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name.
He leaned against the wall, smiling regretfully. I mean, I already know that you re here to
steal the Eye. I mean before that. You used to be so good at what you did, then this last year you got
sloppy.
She scowled at him.
He continued relentlessly. And then there was that whole killing people thing. Bad for
business, Rhonwen. Especially that family. An innocent family. What was up with that?
At that there was a flash of genuine surprise. Did she think nobody knew about the murders?
As he watched, there were several seconds when she was trying to pull herself together.
Her face went slack with surprise. Her mouth opened and for a moment he thought she d say
something. There was confusion there. Fear. Dismay.
Then she turned her face away from him and stared at the wall.
He waited a long, long moment, then finally he turned away, feeling a dull, heavy throb of
disappointment in his chest.
He didn t know what he d expected. There was no explanation, no justification, for what
she d done. What could she possibly have said to make it right? Nothing. That was why she hadn t
bothered trying to defend herself.
He let out a long, slow breath. I m turning you in, he said coolly. Last chance to talk.
She remained stubbornly silent.
He nodded, then picked up the room s phone and dialed. Hello, please connect me to the
police station.
When he was connected, he told them who he was and who he worked for, told them
Rhonwen s name, and explained that in addition to being wanted by Interpol in connection with
several murders, he d seen her casing the museum and probably planning to steal the Eye.
* * *
As he spoke, she lay there futilely tugging at her manacles, her mind racing. What would
happen to Nadette and Corran?
She was supposed to meet with Nadette to get the replica, then make a check-in call to
Corran. When she didn t show and didn t call, they would cancel the heist. She hoped they would,
anyway. How else would they get to the Eye of the Jaguar? Neither of them could climb worth a
damn.
The Eye of the Jaguar would be removed from the museum and transported to the palace in
about an hour. The palace, because it was so huge, was surprisingly easy to break into. In a structure
that size, it was nearly impossible to watch every single possible entry point. And making it even
easier, instead of modern security measures like laser beams and surveillance cameras, they relied on
the curse of the Witch Doctor, which was supposed to strike dead any intruders with ill intent. She
already knew that wasn t effective, because a number of smaller pieces from the palace had been
stolen and sold on the black market over the past few years. She wondered if the same person behind
those thefts was now getting greedy and going after the biggest prize of all not that it mattered at the
moment.
She d already studied the plans for the palace and identified the wall she would need to
scale and the window she d enter.
Corran had used his royal connections to snake his way into the palace that morning, one of
a long line of dignitaries paying their respects to the King of Khaliji. He was the bastard son of an
English lord and a heroin-addicted hooker, and he d grown up on the streets like everyone else in
Henri s group. When he was twenty-one, though, he d decided that his royal connections would be
helpful to his criminal activities, so he had actually come out of the shadows, hired himself a lawyer
and demanded royal recognition. He d never been welcomed by his father s family, but he had the
title and he could affect a posh accent and schmooze his way in anywhere. That was how observed
the security systems and layout of the upper crust. Les Abandonnes would strike a year or two later,
so there was never any suspicion that he d been involved.
He also was a brilliant engineer and hacker.
The original plan had been that she would scale the walls of the palace and she d be lying
in wait on a rooftop near the room where the guards were bringing the crown.
Thanks to Corran, there would be a palace-wide power outage that evening at exactly the
right moment, and she d slide into the room in the pitch black, use knockout spray from her perfume
bottle to render the guards unconscious, and grab the crown. She d leave the fake crown lying on the
ground by the window. It contained a man-made replica of the Eye of the Jaguar, but it had exactly
the same chemical composition. Nadette was a jeweler. She d made up the replica. No scientist
would be able to tell the difference.
The hope was that when the guards examined the crown, they would think that the thief had
failed in their attempt to steal it, and their search would be less intensive. If they thought the crown
had been stolen, they d turn the island upside down, but if they thought the thief had been
unsuccessful, they wouldn t be searching people s luggage for the crown when they left the island.
She d give the crown to Nadette, who d melt it down and remove the Eye. She d be the
one to smuggle it off the island.
Or, she would have been if she hadn t been busted.
She had no idea what would happen now. She felt that she had a fairly good chance of
escape at some point, given her advanced climbing skills, but when she got out, not only would the
Shadow Lord be looking to make her hide into a pretty leopard-skin rug, so would Nadette and
Corran.
Tyler hung up and they sat there in silence, waiting. It wasn t long. Less than five minutes
later there was a knock on the door.
He cast a regretful glance at the door, then opened it. Three jaguar shifter cops hurried in.
One of them had a police captain s insignia on his uniform.
The captain, who identified himself as Captain Hundri, thanked Tyler. I will ask you to
wait outside your room so that we can interrogate the prisoner in private, he said. She tensed. She
doubted this interrogation was going to be a friendly chat. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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name.
