Page 173 of Cashmere Cruelty

Then I shove the map in her hand.

The expression on her face is like cracking ice—a frozen lake thawing out beneath your feet. But as her eyes scan the map, I can see the realization slowly dawning. “This is…”

“The position of every security guard in here,” I fill in with a touch of acid. “You’re welcome.”

“How do you know this is all of them?” Her eyes narrow. “We haven’t been to this side yet.”

I shrug. “By all means, lead the way.”

Suspicious, Petra drags me to the north side of the exhibit. I watch as her gaze flits between the map and the guards—all positioned exactly like I drew them.

Is it bad that I’m enjoying the dumbfounded look on her face?

Eventually, I take pity on her. “I’ve been here with Elias last year,” I confess. “A friend of his was in the competition. He invited him to the runway show. I came as Elias’s assistant, so we both got backstage passes.”

“So you’ve been here before.”

More like I memorized the entire layout running around on errands.“The guards are in the same places they were last year. I don’t think they switch it up that much. There’s just more of them because of the diamond piece.”

“Which reminds me: whereisthe piece?”

“Attention!” a voice calls from the loudspeakers. “The fashion show is about to begin. Please make your way to the runway.”

The crowd starts to shift. Like a body of water, they all converge towards a single direction: a set of double doors.

“You want your piece?” I whisper into Petra’s ear. “There’s your piece.”

I watch her eyes go wide with realization.

“They’re going to show it off,” she murmurs. “On the runway.”

I nod. “Afterwards, it’ll end up in a case just like all the other ones. It’ll become untouchable.”

I see her face go from pale to red: fear, doubt, rage—the whole spectrum. “So how do we take it?”

“We don’t.” I turn to face Petra and, for the first time since this nightmare began, I allow myself to smile. “They’re gonnagiveit to us.”

54

APRIL

Admittedly, it’s easier to be smug when it’s all theoretical.

It takes a few tries to sneak into the staff area. When we do, I push Petra into the locker room and shove a uniform in her arms. “Put this on,” I tell her. “Quickly. Before anyone comes in.”

It’s the museum guide uniform, the one with the green blazer. I curse mentally: the blue blazer of the runway hostesses would have sped things up tremendously. With that, we could’ve strutted into the backstage like we owned the place.

But this is the only spare lying around, so we’ll have to make do.

Petra glares daggers at me. “And let you go? No way.”

“We don’t have time to argue.”

“If you think for one second?—”

I lose my patience then. I even forget to be terrified as I yell in the face of the most dangerous assassin I’ve ever met, “You wanna hold hands or you wanna makevor?!”

Then I realize what I’ve done.

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