Chapter 660 | Showtime

Chapter 660: 660 | Showtime

I crossed the roof toward her and stopped at the edge, about fifteen feet away. The alley between us was dark and narrow, and a cat was picking through a dumpster somewhere below.

"Last time you checked, I caught you with your hand in Kask’s safe."

"You caught me in a compromising position, and then you let me go, which means you’re either an idiot or you have an agenda." She tilted her head. "You don’t strike me as an idiot."

"High praise from a woman who left gum in a door latch."

Her face went red behind the mask. Even in the dark, I could see the flush spreading down her neck and into the neckline of her suit.

"That was tactical."

"It was sloppy."

"It was a backup in case the primary entry point failed, and the primary entry point did not fail, so the gum was never relevant, and I don’t know why everyone keeps bringing up the gum!" Her voice had climbed about half an octave, and her fangs were pressing into her lower lip hard enough to leave marks. "The gum is not the point of tonight!"

"What is the point of tonight?"

She took a breath. Then another. Her shoulders dropped, and when she spoke again, her voice was steadier.

"Socorro Vega worked at Lin’s for six years before her back gave out. She used to wear a jade hairpin every day, tucked into her bun, and she said her grandmother gave it to her on her wedding day." Lamia stepped to the edge of the fire escape, close enough that I could see the green of her eyes in the dim light. "Her daughter Rosa pawned it three months ago to pay for a new phone because her old one broke and she needed it for work. Kask gave her forty dollars. He put it in his window for eight hundred."

"I know. Dralun told me."

Her face went through about seven different expressions in two seconds. "Dralun told you?"

"He also told me that if I get you killed, he’ll hold me personally responsible in ways the Commission doesn’t have paperwork for."

"He said that? About me?"

"He said that about you."

Lamia looked away. Her hands gripped the railing of the fire escape hard enough to make her knuckles pale, and her throat moved when she swallowed.

"He’s not supposed to care about me. I’m a criminal. He’s supposed to arrest me."

"I don’t think Dralun operates the way he’s supposed to."

"Nobody on this block operates the way they’re supposed to." She laughed, short and sharp and a little wet. "That’s kind of the whole point of the Eastside."

A clock somewhere in the distance struck midnight. The sound drifted across the rooftops, low and resonant, and Lamia straightened up like someone had pulled a string attached to her spine.

"Showtime." She pulled the domino mask tighter against her face and cracked her neck once, twice. "Kask’s shop is four blocks south. He keeps the hairpin in a display case in the front window, second shelf from the top, between a jade Buddha and a pearl necklace that’s probably fake."

"Security?"

"Basic alarm on the doors and windows. No motion sensors because he’s too cheap. One camera above the register that doesn’t cover the display case." She grinned, and her fangs caught the light. "I’ve been casing this place for three weeks. Tonight, I’m not going to trip a single wire."

"And what’s my role?"

"You’re my backup." She stepped off the fire escape and landed on the roof of the adjacent building, her frictionless field absorbing the impact like she’d stepped off a curb. "If something goes wrong, you grab me with those ghost arms of yours and you get us both out. If nothing goes wrong, you watch me work and you learn something."

I crossed the alley in one jump and landed beside her. She was shorter than I remembered, the top of her head barely reaching my chin, and she smelled like strawberry lip gloss and the sharp chemical scent of neoprene.

"What if I’m the one who sees something you don’t?"

"Then you tell me, and I’ll listen, and if you’re wrong I’ll never let you forget it." She started moving south across the rooftops, her body flowing over obstacles like water over rocks. "Try to keep up, golden boy."

I kept up.

Four blocks passed in a blur of jumps and landings and the quiet crunch of gravel under steel-capped boots. Lamia moved differently when she was working. The theatrical femme fatale disappeared, replaced by something leaner and sharper, a girl who had learned every angle of these rooftops through years of practice and desperation.

Kask’s pawn shop sat on the corner of Rourke and Fifth, a squat brick building with iron bars over the windows and a neon sign that buzzed and flickered. The display case Lamia had mentioned was visible through the front window, lit by a single spotlight that made the jade Buddha glow green.

"Entry point is the roof access door. Lock’s a standard pin tumbler, and I’ve got a rake that’ll open it in under thirty seconds." She crouched at the edge of the building across the street, and I crouched beside her. "Once I’m inside, I go down the stairs, through the storage room, and into the shop. Display case has a simple latch, no electronic lock. I grab the hairpin, I leave, and Kask never knows I was there."

"What about the camera?"

"Doesn’t cover the display case. I checked three times."

"What about the reflection in the window?"

She stopped. Her head turned toward me slowly.

"What reflection?"

I pointed. The spotlight above the display case was angled to illuminate the merchandise, but the light bounced off the glass front of the case and hit the window behind it. The window, in turn, reflected that light back toward the camera above the register.

"If you stand in front of that case, your silhouette will be visible in the reflection. The camera won’t see you directly, but it’ll see your shadow."