them of some of that rainwater. They probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone.
“But it isn’t yours to take, Danny,” his conscience told him. When had that inner voice switched from his father’s to James’s? He supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever the voice—could’ve been God Himself—Danny was doing this tonight.
He slipped from the parlor to the bedroom, where Bernard was rifling through a drawer. “Find anything?”
“Not yet.” Bernard shut the drawer and opened the next one down. “Still think doing this during the party is a waste of time.” He glanced over his shoulder at Danny. “They’re all gonna have their jewelry and things with them.”
“That ain’t the stuff we want to steal.” Danny opened a trunk by the foot of the bed. “What we take, they won’t miss.”
“And they won’t be so quick to report it, yeah, I got it.” Bernard huffed and shoved the drawer shut. “But will anything we get be worth the damn trouble?”
“That watch you lifted from the last suite should pay rent for a month or two. For all of us.”
Bernard huffed. “Ain’t much of a score if it just keeps us in those places.”
“You rather sleep on the street?”
Bernard grumbled something Danny didn’t hear, and Danny didn’t ask him to repeat it. He understood his friend’s frustration. The whole crew had debated the idea and whether the payday would be worth it, but these were desperate times. They all needed food and rent, and they all needed money for their families here and back in Ireland. A lackluster payday was better than a prison sentence. Or a bullet.
But God Almighty, was it too much to ask for this complex heist to turn a profit? Because after they’d paid everyone they’d bribed, they were all skint. Danny wasn’t as sure as he wanted to be that there’d be enough left to split amongst the eight-man crew. Not even after they sold that fancy watch.
Hopefully the other lads are having better luck.
The night wasn’t over, though, and any one of them could find something good and valuable in a nook or cranny, so he kept searching.
The trunk Danny’d opened didn’t yield much except some expensive cigarettes—the crew would decide later if those would be sold or smoked—and a filigree-edged hip flask containing something that smelled strong and expensive.
After pocketing both, he moved on to the wardrobe. The doors opened smoothly without a single squeak of hinges, and as the bedroom lamp lit up the contents, Danny almost whistled.
Two fine suits hung inside. He didn’t even have to touch the soft material to know they were expensive. These were the types of suits that were tailored and exquisite—they were meant to tell anyone who looked that this was a man of money and influence.
There was an overcoat as well, and Danny reached in to check the pockets for a watch, some coins, some cash—whatever rich men sometimes left in their coats.
But his fingers stopped at the edge of an outer pocket, and his heart jumped into this throat.
The pocket was sewn shut.
Blood pounded in his ears as he reached for the other side of the coat. That pocket was also sewn shut.
Oh, hell. There was only one type of man who went around with his pockets sewn shut like that, and that wasn’t a man Danny wanted to be stealing from.
He gulped. “Uh, hey Bernard?”
“Hmm?” came the disinterested response from the next room.
“I don’t suppose your pal told you who the guests were in these suites.”
“Just a bunch of rich bastards.” The shrug was almost audible as Bernard came back into the bedroom. “Why?”
Danny pulled the overcoat partway out of the wardrobe and turned to his friend. “Because I don’t think this is someone we ought to be crossing.”
Bernard’s eyes went to the jacket, then to Danny’s fingers tugging at the pocket, and his disinterest vanished. He hurried across the room and peered into the wardrobe. “Aw, Christ. No one said nothing about gangsters.”
“We should get out of—”
The shrill peal of a bell cut him off, and both their heads snapped toward the door.
“Oh, no,” Bernard breathed.
“Lights!” Danny hissed. He shut the wardrobe, sprinted out of the bedroom, and switched off the lights in the parlor. The suite went dark, and he paused near the door, listening over the sound of his thumping heart.
Outside, there were footsteps and voices.
“Get down!” Bernard said.
Danny crouched low, glanced around in the darkness, and finally settled on ducking between an armchair and the wall. His arm met the hot metal