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PROLOGUE
Anything worth stealing when left unprotected or forgotten,
can be stolen away by a thief in the night.
Seamus O’Donnell
CHAPTER1
CLAIRE
Thieves are an entity unto themselves. They have their own subcultures with their norms and customs, and those who run afoul of them often find themselves dead. Had her parents done something so contrary to the honor of the great jewel thieves of the world that someone had decided they needed to die?
To this day, Claire Mitchell found driving on a rainy night an unnerving experience. Given that she routinely climbed or descended from great heights risking imprisonment or death, that was saying something. Even now, as an adult, Claire had to grip the steering wheel tightly in order to keep her hands, normally steady as a rock, from trembling once the raindrops began to fall as the gathering gloom of night descended. It didn’t matter that she’d been thrown free of the vehicle still strapped in her car seat. When her parents had perished after their car had been forced from the road, down an embankment and had burst into a fiery inferno, her life had changed forever.
There were nights she could still hear the crackle of the fire and the groan of twisted metal. She could feel its heat and remember the rain as it fell on her face. The doctors told her grandfather, Poppi, that she couldn’t remember such things—that she was far too young—but she and Poppi knew better. It had been Poppi who had been there to hold her in his strong arms, to sing the songs of his Irish ancestors, to croon to her in Gaelic and rock her until the trembling and tears faded away.
The moon was ascending to its zenith. It was still the early hours of the night. Those most likely to succumb to either drink or the call of an illicit love affair had found their spot and would be wallowing in their revelries. Claire had found these hours before the moon had fully arisen to be the best time to ply her trade as a master jewel thief. But tonight, she had other plans for the hour closest to midnight. She needed to be done and gone from this job before then.
The Dumar family was on their annual pilgrimage to Corfu, which left their palatial flat in Knightsbridge woefully and inadequately guarded against someone with Claire’s talents—well, Claire and her best friend Mia. The penthouse had been lavishly designed by the internationally famous, at least according to her website, Melania Valmar, and was over four thousand square feet. It encompassed the entire top floor of the building and was connected via private, direct access to the lobby that boasted both a concierge and a doorman. The furnishings were a bit much for Claire’s taste, but to each their own.
The Dumars had spent an inordinate amount of money on the flat when they acquired it, ensuring it had all the necessary bells and whistles to impress their snooty friends. The problem was they had gone cheap in the wrong areas—their alarm system being one. Not only had she been able to access the elevator shaft via the underground parking garage, accessing their private car, and using the emergency exit in the ceiling to get to the cables which she shimmied up, their alarm bypass code had been ridiculously simple.
For most jewel thieves the riches from which to pick would have been far too many, but Claire always had a goal. There was always one necklace, one pair of earrings, or one bracelet she was after—for Claire wasn’t just a master jewel thief, she was a master jewel thief with a cause—to restore to those from whom the ‘haves’ of this world had stolen what was rightfully theirs.
A chance meeting at the opening of a new, special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of London had introduced her to Elisabeth Walton. Claire had been there to scope out any differences between the blueprints she had obtained and the building itself. Both she and Elisabeth had been studying a pearl and diamond choker worn famously by a member of the royal family. Ms. Walton had been enchanting and endearing in the way only proper ladies of London could be. Impulsively, Claire had invited her to high tea the following day at the world-renowned Savoy Hotel. Over tea, Claire had listened with rapt fascination to stories of Ms. Walton’s life.
“All in all, my dear, it’s been a wonderful life. I’ve lived through some of the most exciting decades. I was a young woman during the turbulent and fabulous sixties and seventies. It seemed everything that was interesting and fun for a young woman was happening either here or in San Francisco. One of the things Clark had promised we would do was ride the cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf. I always thought that looked like so much fun.”
“Clark?” Claire asked.
The old woman’s eyes had grown misty. “Yes. Clark Dumar. We were madly and scandalously in love.”
Claire poured more tea, “Scandalously?”
Elisabeth’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, my, yes.” Claire caught a glimpse of the young woman Elisabeth must have been. She leaned in conspiratorially. “His family disapproved of the heir to the Dumar fortune falling for one of the shop girls at Harrods.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants.”
She chuckled. “You’re still young enough to believe that and the old adage of love conquering all. I suppose both can be true if you both have the requisite strength to follow through.”
“Can I ask what happened?”
Elisabeth sat back, patting Claire’s hand before snagging a rhubarb and custard tartlet and popping it into her mouth. “His parents forbade him to see me again and threatened to cut him off without a penny. He said they were furious he had given me the Dumar Diamond—a fabulous necklace of rubies and diamonds with an enormous oval diamond dangling from the center. It made that pearl and diamond thing at the exhibit pale in comparison. He didn’t have the courage to build a life with me without the cushion of his family’s money. I’m afraid I called him a coward.”
“Well, he was.”
“No. Just a young man who’d been coddled by his parents’ wealth. I have always regretted those were my last words to him.”
“What happened to him? Did he marry the girl his parents thought was ‘appropriate?’”
“How I wish. No, Clark took his own life. His parents sent the police to retrieve the necklace from me later that day. I wouldn’t have kept it.”
“Why not? He gave it to you. Obviously, he wanted you to have it.”
“I think he probably gave it to me on impulse and that part of what drove him to kill himself was not wanting to face his father’s wrath at having done so, or mine for having to retrieve it.”
“Do you know what happened to the necklace?”
