The Keeper: Alexa LeGardien (9 page)

She shook her head and surveyed the area once more. “From here on, it’s no longer just steel. This wasn’t in the blueprints. I can easily get it out of the way and get through. The safe won’t be a problem. In fact, there is only one problem: Exit strategy.”

“You said you had that covered,”
Davidson wondered aloud.

“That was before I knew the vent was well above twenty-five feet above ground. It must have been changed recently. There’s no way I can make it back up, and that’s the only way out of here. Because out that door, I’m guessing that there are, at least, two heavily built body guards.”

She heard some hushed voices through her earpiece and then silence. “Um, hello?”

“We are getting you . . . something. Call it reinforcement if you like. I wouldn’t,”
Davidson said from the other end.

“Where’s Matt?”

—             —             —

A
LEXA
held the taser tighter within her grip and kept the heightened scream she felt bubbling up from rising to the surface. She heard clattering from the opposite end of the vents get closer and closer with each breath she took.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God
. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep the scream settled within her throat.

Then she heard a whisper, a familiar voice. A very safe voice. She heard Matt call her name. “Alexa,” he spoke so hoarsely, she could have easily missed it. “Alexa,” he called out to her again. “I know you can hear me.”

He was in the vents with her.
How did he get there?
She wondered, but was grateful for his presence nonetheless. “Yeah, Matt. I’m here.”

“Thanks for leaving me hanging.”

“Sorry. I just wasn’t sure who it was.”

“That’s probably my bad. I should have mentioned it before coming up here. Methinks Davidson’s going to be a little upset with the change in plans.”

Matt’s head finally popped out from her sharp turn in the vents. “Hi.”

“Matt, what are you doing here?” Alexa asked, finally lowering the taser and placing it back into the band on her thigh.

Matt cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “Um, your one and only partner in crime here. You’re welcome.”

She brushed some falling hair strands away from her face and shook her head. “We talked about this. You stay with Tech where it’s safe, and I do the deed.”

“You needed a partner on this.” He sounded rather insistent.

“And I told you I got it covered. It is
my
duty.”

“Hate to break this to you, but we both took the pledge that day, which means I’m already involved in
this
. Besides, who’s going to reel you back up? I’ve got supplies. Cool spy supplies. Again, you’re welcome. Davidson says,
‘you’re The Keeper and you make the decisions, but you should never go unprepared again.’
As you can tell, I am very inclined to agree with him.” He handed her the other end of a black rope he collected from the stuffed bag he had on him. “For fuck’s sake. You told us you had a game plan. You
assured
me.”

“And I did.
I do
. This is how I did my past jobs. I’m very good at improvisation.”

“Great chit-chat. Now Miss LeGardien, if we could get back to the matter at hand—the artefact.”

Matt stole another glance at Alexa and softened his tone. “If I had known that that was what you . . . I was just worried.”

She offered up a smile, and took the hook from his grip. “Alright, thanks. I really didn’t want to get caught.” She strapped the rope around her waist and looked back up at him. “But at the first sign of trouble—”

“There will be none the quicker we do this. Davidson has turned down the alarms without being noticed, and the cameras have also been taken care of, so we are good to go. We have exactly thirty minutes.”

She halted as she took another step towards the clear glass. “Just one more question, how did you know where I was.”

“There’s a GPS on your earpiece, duh.”

“Of course.” Alexa shook off the uneasy feeling of Matt and Davidson knowing her exact location. “Is it good to go?” she asked indicating the end of the rope that was hooked up to a small contraption designed to help reel her back up when she had the artefact in hand. She sighed as she finally got out the last screw keeping the glass pane in place.

He gave her a thumbs up. “Just don’t get caught.”

“Do I ever?” she swung her legs down through the now open space and took in a deep breath. “It’s been so long,” she muttered mostly to herself.

“Alright. I got you.”

After a few more minutes, Alexa finally reeled herself down to the surface below. “Okay, I’m in.”

Wow
, she mouthed as she got a good look at the room. The designs on the walls alone were breath-taking. There were large painting hanging around the walls. She had done enough research to know that the paintings were original and worth a lot. The room itself was dimly lit, so there wasn’t much she could work with. She pulled out her flashlight again and turned it on.

Her attention got shifted when Matt and Davidson went on and on about what was the wrong way and what was the right way of doing things. This sort of frustrated her, because when she did her past jobs, she tended to do it in peace and quiet. “Do you guys mind?”

“Sorry,” Matt muttered before continuing his argument with Davidson.

Alexa took in a deep breath and dislodged the earpiece from her ear. “Finally, peace and quiet.”

—             —             —

5
, 8, 3
. . . No, that’s wrong
.

Alexa reset the lock on the vault and restarted the count. She pressed her right ear as close to the vault door as it would go. She puffed and rolled the lock counter clockwise, being as patient as one could be.

5, 8, 14 . . . yes, yes
. For a moment, she forgot she should remain quiet. She feared that she might have been heard, but she remembered the room was completely soundproof. She smiled and turned back, her heart almost getting caught in her throat. “Jesus, Matt. You’re supposed to stay up.”

