“Nope, no alarms on the boxes,” she said.
“Can confirm. No silent alarms have been sent to the police.”
“It’s like they’re asking to get robbed.” Sable chuckled as she pulled back the lid. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
“The diamonds on this thing. Hold on.” She tapped the side of her glasses to turn on the camera. She hadn’t needed it for this job, but she figured Peter would want to see the extravagant jewelry.
“Oh my god is an understatement,” he said. “That probably costs more than my car.”
“Yeah, but only because you don’t go out much,” Sable teased. “You sit behind your computers, and we both know your setup is worth twenty of these.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“I will be taking these.” She tucked the diamond necklace into a special section of her pack before emptying the box of its expensive contents. “Okay. Pick another box.”
“Hmmmm…. Try 720.”
Sable crouched in the corner and picked the lock. She withdrew the metal container and lay it beside the first before opening it. “You researched the owners, didn’t you?” she asked when stacks of hundred-dollar bills greeted her.
“Couldn’t help myself. Means we’re in and out much quicker, too.”
“I’m not complaining.” Sable emptied the cash into her pack. “These people might, though.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t look into them too intensely. Just enough to learn who had fun boxes.”
“All right, then find me another fun one.”
“Um, try either 333 or 108.”
“Should I play Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe?”
“Don’t you do enough of that with the kid?”
“Clover is eleven now,” Sable said, still unsure howan entireyear had passed since she’d joined Cash and Clover’s lives. “We don’t play stuff like that. It’s all sports and action movies.”
“So then play Eeny, Meeny,” Peter laughed.
Sable jokingly pointed her fingers as if to play the game, but then she stepped for box 333. It contained deeds and other important papers. Boring for her, but valuable to their owner,soshe tucked them into her pack before moving to 108. She picked its lock with expert skill and was immediately rewarded witha stack ofbond certificates.
“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.” She slid them into a manilla envelope for safe transportation. “What do you think? Do I have enough or should I keep going?”
“What’s the total stolen value?” Peter asked.
“At least a million.”
“Well, I think that proves your point. No need to get greedy.”
“But diamonds,” she joked.
“If you want one, get Cash to give you a ring,” Peter said.
“He will when the time is right,” Sable said. Everyone assumed she was upset about her bare ring finger, but she wasn’t worried. They would eventually get married, but like he’d said to her a year ago, their joining had felt like a marriage. They’d tried to take their relationship slow, but before anyone realized ithad happened, she’d woken up one day torealizeshe was living with Cash and Clover. They couldn’t be any more of a family if they tried… if only the legal system felt the same. On more than one occasion, her care of Clover had been thwarted because she wasn’t his mother. The Ombra had been arrested and was currently in a maximum-security prison. She had zero interest in her son, her only interaction with the boytokidnap him to win a heist, but because they shared DNA, she had more rights than Sable did as the woman whoactuallycared for the child.
“Okay, well, I think you stole enough for one afternoon,” Peter chuckled. “Get out before someone decides to work and catches you.”
“Unlikely, but I agree. See you on the flip side,” she said, and with that, she vanishedbackinto the ceiling vent as if she’d never even been there.
