A Brilliant Deception (7 page)

A mild-mannered alter ego is a requirement for a successful thief, and I had mine. Luckily, my cover as a grad student also happened to be something I enjoyed. I wished I could devote a little more time to it, as it always suffered when I had to plan a job or case a museum or whatnot, but that was how it was. Not for long, though.

Felix’s idea was a good one. I’d make the Lionheart job my last, then turn my full attention to my academic career. It was what Atworthy had been gunning for all along; I knew he’d be happy about it. I’d tell him as soon as he told me his piece of news.

Atworthy leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. I couldn’t help noticing that he looked somewhat uncomfortable, at whatever he was about to say. My stomach tightened.

“What is it?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“The thing is, Catherine, the graduate board has voted,” he said. “There was nothing I could do. There have been too many absences. Too many missed deadlines. You’re on probation. Again.”

“Why? What does that mean, exactly? What do I have to do?”

He sighed, and looked at me with sympathy in his eyes. “I think you need to take a long, hard look at things. The trouble when you’ve been put on academic probation twice is that you then need to reapply.”

“Can’t you explain to them somehow? Cover for me?”

“Catherine, I’ve been doing nothing
but
covering for you.”

I liked Atworthy, and I had always trusted him. I could see he’d gone out on a limb for me. “So you’re saying I’ve been kicked out of the program?”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s quite as harsh as that . . . but, well, in a manner of speaking . . . yes.”

I slumped in the chair.
Damn.
This wasn’t good.

“I think maybe it’s time for you to consider a different career path. Because I don’t think the academic life is for you.”

 

Later, I left the racetrack and returned to my car. Templeton called me on my phone as I crossed the parking lot.

“Listen, lamb, I’ve got a bit more information on the Lionheart job.”

I kept walking, fumbling in my purse for the car keys. “Go ahead.”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Not yet. Why?”

My hand closed around the cool, sharp keys, and I pulled them from my purse.

“You know the grave I mentioned—the one where they found the Lionheart ring?”

“Sure.” I reached my car and extended my hand, pushing the keyless entry button on my fob. Nothing happened. I remembered then, I’d forgotten to change the dead battery in the fob. I reached forward to put the key in the lock, the old-fashioned way.

“Well, I learned who the remains belonged to. They’re saying the man in the grave, the man who was buried with Richard the Lionheart’s ring, was—are you ready?—none other than the man we know as Robin Hood.”

The keys glanced off the door lock and clattered to the ground.

 

I
adjusted the overhead light on my seat, 22A on the British Airways overnighter to London. All around me people were sleeping or watching the movie that flickered in front of their faces. There was a steady hum of engines, and the faint scent of chicken parmigiana in the air from the dinner trays that were being cleared. The woman in 22B pulled her eye mask down in position and settled in for a snooze. Sleep would be impossible for me. I had too much going on in my head. Besides, I had work to do. I raised the plastic airline glass and took a sip of my wine, then powered on the tablet resting on the tray in front of me.

When Templeton had told me about the identity of the grave, about the Robin Hood connection . . . well, it had changed everything.

“Are you serious?” I had said, frozen beside my car at the racetrack parking lot.

“Completely serious.”

“You’re talking about the real man,” I had said, struggling to get my head around what Templeton had told me. “The real Robin Hood. Not the cartoon version or the Errol Flynn one or anything. The living, breathing man who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Yes?”

“Indeed.”

The very thought of Robin Hood had twanged a whole cascade of emotion in me. For the general public, the idea of Robin Hood was a charming legend, a cute little tale you told children . . . but it was a different story for those of us who were professional thieves. Robin Hood was our patron saint, the demigod of burglars.

“So, the skeleton in this grave—what makes them think it was the real Robin Hood?” I asked.

“Well, evidently the ring itself provides a certain amount of proof. Then there are various other lines of archaeological evidence—I’m afraid it’s a bit beyond me, but I believe you will be briefed on all that once you receive the documents from the client.”

“Do you know anything more about who the client is? Who wants the ring?”

“Well, this is interesting, too. We were contacted by a representative from the City of Nottingham. They want you to take the ring, the Lionheart, because they don’t want it to ever be discovered. They want it to have no association with the grave and the bones that were dug out of the earth at that spot.”

“Why not?”

I could hear him stirring a cup of tea in the background. He sounded positively jolly. Templeton loved this kind of stuff.

“Two reasons,” he started. “For one thing, the grave was located in Yorkshire. Not in Nottingham. Apparently there is a huge rivalry, and controversy, over whether the real Robin Hood had truly lived in Nottingham, or whether he had been a Yorkshireman instead. Over the years, the feud has become very nasty. I have a cousin who lives in a nearby county, by the way, and he’s always recounting the latest developments and threats, etcetera. People feel very passionate—”

“Templeton? Stay on point, please.”

