Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (17 page)

Carefully, she turned her palm face up and
gently shook the bag, spilling three diamonds into her hand—Ursa
Major, Ursa Minor and Ursa Median. They were beautiful, three round
cut gems ready for setting in three graduated sizes. The big one
had to be as large as the Hope diamond, forty-five, maybe even
fifty carats. Poppy couldn’t remember their weights to tell her,
but he’d been a locksmith, not a jeweler. She knew from talking
with Jakob’s son, Daniel, that they were beyond priceless. In fact,
they were worth so much money it left her breathless just to touch
them.

Glancing at her watch, she saw that only ten
minutes had passed since she had climbed the Behr’s fence. She
slipped the jewels back into their velvet bag and secured it deep
into one of her catsuit pockets. Then she closed all three
combination lock doors and slipped back through the vault door into
the sauna, shutting it quietly behind her. The pool gave a queer
aqua glow, lit from inside, and she edged around it, heading for
the doorwall she’d entered through. Back out the hole she’d made
with the glass cutter, through the grass, over the wall, and she
would be home-free.

She made it through the door and was
squatting by the side of the house, surveying the lawn, when she
heard the voice, distant, but still far too close for comfort.

“Right here at the fence.”

Goldie froze, hearing the words and knowing
immediately what they meant. She could have pulled her ropes up,
probably should have, but fifteen minutes was such a short time and
leaving them saved her time on the way out. She slipped behind one
of the shrubs next to the house and strained to hear the
voices—were they inside or outside the wall?

“I’m Richard Campbell, head of security. Can
I help you, officer?”

Goldie breathed a sigh of relief when she
heard Campbell’s voice and took the opportunity to slip around the
side of the house, heading toward the front. There was only one way
out now that she didn’t have the equipment to climb the wall and
she prayed she could get there before the security cameras went
back to their real-time feed. She pulled Campbell’s phone from her
pocket to check and saw the countdown timer gave her four minutes
to get to the front gate. She would have made it over the back wall
easily, of course, but that’s where Campbell and their unexpected
police visitor were talking.

She had to hurry. She took off, a black
streak in the night, her golden hair covered and tucked under a
black cap, hoping no one was watching, that all their focus and
attention was now on the back of the house. When she reached the
front gate she was breathing hard, a stitch in her side, only to
discover that the security here wasn’t the keypad she’d hoped, but
rather sliding card access—and she didn’t have a card.

Thankfully, there was no guard posted, but
according to her iPhone timer, she had less than thirty seconds
before the security cameras went back to a live feed and she’d be
fully visible on them. She looked at the phone, considering placing
a call to Campbell, and then at the gate, steel bars rising up in
the darkness against a black diamond-studded sky. There was no way
over them.

But maybe
through
them…

Goldie turned herself sideways and slipped a
leg through the gate. Her thigh cleared it without too much
trouble, but she stuck solidly at her hips. She couldn’t guess how
much width there was between bars, but it was certainly less than a
foot. There was no way she could squeeze through something so
small, was there?

The rounded curve of her behind held her up
and she wiggled her hips back and forth, feeling the steel of the
bar digging into her flesh, finding brief relief when it slipped
between the crack of her ass. Halfway there! She used all her
strength to push against the bars, wielding her weight as leverage,
feeling the bar sliding past her other ass cheek. Her slender
middle was easy, her ribcage small and light—and she’d never been
this grateful to be so flat-chested in her life!

But she’d forgotten one thing. She’d
forgotten about her head. And bone didn’t give.

Ten seconds, according to the timer. She was
going to get caught just like this, with her head on one side of
the Behr’s gate and her body on the other, the Ursa diamonds in her
pocket. Campbell was going to laugh his ass off. Goldie groaned,
twisting and turning her head, her hair spilling free. Her knit cap
fell to the ground, and she reached for it, her head slipping lower
between the bars. She was on her knees on the pavement now, butt up
in the air, a very undignified position to say the least. She
expected to hear Campbell’s smug, “What do we have here?” any
minute now.

