the stone into the side pocket of her satchel, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
“Oh Dorian, I can’t believe how wonderful you are. Thank you. I was so scared about being alone and finding my way around the city.”
She coos like I’m a cute, helpless baby instead of the twenty-year-old thief that I am.
“Sweetie, it’s my pleasure. And girls like you - beautiful and young - you should never be required to take public transportation if it can be helped.”
A girl like me?
I’m a Jersey girl who has only ever taken public transportation and could hold her own against the fiercest of thugs.
But she doesn’t know the real me. And that’s what the con is all about.
Chapter 2
My con works like a charm.
Dorian carries the contraband jewel, unbeknownst to her, successfully through customs and waits for me at the baggage claim while I do my best not to stumble over my responses to the questions I’m being asked.
Although the agent’s accent throws me for a loop, thankfully the questions he poses were all generic and fairly innocuous, all of which I can respond to honestly. I move through unscathed, if not a little frazzled.
My only problem now is confiscating the jewel back from Dorian’s bag and avoiding further interrogation about my purpose here.
Since she seems to think I’m here to study abroad, I decide it’s easier to deceive if she already has that objective in her mind. The best deception is using the using a version of the truth and manipulating it into reality.
The task could not be easier as the perfect opportunity presents itself. As we stand at the rotating carousel, Dorian bends over to grab one of her four pieces of Louis Viton luggage, struggling with the weight. She turns to me for assistance.
“Here, darling. Could you hold this for a moment while I grab my bags?”
She hoists the bag into my chest, leaving me to cradle it in my arms like a baby. She then spins around in a flourish and practically topples the old woman next to her as she leans in and grabs the handle of another large designer bag.
My hand pushes down into the smooth leather of the purse, slipping into the side pocket, rooting around for the soft material of the pouch that encases the diamond. Locating it easily, I enclose it in my fist and extract it from the purse, all before Dorian has even lifted her luggage off the conveyor.
I just hope the rest of my trip here is as simple as this.
The ride into the City Center of Antwerp isn’t long, but full of interesting stories Dorian shares with me about her college years and her time spent abroad. The woman has certainly lived an interesting, if not sexually liberating life.
As the car turns down yet another narrow and cobblestoned street, I glance down to the address written on the scrap of paper my father handed me, crinkled and damp now from the sweatiness of my palm.
I’m nervous. Of course, I am. I’m in a foreign country I’ve never visited, I’m heading to meet a jewel fence I’ve never met, and this is the first and last big job for my father. And I can’t screw it up.
The car slows and pulls up next to a Gothic-style building, with a gray polished stone and brick exterior taking up much of the block. I smoosh my face to the side against the window, looking up. at the magnitude of the building’s façade.
Spires adorn the ends of the building, reaching up toward the sky as if trying to touch the heavens. Gargoyles sit poised atop dormered window ledges, adding a dark and foreboding presence.
“Here we are, darling,” Dorian’s voice breaks the silence and the whirl of self-doubt flitting through my brain. “Doesn’t look much like what I’d pictured your grandmother’s house to look like. Are you sure this is the right place? I think this is a nightclub.”
My smile is meant to reassure her. When I’d made up the story to appease Dorian’s curiosity, I kept with the details Mudd had given me. I told her she’d be dropping me off at my grandmother’s address. However, looking at the building, and Dorian’s knowledge of the place, I now realize my mistake. Because this is clearly not a house. Not even an apartment building.
It’s definitely a nightclub.
I look back out the window and shrug, the lie rolling effortlessly off my tongue.
“Oh, yeah, well I was going to go to my