“Right-o. As I was saying, the discovery of the Lionheart, on this body, provides more proof that Robin Hood was a Yorkshireman. Which, to the people of Nottingham, is a travesty. But even more importantly, the fact that Robin Hood had this ring in his possession makes him look like a different kind of thief than the man he was generally believed to be. It makes him look like the kind who would steal from a king, and
not
to give to the poor, but keep the spoils for himself. Robin Hood is beloved by the people of Nottingham, and they simply can’t let that sort of thing come out, that sort of damage to his reputation.”

I had frowned, hearing that. If the man in the grave was the real Robin Hood, why
did
he have the king’s ring on him? Why would he have kept it for himself? The legend generally tells that he kept nothing for himself. It gave me a sour feeling, thinking that perhaps Robin Hood wasn’t the hero we had all imagined him to be.

But I couldn’t get caught up in that. If I were going to take this job, it would need to be for business reasons only.

I thought about everything Templeton had said. “Wait—are you telling me this is a job authorized by the government of Nottingham?”

“The representative was from the sheriff’s office, to be precise.”

My mouth twitched. “The . . .
sheriff of Nottingham
is giving me this assignment?”

“It would appear so.”

I wouldn’t have even guessed there was still a sheriff of Nottingham.

“So, Petal, what say you? Are you in?”

It was a game changer, to be sure. Robin Hood gave the ancient art of burglary honor. It felt poetic and deeply meaningful. The opportunity to hold a ring that Robin Hood himself wore, right to the grave . . . how could I pass that up? “Yes, Templeton, I’m in.”

He’d told me then about the next steps I needed to take. At the stadium on my way to the airport, in locker #335, I was to obtain a bag that contained some key pieces of equipment. A GPS for when I got to England. Also, an encrypted iPad.

Sitting in seat 22A, I looked down at that very iPad now resting on the tray in front of me. It held documents and photographs and files. I hesitated before tapping the screen. I told myself that if there was anything in there I didn’t like, I’d get out of it. I’d call Templeton when the plane landed and tell him I’d changed my mind. Do a little sightseeing in London, then come home.

Before heading to the airport, I had visited my mom in the hospital. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her where I was going or what I was doing. Not exactly, anyway. I told her I had to go out of town for a job. Of course she’d known what I meant.

“Well, Catherine, you have to do what you have to do,” she’d said with a sigh. She looked away out the window, but before doing so I’d seen the disappointment in her eyes.

And it had crushed me. If my resolve hadn’t been firm before, it was now. Like Felix had suggested, this would be my last job.

I put down my glass of wine, swept the pointer over the folder, and tapped twice.

A dialogue box popped up with a warning that I was about to pass through an encrypted barrier. To go any further, I needed to sign a document of secrecy.

Well, this was different. Unorthodox. I flipped on my phone and placed a quick call to Templeton. “What’s with this agreement?” I asked him.

“I have no idea. I don’t know anything about it.”

I read it out to him, and he was quiet. “I suppose this is what happens when you are commissioned by a government agency,” he said. “The British, they love their bureaucracy.”

“Am I signing this, Templeton?”

“I don’t see how you can move forward without it.”

I stared at it for a few moments. Then I signed it.

Dire warnings were issued the moment I pressed SAVE. Were I to back out now, there was a case built to prosecute me. The British Government would be notified and I would be tracked down and arrested for conspiracy, among other charges. The off icials of Nottingham wouldn’t go down—I would.

I swallowed. Well, I was all in now.

I flipped through the documents and stared at a fuzzy photograph of the Lionheart ring itself. My skin tingled at the sight of it. Normally the jewelry I stole had a distinctive female flavor. This was all male. All-powerful male. And that was fascinating. The next photograph was of the grave in Yorkshire, where they had found the remains and the ring.

I searched the files and found some information about Robin Hood, the man. Or, Robin of the Hode, as he was called in some original sources. There were newspaper clippings about the feud, the dispute between Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. This was the heart of the thing—the reason I’d been hired in the first place.

At times, the feud had spurred some terrible violence. I sipped my wine and flipped to another article, a report of the suspicious death of a Yorkshire man who had been researching the history of Robin Hood.

I shivered. Yes, this was a far cry from the charming bedtime stories of a band of merry men. I had entered something much more serious, much more dangerous.

But there was no backing out now.

 

E
than sat in the passenger’s seat of the Jeep as Gary maneuvered and bumped the vehicle around potholes in the packed dirt road. They were headed toward a small village, the back of the truck filled with fresh supplies for the local villagers, including water, medication, and food stores. It was part of their regular routine, their weekly rounds. Neither man was speaking. Ethan squinted out over the dusty, sun-baked road ahead of them. They both knew they wouldn’t be doing this much longer. Global Life would soon be shutting down.

