Max Collins - Before the Dawn

The leader said, “You start working the grounds.”

Jackson said, “Yes sir,” crisply military, and moved over to the keyboard, where he punched several buttons, the alarm light turning green. Once Jackson had gone outside, the fourth member of the team — a muscular young Hispanic in a light blue shirt, navy slacks, and navy tie — punched the IN button, once again setting the alarm.

Max turned her head to watch Jackson heading away from the house, holding her breath, just waiting for him to turn and look right at her, standing there in the window... but he did not. Soon the foggy front yard had swallowed him.

“Morales,” the leader said, his voice soft, “you go right, I’ll go left.”

While the leader opened the door and entered the room on the left, Morales entered the room on the right. Through the second of the open doors, just before Morales closed it behind him, Max glimpsed a painting in a gold-leaf frame on the far wall.

She decided that was as good a place as any to start.

A minute ticked by. Stealing a look in the direction the leader had gone, then glancing up the stairs, Max satisfied herself neither man was headed back her way, not immediately anyway.

So she made her move.

She slipped from her hiding place and crept across the foyer; she opened the door slowly, carefully, quietly, peeked into the room...

... and didn’t see Morales.

She eased in.

The room was large, almost... huge, more like something out of a museum than a house. High-ceilinged, with a beautifully polished hardwood floor and dark mahogany paneling, this was home to painting after painting, framed canvases covering all four walls of the windowless chamber, three and sometimes four rows of them, like fabulously expensive wallpaper. A few Mission-style chairs were positioned around the floor, but it was essentially bare, and — more important to Max — vacant.

Stepping farther into the gallery, she noted another door on the opposite wall at the far end. Morales had obviously entered, not seen anyone, and exited right out the other side, to check rooms beyond.

Max strolled up the middle of the room, gazing at the paintings on either side. Some she’d seen before in Moody’s books, and in magazines and online; but others were strangers to her, though the styles were familiar and she could probably play pin-the-artist-on-the-painting...

This was more than she could ever have imagined.

Again the thought of stealing enough to retire surfaced, but she wouldn’t need a moving van to do it; she could cut canvas after canvas out of their frames, roll them up, and take the whole lot. If Moody’s lessons on quality had served her well, then her eyes told her she wouldn’t need Vogelsang to find Seth. She could buy an uptown detective agency; hell, she could buy Manticore!..

This fantasy blipped across her mind, and then she banished it — too much time, too many risks; in this house, with those four armed security soldiers roaming, she could spend no longer thinking about such things. She needed to get her damn painting — and maybe one or two more — and get the hell out of Dodge.

The thief found her Grant Wood halfway down the right-hand wall. She did not fool around, jumping the alarm wire, pulling the painting down, and freeing it from its ornate antique gold frame... which, she momentarily lamented, could have been sold for a good price, as well; but that would have made this package even more bulky than it was now.

The thirty inch by thirty-nine inch sheet of Masonite was heavy and hard, and perhaps she just should have abandoned it as her goal, and gambled on a few canvases; but this painting was a sure thing, an objective she’d researched well.

Plan and execute, Moody would say; improvise at your own risk...

Max carefully slid the Wood into a zippered waterproof bag she’d carried in folded under her vest, and glanced around to see if she dared snatch one more prize, before the security boys came back.

As her eyes flicked from frame to frame, something in a corner at the far end of the room caught her attention — a pedestal on which perched a Plexiglas case about the size of a basketball, with something resting on black velvet inside. The only such display in the room, it had a temporary feeling, as if this had been arranged only until a better showcase could be found.

As she got closer — and finally began to comprehend just what it was she was beholding — her stomach wrenched, and she suddenly had the feeling that a nest of snakes was slithering down inside her...

Sitting smugly on black velvet, much as it had back at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, was the Heart of the Ocean.

The air seemed somehow thinner now, and her breathing came in short, rapid gasps. Questions tumbled through her mind, like dominoes knocking into each other...

How had it gotten here?

Had Sterling been Moody’s buyer?

Or had some fence bought it from Moody and sold it to Sterling?

Sufficient time had passed, since the original theft, for either of those transactions to have taken place; and yet somehow Max couldn’t understand how the necklace had gotten from Moody’s pocket to this room, in this house. Something seemed... wrong.

Very wrong.

Her face felt hot, her stomach icy, and goose bumps of fear ran up her arms, something that had not happened since... and she flashed on herself, in the woods, the night of the escape, fleeing Manticore, fleeing Lydecker ...

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a warm voice asked from behind her.

And yet there was something cold about it.

In fact, the voice froze her, the zippered bag with the Grant Wood inside still dangling from her right hand, like an absurdly oversized purse.

It wasn’t a voice belonging to any hired help: this was Jared Sterling’s voice; she hadn’t turned around yet, but she recognized it, from video clips she’d played on Kendra’s computer.

Still looking at the lovely blue stone, she said, “Someone told me once... diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

“Wrong movie... You want to put the painting down?”

Max shook her head slowly. “Not really. I worked pretty hard to get it.”

“As did I.”

A door opened, and another voice blurted: “Sir!”

“Ah — Morales. Take over, would you? I’m just having a glass of warm milk... my ulcer again.”

Behind her, she heard a pistol cock.

“Try not to kill her, Morales,” the warm voice said. “She has a very nice ass.”

Then another door opened, and footsteps echoed away.

The new voice spoke again, and it was touched with a south-of-the-border lilt: “Turn around, you... slowly.”

She did as she’d been told — a good girl — and Morales stood in front of her now, his pistol aimed at the middle of her chest.

“Nice and easy now,” he said. “I want you to set that bag on the floor, like it’s your poor sweet gran’ma.”

Again she did as told — even though she had no “sweet gran’ma” that she knew of.

Morales’s other hand went up to his mouth and he spoke into his sleeve. “Intruder contained in the gallery, repeat, the gallery.”

Rising slowly, she heard a crackily “ten-four” from Morales’s earpiece.

Then the security man crossed slowly toward her and, though his face remained impassive and professional, something sexual flickered in his eyes when he said, “I’m going to have to pat you down.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Put your hands behind your head, little girl; wing those elbows.”

Morales crouched, keeping his handgun and his eyes on his captive even as his free hand reached for the zippered bag. He had begun to rise, slowly, when footsteps in the foyer drew his eyes toward the door, just long enough to give Max the opening she needed.