“I was staying up like a good doggy, but you disconnected us from her intercom.”

“No, I just yanked it out from my ear.”

“Like that’s any better.”

She pried the door open and threw a glare at Matt. “Listen. While you and Davidson were all up in your buddy bromance, I was actually doing something.”

They walked into the vault with Alexa leaving the door slightly open. “Holy shit,” she exclaimed as she saw the insides of the vault.

“Ssshh,” Matt hushed.

Her eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell do this people have with safety deposit boxes, and why weren’t these in the plans? Couldn’t Davidson have added, ‘Oh, and by the way, there are also twenty-five digitized safety boxes for you to go through in order to find the artefact’? This is not good, Matt.” She continued her rant, “I pick locks, I don’t hack in. You know that. We are screwed.”

“You’ve got me, Lexie,” he said as he searched the backpack in his hand for something.

She paused for a moment. She didn’t remember the last time he called her Lexie. Actually, she did. It had been the day of his high school graduation. After that, he called her Alex or Alexa like everyone else.

“It would be easy, but we are going to need more time.”

Alexa put on her earpiece in time to hear Davidson’s rant about the change in time. “. . . no more. I’ll give you guys an extra five minutes, but that’s it. This was an
easy
task. Just remember that.”

She shook her head and looked at Matt. “So, what’s the plan, Matt?”

He pulled out a tablet from the bag he was holding and turned it on. “It should be a simple hack since Davidson took care of most of the defences. I almost sort of feel bad for stealing this so easily,” he said with a hint of sarcasm.

“When did you get that?”

“Davidson,” he stated while keeping his eyes on the tablet’s screen. He didn’t offer anything further.

Alexa crouched down on the floor and rested her back on the metal wall. It felt cold but she didn’t care. She looked at Matt, but his fingers were still busy typing something she couldn’t see. He looked so serious, and she felt pretty much useless. “You just called me Lexie,” she said, trying to make conversation and not thinking of anything else to talk about.

“It’s your name,” he said, smiling at something on the screen before looking at her.

“You haven’t called me that in a while.”

He shrugged and kept on typing. “We are in,” he announced before sliding the tablet back into the bag and bringing out another one. This one was thicker and had a way smaller screen.

“What’s that?”

“Apparently, it’s a heat detector. Davidson said if you came to the lessons he suggested, you would have gotten one.”

“You didn’t go either.”

“Yeah, but I think he loves me or something,” Matt jokes, making Alexa laugh and Davidson warn them from the other end of the intercom.

Alexa got up immediately and walked over to Matt. “Tell me how it works.”

“It’s built to detect ‘special’ heat emitted from the artefact, so we scan it over all the boxes and one of them should glow like it’s Christmas. That’s the box we open.”

“Let’s do it.” She took the digital box from his hand before he could complain and got to work. “I’m still tempted to see what’s in the other boxes, but probably next time. If there’s a next time.”

Matt grinned and swung the black bag over his shoulders. “I missed you.”

“Missed you, too.” She replied as she scanned the boxes in the opposite end of the room.

“You should have been there.”

She knew what he was talking about. His graduation. She was meant to be there, but she had gotten into a bit of a hiccup. She earned some freedom from her correctional centre but she messed it up. She had missed the thrill of breaking into people’s houses, so she met up with a groups of people that’s he knew she should leave behind. Matt had told her not to, she had promised that she wouldn’t. She broke that promise and lost the freedom she had garnered from the centre. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say it before, but I am. I’ve made so many decisions in my life, you have no idea.”

He raised an eyebrow and threw her a half smile. He did have an idea. He’d known her for seven years now.

“You know what I mean,” she said, scanning the last column of boxes. “It’s one of these. Oh, my God! Right there. You have come see this.”

On the screen of the small digital box was a weird brightly glowing light being emitted, just like Matt said that Davidson had said.

“It’s this box.” She pointed at the one right in front of her knee. “Quick, open it.”

He brought out the digital tablet again, and after a few seconds on it, he gave her a thumbs up, and the box shifted open. “I never cared that you didn’t come. I only cared that you didn’t call when you could have,” he said as he retreated the tablet and the heat scanner back into the bag.

Her throat was suddenly dry at his mild confession. She should have called. She could have, but she hadn’t. She cleared her throat and shifted her eyes from Matt to the artefact. “Just like Davidson said, bag and tag.” She slipped out the clear zipper bag that she had been given in the hotel and pried it open.

“Wait, don’t touch it!” she spoke a little too late as Matt’s hand came into contact with the artefact. Leeman had stated again and again that no one but The Keeper was to touch any of the artefacts they ever encountered. And Matt was
not
The Keeper.

F
irst Things First:
I enjoy reading anything ranging from mystery to horror to fantasy. And with that, I tried to convey The Keeper series as a blend of the three. I enjoyed writing the series so much that I hope it can continue. In longer sections (Yay, more words!). We’ll see. I hope you all enjoyed this part,
ALEXA LEGARDIEN
. For now, the series concludes in the second part:
RUINS IN ITALY
(coming out soon).

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RUINS IN ITALY
? Part 3, 4, and 5 are available right now as single purchases.