The Courting Cowboy Page 17
Then again, maybe not. The General had mentioned payment in a roundabout way. What had he said? Something like, “I’ll make it worth your while, Jasper.”
In retrospect, that didn’t sound all that promising. He and the General definitely had different ideas on what made things worthwhile.
Jaz anchored the climbing rope to a strategically placed chimney that was right where his information had told him it would be. But before he hooked his harness on, he stretched flat out on his stomach and edged his body partway over the roof, using his strength and an innate sense of balance to keep from falling off. The library window was dark. It was also a sheer expanse of plate glass from floor to ceiling, the whole house hanging over a seventy-foot drop into darkness. Jaz swore under his breath and eased himself back onto the roof. He’d expected the cliff, but the window was all wrong. Dangerously wrong. What in the hell was he supposed to do with one huge window? Whatever the general offered, he was asking for double. No, he was insisting.
* * *
Chantal worked herself up to the roof, her short stature making the overhang the biggest obstacle she had to overcome besides a serious dose of misgivings. Taking a deep breath, she curled her fingers around the drainpipe and swung her legs out from the wall and over the edge. The instant her foot landed, she pressed it against a shingle and pulled the rest of her body onto the roof. In the span of a heartbeat, like a cat, she was on the balls of her feet. With instinctive surefootedness and keeping a low profile, she pattered over the peaks and valleys of the roof, knowing exactly where she wanted to go.
When she reached the edge, she peered over it, found her balcony, then sat back to organize her tools. Out of her pack she pulled two thin magnetic plates connected with a wire, and a lockpick, which she stuck in her mouth. Crouching on the roof, she eyed the distance to the balcony one more time before lofting herself over the edge. She landed on her feet in a soft drift of snow, her hands already lining up the two plates.
She had gone over this scene mentally a thousand times, and from here on out every move counted, and every move had a time limit. Her mind was tight with tension as the seconds ticked away, but her body was loose, limber, her hands graceful and quick. She slipped the plates into the tiny gap between the French doors and slid them up until she felt the magnets catch on the contact points of the alarm system. Then she picked the lock. Forty-five seconds down and one question had been answered—she hadn’t lost her touch. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed.
As she swung the doors open, the wire connecting the plates kept the current flowing between the points so the alarm wouldn’t go off. She didn’t waste a thought on whether the soldering would hold. She had made the piece of equipment herself, and it was the best.
Knocking the snow off her shoes first, she slipped through the door, a shadow entering shadow. Her sneakers sank into the thick beige rug carpeting the gallery, silencing her steps as she sneaked through the arch to the library. She stopped and slid her lockpick back in its case, cocking her head and holding her breath to listen for silence. Party noise rumbled softly through the floor, but the library was hushed and quiet, with only her own heartbeat filling the void.
The draperies were open on the large window spanning six feet of the library wall. The full moon reflected off the scattered clouds and each crystal flake of snow, filling the room with vague light. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases swept around two other walls, all natural-colored oak and filled to the brim with volume after volume of knowledge. Chantal doubted if a single book had been opened, and on a whim she pulled out the closest one. The binding cracked as she opened it. She held it to her face; it even smelled new. She quickly tried two more at random, with the same results.
So much for the Sandhurst love of books, she thought, returning the leather-bound volume to its shelf. Jimmy Sandhurst’s biggest thrill must have been dropping a few grand at the bookstore, and Angela probably had gotten a kick out of color-coordinating the whole shebang.
With her eyes now completely adjusted to the low light, Chantal scanned the room and found what she was looking for, the portrait of Angela Sandhurst wearing the emerald-and-diamond necklace. How appropriate, she thought as she looked up at the picture, how daring. It took a lot of moxie to have your portrait painted wearing stolen jewelry, but then, Angela wasn’t known for her brains. On the contrary, Jimmy’s trademarks were the deviousness of his mind and the stickiness of his fingers. Their real-estate negotiations had been a battle of wits. Chantal had barely gotten out with her commission intact.
