Chapter 11

ELEVEN

" I don't understand," Emma said. Maybe she wasn't the only one who needed sleep—Truman was clearly confused. "We don't know where they are, and I don’t care about them. I've got to find Dad."

He pointed a finger at her. "We locate the diamonds, we find him.”

She tried to follow his logic. “But the members of the Alice in Wonderland Gang are all in prison.”

"You're assembling a new crew—one that rivals your mother’s.” Truman turned to Dolan. “I need a list of thieves of the same caliber as the Red Hearts, with an equal amount of experience and connections. The States are their home base, and strike any who are currently behind bars or out of the country."

The pawnshop owner seemed to follow Truman’s train of thought. He headed for another room, and Truman grabbed Emma’s arm, lowering his voice. “I’ll get the list. There’s a couch down the hall. See if you can take a nap."

Her ears were ringing, and her vision was blurry. She needed the rest, but there was no way she was going to be left out of whatever plan he was devising. "I'm dead on my feet, and I've lost a few brain cells, but you're going to have to explain to me what you're doing.”

He must have seen the determination in her eyes. “Come on."

He led her into an office, where Dolan sat behind a massive collection of desks and computer monitors that formed an awkward U. One wall held massive bookshelves and a collection of superhero figurines, while another displayed more electronic gadgets with all kinds of lights and buttons. Several fans were running, all of them pointed at the desk setup.

He typed away on one keyboard, then scooted his office chair across the expanse to another and typed on that. Emma waited for Truman to give her an explanation, but all he did was smile as he watched the man work.

A printer hummed to life. “That's a start," Dolan grumbled without looking at either of them. He was still pecking at the various keyboards and reading their corresponding screens.

Truman retrieved the printout and scanned it before handing it to her. "Do you recognize any of these names or faces?”

She set the backpack on the floor and glanced over the five names. Columns next to the lineup listed the last known address, last suspected or known robbery, and what their role had been—wheelman, courier, alarm specialist, safecracker, etc. Three had photos, and under each was a note on which law enforcement organizations had them on a wanted list.

Her stomach squirmed, her chicken dinner threatening to come up. This was her mother's life, not hers. She’d put as much distance as she could between them, yet here she was, wrapped up in a crime that would make the Mastermind proud.

Mastermind. She hadn't thought of him in years, but now, her memory kept bringing him up. Such a long time ago, that day when she'd asked her mum about his funny voice on the speakerphone.

Her mother had looked shocked that Emma knew about him and had called him by the term she'd overheard one of her aunts use. "You must never speak of him," Catherine had told her, giving her a shake. "He's special, but nobody can ever know about him beside us. Do you understand? He would get into a lot of trouble, and so would we. Please, Emma. He's our secret. Wipe that word from your mind.”

Scared, Emma had only nodded. Her mother had held up her pinky. "Pinky swear it. You'll forget about him and never mention him again to me or anyone else."

Wanting to appease her mother, she'd wrapped her tiny digit around her mother’s larger one. “Pinky swear," she’d promised.

She'd run to her bedroom, on loan from some unsuspecting young girl who loved every shade of purple, and dove onto the bed. She’d hugged a stuffed unicorn and opened a book about fairies, sinking into a fictional world for hours. By the time she’d resurfaced, it was late and she was hungry.

She stumbled into the kitchen to search for something to eat. The house had been quiet, and she'd seen her mother standing at one of the tall, narrow windows looking out over a river in the distance. Emma had already forgotten about the Mastermind, but everything had come rushing back.

Sometimes, it was better to stay out of Catherine's way, to remain small, and let her mother forget that she was even there. Tiptoeing, she’d made her way back to the bedroom and had gone to bed hungry.

"Emma?" Truman repeated. “Are any of them familiar?"

"This one." She tapped the photo of a man named Miguel Santiago. “We were in Vienna when I was nine or ten, and he came to the house as a stand-in for a member who got sick right before a job. I remember because Mum wanted to call the whole thing off, but…"

"But what?"

She had buried the information about the Mastermind so deep, she hadn't even told the Feds about him when she’d found herself in an interrogation room. Her mother’s scared face flashed through her memory. Never tell .

Who was he? He was still free while her mother and the others were imprisoned. “The Red Hearts practiced each heist at least a dozen times, making sure they covered every possible scenario that could go wrong. Because of the last-minute switch, Santiago only did it with them three times. Mum wanted to postpone the gig, but she couldn’t. She was right—it wasn't enough, and things went sideways. No one was caught, but they failed at getting the jewelry they were after and had to scatter for months in all directions in order to avoid capture."

