Lying in the darkness, I hear the old lady’s cuckoo clock chimes one in the morning in the living room and spring into action.
Moving stealthily in the night, dressed all in black, I feel like myself again. Not the little maid who cleans floors and is too afraid to look anyone in the eye, but my true self. I know the penthouse is heavily guarded in the front, but I also know that there is an air duct system that opens to the roof. All I need to do is to crawl into the HVAC system and I’ll be as free as a bird.
My target, an antique cigar cutter in the study. I saw it earlier today while I was cleaning the room. It is solid gold and studded with jewels and shaped like a mermaid, and I can tell it’s valuable. I’m sure it’ll be worth a few thousand, which will take care of most of Chloe’s tuition. I know that it’s dishonest to steal, but I have to skim a little here and there to make do. Mr. Lopez would be proud.
You’d think that I’m crazy for trying to pilfer from mobsters, but I know they are way more worried about law enforcement and assassinations from rival gangs. They would not think that someone would be stupid enough to want to steal from them. And that’s where I come in.
It takes me a while to unscrew the metal grate and open up the air ducts. I stare into the infinite abyss and take a deep breath before hopping in. Easy as pie, I tell myself. I wriggle myself around until I can freely move around. The space is tight and dark. And I can only scooch on my belly with the help of my fingers.
I know that the study is in the northwest corner of the building, but I’m not sure if there is a straight route there. I slowly and painfully navigate the dark labyrinth, trying hard to remember where I have been so that I can retreat quickly.
It feels like hours have passed as I make my way at a snail’s pace.
I finally reach my destination and I carefully push open the grate that I have stealthily unscrewed during the day. The grate gives a creaking yawn that sounds way too loud in the quiet night, and I land softly on the thick carpet. Now, all I need to do is to grab the damn thing and leave.
Except that my foot trips over something on the floor. I haven’t remembered there being a piece of furniture there. It is kind of soft and round. Suddenly, bright lights flick on and the alarm blares. I finally realize I am hunched over the arm of a man. A dead man. A middle-aged man in a robe lying still on the plush carpet. He stares ahead with a vacant expression and there is a small black bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. There is very little blood, but I can tell that he is stone cold.
I glance up and see a younger man standing a few feet away from me and gawking at me in disbelief. He is a little over six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. His clothes are a little askew. He is wearing a full suit but with no tie. The top two buttons of his dress shirt are missing and the hairy peak of his chest is exposed. My eyes widen as I spot the long bloody scratch mark on his bare skin and look back down at the dead man’s hand. There is a bit of dried blood under the fingernail.
I curse under my breath. I must have stumbled onto some mafia killing. Just my luck. I need to get out of here as soon as possible before they eliminate me for being an eyewitness.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Instead of shooting me, the man questions me with a stern voice. We can now hear loud banging and angry voices through the door. Damn it. I don’t think I have enough time to crawl back into the air duct, and since the room is on the fifth floor, there is no way out.
Without another word, the man grabs me by the wrist and pushes me out the window. I almost scream out until I feel the narrow ledge on the outside of the building. He follows behind me and gestures silently ahead. I follow his directions and find myself facing another window. We can hear the confused voices in the room we were just in. The man pushes past me and I spot the gun in his hand. The gun he killed the man with. He presses his long, hard body right into mine as he squeezes past me to reach the window of the next room. He hammers the window with the barrel of his gun and shatters the glass. His faint masculine scent lingers on my nostrils as I follow him closely behind. I don’t know who he is and who is the man he just killed, but he doesn’t seem to wish to do me any harm and he seems to know his way around.
We find ourselves in a dark, narrow hallway that ends with another window. He leaps out and lands on top of the building next door. I poke my head out and see that I am at least a couple of stories in the air. I curse under my breath. This is not the simple theft I have planned.
“Easy as pie,” I say to myself between clenched teeth as I take a couple of steps back before leaping out. I’d rather have a broken ankle than be dead. Chloe still needs me. The poor kid, after all she’s been through.
I land on my feet, but all my joints are screaming in pain. The man is surprised that I managed to keep up with him. He throws a crooked
