Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (20 page)

He turned the knob and rattled the door. He probably figured that if someone had entered the vacant condo, the door would have been left unlocked.

He tried to look in through the peephole. Viviana froze with her eye against her side of the viewer. If she didn’t move, the light on his side wouldn’t vary. He wouldn’t be able to see anything. Still, he was only inches away. A drip of sweat tickled its way down her torso.

Neighbor man then turned his head and put his ear up against the door. Vivian moved her body back, as if the pounding of her heart could be detected from the hall. She held her breath. He pulled away and went to Adair’s door, going through the same procedure. The two doors were at angles to one another. Through the viewer’s fish eye lens, she watched his every move. After twenty seconds, he headed to the elevator.

She watched his body language. What was it saying? Hopefully, “just the wind.” But would he report it at the guard’s station? Call the police? Unlikely. Buildings make little noises all the time, yes? Back to work. She should leave, but she wouldn’t. Did she want to get caught? Put an end to her compulsion?

Once he was gone, she unlocked the door—she’d need to reenter it later. Leaving the lights off, Viviana tapped on the wall. Only two layers of drywall and some insulation separated her from Ms. Adair’s jewelry, but that route was messy. It left too many clues. She preferred to leave no evidence she’d been there. Best to keep the detectives guessing. Like Detective Beckman. She smiled. Why did her thoughts turn to him so often? She pictured him—stop! Daydreaming on the job?

She shook her head and slid open the glass door. Out on the balcony, she looked up. A strong, gusty wind blew clouds across the half-moon. Somewhere a rope slapped against an aluminum flagpole. Ding, ding, ding. That would help mask her noises.

The roof was farther away than she’d remembered.
Nici o problema
. No problem. She cast the grappling hook up, but when she pulled on the rope, it slid off the roof without catching. On one throw, it held on the edge of the roof, but with some weight on the rope it popped off.

After ten throws, she looked at her watch and almost stamped her foot before catching herself.
Am not giving up
. If she waited past the night guard’s rounds, she ran the risk of Adair returning. She could abort and be home in ten minutes. Maybe this interrupted escapade would satisfy her compulsion.

She prepared to throw the hook once more, then stopped. A ladder. She’d passed a four-section, folding ladder in the condo. She went in, brought it out to the balcony, and unfolded it. It wasn’t long enough. Up against the side of the building, it came six feet short of the roof. There must have been some kind of storage space or attic between this floor and the roof.

She climbed up but couldn’t quite reach. Could she jump? No way. If she missed, she couldn’t be sure to land on the ladder again. She might tumble down to the balcony, breaking her legs or worse.

She climbed back down and checked the condo. No furniture to boost the ladder up. Back on the balcony she looked up. She only needed a few extra feet.

The railing. No, that would not be professional. What was the expression? Donald Duck? No, Mickey Mouse. Would be a Mickey Mouse operation.

She examined the bottom of the ladder. It had two round rubber ends with deep grooves. It wouldn’t hurt to try it out. If it was too silly, she’d put things back and be on her way.

She lifted the ladder, sliding the top up along the rough stucco surface of the building. It rattled with the sound common to all aluminum ladders. The grooves fit neatly into the inner edge of the steel railing. Hmm, that could work. If only she could skip the first few steps, when her weight would be directly above the ladder’s feet, pushing it straight down.

She vaulted onto the railing, holding the ladder lightly for balance. She flashed back to her 1966 gymnastics training with Béla Károlyi, the world-famous coach for Romania. She put her foot on the railing between the ladder’s feet and stepped onto the first rung. So far so good. She’d seen Chinese acrobats do much crazier things. Two more steps. This can work, yes? The ladder reached to three feet below the roof.

With a clang, the ladder spun around its long axis. Viviana’s foot slipped off, falling through the rungs. She bashed her inner thigh and cartwheeled to the cement floor of the balcony. Pain shot up from her leg and arm.
Stupid!
She lay motionless, listening. Had residents below heard that? Lucky the wind was making such a racket.

She looked at the ladder’s feet. One had slipped off the railing, and the first rung had crashed onto the railing.

Why am I doing this?
Time to give up and go home. But she looked up to the roof. She’d been so close. Once on the roof, she’d be done with the Mickey Mouse ladder arrangement.

She’d try once more, with her weight centered this time.
I have compulsion sickness
.

She set it up again, making sure the weight was evenly distributed on the two feet. It looked almost reasonable, and she climbed to the roof quickly before she could change her mind.

This time, both feet flew off the railing out into space, and the top slid down the stucco. She jumped up—she had no choice—and got one hand on the lip of the roof. Just three fingers.

She looked back over her shoulder. Would the ladder slide off the balcony and drop eleven floors to the ground? No, the ladder teetered, then tipped onto the balcony. Had it made too much noise? She looked down, choosing a landing spot. It was too far, and she might even land on the ladder.
La naiba!

The tendons on the back of her hand stood out. She had been the youngest gymnast on her squad to do a one-armed giant swing on the unevens. She could do this. With a sideways lurch, she got her other hand onto the roof’s edge.

The throb of a helicopter sent a spasm through her gut. It was loud and coming her way. Coming for her? They’d send a police car first, yes? But even a traffic copter would notice her if she pulled herself up.

Her fingertips and shoulder joints all screamed for her attention as she hung there. Bits of stucco came loose from the lip of the roof, threatening to slide her fingers loose. She took deep breaths and visually scouted out the best landing spot. The fall would be disastrous.

The helicopter roared over her and continued on its course. She clenched her teeth, held her breath, and muscled herself up. She collapsed on the edge taking ragged breaths and flexing her arms, forcing the blood back into them.