Three seconds. It was over. The security
cameras would be back on. Goldie grabbed both bars on either side
of her head and, with a grunt of frustration, pushed as hard as she
could with her hands, pulling at her head, and slipped free! She
sat dazed on the pavement, ears ringing, realizing the bars must
have been just a centimeter or two wider at the bottom than the
top, before standing and breaking into a run—the opposite direction
from Campbell and the cop, of course. Freedom was just around the
corner.

* * * *

Campbell sat in the corner of the library,
waiting. Goldie was due to enter the Behr estate, this time through
the front door, shown, as he had been, by the Behr’s butler—an
actual butler—up the wide, winding staircase to the library. His
employers talked quietly amongst themselves, standing by a
fireplace taller than all three Behr brothers. Campbell sipped his
brandy and kept an eye on the door.

“Ah, there she is!” The oldest Behr turned
as the door opened, already flashing a smile. He was handsome man,
his blonde hair thick and wavy and perfectly styled, his eyes bluer
than the blue velvet bag Goldie held in her hand, and Campbell
wondered if her reaction—half-amusement, half-infatuation—was real
or an act. “I’m Rolf Behr.”

His extended hand swallowed hers briefly and
he guided her toward the fireplace, his other hand moving to the
small of her back. Campbell smiled behind his glass as he saw her
move away from Rolf’s casual but too-friendly touch as they neared
the fireplace.

“My brother, Wilhelm,” Rolf said, nodding
toward the smaller man holding a brandy snifter. He had lost the
genetic lottery his older brother had won, his hair thinning, his
face obscured by little round glasses. “And my brother, Otto.” The
middle brother was a strange average of the other two, and Campbell
watched her shake both of their hands as introductions were
made.

“And this is our current head of security.”
Wilhelm waved in Campbell’s direction, his voice full of gleeful
disdain. That was his cue. Campbell stood, striding toward the
fireplace, hand outstretched.

“Richard Campbell. Nice to meet you.” He
shook Goldie’s hand briefly. “I hear you somehow managed to slip
through my system.” His voice sounded harsh, even to him.

Goldie flushed prettily and shrugged,
accepting Otto’s offer of a drink, her usual—rum and Coke.

“Very impressive.” Rolf smiled and Campbell
saw the look of interest in his eyes as he gazed at Goldie. “I
can’t wait to hear how you did it.”

Wilhelm sneered, looking pointedly at
Campbell. “She certainly made it look easy.”

“I suppose it would have looked easy,”
Goldie agreed, smiling smugly and sipping her drink, taking full
credit for months, hell years, of Campbell’s hard work. “If your
security cameras had been working that night.”

Rolf laughed. “Touché.”

“How
did
you do it?” Otto inquired,
looking at her quizzically. “I, for one, truly believed Mr.
Campbell when he told us our defenses were impenetrable.”

Campbell felt heat filling his face. “So did
I.”

“Well you have to know, if someone wants
something badly enough, they’re going to come in and take it,”
Goldie reminded them.

“Over my dead body.” Rolf threw his
shoulders back, standing to his full, not inconsiderable
height.

“Sometimes.” Goldie shrugged. “But in this
case, I was able to enter the premises, crack the safe and retrieve
the items in a space of about fifteen minutes—without
detection.”

“Indeed.” Rolf’s eyes gleamed and his gaze
swept over her lithe form, her pencil-thin skirt and silk blouse
perfectly respectable, but Campbell had to admit, the woman was a
knock-out. He couldn’t blame Rolf for being interested. He also
couldn’t help the heated rage filling his chest at the thought of
this man getting his hands on her in any way, shape or form.

“Oh, and I’m sorry about your doorwall.”
Goldie gave Rolf a sweet apologetic smile.

He waved her words away. “We had an
agreement. We all understood that there might be damage
involved.”

“Oh, I know,” Goldie agreed. “It was in the
contract. Still, I always feel bad when I have to damage something
to get in.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to tell us how we
can improve.” Otto looked between his brothers, smiling. “But I’m
really curious how you got into the box. Never mind the alarms and
finding the safe and opening the vault. The boxes themselves are
thrice-protected.”

