She studied the building on-screen. Security lights on, lights glowing behind the windows, first and third floors.
Was he up there? Had he started his work?
“Another layer on the shield.”
“That’s the upgrade,” Roarke said to Feeney. “I factored it. It’s a bit of a worm crawl, then cloning the code. Miss that, the internals read intrusion, so that crawl under first. Nearly there.”
Four minutes gone, she thought. Sixteen to go.
“There we are. Now…”
“Hold it open, nice and wide.”
“I got that, Cap. I see it. I can hold it,” McNab told him. “You slip through.”
“Eyes and ears on your mark, Roarke.”
“Hold it steady, Ian. That’s the way. And mark.”
“Motion detected, first floor. No heat source,” Feeney added. “Droid, kitchen area. Ears aren’t picking up any sound. No other movement—wait, rooftop. No heat source.”
“He has two droids—minimum.” Eve shifted closer. “I don’t see any heat source.”
“No heat sources throughout.”
“He’s not inside. Hold everything. Don’t shut down the cams, the locks, nothing yet.” She paused her countdown.
“We wait.”
It was his lucky night.
So Aaron Pine thought as he walked down the block. Some rich dude wanted to paint him? Hell, for two thousand—half of which alreadyresided in the zip pocket of his skin pants—the weird guy could paint his ass, his works, his whole damn body.
Pick your colors.
He’d hit a rough patch, and the thousand in his pocket was more than he’d made all week. And another at the end of the night? He’d be cruising.
What he really wanted to do was act, but after three years of rejection, he’d realized he’d end up sleeping on the street if he didn’t change his aim.
So he walked the streets instead.
And, to his mind, it was just another kind of theater.
Like right now, pretending interest in the rich dude’s painting when he couldn’t give the tiniest shit.
“Did you always want to be an artist?”
“It’s what I was born for.”
“I really admire artistic people. I wanted to be an actor, but I just couldn’t get launched.”
Aaron paused, and felt his spirits reach even higher when—Jonathan, he remembered—clicked the code on a sleek, black two-seater.
“Wow, this is some mag ride! Your art must really bring it in.”
Jonathan’s voice turned as cold as his eyes. “Art isn’t about money.”
“Yeah, I used to think that about acting.” Absolutely delighted, Aaron slipped into the passenger seat. “But a man’s got to eat. So tell me, Jonathan, what are you looking for from me? What mood? What emotion? I’ve never modeled before, but I think I could be good at it.”
