The sound room wasn’t far. She had to get there and take her time swapping paintings. Half an hour tops. She needed to stop shaking and just breathe.
She’d done this hundreds of times. It was just a painting. Jack was just a man.
She hurried to her target.
Jack rested his hip on the library desk, exactly as he had this past afternoon. This time he was only in underwear, holding a glass of whiskey, and Clementine wasn’t on the couch opposite him. Braless Clementine. The memory stirred his body. When he recalled them in his room this afternoon, her sports bra trapping his hand, he laughed softly.
He wasn’t used to joking in bed. When things got heated, something always switched in him, a need to take charge and direct. Control the scene. He wasn’t into pain and role play, as far as he knew, but having his dignity stripped as a teen had branded him. He’d fought the urge to overpower Clementine, letting her humor lead them instead. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do the same again, but the thoughts inspired images of her skin and body. He adjusted himself in his briefs, feeling too awake for his own good.
He should go for a run. Tire himself out. Or head to work. Lord knew he had a mountain to climb in the next week. He nursed his whiskey instead, let the amber liquid burn down his throat. The house was still too hot. His father couldn’t keep warm these days, kept the AC off at night, even shivering under blankets. Painful effects Jack couldn’t control. He stretched his neck, each sip of whiskey loosening his muscles. Drowsiness finally tugged at his eyelids.
A dull thud had his eyes snapping wide.
That sound hadn’t been imagined. It had come from the lower level, unless he really was going insane. It could be the furnace room. Maybe his folks had jacked up the temperature on top of turning off the air conditioner. Or the thing could be on the fritz. Or an animal could have scampered in. Chloe’s habit of leaving doors ajar had invited a bat in that one time. Maybe that was why she’d lied about her window. She didn’t want to admit she’d allowed something to sneak in.
He downed the rest of his whiskey and headed for the stairs, the too-hot temperature easing off as he descended. He paused partway down, waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. When the outlines of the sofa and pool table defined, he finished his descent. All seemed quiet.
He headed for the furnace room, snapped on the light and blinked until the brightness quit searing his vision. The furnace hadn’t been turned on. Nothing was amiss, except for evidence of a resident mouse. The insanity theory was beginning to hold water.
He returned to the basement living area and rubbed his eyes, the light still too bright at this hour. Turning on the TV could help. He could lie on the massive sectional and fall asleep to an infomercial or old movie. Yeah. That sounded like heaven. But Chloe was on the second floor, the whole reason he’d stayed tonight. He needed to get back up there. First he’d check the sound room, just to be sure. A flying bat could do some damage in there.
Clementine was frozen. Not cold frozen. More like What the hell am I doing frozen. She was on her knees, the framed Van Gogh carefully placed on the floor in front of her, its back face up. All systems were full steam ahead. But she hadn’t touched her tool kit or tried to unscrew the frame. She had looked up once, her headlamp slicing across Jack’s prized gold record…and that was it.
Frozen city.
The room, with its instruments and gaudy purple walls, vibrated with Jack’s family history. All of it was precious to him. Even the painting she was about to steal. Jack hadn’t talked about it or pointed it out. That didn’t mean it lacked sentimental value.
Who was she to tarnish his history?
Robin Hood, that was who. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. The silly moniker had been a badge of honor in her early days, successful heists celebrated with Lucien, champagne bubbles as effervescent as her glee. She wasn’t gleeful now.
The adrenaline rush that usually fizzed through her on a job was more of a nauseating lurch. Way worse than at the diamond ring heist. She didn’t want to be this woman. To do this job. To leave Jack in her rearview mirror. She’d built her world methodically, a life where she was clothed and fed, and loved by the one man who’d given her a home. She’d spent a decade helping others through her work. A self-made saint, she’d thought. What a crock of shit. The rightness of it suddenly seemed so wrong. But it wasn’t sudden. Not really.
She’d begun questioning her choices five years ago. All her screw-ups this job were proof of her ambivalence, like each mistake was her subconscious way of asking for help.
The frantic beat of her heart slowed, relief sagging her body. Was that it? Was that what she craved? An end to it all?
What would happen to Nisha?
Her stomach kept churning, but she moved. Legs. Arms. Hands. Her extremities seemed to behave on automatic, simple instructions coming from her brain. Out. I want out. She wanted to laugh with a man while making out, have gossipy friends, and enjoy dinners where she could discuss her real job. Make a difference in the world legally. She wanted to hang out with girls like Chloe and not worry about being a shitty role model.
With or without Jack, she wanted it all. But she craved him in that life: a new beginning in Whichway. The ramifications of that fantasy were as harsh as a New York winter. If she told him about her past, that new life may involve an orange jumpsuit and rationed meals. For now, she’d return the Van Gogh to its rightful home and figure out how to tell Lucien she couldn’t finish this job, or any others. She’d find a way to live knowing she’d let Nisha down. Then the reinvention of Clementine Abernathy, hopefully non-incarcerated criminal, could begin.
But a quiet shuffling had her freezing again.
Jack reached the sound room and blinked at the closed door. He usually left it open, didn’t like the space getting musty. He’d have to remind Walter and Marie about it. At least there wouldn’t be a bat or critter inside. Unless one had gotten stuck in there? A ridiculous possibility. He turned to return upstairs and forget whatever noises were going bump in the night, but his sleep-deprived brain wouldn’t let him. He’d probably lie in bed second-guessing himself.
He pushed the door open, felt along the wall for the light switch, and flicked it on.
The lighting wasn’t as bright in here, the purple tone and softer hue easier on his eyes. He stepped inside and scanned the room. Everything was as he’d left it, except for the landscape painting he’d never liked. His grandfather had loved the piece. He’d told Jack it made him feel calm. It was tilted slightly, probably from being dusted. Jack stared at it, searching for his calm. He rubbed his eyes, no calmer than before, and he wasn’t asleep.
He flicked off the light and headed for his bed.
Jack closed the door as he left, but Clementine still held her breath. Jack was here. Jack, who was supposed to be at his house, had almost caught her red handed. Or black handed, considering her gloves. He probably had stayed to care for his family, and if he’d taken one more step inside the sound room, or had angled his body slightly to the right, he’d have seen Clementine shoved behind the open door.
She crouched forward, elbows on her knees, as air whooshed out of her. She gulped in ragged breaths and waited long enough for Jack to return upstairs, assuming he would. What if he didn’t? What if he decided to lie on the couch? Watch TV? She’d have to slip behind him and up the stairs because the lower level exit was in the games room, right by that couch.