“I noticed.” Goldie laughed. “If you know
what you’re doing, alarms can be bypassed. As for the location of a
safe, well, you have to know that the walls have ears. You do have
servants, and in this day and age, it’s hard to expect loyalty.
They’ll give you all sorts of information—where safes are located,
which jewels are kept in what safe deposit boxes…”

Campbell hid a smile, her irony not lost on
him. Oh, but the poor Behr butler—the old gentleman who had shown
them to the library was going to get an earful. He imagined the
Behr brothers lining them all up for an inquisition.

“As for getting into the box itself, well…”
She glanced at Campbell, just a flicker of her eyes.

“That’s the part I don’t understand.” Otto
frowned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you must have already
had the combinations.”

Campbell laughed. “They don’t even give them
to me.”

“Combination locks are my particular forte,”
Goldie explained. “I can open pretty much anything.”

Rolf flashed her a smile. “Well, I’m glad
you use your powers for good.”

“It’s true, I could have opened any box in
that vault,” Goldie assured him, turning the little velvet bag over
in her hand. “I’m sure there were many more priceless objects
available to steal.”

“True enough,” Rolf agreed. “But if you had,
employing you as our head of security would be out of the
question.”

Otto chimed in, “Not to mention the fact
that we know where you live.”

“Of course we do.” Wilhelm smiled. Campbell
always found his smiles creepy, even when he was pretending to be
genuine. “We’ve been having you followed for weeks.”

Goldie straightened. “You…what?”

Rolf clucked at her concern. “If you are
going to be in our employ, we have to know everything about you.
Consider it our version of a background check.”

Campbell saw brief panic flash in Goldie’s
eyes and knew what she was thinking. Did they know? They’d both
been careful, never using the same hotel entrance, changing meeting
places. But anything was possible…

“Well, if you’re so untrusting, I should
give these back to you.” Goldie held the velvet bag out to Rolf but
he waved her away.

“Oh don’t bother. Why don’t you keep them as
a souvenir?”

Her eyes widened and Rolf chuckled, telling
her, “They’re cut glass.”

“Of course they aren’t the real thing,”
Wilhelm scoffed. “It wouldn’t be prudent to let you steal
those.”

“Let me see.” Campbell held out his hand and
Goldie reached over to place the bag in it. He dumped the glass
stones out into his palm, studying them. “Nice imitations.” They
really were, quite impressive, although a jeweler would be
instantly able to tell the difference, the layman wouldn’t know. He
tossed the bag onto the desk, looking at Rolf. “I’m sure she’d like
to see the real thing.”

He knew the man wouldn’t be able to resist
showing off.

“Of course!” Rolf turned and strode over the
a painting on the wall of his father. The resemblance between him
and the elder Behr brother was striking and Campbell couldn’t help
but wonder if his great-grandfather had looked like that in his SS
uniform, shooting Jakob in the head because he’d just swallowed the
family jewels. If nothing else came of this, he was going to be
glad to be through working for this family at the very least.
“They’re here in our safe.”

Goldie followed him, looking amused. “It’s
in a rather obvious place.”

“It’s our decoy safe,” Rolf explained, his
brothers following them as well. Campbell stayed back. “They’ll be
tucked into their box tonight—with changed locks of course.”

Goldie smirked. “It wouldn’t keep me
out.”

“I’m really curious,” Otto said, nodding
toward the heavy metal safe anchored into the wall. “Would you
mind? I’d just like to see if you can crack it?”

“If?” Goldie scoffed, twisting the
combination dial. Campbell reached for his iPhone and started his
timer, watching her work. It was a thing of beauty, seeing her
golden head cocked to one side, her attention like a laser and yet
her eyes focused on nothing until she got the first digit. Then she
glanced at the dial, noting the number, and started again. When she
pulled the safe open, less than two minutes had passed on his
timer.

“One minute thirty-nine seconds,” Campbell
announced, slipping his phone back into his pocket, unable to keep
a little bit of awe from his voice.

“You know, half the fun of cracking is
finding out what’s inside,” Goldie remarked, opening the safe door
more fully.

“Go ahead.” Rolf nudged her. “Take a
look.”