Page 79 of Booked for Theft

The weekend staff, who did scattered shifts across the week to maintain full-time hours, stared at the incoming books with resigned expressions. As all of them were my seniors, I managed a sheepish expression while dragging my haul inside. “If you find a corner to tuck it all out of the way, I’ll force the elevator to cooperate.” Fortunately for us, the building did have an elevator, an ancient one that we only used when we had patrons who couldn’t handle the staircases. Unlike modern elevators, one of the librarians with training, myself included, needed to operate it. As such, we usually took the stairs and liked it. Then, aware we had a budget for modernization updates, I added, “I’ll see if we can get an exemption for the historic building rules to replace the elevator with a modern one—and install a wheelchair lift on the steps.”

Henrietta, who was a few years shy of retiring, grinned at me. “We’ll stack the books by the elevator and make sure nobody bothers them until Monday. That’s simple enough. Honestly, you’re giving us something to do. It’s been slow today.”

That I could believe. Saturdays and Sundays were either dead or madhouses. “I walked from the Met to here with a reporter. I might need to be detoxed. Decontaminated.” I regarded the older woman with wide eyes. “Am I going to make it?”

“You’ll be fine. As long as you didn’t scare the reporter or give a demonstration of your ability, I’m sure you’ll recover.”

“I gave a speech about how to donate books to specific programs to the library, the requirements for their age, condition, and content we’re looking for. Does that count as scaring the reporter?”

My co-workers shook their heads. Henrietta confiscated the cart and said, “Please tell me you asked them to contact us first before bringing the books.”

“I did, unless the book was written before 1900 AD, in which case, I wanted them to just bring it in for evaluation. I’m going to send the fiction books over to the main branch and get our grubby hands on every legitimate non-fiction book we otherwise can.”

“I’ll warn the boss,” she muttered before shooing me away. “I give it three hours after that airs for the branch to become a madhouse.”

“But our numbers will be a thing of beauty, Henrietta!”

“Our numbers will evoke fear within all librarians in the entire system. We’ll be able to rein them all in with a warning we might talk about them next.”

Laughing all the way, I headed outside to retrieve the Met’s cart and return to the museum for another round of exercise and public scrutiny.

Due to the ridiculous number of books we managed to buy, we all worked until an hour before we were scheduled to head off to begin our bright new careers as thieving arsonists. Rather than stick with our original plan, an illusionist stowed away in each of our vehicles, and they began their work from the instant we left the library.

According to the plan, Bradley and I would go to the condo, and the illusionist accompanying us would trick the cameras into believing we had gone inside. After he finished, under another illusion that erased our presence to the perception of everyone and everything, we would go to the garage and wait by the doors until someone came in, where we would sneak out, head a block away, and join Bradley’s parents, who were likewise being escorted by an illusionist.

Beatrice and Mickey would work with a third illusionist and one of the security personnel who would be assisting with the arson portion of the venture.

I drove my SUV, hidden with magic, while an illusionary version of me also drove, mimicking my motions. The entire thing disconcerted me, and by the time we reached the garage, my skin crawled. We parked, and the illusions did everything we did, and the fake me dragged her feet on the way to our condo. Bradley’s illusion had more pep in his step.

That tracked, as little revved my fiancé’s engine more than shopping sprees at bookstores, even when he didn’t get to keep any of the purchases.

We made the journey to the condo, and the illusionary copy of Bradley went through the motions of opening the door and going inside, leaving the illusionary version of me to follow him in. Then, as we had no way of seeing each other, the illusionist took my hand while I held on to Bradley, guiding us back to the parking garage and hitching a lift on the elevator that Ren likely summoned.

Sure enough, once the elevator reached the parking garage, the bodyguard and secretary dropped his keys and cussed, which gave us the chance to escape without any chance of running into him.

The hard part involved standing and waiting at the garage entrance for another vehicle to come in. Fortune favored us, and within twenty minutes, one of our neighbors, who lived a floor down from us and liked to shop on the weekends, drove in.

We left the building, walked a block, and met Bradley’s parents, who were parked on the street and had their SUV’s back door open while they searched for something.

Once we were inside, with the pair of illusionists taking the back seats, they found what they were looking for, got in, and left.

We drove for ten minutes before Bradley’s father asked, “Any problems?”

“None, sir,” Zachariah reported. “Our contact in security has confirmed the magic is working on the cameras as intended.”

Bradley’s father had access to the building’s security footage? “How did you get access to that, Mr. Hampton?”

“We’re doing some training exercises; we entered an agreement to work as supplementary staff if they have an unexpected absence. I keep a selection of staff at various offices who fill in as temps. I sent some of my more trusted staff with instructions to monitor the cameras—and, if needed, to open the garage door if you were waiting for longer than forty minutes. As my baby boy lives in the building now, I put in a lucrative offer for them, as it lets me spy without being obvious about it.”

One day, I might be as smart and cunning as Bradley’s father. “Are we going to be able to pull this off?”

“I didn’t pay five of my illusionists excessive bonuses and overtime to have this fail at this stage, Janette. Try to relax a little. I know worrying is a skill you have mastered, but you gave me an entire day to work with to set this up. The security company for the warehouse probably doesn’t even have active monitoring installed, although we’ll be running illusions just in case they do. We have a truck for all the paperwork, plenty of bankers boxes, and fake government documents to switch out. We printed every last copy of every bill to be done over the past fifty years, double sided, to fill the boxes with, so if any of the pages do survive, they’ll see appropriate material. We also printed the tax code, the budget for the past twenty years, and some other gems from the government’s website. With luck, everything will be sufficiently destroyed as part of the blaze.”

The whole situation would worry me. “And the fire?”

“We have three pyros on hand who will be able to contain the blaze until it’s time for us to bail—and when we bail, it will be starting to die down. The fire station is three minutes away from here, so there’ll be little chance of spread. We’re taking steps.” Bradley’s father waited for a stop light to twist in his seat and shoot me a glare. “Worry less. Your job is to do preliminary sorting of paperwork. You’ll work with Bradley and the wife while everyone else ferries what you’ve sorted to the truck. We have a sorting system already designed, so all you have to do is a rough evaluation of each box’s contents. Our plan is to evaluate, dump into a new box, dump our fakes into the old box, and restore the stacks to the state they were in when we arrived. It should work.”

“The should is what worries me,” I replied.

Bradley took hold of my hand and gave a squeeze. “It’s a good plan. We’re moving fast enough that we might get away with it—and we’re using the tricks the government likely wishes belonged only to them. Really, all we have to do once we’re done with this is play stupid. I know pretending to be ignorant is not one of your strengths, but think about it this way: we’re spiting the government. I’m sure you can handle a little ignorance when you get to indulge in copious amounts of spite.”

I leaned over and whispered to him, “You are paying for that tomorrow night, and you will be naked when you do so.”

“I think I’ll manage to pay without complaint and on time. I recommend charging interest in this case.”

I snickered. “I think I’ll be all right. If I can handle you, I can handle some government cronies.”

“You’re not just handling some cronies,” he whispered back with laughter in his voice. “You’re handling the entire government. But I can accept being that troublesome and will self-assign some additional payments to make it worth your while.”

“Children,” Bradley’s mother scolded. “Please behave. We have felonies to commit tonight. Save your flirtations for another time.”

“Spoilsport,” I muttered before settling down and doing as told.

All I could do was hope that we’d strike gold and turn our theft into the salvation of the American people.