I entered softly, willing my shoes to land silently on the tile. The foyer was comically luxurious, the whole thing seemed to be carved from marble and then what I assumed was a similarly expensive polished, white stone. A chandelier with a thousand tiny crystals and a hundred wax candles descended from a ceiling that was three stories above my head. Twin staircases sprouted against each wall and swept upward in gentle curves to join together in front of a doorway on the second floor.
And there were so many plants.
Giant vases with elaborate flower arrangements sat on shoulder-high pillars. Carved statues of naked Greeks held bouquets modestly across their bosoms. One of the walls was fully covered with vines and colored shrubbery.
Keller was to my right – one arm braced against the wall, one reaching behind her head to collect all the strands of hair that had escaped her top bun while a guard in a gold jacket fumbled with the straps of her dress.
“I’m so sorry, I think it’s broken,” he said.
“Nonsense,” said Keller, “the clasp is just a little tricky.”
I took a peek over my shoulder to make sure the guard outside was focused on the lawn and darted around the “Bathrooms Other Side” sign standing sentry before the hallway to the left. I turned through the first door I came across.
The room seemed too small for a house this size. Bookshelves pressed themselves against every wall, surrounding a table made from a thick slab of wood and a pair of simple chairs. An earthy glow emanated from the backs and bottoms of the bookshelves, giving the room a gentle, almost vintage, tint. Everything felt oddly muted, like the books were swallowing the sounds of my existence.
I ambled around expecting leather-bound first editions, but most were mass-print paperbacks. Whodunnits, courtroom thrillers, cheap crime. Most of the spines were creased or cracking.
One was called “The Place Beneath.” I put a finger on top and leaned it backward. No walls moved, no shelves retracted. I tried “Hideout” and “Behind It All.” And “The Secret Room,” though it felt a little too on the nose.
Nothing.
Boring.
I exited through the door at the back into another hallway. This one looked to be ripped straight out of a hotel, with doors lining each side and the same waist-high table placed symmetrically between them. I took out my phone and tried to make sense of the blueprints Keller had sent me. None of the rooms were labeled, of course, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was expected to glean from them. Which rectangle looked most like it would hold a piece of art that should’ve been on display outside? Tough to say.
The door closest to me was ajar and I stuck my head in. Guest bedroom. The next one was closed and I eased it open, half expecting to walk into some sort of security control room and get choked out by an ex-marine named Brock. But no, it was a storage closet. I continued down the hall, continuing to half expect the worst.
Guest bedroom. Guest Bedroom. Bathroom. Play room.
I ran out of doors but found a staircase. Which I wasn’t thrilled about.
Not to say that I had any great justification for wandering beyond the bathrooms if confronted and questioned on the main floor, but going up those stairs meant that no half-baked rationalization I might be able to piece together would make any sense. Such an intentional piece of architecture, stairs.
I sighed and started climbing.
It was more of the same on the second floor. Large rooms that were extravagantly furnished and unused.
I skipped across the doorway where the staircases met at the rear of the entry room, risking a peek to see that Keller had resolved the whole dress situation and the guard in the gold jacket had resumed his place staring outside at the people staring at the art. I continued sticking my head through doors. Theater room. Guest room.
Locked room.
The door looked like all the rest. I took a quick look at both ends of the hallway then knocked softly, because why not. If there was someone in there they’d hear me soon enough, and also I hate surprises.
Silence.
I scanned the hallways again and dropped to a knee, pulling my lockpicks out of my breast pocket. It all seemed straightforward enough – a simple lever lock, and not one of the irksome modern types. Don kept saying he could make me something that would pick a lock for me, but I wasn’t too inclined to replace my single, actual skill. Also his gadgets often turned out to be oddly dangerous, like the booster.
This one took seven seconds before I was able to ever so slowly push the door open. The furnishings matched exactly to the half dozen guest rooms I’d seen already, except that the same little coffee table and reading chair had been pushed up under the window, and the same little nightstand had been sent to the corner, and the same bed had been upended and was now leaning against the wall. All of this done to make room for three long tables arranged in a blocky U-shape and covered, almost completely, with an assortment of laptops, loose papers, flashlights with long bulbs that ran down the side of them, beakers with liquids of various tints, and some other probable science equipment we didn’t have in my tenth-grade chemistry class, which was my only point of reference. And right in the center of it all, an underwhelming painting of a boy and a dog.