A flash of irritation wrinkled her brow. She had responsibilities now. People counted on her, or rather, her money. The orphanage didn’t know where the money came from, but Chantal knew that over the years her contributions had become part of their basic budget. Sandhurst had tried to take that away.
The thought eased her conscience another notch. Unlike that other night, this night would not leave a black mark on her heart. Good thing, too, she thought, because she didn’t have any room left for black marks. Ten years of the straight life and innumerable contributions to charity had barely begun to ease her guilt over her heritage.
She stared up at the portrait, remembering the cut and impeccable quality of every stone. An arc of one-point diamonds curved down the side of the four-carat emerald. The intricately woven gold chain was punctuated by two lacy inserts of smaller gemstones. Angela wasn’t wearing the earrings. The fence must have broken the set.
With a resigned smile curving one side of her mouth, Chantal acknowledged the red indicator light on the photoelectric transmitter above the picture frame. Her father had taught her too well. The added security wouldn’t be enough to save the necklace.
Another quick glance around the room revealed a matched set of modern Danish chairs, and she silently pulled one in front of the portrait. Putting one foot on the seat, she rested her pack on her knee and retrieved a stethoscope, which she hung around her neck, a tube of gel, which she stuck up her sleeve, and another Cochard original: a telescoping mirror with a lever-action suction cup. She unwrapped the mirror from its cotton cloth and used a blow brush to whisk away all traces of lint. Seven minutes and counting.
Now came the hard part, and Chantal took an extra five seconds, rolling her fingers and emptying her mind of miscellaneous thoughts. But the memories she’d held at bay all night insisted on intruding: a rain-washed night in Monte Carlo, she and Paul running over the slate roof of the Dubois villa, high on excitement, eager to get home to their father and share their victory; then a shot.
Chantal’s mental barriers came down with a clang. She wouldn’t think of that night. She couldn’t think of that night, or she’d be lost. She was alone and had a job to do, and with a determined twist of her fingers she anchored the mirror to the wall. Cupping the reflective surface in her palm, she slowly, very slowly, began interfacing the photoelectric beam with the mirror.
* * *
Before he attempted the impossible, Jaz decided to check out another route. Air Force Intelligence had certainly gone downhill since he’d been on the payroll. He slid down a valley in the roof and climbed up another eave. Rich people had such great roofs over their heads, he thought. This one was like the Rockies in miniature.
As he hung over the new edge his mood brightened. French doors, a small balcony, and the windows were dark. He only hoped it was still the library. In one fluid motion he slipped over the side and dropped to the balcony, landing with a soft thud.
He reached inside the pocket of his jacket and had a lockpick half out of its case before something incredibly strange registered in his brain—the French doors were already open. His gaze followed the gap up, and he caught the faint gleam of metal at the top.
* * *
Photoelectric beams are single-minded things. They only ask one question: Am I seeing the light? Chantal checked the angle between the mirror and the transmitter, knew the answer was yes, and carefully moved her hand away.
Rele
asing her pent-up breath, she swung the picture frame out from the wall. Every nerve was on red-line alert. If she’d made a mistake, her feet were ready to fly. One thousand one, one thousand two . . . She counted off the five-second lag time between a communication break and the alarm system. Nothing happened. Ten minutes down.
Jaz flattened his body against the gallery wall and peeked around the arch. A quick search of the moonlit room revealed his cointruder well into the business of getting into the safe. After a few moments he shook his head in pure admiration. There was nothing like watching a master at work. Figuring out how to sabotage a sophisticated security system was one thing, but being able to pull it off took a rare breed. And this lady was rare, not only in her skill and grace, but, he noted with an appreciative gleam, in every perfectly proportioned curve. There was no doubting the gender of this particular burglar.
