Page 40 of Savannah Royals
There she is.
The Dancer.
Bathroom light trickles into the bedroom. Lady Astor left the door wide open, but I don’t hesitate. There simply isn’t time.
Fortune favors the bold, I remind myself. Then that whispering, ubiquitous voice speaks.If they can’t see you, they’ll never catch you, Kat.
I sneak ahead, darting on light feet past the door and to the mantel. I reach up to seize the glimmering ballerina. She’s much heavier than anticipated. Solid. Easily the weight of a full gold bar, perhaps two.
Holding my breath, I dart back across the room. The toilet flushes when I reach the door, the bathroom light extinguishes.
I slip through the crack into the hallway and catch Abe finishing up his work. He’s painted our wolf mark across the white wood of the bedroom door. The now universally-understood sign the Wolfpack was here.
Abe takes my hand and pulls me down the hall, all the way to a corner room at the opposite end. It’s a bedroom, probably a spare if the lack of personal items and clutter indicate anything. He clicks the door shut and reaches for the figurine.
He whistles softly. “Wow. She’s the real McCoy, huh, Kat? What a beaut.”
“She is,” I admit, admiring the heftiness of the gold in my grip, the way the ballerina shines, her eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
“Let’s get the heck outta here.” Abe strides over to the window and unlocks it. It glides up without a sound. “Ladies first.”
I swing my legs out and reach for the metal drainpipe to my right, dangling off the side of the house.
“Remember to close the window behind you,” I tell Abe. “See you at the bottom.”
I slide down, keeping the ballerina tucked securely in my arm as I plummet to the ground. Overhead, Abe swings his feet out and grabs the pipe, shifting his weight. I hold my breath. The pipe is solid, made of metal, and we’re trusting blindly it will hold him.
Once he has a good grip, Abe palms the windowpane with his gloved hand, sliding the glass down. Moments later, he drops down the pipe to join me. I don’t release my breath until he’s safely on the ground.
In a giddy daze, we traipse to the carriage house and give a coded knock, a familiar four-beat rhythm to signal Paul and Tony. The door swings open, and there they are, the other half of our pack. A little rumpled and ruffled, but none the worse for the wear. There’s a good bit of blood on the floor. Spatters on their shirts and arms. Peeking over Paul’s shoulder, I see the three guards piled in a corner.
They aren’t breathing.
“Did you really have to kill them?” I ask, looking at Paul. He has a small laceration above his left eyebrow, but it’s long since clotted over.
“When it turned into a three-hour job, yes,” he replies. “We couldn’t ensure they’d stay unconscious. Or that they wouldn’t wake and alert the authorities before we got away. You know the motto, Kat—fool me once…”
“Shame on you,” I finish the first part. “Fool me twice—”
“Nobody fools me,” he concludes. “We don’t allow that to happen.”
I nod. Risk management. I glance at the pile one more time. Remorse, a most unsettling mistress, tightens around my neck like a noose. It was nothing more than misfortune that cut these lives short tonight, leaving countless loose strings—family, loved ones—to dangle evermore in the wind.
The hot metal of our plunder grows warm in my hand, branding me.
“Can I see her?” Paul asks, reaching his hand out.
I passThe Dancerover.
“You’re unbelievable, Kat.” He examines the gold figurine, rapture in his eyes. “We really pulled it off.”
“We really did.”
Paul drifts to the window to admire the gilded loot in the moonlight.
“Plan B, huh?” Tony strides over. “Everything go smoothly on your end, guys? Enjoy your two hours of closet time?”
“We survived.” I’m evasive.