He leaned against the wall, smiling regretfully. I mean, I already know that you re here to
steal the Eye. I mean before that. You used to be so good at what you did, then this last year you got
sloppy.
She scowled at him.
He continued relentlessly. And then there was that whole killing people thing. Bad for
business, Rhonwen. Especially that family. An innocent family. What was up with that?
At that there was a flash of genuine surprise. Did she think nobody knew about the murders?
As he watched, there were several seconds when she was trying to pull herself together.
Her face went slack with surprise. Her mouth opened and for a moment he thought she d say
something. There was confusion there. Fear. Dismay.
Then she turned her face away from him and stared at the wall.
He waited a long, long moment, then finally he turned away, feeling a dull, heavy throb of
disappointment in his chest.
He didn t know what he d expected. There was no explanation, no justification, for what
she d done. What could she possibly have said to make it right? Nothing. That was why she hadn t
bothered trying to defend herself.
He let out a long, slow breath. I m turning you in, he said coolly. Last chance to talk.
She remained stubbornly silent.
He nodded, then picked up the room s phone and dialed. Hello, please connect me to the
police station.
When he was connected, he told them who he was and who he worked for, told them
Rhonwen s name, and explained that in addition to being wanted by Interpol in connection with
several murders, he d seen her casing the museum and probably planning to steal the Eye.
* * *
As he spoke, she lay there futilely tugging at her manacles, her mind racing. What would
happen to Nadette and Corran?
She was supposed to meet with Nadette to get the replica, then make a check-in call to
Corran. When she didn t show and didn t call, they would cancel the heist. She hoped they would,
anyway. How else would they get to the Eye of the Jaguar? Neither of them could climb worth a
damn.
The Eye of the Jaguar would be removed from the museum and transported to the palace in
about an hour. The palace, because it was so huge, was surprisingly easy to break into. In a structure
that size, it was nearly impossible to watch every single possible entry point. And making it even
easier, instead of modern security measures like laser beams and surveillance cameras, they relied on
the curse of the Witch Doctor, which was supposed to strike dead any intruders with ill intent. She
already knew that wasn t effective, because a number of smaller pieces from the palace had been
stolen and sold on the black market over the past few years. She wondered if the same person behind
those thefts was now getting greedy and going after the biggest prize of all not that it mattered at the
moment.
She d already studied the plans for the palace and identified the wall she would need to
scale and the window she d enter.
Corran had used his royal connections to snake his way into the palace that morning, one of
a long line of dignitaries paying their respects to the King of Khaliji. He was the bastard son of an
English lord and a heroin-addicted hooker, and he d grown up on the streets like everyone else in
Henri s group. When he was twenty-one, though, he d decided that his royal connections would be
helpful to his criminal activities, so he had actually come out of the shadows, hired himself a lawyer
and demanded royal recognition. He d never been welcomed by his father s family, but he had the
title and he could affect a posh accent and schmooze his way in anywhere. That was how observed
the security systems and layout of the upper crust. Les Abandonnes would strike a year or two later,
so there was never any suspicion that he d been involved.
He also was a brilliant engineer and hacker.
The original plan had been that she would scale the walls of the palace and she d be lying
in wait on a rooftop near the room where the guards were bringing the crown.
Thanks to Corran, there would be a palace-wide power outage that evening at exactly the
right moment, and she d slide into the room in the pitch black, use knockout spray from her perfume
bottle to render the guards unconscious, and grab the crown. She d leave the fake crown lying on the
ground by the window. It contained a man-made replica of the Eye of the Jaguar, but it had exactly
the same chemical composition. Nadette was a jeweler. She d made up the replica. No scientist
would be able to tell the difference.
The hope was that when the guards examined the crown, they would think that the thief had
failed in their attempt to steal it, and their search would be less intensive. If they thought the crown
had been stolen, they d turn the island upside down, but if they thought the thief had been
unsuccessful, they wouldn t be searching people s luggage for the crown when they left the island.
She d give the crown to Nadette, who d melt it down and remove the Eye. She d be the
one to smuggle it off the island.
Or, she would have been if she hadn t been busted.
She had no idea what would happen now. She felt that she had a fairly good chance of
escape at some point, given her advanced climbing skills, but when she got out, not only would the
Shadow Lord be looking to make her hide into a pretty leopard-skin rug, so would Nadette and
Corran.
Tyler hung up and they sat there in silence, waiting. It wasn t long. Less than five minutes
later there was a knock on the door.
He cast a regretful glance at the door, then opened it. Three jaguar shifter cops hurried in.
One of them had a police captain s insignia on his uniform.
The captain, who identified himself as Captain Hundri, thanked Tyler. I will ask you to
wait outside your room so that we can interrogate the prisoner in private, he said. She tensed. She
doubted this interrogation was going to be a friendly chat. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]