Truman looked disappointed. "Doubtful you would want him on your team, then. How about the rest?"

The printer spit out another sheet. “A few more to check," Dolan told them.

Truman retrieved it and gazed over her shoulder as she scrutinized the next set of names and photos. “Gani DeVries. She’s a safecracker. She and Mum were close and Mum used her on a few of the bigger jobs. Once, I remember overhearing them talking about Gani becoming a regular with the team, but she didn’t want to be ‘on-call,’ as she put it. She preferred to do her own thing.”

“That sounds more promising," Truman said. “And she’s a local. All we need to do is get word to her and let her do the work for us."

Dolan slid across the floor to a third keyboard.

"What exactly does that involve?" Emma asked.

Truman gave her a clever smile. "That involves Dolan." He gestured at the man, who seemed totally absorbed in what he was doing.

She shook the papers at Truman. "Just because we can identify her doesn't mean we can contact her. You can't just hack into her email and recruit her,” Emma said. “Thieves are loners by nature, and they don't exactly want to be found."

“Ye of little faith,” Dolan muttered.

“Excuse me?” Emma rounded on him. “Do you think you know more about them than I do?”

He stared down his nose through his reading glasses at the smallest of his screens. “Don't get your knickers in a bunch. You have your way, I have mine."

Truman took the lists from her. "How long?" he asked Dolan.

“Five, ten minutes.”

"For what?" Emma asked.

Truman picked up the backpack and took her by the elbow, steering her out of the office. "Let's let the man work. Come on."

He led her to a small living room with a ratty couch, recliner, and a TV tray. A single floor lamp lit the space. "It's not much," Truman said, "but you’ve got time for a rest."

He eased her down on the sofa and grabbed a folded quilt off a stool nearby. She was so exhausted, she didn't even mind the smell of the wooly upholstery or the mustiness of the pillow as she put her head on it. She wanted to stay awake, wanted to keep badgering Truman for more information, but her body was giving out. Her eyes were dry and gritty, and spots were dancing along the edges of her vision.

Thankfully, the quilt smelled freshly laundered. He sat on the edge of the cushion, his body warm, and brushed the hair from her face before tucking the edges of the quilt around her. "I won't let anything happen to you, and between Dolan and I, we’ll find a way to contact Gani. Even if she doesn’t want to be part of your new gang, she’ll tell someone, who’ll tell someone, and the next thing you know, we’ll have intel we can use to locate your dad.”

"I know in my heart that he's innocent." Thinking about the Mastermind earlier, however, had allowed a fissure of doubt to take hold. "But what if he's not? What if he did steal the Bradshaw collection?"

"Then, at least, you'll know."

“Is that better?"

He stroked her cheek. "It's tough when our heroes turn out to be normal humans like the rest of us."

Detective Ian Bastian had been Truman's hero. "I heard yours retired after I went to prison."

“Last time I talked to him, he was living the life.” Truman smiled wistfully, almost as if he envied the man, but Emma couldn’t imagine him retiring. “He moved here to the States and claimed life was better. Traitor.” He chuckled. “I haven't spoken to him in over a year. I probably should have. He was like a father to me, taking me off the streets.”

“When this is over, you should call him."

He ran a finger down her cheek. "Earlier, it seemed as if you were going to tell me something, and then you stopped. You didn't want to say it in front of Dolan, did you?"

Her stomach squirmed again. A horrible, stark realization made that fissure break open. “When I was quite young, I would often listen outside the door when mother held her meetings with the other members. They would only get together a few times a year to pull off a big heist, and I so wanted to be part of them back then. A warped sense of family, if you know what I mean."

He nodded.

She went on. "There was someone else, someone who assigned them the sword.”

"The sword?”

“The prized Vorpal Sword. Alice has to find it in the story in order to defeat the Jabberwocky. For Mom’s team, it meant the jewels.”

“Of course.”

“Like other criminals, thieves have their own language. They can discuss jobs, locations, and the people involved without fear of anyone outside their team understanding what they're talking about."

“And this other person was like a scout? He analyzed assorted possible swords and fed your mother the intel so she could decide which to go after?”