With no time to lose, she limped over to Adair’s side of the building, found an irregularity at the edge of the roof, and set her grappling hook. Abseiling down to the balcony, she leaned back and flipped the rope, releasing the hook. She caught it neatly and coiled and stowed the rope in her backpack. This was more like it. She would try to forget the episode with the ladder.

She checked out the sliding glass door. Burglar alarm. Would there be one?
Oof
. She’d never liked them in the seventies, and her internet research showed her how much they’d improved since then. She checked all around the edges of the door. No magnetic sensors. She cupped her hands against the glass and looked in. No blinking red lights on the wall.

She jimmied the door open—who puts a good lock on a door that’s eleven flights up?—and held her breath. No beeping or alarms. She checked her watch. If she didn’t finish in a few minutes, she’d encounter the night watchman on her way down.

She shined her headlamp around. Fine furniture, exquisite rugs, and huge paintings—everything screamed money. The residence had been professionally decorated. The subtle scent of furniture polish was a pleasant change from the paint vapors next door.

She padded through the master bedroom and into a walk-in closet, the most common location for a safe. There. It sat on a shelf, wide open and empty.

Viviana shook her head. Typical. Someone who thought the building security was good didn’t feel the need to keep things constantly locked away. Especially someone who needed her jewels frequently.

Back in the bedroom, she found the safe’s velvet-lined drawers on the bed. Some of the jewelry was spread out on the comforter.

She scooped it all up and put it in a pocket of her backpack. Next, she slid the shelves back into the safe. Smiling when she noted the safe’s brand, she pulled the appropriate change key from another pocket. She’d purchased change keys for the four most common brands of safes.

She slipped it into its hole on the back of the safe’s door, rotated it, and modified the lock’s combination. She pictured the owner’s confusion at not being able to open her own safe.
I se va merge cu siguranță în iad atunci când voi muri
. I will surely go to hell when I die.

After checking that everything else was as she found it, she peeped through the door viewer into the hall and left the apartment. Back in the condo undergoing renovation, she brought the ladder back in and folded it as it had been.

A noise. Her heart knotted. The elevator. Someone had heard her? The neighbor with the police? If so, she’d be trapped. Maybe they’d go into Adair’s condo and she could slip out. She couldn’t abseil down; she was eleven floors up. She considered a hiding place, under a tarp, but watched through the peephole. What a slow elevator. She rolled her shoulders, but they remained tense.

She could wait in the condo until the night guard finished his rounds. No, too risky. She’d already spent too much time on this job.

The elevator door slid open. Ms. Adair clung to a tuxedoed companion. Okay, this could work. Was she tipsy? She’ll be too confused to raise the alarm tonight.

Viviana had a fish-eye view of the hall. Adair and her male friend walked to the dowager’s condo. Yes, she was drunk, leaning heavily on the man. She pulled out her key and handed it to him. He inserted it into the lock and, after a delay, opened the door. Good. He probably didn’t notice it was already unlocked.

In a flash, Viviana was out the door. She inserted her plug spinner into the lock, relocked it, and then dashed through the hall and into the stairwell. She’d gone down only two floors when a door click echoed up from below.
La naiba
. The night guard, a few minutes early. She’d taken too much time.

Watching from a block away, she’d been unable to tell what his routine was, only when he started. Did he go all the way up and then work his way down, checking each floor? What to do? She could exit into a hallway and hope he’d bypass her. Very risky.

She continued downward until she was one floor above him. His tuneless humming and plodding steps let her keep track of him. She’d keep one level above. If he reached the sixth floor, she’d assume he was going all the way, and she’d go into the seventh floor hallway and wait for him to pass.

He reached the sixth floor. She started through the door to the seventh, but then the rattle of his door opening reached her. He was exiting the stairwell. When the door clicked shut, she flew down past it, all the way to the second floor. Phew.

On the common balcony, she waited until a late-night dog walker passed, then pulled out her rope and looped it around the railing in a double strand. Fastened to itself with a fisherman’s bend, she rotated it so that the knot was at the bottom and climbed down to the ground. She undid the knot and pulled the rope until it slid off and collapsed into a pile by her feet. She smiled, reached down, and started coiling it. The job had been messy, but she’d lucked out. This was her last heist! Definitely.

A metallic click right behind her made her gut clench.
Armă!
Gun
.

“Freeze. Hands in the air. Don’t turn around.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I pointed my gun at the ground and cocked it. She got the message. <
Arma.
>

Arma
. Gun. Thank you, Ms. Ibanescu. Three cheers for Romanian lessons. Viviana stiffened dramatically. Someone had shot her in the past, based on the wound I’d seen in the ICU. Being shot wasn’t an abstract concept for her.

“Freeze. Hands in the air. Don’t turn around.” I kept my voice low—I didn’t want to wake anyone.

She wasn’t going to get away this time, but I wasn’t going to shoot her. I kept the gun pointed at the ground.

Her mistake had been in buying a distinctive Porsche. One from her own era. I’d investigated every sale of a vintage Porsche 911 in the Bay Area. The break came when I interviewed a guy who’d sold his silver 911 on Craigslist to a woman with an interesting accent. “She was like Natasha in the flying squirrel cartoons, you know? Like, ‘Must get moose and squirrel, dahlink.’ She had a bandage over her nose as if she’d been punched.”

Not punched. She’d probably gotten a nose job. That’s why she’d looked so different. The timing worked. She’d escaped the paparazzi mid-October, a month before purchasing the car. Plenty of time to have cosmetic surgery.

The color of the car threw me off at first. At the CrossFit gym, I’d seen her in a maroon Porsche. So, my stable of assistants, managed by Peggy, fanned out and located a shop that had painted a 911 on November fifteenth, just one day after the purchase. Old color, silver. New color, maroon.