Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(6)
Dad drops a folder on my lap
"Study."
It's not schoolwork. It's another job.
Already? Usually after a score like this we take at least a month off.
"What's the game?"
"Art theft. We're stealing a painting."
"How?"
"Access to a vault. I think a social engineering approach is going to be our best bet. The curator of the collection is a woman."
"Yeah? I'm to use my rakish charms on her, then?"
"No."
I look up, raising an eyebrow.
He smirks. "I am."
I open the folder and flip through the pages. It's a dossier, information gathered from a variety of legal and illegal sources on a mark. Everything is here-school records, info from a hacked facebook account. This doesn't look like a museum curator. She turned eighteen last month, just graduated from high school. I flip through the pages.
She's gorgeous. I find myself staring at the photo.
"She doesn't look like a museum curator."
"She's not. The curator is Carol Mathews. That's her daughter. Diana."
"Diana."
She would be, wouldn't she?
Chapter 2: Diana
One of the privileges of being a museum curator's daughter is after-hours access.
Yay. Woohoo. Go me.
I grew up in this place. The Western Heritage Museum is one of the largest private collections of art, historical artifacts and other such junk in the world. The full story is available on our website, in our newsletter, and on the drink cups in the gift shop, so I'll give you the cliff notes version instead. One hundred and fifty years ago-ish, a very rich chemical baron from East Bumblescum Pennsylvania took part of his fortune and established a trust to operate a museum. It got bigger, acquired more stuff, became a major tourist attraction close to Philadelphia, and a bunch of other boring things happened.
A long time passed, my Mom and Dad divorced, and my Mom married the Museum. I swear she spends more time with it than she does with me. Most of the time I'm just an inconvenience. I had to fight with her for most of my life to socialize or spend any time with people my own age. If she had her way, I'd spend all my time wandering around this dusty smelling collection of paintings and sculptures and weapons.
My mother would have me spend the rest of my life here. She wants me to major in history with a concentration in history of American art, at her alma mater, a small private college. As far as she's concerned, it's going to happen. Nevermind that with my grades and recommendations I could go anywhere I wanted. I filled out the application, just like she said. Application in this case is a bit of an exaggeration. It's more like I'm signing up. I've had to hear many, many times how she's called in all her favors and even made a donation to make sure I get a seat in the freshman class.
Frankly, I have zero interest in any of this stuff. The only part of the museum that ever interested me was the science wing, and that got boring when I was, say, nine. It's a kid's attraction, full of "hands on" stuff. The field trips love it. Somebody on the board of trustees wanted to bring in an IMAX theater, but Mom put the brakes on that one. Too costly, and the big domed building would ruin the aesthetics of the grounds, she said.
Anyway.
At some point I'm going to have to drop the truth bomb on her.
I'm not doing it. I'm not going. Completely on my own, I filled out applications to schools I am interested in attending, where I can study a program that interests me, not her.
It's going to be an argument to rock the ages, I know. I can feel it in my bones, like a distant storm on the other side of the mountains. My mother does not compromise, she does not negotiate, she does not bend. She does not feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and she will not stop, ever, until I am a history major.
This is a bad time for the discussion.
There's a delivery coming in tonight. The security guy is here. The foundation that runs the museum goes all out on securing the collection. The head of security is a guy with the uninteresting name of Bob Anderson, a big imposing slab of a man who used to play football and who is now charged with twisting the limbs off anybody who tries to lift something from the museum, not that anyone would. The security system here is top notch. The skylights are all protected by motion sensors, glass breakage sensors, and infrared beams, as are all the windows. At night, steel shutters seal the ground floor windows, and all the panes have been replaced with that Lexan stuff. It won't break even if it's hit with a sledgehammer. All the doors have steel cores and bolt into the floor at night, and the hallways are patrolled by a pack of the cutest, cuddliest doberman pincers ever. I mean, if you're me, or my mother, or the dog wrangler. If you don't belong in here they'll tear your arm off.
Tonight the dogs are penned up. We're getting a delivery. A van has docked at the loading gate around the back of the museum where the public is not allowed to go, and it looks like that scene at the beginning of that movie where they're delivering the velociraptor and they have an airlock for it to through and everything.
Mom stands overseeing it all, whipcord thin and severe, a slight frown on her face. She'd be pretty if she tried but she prefers a more masculine look and cut to her clothes, and wears her dark hair in a tight bun that pulls her normally curly hair smooth. If she grew it out it would be thick brown ringlets like mine. I haven't cut mine since I was twelve and it hangs on my back in a big thick mop unless I put it up. It's a pain in the ass sometimes, but I think it's my best feature.