“He wasn’t a scout. He was the Mastermind. Literally, that's how they referred to him. Mum was his lieutenant. Once he gave her the assignment, she broke it down into objectives for each team member. Sometimes, she called in a one-off—a specialist, like for a specific type of safe. The Mad Hatter built a temporary facsimile of the structure they had to break into. The Dormouse did a deep dive into the security system and how to hack it or shut it down. The March Hare drove every possible route and timed their escape down to the wire. Every aspect of the heist was practiced over and over until they were doing it in their sleep.”

He shifted to the coffee table, resting his elbows on his knees. “You never mentioned this Mastermind before."

She blew out a sigh, her body so heavy that it felt like it might sink all the way through the couch. “My mother swore me to secrecy about him. I don't know who he is, but I know he must be very powerful. She lived in fear of him, Truman. I lived in fear of him. He’s still free, and if he catches wind that any of us have given him up to the authorities, our lives could be in danger."

His eyes grew hard, and his expression tightened. "Emma, this could be who's been framing you."

“What possible reason would he have to do that? I never saw him; I only heard his voice. He didn't attend the meetings. No one ever saw him. He would call in, and she would put him on speakerphone."

Truman stroked his chin where stubble had taken over. He suddenly looked older than his thirty-three years. “You're sure it's not your father? That he's not the Mastermind?"

"I'm sure." It came out as a reflex, her slight hesitation the only thing that might give her away. “It can't be him. I was six when he left. Our life before that seemed…perfect. He loves art and museums. He's the one who gave me my first piece of quartz. While Mum criticized the fact that I was always looking down everywhere I went and said the world was going to pass me by, he encouraged me to pick up every pebble and examine every rock when he took me on walks."

"Why did he move to America and leave you with her in London?"

"He came here to build a life for the two of us and did his best to convince Mum that it wasn't right to expose me to her world. He tried to get her to come with him, and I think she originally said she would, just to get him to leave. He told me that by the time he sent word that we should join him, she'd made us disappear. Through the years, small things would find their way to me, though. He had his own connections in the world, and every once in a while, a postcard or a tiny gift would show up with my name on it. It angered my mother, but it delighted me because I knew they were from him."

She ran shaky fingers over her face and into her hair. Lying down helped, but she still desperately needed some shut-eye. "When I got old enough, I kept tabs on him. I secretly sent him letters and postcards. By the time I was a teenager, his expertise and reputation in the art world had earned him a prestigious position as the curator at the museum. He’s curated many successful exhibitions and became well-respected in his field.”

"He wouldn't throw that away for those diamonds? Their worth is valued over fifty million."

"It's a coveted collection," she admitted, "and there are more than likely dozens, if not hundreds, of interested parties on the black market who would pay more than its retail value because of their history. My father was excited about hosting the Bradshaw diamonds because of that—the elusive owner, Cece Bradshaw, never wanted them. They were reminders of when she was kidnapped as a child, and her father used them to pay her ransom. The FBI was able to put a tracker in the bag, and when they caught up with her captives, they executed all of them on the spot. She believed her father was involved in a shadow government—some group of powerful men and women behind the actual one—and that he had those agents in his pockets. She suspected he’d given them the order to shoot to kill. It traumatized her so badly that she didn't speak for years afterward, and once she did , she revealed her father's connection to the shadow government. She ended up dead a few days later. Her allegations were never proven, but the stigma attached to those diamonds tainted them. Of course, plenty of folks wanted them for that exact reason and still do.”

Truman tensed. What had she said to cause it? “Like the royal jewels.”

“The royal jewels are untouchable, that’s what makes them so alluring to thieves and collectors alike. The Bradshaw diamonds are cursed, but certain parties want them more than the Queen Mother’s ring.”

“Why kidnap your dad?”

“To verify they’re not cubic zirconia or some other fake.”

He nodded. “Not just that, I bet—whoever stole them needs to certify they’re the real Bradshaw diamonds. An expert like Charles Grant, with his impeccable reputation and experience, can do that. Yet, being held under duress can make a man say anything, so they're reasoning is flawed if that's why they took him."

True. She felt like she was turning in circles. Every time she came up with a possibility and felt like she might be on solid ground again, it turned to quicksand under her feet.

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Close your eyes for a few minutes. We're safe here, and I'll wake you as soon as I have a way to make contact with Gani."

She wanted to pull him down next to her, but there wasn't room on the couch for his big frame, even if she hadn't been on it. She couldn't suppress a yawn. "Okay, but just for a few minutes."

He patted her thigh and sleep took her under before he even disappeared from the room.