Jumping into the middle of the delicate scene, he decided, was not the smartest course of action. He had some serious doubts about the jerry-rigged mirror bit. Everybody had his own style, and some were equipment freaks and some weren’t. He wasn’t. Maybe it was better if he stayed close to the door.
With that problem neatly pigeonholed for the moment, Jaz settled in to watch the show. He leaned his shoulder against the arch and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dark slacks. A grin twitched the corner of his mouth. She was doing all the hard work for him. Another thought wiped the grin completely off his face. If she went for the stolen documents, he’d have to take her out. Gently, if possible, but he’d have to do it. One consolation, though, was that she didn’t look big enough to give him any trouble.
Chantal squeezed a dab of gel onto the door of the safe, next to the combination lock, and stuck the stethoscope to it. That left both hands free and lessened the chance of her own heartbeats interfering. She opened her mouth the slightest bit to heighten her aural senses.
A good safecracker needed a number of things: good hearing, reliable instincts, and steady hands. A great safecracker added one more—a soft touch. Chantal had a very soft touch. She had inherited it from her father, Guy Cochard, and he from his father before him, and so on down through the generations. She had been born into a family of thieves, proud thieves, who lived by their own defiant code: The world is full of thieves. The Cochards are just honest about it, and they are the best.
As a child Chantal had believed every word of that code, and only a disastrous twist of fate had changed the course of her life and shown her another world. A world where her family members were revealed for what they were—thieves, plain and simple. The lesson had been hard learned, the guilt a heavy burden, and her love for them a heavier burden still.
Being honest and being the best were values Chantal continued to hold dear, but she’d given up the thief part a long time ago, on a sad and rainy night in Monaco.
Or she’d believed she’d given it up, she thought, sighing heavily. The tumblers rolled and fell into place—left, right, left. Victory was at hand. She pulled down the handle and the door swung open.
“Excuse me,” Jaz said.
Excuse me? What in the hell! Chantal’s mental clock went haywire, the minute hand whirled, the springs twanged, and her whole world fell down around her ears. But she didn’t move a muscle; she didn’t even twitch.
“Don’t panic,” Jaz continued, “but as long as you’re in there, could I get a few things?”
Things? He wants to get a few things? The bizarre question raced around her mind on wings of panic. She forced a breath from her lungs and slowly twisted her torso around, every nerve pulsing danger from one end of her body to the other. She spotted him instantly, a lanky figure in black lounging against the gallery arch.
Her tongue twisted in acrobatic flips. She had to say something, do something, “Who are you?” she finally croaked out.
“Jaz Peterson.”
Good Lord! The man had given her his name! Was he crazy? She certainly wasn’t going to return the favor. “What are you doing here?” She knew that was a pretty high-handed question for someone in her position, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m here to break the safe, but you seem to have everything under control. Please continue.” When she didn’t move, he added, “I’m not the cops, really. As long as we’re not after the same thing, we should get along just fine.”
“And exactly what are you after?” For the love of God! Was this conversation really taking place?
“Stolen government documents. How about you?” His voice was deep and soothing, his tone ridiculously casual, considering the situation, but his steady calm seeped through her fear, and she felt her heart slow down a half a beat from sheer panic.
“I’m—I’m only after what is mine,” she stammered.
“Well, I know my papers don’t belong to you, so we shouldn’t have any problems. Seems like Sandhurst likes to acquire a lot of things that don’t belong to him.”
“He’s in that business,” she agreed carefully, her eyes straining across the dim interior to keep him in view.
“Do you need some help?” Jaz pushed himself off the arch and began a slow walk toward her. He didn’t want to frighten her; the mirror getup was mere inches from her shoulder. But neither did he want her closing up shop before he got what he’d come for.
“No, I . . . uh, work better alone,” Chantal said. She had been stretching her intuition and instincts to the maximum, searching for a source of danger in the stranger. Surprisingly, she found none. Time was tight. If he wasn’t going to blow the whistle or attack her, she had to dismiss him and get on with her business.