I stared for about a minute too long, maybe because I’d never expected to actually find it among the endless number of rooms. Maybe because now I was certain I’d seen it before.
I checked the room for cameras, about thirty seconds too late to do anything about them, and saw nothing. But then, it was a makeshift lab in a guest bedroom.
I tapped enter on the laptop hoping maybe it’d be unlocked, because what the hell was going on in here anyway. No luck. The papers strewn across the tables were mostly checklists and time logs. It was clear they were taking samples from the boy and the dog for testing, but unclear as to what they were testing for or what they’d managed to find.
The painting was a small one, as art goes, propped atop the table on a stubby easel that held it at a 45 degree angle. It was missing the gold frame that bordered all the pieces on display outside, instead it had been laid inside a thin, plexiglass box with a hinged lid. I thought back to Keller telling us there would be alarms on the mounts and alarms in the frames and wished she would’ve went over what exactly to expect if there was no mount and no frame. I bent low to inspect the underside of both the table and the easel, looking for any sort of security measure that would either hurt me or embarrass me.
Nothing out of the ordinary, but the easel seemed to be made from some sort of metal. I gingerly pulled the booster from my pocket and uncapped the lid like an addict in denial. Click.
I pushed the front end flush against one of the easel’s legs, making sure all of my skin was as far away as it could be from something I was actively holding. My heart thudded hard enough to send aftershocks all the way through my toes. I pressed the button.
And… nothing. A slight hum that I may have just been imagining. I held it in place for a few more seconds of stillness, then pulled it back and looked into the wire mesh. For a brief moment I felt the instinctual need to lick it, but no. Click.
The plexiglass lid opened upward and folded all the way to rest against the back side of the box. Laid loose, without a frame to embrace it, the painting seemed so vulnerable. The boy seemed to be holding the dog even tighter. I almost wanted to assure them it would all be okay as I took my jacket off and laid it on the table.
There was a small zipper that started from inside the bottom hem and traveled all the way up where it arced just below the collar and headed down again in the shape of a tombstone. The linen peeled away to reveal a firm, rubber shell that gave me a bit of a hunch, but had an indentation in which a certain piece of art could be held without risk of folding or bending or any of those other minor disfigurements that would lead to a catastrophic loss in value.
I transferred the painting like it was a human organ and zipped the jacket back up.
Got it. Heading back
My jacket wasn’t even fully on before Keller texted back
Beautiful. Text when you need a distraction
I stood silent in the doorway, holding my breath and listening for carpeted footsteps or any other indication that someone was out there waiting to ask what I was doing. A full minute, I waited. A very cautious amount of time, I’m sure we can all agree.
Silence.
I stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind me, and turned toward the stairs.
And saw her.
Something misfired in my brain, shooting a wave of electricity from my head through to my toes, raising goosebumps and activating sweat glands all the way down. And then it was gone, but my head was spinning and all the moisture had been sucked from my mouth. I felt like I was blinking a lot.
“Well hey there,” she said.
She looked like a Chelsea. She was at the top of the stairs and, importantly, wasn’t pointing a weapon at me. She seemed to be around my age and was wearing an event-appropriate sundress with smeared flower prints and frilly shoulder straps that tickled her jaw. Her mouth was drawn to the side in a slight smirk, but her eyes were active, and I saw her look at my dumb, blinking face, then at the room I’d just exited, then at my hands.
“Are you trying to steal Winds of What’s Next?” she asked, straight up. Her voice more incredulous than suspicious, and still with the corner of her mouth curled upward.
And I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. She was tall, but still a few inches shorter than me and I had at least twenty extra pounds. But that smirk said she either knew she could beat the stuffing out of me, or that she knew I was harmless.
“I guess so,” I said.
Her head tilted as she considered what that meant, and the words hung between us for a few beats. Surely she was aware the onus was her to provide some context around where exactly this interaction was headed.
“Curious,” she said, finally. “Why?”
