AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Unbidden, her tears began to fall, every bit as hot running down her cheeks as the water from the shower running over her body, back, and shoulders. Only the tears didn’t feel good. They weren’t cathartic. They simply felt like a precursor to things to come.
Claire stepped out of the shower and dried herself off, hoping her little tirade and tantrum had come off as angry and bitchy as opposed to hurt and frightened. She wasn’t quite sure what she was afraid of. A sniper or some random assassin? Fletch getting hurt? One of the other men? Mia? Or was it that she was afraid if she went ahead and kept her promise to Poppi that she might lose Fletch altogether?
Naked, she crawled into bed, eating her sandwich and promising herself she’d get it all sorted in the morning. There had to be a way she could have it all—the heist and Fletch. If Fletch was right, she also needed to figure out how to keep all of them off the assassin’s radar until they could figure out who’d sent him or her and shut them down.
CHAPTER11
FLETCH
In a fit of rage in which Fletch rarely allowed himself to indulge, he threw his cell phone against the wall of his lovely suite at the Savoy Hotel. He loved the Savoy. It was, in his opinion, the finest hotel in all the world. He’d already decided to buy her engagement ring at Boodles, which had been at the Savoy for over a decade. He had arranged for the store’s manager to open the store far earlier in the morning than was normal so he could buy her ring and get back to the cottage. He wouldn’t mind honeymooning in one of the Savoy’s suites. Room service was of the highest caliber and the staff bent over backward to accommodate guests’ needs. Besides all of this, the walls were thick and soundproof. He could make Claire scream his name as many times as he liked.
She was up to something. Fletch could feel it in his bones. He was fairly sure she had not given up the idea of one last heist—the Clarion Necklace. If she went after it, the damn thing could well become a noose around her neck. Lloyd’s would be more than happy to put it there. He’d gone to the Hardisons to try and warn them, but they had refused to see him, sending word that the necklace was safe. It wasn’t—not if Claire made the decision to take it. She could be relentless in her pursuit of her goals.
Because of Claire—although the parties to the agreement didn’t know it was her—they had lost millions in paid claims. He understood why she did what she did—to honor her grandfather and to restore some of the Nazis’ loot to the descendants from whom they had stolen it. He even understood what had driven her grandfather. At first, it was revenge against those who had cost him so much, and then it was because he, too, became a ‘true believer,’ and wanted to see a lot of wrongs righted.
Fletch understood all of that. The problem was, he’d been able to call in a lot of favors and had put himself in debt—figuratively speaking—to men with whom he’d rather be holding the marker than them having hold of his. But he’d done it. Those who had been robbed were paid a significant portion of the insured value of the gems taken from Holocaust victims. Those from whom the jewelry had been stolen were given back something they never thought they’d see again. The insurance companies saved a percentage on their settlements, but more importantly, the master jewel thief who had plagued them for decades would cease to cost them millions in payouts. And the cops would have a long string of burglaries closed. All she had to do was keep her nose clean from here on out, but it would seem the temptation might be too great for her.
Fuck it. Maybe he’d just kidnap her and take her on an extended vacation until that cursed necklace was safely locked away and the lawsuit settled. He’d keep her so tired and sore from his lovemaking that she’d have nothing left with which to go scaling buildings and getting into places no one had ever been able to go. He’d need to have her regale him with tales of how she and Mia had become the best team that ever lived and yet no one had ever attached blame or guilt to either of them.
Claire was his natural counterpart. She could feel it; he knew she could. Yet she clung to the belief that she owed her grandfather this one last heist.
She didn’t.
First off, the man was dead. Fletch doubted he cared one way or another. Second, from everything Claire had said and he had learned about Seamus O’Donnell, he wouldn’t want her rotting away in a prison cell. He was quite certain the old man would have put her hand in Fletch’s at the end of an aisle and said, ‘keep her safe, son.’
Fletch meant to do just that.
* * *
CLAIRE
Claire tossed and turned for several hours. The thought of the Clarion Necklace being so close was so tempting. Added to that, having it stolen would embarrass the shit out of Gemma and Evangeline and if she could get in and out, she would have Fletch’s men swearing she had been in bed asleep all night.
No one could see in, but she arranged the pillows so that if anyone managed to catch a glimpse of the bed, it would look like she was sleeping. She thought of waking Mia, but there was too great a risk in that. She pulled on all black—leggings, soft-sole shoes, a sweater, and a ski mask that she rolled up but could pull down to cover her face if necessary. What she wouldn’t give for one of Mia’s fancy gadgets that could hide her identity from digital sources.
She smiled. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be—the last heist she would pull to right an old wrong was probably best pulled off old-school. No fancy gadgets; no tech wizard listening in and guiding her. No, this would just be Claire up against her two childhood nemeses and pulling off the ultimate coup—she would steal the Clarion from right underneath their noses.
She opened the window in her bath, stepped up on the toilet seat and looked out. As she had figured, the guard was primarily stationed on the French door side of the bedroom. The window in the bath wasn’t big and was set high up in the wall. It was not an exit most people would have seen as viable. Luckily, she wasn’t one of them. Spotting no one, she hefted herself up and slipped through the window feet first so she could pull it closed behind her. It wasn’t locked, but a cursory look wouldn’t reveal that.
One thing the plans hadn’t shown was the ornate iron fence around the manor house. Its beautiful gates were left unlocked. Why? Because within the confines of that fence, after sunset, the groundskeepers set loose specially trained Rottweilers. Claire hated to think what they had to do to make those dogs aggressive. Every Rottie she’d ever known had been something of a goofball.
In movies and on television, thieves and bad guys were always seen using tranquilized meat. While it made for a good plot device, most guard dogs were trained to take food only from their handlers and would turn down a porterhouse steak unless it came from the right person. And Claire was not one of those people. However, there was one thing no amount of training could overcome for an intact male dog—an in-season female.
Claire had happened to notice one of the groundskeepers walking a lovely Rottie on a leash with a pair of ‘bitch britches’—a kind of diaper used for girls in season to keep from staining floors with their menstrual blood. From her childhood days, Claire knew that the Robbins only used intact males for guard duty but kept a string of intact females for breeding purposes. More importantly, the kennels were kept out by the stables.
Making her way to the kennels, she found the in-season girl. In fact, she found two. Slipping their leads onto them, she removed the britches and headed toward the far gate of the inner fence. By the time she arrived, the male dogs were pacing back and forth and whining. All of the Robbins’ dogs—male or female—were taught not to bark.
Claire removed the two leads and the girls sniffed at the boys and then, given their freedom, ran towards the open fields. She opened the gate, using it as a protective barrier between her and the dogs, but there was no need. With their nostrils filled with the scent of ripe females, all four male Rottweilers took off after the two available girls.
“Have fun,” she whispered.
At least someone was getting laid tonight.
Mia had been able to hack the Robbins’ network and download their security plans. Claire knew there would be foot patrols, but they were few and far between. The Robbins had economized by going to more cameras and the highly-prized canines and fewer men with boots on the ground.
There was a fairly wide expanse of open and manicured lawn from the gate to the dark side of the house. Carefully, Claire began to make her way along the fencing with its lush foliage. She tried as much as possible to blend in with the natural flora.
The house was supposed to be short-staffed, with only Evangeline and Gemma here for the weekend. It was imperative they complete their task and get the information needed back to the Hardisons. With the dogs out of the way, Claire began to make her way to the house—and to the library, in particular, as that was the most logical place for the Clarion Necklace to be kept.
