Don't Go Stealing My Heart - Kelly Siskind Page 0,61
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.