“It’s for a friend.”
“Curious,” she repeated. “Where is it?”
“In my jacket,” I answered. Like she was holding me at gunpoint. “Why are you up here?”
She snorted at that. I noticed she’d started taking slow steps toward me, again in a way that was either menacing or simply unafraid. I couldn’t say which.
“You mean instead of down on the lawn looking at art?”
“That’s kind of the whole point of this, right?”
“Apparently not,” she said, close to me now. Her nose wrinkled. “Do you smoke?”
“No,” I said, and saw her eyebrows raise. “Well, I don’t,” I added. “But I did.”
Her smile grew wider, pushing her cheeks up until her dark eyes were nothing but slits. “Why aren’t you lying to me?”
And I wasn’t quite sure. I didn’t want to tell her that it seemed like she wasn’t expecting me to.
“Why aren’t you trying to stop me?”
She shrugged. “It’s insured, and…” she hesitated for a moment and her head tilted again. “And I didn’t think people stole art anymore. It’s interesting.”
And then my brain finally matched her face against one of the dozen or so Keller had swiped through on the ride over. Meredith Vincent II. The daughter.
“Meredith,” I said.
Her smile shrank. “Red,” she said, curtly.
It took me a second, then my eyes climbed reflexively to her very brown hair – the front pulled back and tied around itself in a knot on the back of her head, the rest tucked behind her ears and flowing down to the start of her shoulders.
“It’s not because of the hair,” she added.
“Peach,” I said.
And it took her a second, then she laughed in my face. It had surprised her, the laughter, and when she raised her head there were tears lined along her eyelids.
“Why the hell would you tell me that?” she asked.
I thought about how horrified Keller would be if she knew I’d just introduced myself to the daughter of the woman we were robbing. Worse than horrified. Fully dismissive of my existence, probably.
“Is that like your art thief codename?” Red seemed thrilled. Maybe because she couldn’t believe how much information she’d be able to pass on to the authorities, but I thought not.
“Something like that,” I said.
“Peach,” she said slowly, working the name around in her mouth. Something misfired in my brain again and another wave of electricity ran through my body, slightly different than before.
“My mom thinks it’s a fake, you know,” she said suddenly. “Winds of What’s Next. She thinks it’s a forgery.”
My mouth felt too dry for words. I managed an arid “Huh?”
“It’s a whole thing. But everyone she hires keeps telling her it’s legit.”
I thought about what that meant, and what it meant that the painting seemed so familiar to me, but there was too much missing.
“Are you still going to take it?” Red asked, bringing me back.
I looked at her closely, trying to make sense of this unafraid daughter of a billionaire, but there was too much missing there, too.
“Are you still going to let me?” I asked.
She considered that for a moment, then, “Wait here.”
She disappeared into the bedroom turned laboratory while I waited obediently, wondering how much deeper of a hole I could dig before it became a grave.
Red came back into the hallway holding a folded scrap of paper that she pressed into the palm of the hand I hadn’t even realized I’d extended.
“There,” she said sternly, her eyes locked with mine. “Whoever your friend is, you tell them that painting’s a fake. And then you tell me everything that happens after.”
I worked the paper between my fingers and glanced at the phone number scribbled inside. I thought she might threaten to turn me in if I didn’t do as she asked, but she just continued to look at me with that side smile like she knew I’d call. Like I knew I’d call.
She watched me slide the paper into my breast pocket and we both stood silent for a few beats.
“Well you probably need to get going,” she said.
And it was my turn to laugh. Full-body expulsions that I attempted to smother before they could escape, resulting in a gruesome chorus of wheezes and hacks that sounded more like an exorcism than amusement. My abs clenched so hard I saw spots and I fell back against the wall as my whole being destabilized.
Here I was – at a party I wasn’t invited to in a house I wasn’t allowed to enter, thousands of dollars worth of art zipped inside my jacket, caught in the act by the owner’s daughter… and she was dismissing me like an oblivious dinner guest who’d overstayed their welcome.
If I’d been less focused on my own survival I might’ve seen Red laugh, too. At least I saw her smile.
“I don’t laugh like that,” I said, back in control, cool as hell.
