Page 80 of Booked for Theft

TWENTY

“That’s the vibe I don’t appreciate.”

The internet had dated photographs of the warehouse and the gas station, both of which crumbled and might collapse in the next stiff wind. As the pictures had indicated, the two buildings shared a parking lot, which someone kept swept. I could only guess the local government handled the cleaning to keep the place somewhat presentable.

Overall, they failed.

I regarded the place with disdain, tapping my foot while Bradley, Mickey, and Beatrice joined me.

“I’m not sure I appreciate the vibe of this place,” my fiancé admitted.

Mickey snorted. “I’m expecting a serial killer to emerge from around the corner at any moment.”

“Yeah. That’s the vibe I don’t appreciate.”

Then, because they could, the pair settled in to discuss which fictional, historic, and contemporary serial killers might best fit the location. Heaving a pained sigh, I stared at my best bitch. “Remind me why we put up with them again?”

“The sex.”

Damn. I considered Bradley, shrugged, and dared to step closer to our target. Within a minute, I regretted my decision.

Where there were sparks there could be fire, and the last place I wanted to be was near a gas station with a faulty wire ready to detonate the whole thing. Without the wires leading into the storage center, which appeared to have started its life as a small office building, the security company had forgone monitoring the place.

I pointed at it, disgusted with the entire situation.

“This place is one massive safety violation.” Beatrice clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Mr. Hampton? You might want to come look at this.”

Bradley’s father approached, and he joined me in expressing his general disgust with the situation. “All right. This will make the illusionists’ job much easier. We won’t even have to concoct much of a story for this. We’ll just rig a gas tanker sprouting a leak and repairing it in the lot, blow this joint, and leave. This won’t be hard to cover at all.”

According to Zachariah, we had three hours to get everything done before we would need to renew the illusions shrouding the place, which would be a tricky process while attempting to also maintain the illusions preventing anyone from observing our activities.

Heaving a pained sigh, I regarded Bradley’s father, hoping he understood the whole situation hurt my feelings.

“We’ll take you out for Chinese tomorrow to make up for the damage to your delicate sensibilities. You just had Indian, so it’s time for you to circle back to your first spicy love. Don’t play with the live wires, thank you for letting us know you found them, and focus on gaining access to the building. From the looks of it, nobody is monitoring anything here, and if they were, the illusions will cover us. We haven’t found a security system yet that is capable of blocking the magic now that we’ve figured out how it works.”

Understanding the military’s illusion tricks would be enough to get us all killed or imprisoned, and I had no interest in anyone discovering we understood how the government operated.

While Bradley’s father returned to checking the gas station tanks to see if there was any old fuel still within them, I headed for the doors with Beatrice and one of the security specialists with a hobby for breaking into places she shouldn’t go.

I loved Gabby, and I wanted to be like her if I ever tired of working as a librarian.

“What do you think, Gabby?” I asked as we approached the door.

The woman regarded the building with a wrinkled nose. “My picks are offended we’re even having to do this. It might even be unlocked from where people came to loot and just discovered a bunch of old papers in a box.”

Ugh. I hadn’t thought about the possibility of looters entering the place to see what they could find. “Would thieves leave boxes of papers alone?”

“Generally, yes. Unless they came in knowing what the papers are for, they’d leave, as papers don’t translate to easy cash.” Gabby put on a pair of leather gloves that had been stripped of all skin oils and potential prints, clearing her throat until we did the same.

As she possessed the right sort of magic to safeguard us, she cleaned our gloves again before taking hold of the knob and twisting.

The door opened.

I wilted, as breaking into the building counted as one of the more entertaining portions of the trip.

“We can break into your mother-in-law’s safe next week,” Gabby promised. “She bought some presents for you to wear on the cruise, so we can steal them and admire how they sparkle.”

Before being hired by Bradley’s father, the woman had dealt with some rather severe kleptomania, something the security company contained through allowed thefts, including one of the safes Bradley’s mother owned. To keep Gabby on her toes, that safe was replaced frequently with the newest and the best.