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“I’ll try to avoid them if I can. In and out, right?”
“That’s the order of the day, go in and mingle until just before the end of the party, grab the necklace, and get out. I have your invitation; that sparkly, slinky, stretchy knit evening gown of yours and that very cool tiara we picked up in Tokyo.”
“It’s not a tiara. It’s a headband.”
“Whatever. If anyone tries to get a picture of your face, they’re screwed.”
“If I work it right, it’ll never come in to play.”
Claire slid into the back of Mia’s tech van. In the beginning, Mia had remained at her place in the posh neighborhood of Chelsea, but as Claire had grown bolder, so had Mia. Now, she met Claire wherever they were planning to pull a heist with her tricked-out van whose communication system could probably rival NORAD’s.
She removed her clothing and then stepped into the evening gown. She’d purchased it because while beautiful and slinky, it was also very stretchy and did little to inhibit her movement. Using the mirror Mia had provided, Claire reapplied her make up, then quickly tamed her curls so that they would fall past her shoulders, held back by the sparkly electronic headband.
Once she added the headband, she looked straight into one of their cameras and smiled. When she played it back there was a very fashionably dressed lady and where her head should be—nothing but a glowing halo of unrecognizable angelic perfection.
Claire slid back into the passenger seat. “Nobody will be able to see my face or identify me.” She said with a smile as she took a last look in the visor mirror and smiled, tucking a set of forensic baffling gloves into her clutch purse along with the small vial of knock-out gas. “Let me off in the alley two blocks away.”
As instructed, Mia pulled into an alley and let Claire out. “Be careful. I know this is important to you, but it isn’t worth an extended prison sentence. I promise if we don’t get it tonight, we’ll find another way. I know the tiara thingy will obscure your face, but, if at all possible, avoid the cameras. No need for them to know it’s a woman they’re looking for.”
Claire smiled. “I’ll be careful, I promise, but either way, no one is going to see this beautiful face, the heist, or us making the perfect getaway.”
CHAPTER2
CLAIRE
Claire walked toward the entrance and handed her ticket to the woman at the reception desk, who handed her a name badge. As she walked away, Claire added it to her clutch. Despite knowing her own skill level and nerves, she never started any job without a slight case of the jitters. They were easily controlled by reminding herself that over the past decade, she had perpetrated more than two dozen high-end jewelry heists. She had dedicated herself to returning the stolen property to its rightful owners and doing so with style and panache.
They say ignorance is bliss, and Claire couldn’t disagree. She’d always seen her grandfather through the eyes of an adoring child. Finding out he was somehow involved in the theft of high-end jewelry when she was in her late teens had shaken her to her very core. She’d taken a piece that she knew belonged to a neighbor and simply mailed it to a friend in Dublin and asked her to put the addressed and stamped envelope into the post for her—no questions asked. Claire had always known Mia would never betray her.
At first, finding different and clever ways to return the jewelry she’d found hidden under the floorboard in Poppi’s bedroom had been relatively easy. When she was home on a break at the Swiss boarding school she’d been attending, she’d steal into his bedroom when he was out in the stable and thought her asleep—but his cache continued to grow. It appeared he didn’t even do anything with the things he stole—simply stashed them away. Maybe it was an addiction of sorts for him; she didn’t know. Her trying to redress what she thought were her grandfather’s sins came to a screeching halt when he caught her removing a piece of jewelry from his cache.
“What the bloody hell do ye think yer doin’?” he’d asked her angrily. “Those things don’t belong to you.”
“They don’t belong to you, either,” she’d responded coolly.
“Nor did they belong to those I took them from.”
“Their rightful owners?”
“Not even close. Every single one of those items was taken from their rightful owners, usually violently. I track them down and get them back to them that was stolen from.”
“What? You think you’re freaking Robin Hood?”
Poppi laughed. “Nah, darlin’. That was a rich man’s son robbing his father’s enemies and giving it to those who had nothing. I find things that were stolen from their rightful owners by greedy, evil men and see that they get returned to those they rightfully belong to, or at least to their descendants.”
She lifted a glittering butterfly brooch from the hole. “Lady Haversham’s broach—the one her father gave her. I know I returned it to her…”
Poppi laughed. “And almost gave your poor ole granddad a heart attack when I saw her wearing it again. You do know she never reported it stolen—either the first time or this time.”
Claire sat back and crossed her legs, knowing there was a piece of the puzzle she was missing. “Why? They’d need a police report to file an insurance claim.”
“You are absolutely right. But when you and your lord husband both know that there is no way to prove the provenance of the piece, you only trot it out for the yokels and never speak of where it came from.”
“Where?” Claire asked, fascinated.
“One of the concentration camps. Some of those who came upon them first helped the prisoners inside, but also helped themselves to the gold, jewelry, and other valuables they found there.”
“Her brooch?”