“No one laughs like that,” she said.
We walked alongside each other toward the stairs.
“This is awfully exciting,” she said. “These things are always so bland.”
“Not a fan of art?”
She inhaled like she was ready to enlighten me, but reconsidered.
“It frustrates me.”
I left it at that.
“Are you going to tell your mom?” I asked. We were on the main floor now, nearing the back of the “Bathrooms Other Side” sign.
“I’ll have to,” she said and pointed to a small security camera attached to the ceiling above one of the many doors. Then she leaned toward me and whispered, “unless you have a plan to delete the footage.”
Before I could answer she nodded to herself and continued, “which of course you do, otherwise your face would be, like, everywhere. It’d be the worst heist of all time.”
I stopped and smiled at her. The security guard in the foyer had taken a step toward us as we’d approached from the restricted side of the hallway, before recognizing Red and retreating to stare intently at the wall.
“Not quite,” I said. “Do you know how hard cameras are to hack?” Not that I had any idea myself, but Don always made a big deal about how secure the new models were and how he wasn’t a miracle worker and how we took him for granted. But then he’d do it. So who knows.
Red looked amused.
“Here,” I said, and pulled out my phone. She watched as I typed in the number she’d given me upstairs.
I extended an arm, an invitation, and her face flushed but she stayed still.
I started to say something, but my words got lost trying to navigate whatever the hell this was.
So I shrugged.
And she shrugged.
And then she dipped her shoulder under my arm and pressed herself against my hip. I raised my phone in one hand and, regrettably, made a peace sign with the other. We stayed close for a beat after I took the picture.
I hit send.
“Something to remember me by,” I said, then spun on my heel and moved toward the front entrance before I could mumble away the moment.
I took a look back as I turned to walk outside and saw her staring at me. Phone in her hand, that same tilted smile on her face.
I looked down at the picture of us. Somehow the florescent glow of the faux candelabras mounted on either wall had caught her just right, and her face beamed up at me from among the printed flowers of her dress. She was smiling in a way she hadn’t while we’d been talking, showing more teeth and drawing her cheeks more to the side so they didn’t cover her eyes. And she was making a peace sign with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around my waist.
For me, my hair looked great and the tux looked classy. But instead of my face, there was only a dark smudge.
The gel we applied before hopping the fence was another creation of Don’s, and another thing I didn’t fully understand. He said it rejected cameras, which sounded good, but didn’t do much to enlighten me. All I knew was that I rubbed it on my face and, for anyone watching the tape, I was unidentifiable.
It didn’t blur out idiotic tuxedos, though.
I saw Abe idling in front of the first wall of paintings. Arctic landscape. Dazzling skyscraper sprouting through a layer of clouds. Field of cattails bending in the wind, scattering their wisps of white against the blue sky.
I walked up beside him and cocked my head at the skyscraper.
“What was your plan? Broken dress strap? Upset tum tum?”
“I was going to say I found cocaine in the bathroom,” Abe said, turning to look at me. “But apparently you don’t need me, super thief.”
“Are we going back out through the trees?” I asked.
“Don’t see why we wouldn’t. Keller’s up front, said to grab her once you made it outside.”
We moved along the center aisle toward the end of the overhead cloth sails. There were plenty of people but no real density to the crowd, so we were able to flow easily past the staggered walls. The brick path widened as we neared the last few displays, expanding and rounding into a circle that narrowed again under a carved archway where four gold-jacketed security guards checked entrants against the guest list. In the center of the circle facing the entrance was a bone white easel with a gold cloth draped over a distinct set of corners.
It must’ve been the new piece, the reason for this whole event. The one we had no interest in. Teasingly placed front and center, but obscured until the elder Meredith deemed the crowd worthy.
My phone buzzed.
Get away from the arch
I looked around and saw Keller on the path a few walls behind us, nodding sharply toward the mansion. Then I saw that one of the gold jackets had left his post and was moving past the easel in our direction. And looking right at me.
I had time to exchange a glance with Abe.
“Tuxedos, huh?”
The guard was a few inches shorter than both of us but with considerably more girth around the arms and chest. Somewhere between muscular and fat, he pushed out every seam on his gold jacket. He looked like a Neal.
