Hot Ice (11 page)

She did a deep knee bend, sliding her torso down the outside circumference of the tube. There was a button under the lip of the base…
Ah. There
. She turned off the microwave detector she hadn't had time to deactivate earlier, then paused before standing upright. Alert to the smallest sound, she held her breath and listened.

Nothing but the indistinct voices at the other end of the hall. Still, an icy shiver raced up her back like a premonition.

A couple of weeks ago in Chicago she'd sensed someone following her. She hadn't seen anyone, and it had been for only a few hours, but she'd crisscrossed the city. Backward and forward. Changing her appearance at every stop until she was positive she'd shaken the tail.

She'd trusted the feeling enough to go straight to the airport from the house party, instead of returning to her hotel.

Tonight that feeling of being watched was back in spades. She never ignored her instincts, and right now every nerve and muscle in her body warned of impending danger. If she was fanciful—which she frequently was—she imagined a jungle cat, sleek and black, watching her from the darkness. Waiting to pounce. Her heart hammered.

She forced herself to crouch there, absolutely still for a few more valuable seconds as she listened carefully for the slightest out-of-place sound, a movement, a change in the air around her.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Another precious few seconds passed as she waited. Still nothing. If danger lurked in the darkness, it wasn't going to disappear while she hung around waiting for it. Time to get moving. Taylor suddenly had a quick, visual memory of the man in San Cristóbal—

No, damn it. Concentrate
. No sudden jarring moves. Keep it smooth. Steady.

She couldn't afford to use a light, but in her mind's eye she visualized the necklace on its cream velvet bed shooting blue fire.
Come to mama
.

The clear poly tube was eighteen inches in diameter and eight feet tall. The exhibits had been carefully placed on motion-sensitive pads, then the open-ended tubes lowered over the top to fit snuggly into magnetic rims on each base.

Other than removing the tube—impossible without large equipment—the only way in to the gems was to lower herself down inside the tube.

Standing on her toes, Taylor jumped up, gripping the outer edge of the display tube between her tightly gloved hands, and without missing a beat, lifted herself up over the rim. She went down headfirst into the cylinder, her feet hooked over the rim to hold her in place. It was a tight fit.

Two minutes forty seconds. Piece of cake.

Blood rushed to her head with the sound of the ocean roaring as she unhooked a weight from her belt while feeling carefully with her other hand for the cool silver links of the necklace at the bottom of the case.

Velvet… velvet…

Bingo.

She skillfully exchanged the weight for the necklace, another for the earrings, then stuffed both into her leg pack and inched herself backward out of the tube.

Barely out of breath, sitting balanced on the thick rim, legs dangling inside the display case, Taylor gave herself a few seconds to readjust her equilibrium.

She couldn't shake the sensation of being watched. But she could see the guards wending their way back—still hundreds of yards away. And the red eyes of the cameras were dark. She'd clipped a few wires and looped the security feed earlier. No one was watching her, of course, but the hairs on the back of her neck said otherwise.

To hell with it.

Pushing off the rim with her palms, she withdrew her legs from inside the tube, then crouched on the outer edge, like a frog about to hop. She grinned. Damn, this was fun. Slowly, she rose to straddle the opening, arms extended for balance to stand eleven feet above the floor.

The victory smile slipped from her face as she heard a sound to her right. She froze. No, not a sound, more a feeling of that dark presence. Someone else
was
out there watching her.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and her heart leapt into her throat.

Her imagination.

No. God, no
. She
felt
someone there.

Where? She looked around again, careful not to topple off her perch, trying to discern who,
where
, in the inky blackness.

Nothing but the thick darkness, and the approaching twin beams of the guards' flashlights looming ever closer.

Time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Flexing her knees, arms raised above her head, palms held high and flat, she jumped. Her left palm struck the air-conditioning grid above her head with a soft click while she grabbed the edge of the exposed opening with her right hand and swung, not quite balanced, for precious seconds like a chimpanzee at the zoo. She managed to haul herself into the opening, slither her body into the duct, and press the grate back in place.

Not a moment too soon.

All hell broke loose. The alarm shrieked, the noise deafening in the confined metal shaft. "Shit!" Someone had activated the alarms. She wasn't worried. They weren't going to find her. But she was cutting it close, having them start to look for her when she was still on the premises. It had never been
this
close before.

Shouts. Running feet. Brilliant lights. The metallic crash of security doors slamming shut over the regular doors, and the shrill scream of the alarms reverberating throughout the building. All amplified in the narrow confines of the metal ducts.

