors.
Nothing he couldn’t get past.
“If she gave it to him, it makes sense that he’d have it at his station, yeah?”
Tessa shook her head, frustration bubbling to the surface. “We need to go, or he’s going to kick us out.”
“I know,” he said, pulling her in for a quick kiss to her forehead, deciding purposely not to let her in on what plans he had forming in his head.
He knew the general public was often terrified of him to some degree.
And he hadn’t ruled out walking back into that room and barking out orders for that guy to give over what he probably had just sitting in his desk.
Also, he didn’t like the fact that he’d tried to bully the love of his life. And thanks to that, Greer was going to a place in his mind that he didn’t often visit. Not anymore.
But he would. For her.
“Tess,” he said, pulling back and needing to be very clear. “I need you to go back to the T station. Wait for me there.”
She immediately shook her head. “No, I’m not leaving you.”
Of course. Stubborn woman.
He loved and hated that about her.
“Tessa,” he said, exasperated that they were losing time. “I don’t generally ask you to do things blindly, but you need to understand, I need you far away from here. Now.”
When Tessa’s eyes blazed with anger, and she set her hands on her hips, getting comfortable in her not-moving stance, he instantly knew he’d lost the argument, trying to take a high-handed approach. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I’m not having you risk your career for this.”
“We are running out of time,” he said, grinding his teeth together. He reached out for her, smoothing his thumb against her cheek.
“You aren’t doing this without me,” she said, still not comprehending what he was up to, but knowing it was going to be risky. And she still insisted, “I’m not. Leaving. You.”
The feeling was heady, and even back in his misguided juvenile years, he hadn’t had an actual partner in crime. But he was fast learning that Tessa was more than a ride-or-die. She was there for him in ways nobody else wanted to be.
He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but he didn’t have time to question it.
He nodded, kissing her quickly before he let her go.
“Then I’m going to need you to stay here,” he said in a low voice, bringing them back toward the long room they’d just exited.
Off in the distance, they heard a creaky door close and the clip of a toilet seat lifting.
“We’ve only got a few minutes, but I need you to promise me, if this goes south, you get out of here. Do you understand?”
Tessa nodded. “Yes.”
Out of time to argue, he carefully looked around at the cameras, one poised in each room.
They didn’t look very high-end, and Greer wondered if maybe they were there only for show.
Still, moving her into a space by the wall where she couldn’t be seen by them, he knew that as long as they were there while the museum was open, there wasn’t any harm.
Plus, he was taking something that had been left for Tessa. With full permission.
Even if the cameras were recording, there’d be no need to search the footage.
If. They. Weren’t. Caught.
With his girlfriend in place, Greer could finally feel his chest loosen, striding through the room like a man on a mission. Probably because he was.
Approaching the security room at the end, his eyes fell immediately to what awaited him. A desk, an empty rolling chair, a TV making noise.
And nobody in sight.
Stepping up to the desk, Greer strained his ears to see if he could hear the footsteps of anyone or anything at this point.
Nothing.
Which gave him just enough time.
Looking around the room, he noticed that there wasn’t a single camera there. Nothing was mounted on the wall, and certainly nothing was monitoring his movements.
Maybe it was because this was the room the security guards called their own?
Looking around the innocuous-looking faux-mahogany desk, his eyes rested on a drawer to the right with a lock on it.
Bingo.
With practiced ease, he covered his hand with the hem of his T-shirt, reaching for a cup of paperclips perched on the surface. Tipping a couple into his outstretched palm, his fingers came alive with muscle memory as he bent them just like he used to.
Crouching down, Greer listened again for any sound of a human being walking, and heard nothing.
Wasting no time, he inserted the clips into the lock, twisting and holding just as he remembered. It took a few moments, as by now he was certainly out of practice, but it didn’t take long before he heard that beautiful click as the drawer jumped out at him a fraction of an inch.
Listening once more, he pocketed his makeshift lock picks, reaching again for the hem of his shirt and wrapping it around the drawer’s handle to pull it open. Sure enough, at the bottom of the drawer was a black cardboard box with a sticky note on top that said “Tessa Montgomery.”
Yes!
Reaching in with the same shirt-covered hand, he pulled out the box, cracking it open just a tiny bit to ensure the necklace was there. And as he stared back at the gold heart pendant on the thick chain, he could feel his own heart leap in his chest.
They found it!
But they weren’t out of the woods yet.
Refitting the top and tucking the box into his waistband, he bumped the drawer closed with his hip. Crouching back down to reengage the lock, he knew he had to get out of there fast.
But when the lock finally clicked, and he was ready to stand up again, he heard the unmistakable sound of a toilet flushing, and footfall in the hallway.
Someone who was now very close to the security room.
No, no, NO!
Diving down next to the desk, he pressed his back to it, pulling his legs in and trying to make himself as small as possible. It wasn’t the best place to hide by far, exposed on three sides, but at least when the guy walked into the room, he wouldn’t see him crouching down next to his desk chair.
Holding his breath, he heard the man’s heavy footsteps grow closer and closer until they were undeniably in the same room together.
Greer held his breath, pulling his body tight as if that might somehow make him invisible.
How was he getting out of this?
The guy could come in one of two ways. Around the desk on the far end, eyes hopefully transfixed to the TV show going and mercifully distracted from anything else going on around him.
Or, eyes transfixed to the TV, walking along the long side of the desk, and turning to spot him crouched on the floor.
Where there was absolutely no escape.
Greer was not a man to panic. Not anymore. But that didn’t stop the flop sweat that was quickly taking over his body. Everything flashed in front of him: his life, his career, every dream he had for the future. None of it would be possible if he had a record.
He learned that as a kid. It’s why he gave up that life.
It’s how he got to where he was now.
Well, not specifically where he was now.
Suddenly, a shrill alarm sounded off, making not only those footsteps pause, but also Greer’s heart.
“What the?—”
Greer turned his head just slightly, enough to watch the guard pick up his speed and make his way out of the room. Not questioning his good fortune, Greer carefully stood, his eyes never leaving the doorframe the man passed through.
Thankful for older buildings, he listened to the floor creek as the guard’s footsteps grew further and further away.
Carefully following him to the doorway and pressing his back against it to minimize his frame, he watched the guard look from left to right, constantly searching for signs of whatever had caused the alarm to go off.
In a place like this, it was probably someone trying to open up something. A case. A window.
A door.
And as Greer looked around, he saw Tessa, standing just on the other side of the emergency exit to the room the guard now stood in.
The one marked with a warning advertising that if it was opened, an alarm would sound.
Greer grinned widely, stepping back to watch for a chance to escape. She’d bought him some time, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
“Hey!” the guard called out, seeing Tessa just as Greer had. “Hey! You just set off my alarm!”
“Sorry! Can’t help ya!” Tessa hollered, repeating his words back to him. She waited for him to draw closer, buying him a last few moments before she stepped through the door and out of the building.
“I can fine you for that!” he shouted after her as he caught the door before it swung closed.
Greer tamped down a snort as he heard her distinctly shout back, “Don’t know what to tell ya!”
“Stupid idiot,” the guard muttered as he yanked the door closed with a bang. He huffed loudly as he flipped up the panel next to the door, pressing keys that beeped as he entered a code to stop the alarm.
And while Greer wanted more than anything to teach the man a lesson for even uttering those words about his woman, the box digging into his stomach was a reminder of why he was there.
With the guard’s back turned to him, he carefully tiptoed out of the room, back to the marble foyer, and out the unlocked door.
A quick glance at his watch revealed they actually still had two minutes to closing time.