“Feel like I’d remember tuxedos. What’s your names again?”
“Bill,” I answered quickly, without a plan. “You should know me.”
“Bill,” he repeated slowly, doubtfully, while scrolling through his tablet. “Don’t suppose you have a last name, huh?”
“Hey, they’re with me.”
All three of us turned, and there was Keller. Right leg extended slightly in front of the left, with a whole lot of thigh showing out from the new hem of her modified dress. She pouted her lips and narrowed her eyes seductively, looking like a goddess clad in spring itself. Hoping lust could override caution.
Our guy didn’t even skip a beat.
“Honey, I’d remember those legs.”
A visible tremor rolled upward from Keller’s feet, reaching her head and sending it into a slow orbit as her body tried to physically reject his words.
“That is just..” she trailed off and shuddered. “Yuck.”
“So what is this, then?” he asked, arms crossed low by his waist. “Three people, no names.”
A gold wire led out of his ear into the back of his jacket. I could see more security working their way toward us, and other people were starting to notice that something wasn’t quite right. I looked at Abe then Keller, they were both tensed, ready to run.
“What’s going on?”
My heart slammed itself against my chest and I turned to see Red. She stood alone in a pocket of space amidst the crowd. Her face was neutral but her eyes probed Abe and Keller, seeming to break them down to their base components and intentions.
The gold jacket started to speak but Red cut him off.
“These are my friends, they were just leaving.”
He cocked his head and worked his mouth silently, starting to protest then thinking better of it. He gave a curt nod and stepped back onto his heels.
There were more eyes on the three of us now. The attention felt almost physical, amplified in contrast to our intention to stay undetected. Winds of What’s Next was burning up against my back.
“Glad you three could make it,” Red beamed, surely aware of my discomfort. “See you soon!”
I managed a smile that might’ve come off more as a grimace and gave her a stiff wave. The gold jacket glowered at us as we moved toward the exit. Keller was facing forward but I could sense her mind racing to unravel all the implications of what had just happened. Her fingers played across her phone as she walked and I felt a buzz in my pocket.
Don bring the car around front for pickup
We walked through the archway and continued along the winding trail of brick to the front gate. Both halves were swung inward, with their ornate, iron bars reaching skyward, ending in tight loops well above the estate walls they connected.
Four valets in simple linen shirts scurried over to help us. Or, more accurately, to help Keller. She waved them away and pointed in the direction of an earthy rumble coming from behind the dozens of perfectly parked luxury cars.
After a few moments, Don’s giant truck roared into view, lurching to a stop so that the artsy Lawn and Garden logo rested mere feet in front of us and the bewildered valets.
Keller stepped in first, then Abe, then me after one last look over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Red smirking at me from somewhere close. But no.
I pulled the door closed.
“Right out the front?” Don exclaimed, impressed or upset. “What sort of cavalier bullshit got into y’all in there? I thought I was gonna have to flatten some valets and peel out.”
Keller ignored him, so Abe and I did too. She was staring at me with a wariness that was scarier than outright fury. She wasn’t often caught off guard.
“So,” she started. “What happened in the house?”
I gingerly removed my jacket and laid it flat on the center console. Winds of What’s Next looked to have made it through unscathed, oblivious to the amount of anxiety it had taken to liberate it.
“I got the painting,” I said innocently. Abe pursed his lips and nodded, Keller’s silence told me to continue.
I sighed. “The daughter, Red. She saw me after I grabbed it.”
“And what, just let you walk out?”
“Something like that,” I said, hoping Keller wouldn’t ask for details. Like if I’d told Red my name. “She said it’s a fake. A copy.”
Keller didn’t react like I’d expected. Her brow furrowed for a moment, then she gave a slight nod as though something had clicked into place.
Don chimed in from the front before either of us could say more.
“So wait, did you steal it? Or did she give it?”
I gave a shrug, which he couldn’t see. “Little of both? Not really either? I just know we have it.”
“That’s a new one.”
“You’re the one who told me these kinds of people want us to steal their art.”
“I guess I did, didn’t I?” He said thoughtfully.
Burned and Bland 