“So where are you going to go after we’re done here?” Gary asked.

Ethan shrugged. “No idea. You?”

“I guess I’ll find another NGO. Or maybe I’ll go home. Haven’t been back for a while.”

Ethan watched the passing scenery. The savannah with its rolling grassy hills, punctuated by spreading acacia trees, overlooked by the mountains in the background. A small cluster of giraffes paraded near the acacia trees, walking in slow motion, a majestic gait. A flock of larks rose up, taking to the African skies. The roar of the Jeep’s engine drowned out the sounds of wildlife.

But although Ethan was seeing the dusty plains of Kenya, his mind was far away, mulling over the offer that had been presented to him yesterday.

“It’ll be a doddle for you, Jones,” Templeton had said in the Global Life field tent as he sipped his Earl Grey tea. “A very straightforward job. And do I need to repeat the amount of money they’re offering?”

It was a lot of money, for him to fly to England and do what he did best. And the job itself sounded tempting. The legendary Lionheart Ring. Richard the Lionheart. And the connection to Robin Hood—it was difficult not to feel inspired by that.

It was a little outside his area of specialization, however. Ethan was an art thief. But it would be a mere week or two of work. Like Templeton had said, it sounded like an easy job. An easy buck. But there was one big problem. It would involve working side by side with Cat Montgomery. Something he swore he wouldn’t do again.

The Jeep bumped through divots and ruts in the dirt road, pulling Ethan’s attention back to the moment. The village came into view on the horizon.

Gary took a swig of water from his bottle, then shifted gears. “It’s such a load of crap that they’re shutting us down,” he said.

Ethan grunted his agreement.

“I’m still holding out hope, though,” Gary said.

“Hope for what?”

“A benefactor. A donation. Something like that.”

Ethan turned to look at Gary, shielding his eyes against the sun. “How likely is that?”

“Not very. That’s why I call it hope.”

Ethan squinted ahead. A small ember of an idea began to flicker in his mind. “What’s going to happen when we stop coming?”

Gary shrugged. “I guess they’ll have to find some way to survive. Or not.”

They arrived at the village. It was little more than a cluster of circular mud huts topped with pointed thatched roofs. It was the way these proud, strong people had been living for centuries: simply, and connected with the land. Living and dying at the whim of nature. Small fires burned and the smell of woodsmoke crept up Ethan’s nostrils. The moment the Jeep’s wheels crunched on the dirt road and came to a stop, villagers began to emerge from their huts and hearths to greet them. Children sprinted to them, grimy faces brightening with full openmouthed smiles.

Ethan leapt out of the Jeep with a huge grin and was immediately swarmed by kids. They knew him well, and were eager to tell him all their stories, and to see what Ethan had brought. Ethan crouched down low and removed his sunglasses. He handed out the trinkets and pocket candies he’d brought for them. The children watched, mesmerized as he performed a magic trick with a scarf and a coin, and then they dissolved in shrieks and giggles. Ethan grinned even more widely.

Back home, he had never really had many kids in his life. He didn’t know anything about them. Ethan realized now what a mistake that had been.

The kids flitted around him like groupies to a rock star. Ethan made his way to the back of the Jeep to help Gary haul out the water and supplies. As he heaved a jug of water onto his shoulder, Gary said, “Those kids sure do love you. They’re gonna miss you.”

The children disappeared in a flurry as the chief of the village came over to Ethan and Gary, standing tall in his plaid blanket wrap and carrying the chief’s staff. Ethan knew he was only in his forties but he looked much older, deep wrinkles around his eyes and grizzled gray in his hair. He reached out and shook Ethan’s hand, thanking him personally—a firm grip from a wiry arm.

The chief then invited them into the schoolhouse, explaining that the children had been preparing a surprise for the men.

The schoolhouse was dark and cool, in contrast to the searing sun outside. It was a simple room, but Ethan knew it to be one that had been built by Global Life last year. Donated wooden desks were arranged in neat rows. A simple blackboard adorned the front of the room. Art supplies were tucked in a back corner.

The teacher, a stout woman with a colorful head scarf, welcomed them. The schoolchildren stood shoulder to shoulder at the front of the classroom. Ethan and Gary stood to the side and watched. Then the children began to sing.

An amazing sound reached Ethan’s ears—sweet and rhythmic. As the earthy, lovely music and the voices of the children reverberated in Ethan’s head, he blinked furiously. His eyes stung, and it had nothing to do with the dust from the road.

The truth hit him like a sledgehammer. It was within his power to do something more to help these people. At once, Ethan knew what he had to do.

When they returned to Global Life headquarters, Ethan went straight to his bunk and started packing.