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“Do you think you can get me on the invite list for the party? With a plus-one.”
“Oh, you dirty girl. You want to see your forgery in action, don’t you?”
London smiled. “I want Ezra to see. If I can convince him to come.”
“It’ll be black tie.”
“I know.” Wheels started turning. She’d enlist Bronte’s help. But first, diamonds.
Friday came up fast.She drove to the apartment to meet Audrey and Nikki with the topper packed in a box and strapped into the passenger seat. She was not taking any more chances. It was a damn near-perfect replica.
When she pulled up outside the apartment, she texted Audrey to let her know. A minute later, Audrey was sliding into the back of the van with her tech bag. Nikki opened the passenger side door and unbuckled the seatbelt holding the box.
“You sure you want to do that?”
“It’ll be fine.” She climbed up and put the box in her lap. She opened it to look at the final product. “Wow. If I didn’t know it was a fake...”
Audrey leaned forward between the seats. “Wow is right.”
“It helps that a master glassblower made it and Jared got such high-quality gems.”
“Stop dismissing your work.” Nikki closed the lid. “We couldn’t do this without you. Now, onto important stuff. Where are we eating?”
London laughed as she pulled out into traffic. Nikki always wanted some bad fast food right before a job. “Whatever you want.”
“Chili dog and cheese fries, it is,” Nikki said with a clap.
They hit a drive-through and parked to eat.
“What’s the plan for this?” London asked as she ate a fry. “I feel a little out of the loop since I spent the last few days finishing the topper.”
Audrey tapped on her laptop. “Once I disable the alarm, Nikki is going to do her favorite thing, scale a wall to get to the balcony on the second floor and use the patio door to get inside.”
“I don’t know that scaling the wall is my favorite thing. Rappelling down is way more fun.”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “From the second floor, she’ll rig herself to the rail and lower herself to make the swap.”
“Easy-peasy.” Nikki finished her chili dog and crumpled the wrapper.
To London, nothing Nikki did was easy.
“The Moores have left for an evening at the theater,” Nikki said with a fake British accent. “So no one should be home.”
“Sounds like you know what you’re doing, as usual. Does Jared have a buyer for this?”
“Auction goes live tonight. We wanted to build the hype since this is such a special piece. The criminal underworld is buzzing about this.”
London pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the Winnetka house of their target. The roads were clear but still slick as the Chicago weather fluctuated between a balmy 40 degrees during the day to 20 at night. London took Lake Shore Drive north. The lake was dark and the beaches empty as the wind kicked up some pretty high waves.
She followed the GPS on her phone until they were winding through the streets of a sleepy little suburb of rich people. Although her parents were wealthy, she’d never spent time in the north shore suburbs that she’d been going to for the heists. Her parents toyed briefly with the idea of moving to the suburbs, but they opted to remain in the city.
With every trip out to the suburbs, she was grateful for her parents’ decision. The suburbs were quaint and quiet, but she much preferred the noise and chaos of the city. She turned down the street where the Moores lived and slowed to a crawl. Cars in this neighborhood were parked safely in garages or driveways. Their black van stuck out, so she wouldn’t be able to park and go unnoticed.
She drove past the house so Nikki could scope it out. Then she drove around the corner. “Where do you want me to drop you?”
Nikki was checking her backpack to make sure she had all of her tools. “Uh, pull over here and I’ll jump out.”
She checked her comms and got out of the vehicle as soon as London slowed to a stop.