Scrambling on all fours, Taylor almost went deaf from the sound of the alarms and sirens bouncing and echoing through the shaft. The black silk pouch secured to her thigh was a solid, happy weight despite the drama going on below.

Even with the clarion sound of the alarms reverberating in her ears and vibrating through her palms and knees, it never occurred to her that she could be caught red-handed. But the adrenaline rush of the close call made her blood sing and her heart thump arrhythmically as she crawled faster than she'd ever crawled in her life.

"Move, Taylor,
move
." It would take nine minutes to traverse the labyrinth of ducts and emerge through an exterior side wall vent four stories above the ground. And every second, every
nanosecond
, she felt… it—
him
, breathing down her neck. Like a living Sword of Damocles. She crawled faster.

Chapter Ten

3:00 A.M.

October 9

Houston

Feeling considerably calmer several hours later, Taylor strolled across the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in the wee hours of the morning. It was almost 2:00 a.m., but she wasn't tired; she was invigorated by a job well done. She barely noticed the admiring glances of several men leaving the lobby bar as they passed her. The red silk Betsey Johnson slip dress exposed a lot of skin. It was designed, and worn, to attract attention. Taylor wanted people to remember the blonde in the sexy red dress, both leaving and returning to the hotel.

She picked up speed, heading toward the elevator bank in a flash of bare leg and shimmering silk. She pushed aside the frilly cuff of the lace glove on her left wrist to check her watch. For the past five hours she'd been looking forward to a long shower, a glass of champagne, and a good piece of chocolate. She'd spent the rest of her evening mentally recapping the heist. She knew she almost made a false step earlier when she'd imagined a Boogeyman watching her as she worked. But it was no Boogeyman who had sounded the alarm.
She
hadn't set it off. So who
had
?

"Work it out. Move on," she murmured. In the morning after a good night's sleep, she'd go over each step of tonight's heist to analyze how anyone could possibly have known the museum was being robbed on that particular night. At that precise time.

The elevator doors pinged as they opened, and Taylor stepped inside just as a man dashing across the lobby yelled, "Hold it!"

She automatically put her hand out to keep the doors from closing. The guy, tousled haired and dressed in a dark suit, was tall and interesting-looking, with a lean, hunter's face and penetrating eyes. He gave her short red dress and blond hair a glance of approval as he jogged the last few yards to the elevator bank. The corners of his eyes crinkled attractively as he stepped into the elevator and shot her a smile. "Thanks."

He reminded Taylor a little of that guy from San Cristóbal. The memory of that night made her pulse leap. And not necessarily in a good way. She had no trouble remembering his name.
Huntington St. John
. She just didn't want to jinx herself by thinking it.

The man turned around to face the door, glanced at the control panel, but didn't make a selection. They must be on the same floor. Her floor.

Coincidence?

Oh, for
—She shook her head at her paranoia.
Get a grip
. Taylor smiled back absently, then opened her small clutch for her key card.

"Good party?" he asked politely.

She glanced up and said wryly, "It had its moments."

They stood side by side, watching the numbers above the door. Every one of Taylor's senses was on red alert. She remembered the sensation of being watched, and tried to get a good look at the guy beside her from the corner of her eye.

After all, you weren't paranoid if they really
were
after you.

The doors pinged open on the ninth floor and they both stepped out. "Good night," the man said politely, turning left.

" 'Night." Taylor turned right, only realizing when she turned to see where he was going how tense she'd been. He opened a door way at the other end of the corridor and disappeared inside. The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding released in a sigh.

She shook her head. "Okay, paranoia's one thing. Psychotic is a whole other thing." Lord. She needed a vacation.

She'd settle for sleeping in, and having the massage she'd booked for later that afternoon. In two days she was leaving for Hawaii, and the Yashitos' annual beach party. And the fabulous tanzanite and diamond collection Yoko's husband had "acquired" for her from Mrs. Jonathan Ling in New York.

A working holiday, then, she thought with a smile, as she pushed open the door to her room. She put a hand out for the light switch on the wall as she snapped the door closed, locking it automatically behind her.

Before her fingers found the main switch, the light beside the bed blazed on, illuminating both the room and the man sprawled on her bed, hands behind his head, looking at her with the feral eyes of a predator. Maybe not an animal. He was too… elegant for that. But certainly not a mortal either.

Oh, damn! Think of the devil…

Seeing Huntington St. John again, especially since she'd thought his name not two minutes ago, and therefore jinxed herself, made dread lurch in the pit of Taylor's stomach. She'd underestimated his determination. And that mistake had come back to bite her in the ass. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in big trouble. Ignoring the shiver that slithered up her spine, she opened her eyes wide.