“Disappeared,” Hunter said, because Josh had told him that Danny had left—probably to get sober—and that he’d left a hole in the household.
“Yes,” Felix said. “And it was my fault. He needed to live in the sunlight, and I was keeping him in the shadows. But once he came back and Josh had all of you, I think… I think he wanted that family he imagined when he was a child. The big happy one where there were lots of kids to go on adventures with him.”
“So you’re giving it to him,” Hunter said, his heart swelling with understanding.
“It’s all we’ve got,” Felix said, his voice growing thick. He turned away and went to hug Danny from behind as Danny spoke to Chuck. Danny broke off abruptly and turned in Felix’s arms, hugging him tight, and Hunter looked back to where Grace showed no sign of moving.
With a sigh, Hunter squeezed in between Grace and the arm of the couch, and pulled out his phone.
He had a book to read and Grace pressed next to him. There was nothing in particular he had to do for the rest of the night.
Dance 10, Heist 3
GRACE PULLED his breathable microfiber face mask over his head, batting his eyelashes to make sure they cleared. Josh had ordered this thing specially made when they were in high school, after Grace almost got caught stealing that one girl’s hot curlers. The eyeholes and nosehole were translucent microfiber. As long as Grace wore gloves and a turtleneck, anyone catching a fleeting glimpse of him couldn’t even tell his gender.
“How do I look?” he asked Josh, who, contrary to all the coddling people had been trying to give him over the last week, was pacing in front of the readouts in the tech van like a cat.
Josh glanced up, face pale but composed, and nodded. “You look like an asshole who went shopping at Thieves-R-Us, like you do every time we have a job. Got your earbud in?”
“No.”
Stirling hit a button, and the feedback almost blew his brains out the side of his head.
“You asshole!” Grace complained, but Stirling gave him a bored look.
“Try to squirrel down,” he said, “and give us straight answers. This isn’t the same as the last couple of jobs, all nice in a building and shit. There are going to be places we can’t see you. There are big corridors filled with natural light, and the only way for you to get in and out is the ventilation system. I would rather your desiccated corpse not get found in a ventilation shaft in ten years, and all anyone can remember is the smell.”
Grace knew his eyes went wide behind the mask. “You got mean,” he said. “Josh, when did Stirling get mean?”
“You drove him to it,” Josh deadpanned. “Good job, Stirling. Chuck, you got your tux?”
Chuck appeared from the front of the van, where he’d been doing a theater-worthy quick change. “Yessir.”
“Okay—you’re on.”
They’d refined Grace’s basic plan to the extent that Chuck was going to go cause a ruckus at the front entrance of the gala, pulling the security guards away from the east wing, where Grace was going to scale the wall so he could get in through a service door on the roof.
Danny had almost performed a miracle in deactivating the alarm on the service door. He really had no business in that part of the museum.
After Chuck got thrown out on his ear, he was going to stand guard over the coms van, getting Josh and Stirling out of danger if any came their way.
Hunter and Molly were working catering, both of them equipped with camera feeds to better capture the faces of the people who went back into the secret auction. Torrance—per Danny—was working as MC for the gala, and Soderburgh was on call to security to run interference for Grace and Chuck so Danny could take the handoff from whomever had possession of the gem—probably Grace—after which, it had been decided, he would hand it to his contact at Interpol.
Sergei Kadjic’s little gems of infobombs had wreaked enough havoc around the globe.
Nobody had met Liam Craig, the Interpol contact, yet, but Danny seemed to hold a high opinion of him, and that was really all they needed.
After the distraction that got the job done, the goal was to be invisible and stay that way, and Grace was good with that.
“Okay, everyone,” Josh said, hand up by his earbud, even though, technically, that didn’t actually do anything. “Danny just gave the opening speech and invited people to eat shrimp and drink champagne. Everyone is making bids on the charity silent auction for the next forty-five minutes while Torrance MC’s, so this is a good time for Chuck to make his ruckus.”
“Heh, heh,” Grace chuckled. “That rhymes.”
Josh stared at him. “Chucklehead chuckled because Chuck rhymed with ruckus,” he said without batting an eyelash. “Now get out of the van and make sure the window is open!”
“Wow,” Grace mumbled, remembering to check as he exited the van and melted into the shadows of the Grant Park parking garage. Chuck had positioned them on a middle floor to provide Stirling with better reception for the array of bells and whistles in the van, so for a few moments, Grace and Chuck would be walking together. Grace had pulled his mask and gloves off, knowing that the dark clothing would look like a fashion statement with his black and neon-sprinkled hair.
“I, too, am much impressed,” Chuck said, and there was actual awe in his voice.
“Chuck!” Josh barked, and Grace watched Chuck duck like someone being scolded by their mother.
Grace laughed softly.
“What?” Hunter asked over the earbud. “What’s so funny?”
“Josh has everyone scared,” Grace answered. “It’s amazing. I remember the first time he—”
“You won’t tell that story right now,” Josh said mildly, “because if you do, the last thing I do before I die of cancer will be take you with me.”
Grace scowled. “You can only play that card so many times,” he muttered.
“Or you could stop trying to tell embarrassing stories about me while we’re all on the job,” Josh told him. “Your choice.”
“You know, I wasn’t planning to do all my growing up in the span of a couple of months. I’m not sure why you think you have to deprive me of every joy.”
“You’re still getting laid, sparky. I don’t think your soul is going to wither and die anytime soon.”
“That’s what he thinks,” Grace murmured. He and Chuck cleared the parking garage, and Grace took off at a soft-footed run, knowing Chuck was going to stride up to the entrance with the big copper lions like he owned the place.
A cooling breeze blew off Lake Michigan as Grace dodged the blazing lights coming from the museum’s marble steps and impressive pillars. The women streaming up the stairs had their best dresses on, with wraps or shrugs to warm their shoulders, and the men could wear their tuxedos without sweating.
Grace had managed to evade notice and approach the east end of the building before he saw an unwelcome uniform and the glint of a badge lurking at the corner of the stairs and heading down the side. “Shit! Security!”
Grace only had a few steps before he could disappear into the shadows of one of the great canopied trees that shaded the scant lawn on the side of the building. Swearing, he scrambled up the tree and crouched, hidden in the leaves and the dark, while the guard—a woman in Kevlar—made a very determined circuit down the side of the building and toward the back.