She expelled another long breath before turning back to the safe, not wanting her nerves to make her careless. This was still a very delicate business. Her hand reached for the velvet jewelry case and eased it out of the safe. She snapped open the lid, checked the contents, and slipped it into her pack. Before she could swing the door shut, though, his hand slid up her arm.
“Honest,” he whispered, “this will only take a second.” He stuck a glowing penlight in his mouth, then pulled a sheaf of papers out of the safe and thumbed through them. Every action was efficient, no move wasted, and in less than a minute he had found what he wanted and put the remaining papers back inside. The light disappeared in his pocket. “Thanks.”
There was a smile in his voice, one she saw reflected in the moonlight as his mouth widened in a sheepish grin. He pulled his sweater out of his pants and tucked the documents inside the waistband. “I really appreciate your help. . . .”
Was he crazy?
“. . . I’m not sure I could have handled the system all the way. I was ready for the safe, but the high-tech business was more than I’d counted on.”
The knot in her stomach grew to an unmanageable size, having as much to do with guilt as fear that they’d both get caught. She had to get out of there.
“You’re really good,” he continued. “I got here in time for the show, and I’m—”
“Will you shut up?” she hissed. Her mind was going eight beats to the measure, and Mr. Run-on Mouth wasn’t helping. She went into action, undoing the tracks of her entry, pushing the safe shut and spinning the lock. In thirty seconds it would be time to put the transmitter back in connection with its original receiver, and she sent up another prayer.
“Back off,” she commanded the stranger, sending him a quelling look. “This is tricky, and I don’t want you—”
“—screwing it up,” he finished for her. “Be my guest.”
Criminy, he’s polite for a cat burglar! she thought. Flexing her fingers, she took another deep breath and tried, unsuccessfully, to block him from her mind. She reached for the mirror. A tremor vibrated the delicate instrument.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she removed her hands and shook them. Her palms were sweating, a bad sign. Another deep inhale and she reached again, holding her breath as she bent her fingers into a cradle.
With great care she began easing the mirror from
beneath the transmitter. Her mind counted off each second of success. Seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . Nerves of steel snapped at nine. The mirror slipped in her sweat-dampened glove, flashing black, then silver, and black again as it twisted into disaster.
“Damn.” The curse was a plaintive whisper.
She grabbed the mirror, ripped it off the wall, and hit the floor at a dead run, shoving her tools in her bag as she flew toward the French doors. Three . . . four . . . five. She tore through the doors and the alarm went off.
One hand pulled the magnets free, and she used the other one to loft herself onto the balcony rail.
Two large hands grabbed her thighs and boosted her to the roof as lights snapped on all around the mansion, flooding the darkness into day. The raucous clanging of the alarm system screamed through her ears and ricocheted around her brain.
They raced across the roof, but when Chantal would have gone one way and Jaz another, he grabbed the waistband of her slacks and jerked her toward the cliff side of the house. She wasn’t going to waste time arguing.
Halfway over the last peak a shotgun blast froze them both in their tracks. An instant later Jaz bodily threw himself over her and rolled them both into a valley of the roof.
Short breaths mixed in a cloud of vapor. Hearts pounded together beneath their black sweaters.
“Damn,” she whispered, trying to control the wave of déjà vu threatening to paralyze her. The die for disaster had been cast ten years ago. She should have known better than to try to right a wrong with a wrong.
“You got that right,” Jaz muttered. If he hadn’t been a gentleman he would have added a few more descriptive phrases. He wasn’t cut out for this. What in the world had General Moore been thinking? And why in the hell had he allowed himself to be shanghaied into this disaster? Piece of cake, the General had said. That should have been a clue, Jaz, old boy, he told himself. The azure waters and warm sandy beaches of the Caribbean were looking mighty far away right now. All he had was a frozen roof, a group of trigger-happy vigilantes lying in wait, and one very intriguing woman cushioning his body. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he thought.