And then he tapped the comm again and signed off so the static didn’t kill him.
Determinedly he took a few steps forward, relieved when he didn’t stumble.In a moment Grace’s hand was under his elbow, steadying him as they neared the steps from the garage to what was probably the first floor.
As they walked up the steps—lushly carpeted—Josh tried to put a finger on where they were.
“Cold,” he said.“Damp.And what is that sound?”
“Rain?”Grace asked, puzzled.
“Too high up for rain,” Josh said.“But it’s water.”
“Fountain?”Grace said, and Josh considered one of those indoor water sculptures and just as quickly rejected it.
“He’s not here that often,” he said.“Those mold and rust.And if he’s got art here, it would damage the art.”
As they moved up the stairs, one painstaking step at a time, Josh said, “And it’s getting drier.He’s got humidity control up here, but still—what do you think?”
“Waterfall,” Grace said promptly.“Like Batman.It’s the Batcave, but this is the bad guy.”
Josh grunted.“I want to tell you that’s stupid,” he muttered, “but we’re up here in the hills of Bohemia—”
“That is a made-up word,” Grace told him indignantly.“Like buzzenteen.”
“Swear to Gru it’s not,” Josh told him.“It was a place.It got conquered and then disappeared, but there’s still the Greater Bohemian Mountains.And I think we’re there.”
“How can you know more passed out than I can know awake?”Grace asked grumpily.“And you’re the one who’s stupid, Mr.Can’t Walk in Bohemia.”
“I haven’t been able to steal anything,” Josh told him.“I’ve had to study maps.It’s really frickin’ boring unless you’re grabbing weird shit from museums, so I hope I get better soon.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Grace whispered, his whisper indicating that they’d reached the landing and had to watch for people now.
The water sound was louder here—and in the distance, closer to the water, farther from the stairs from the garage—they could hear voices raised in anger, one of them Danny’s.
“Follow that argument,” Josh mouthed, and Grace nodded.
The floor under their delicate rubber-soled jazz slippers was a rich, burnished hardwood, with silk-and-wool runners that were probably worth as much as the carpet Josh had almost bled on in Stuttgart.Reds, blacks, purples, the walls were painted in the same sumptuous, baroque colors, but that wasn’t what caught Josh’s attention.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with half a wall holding Rembrandt’s missing paintingChrist in theStorm on the Sea of Galilee.
“Isn’t that…?”Grace asked, sounding stunned.
Famous?Yes.Stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in one of the most famous art heists in history?Hellyes.Thought to be missing forever?Oh my fucking God!
“Holy shit,” Josh whispered.
And there was a series of Monets that had thought to have been lost during the bombing at Giverny.
And there, in a glass case, was….
“Is that from that big jewel heist at the Louvre?”Grace asked, staring at the circlet of emeralds framed in diamonds, with a tiara to match.
“And that is the thirdDavid,” Josh said blankly, gazing at the case next to it, where a twelve-inch bronze casting of Michelangelo’sDavidstood.There were two accounted for, and the third one was thought to be a myth.
“It exists,” Grace said, sounding equally as blank.“Holy fuckballs.This place is the holy grail of thieves.”
They kept going, keeping silent now, their footfalls almost inaudible under the sound of the waterfall that must surely be outside, or overhead, or sliding them down the goddamned mountain.
Then they rounded a corner and, like sunrise over a valley at their feet, the house—which had seemed to be close and labyrinthine thanks to the baroque walls, mahogany flooring, and jewel-toned rugs—blossomed into a spectacle of lights.
