Page 120

Right.She’d dropped that name. But he seemed to have calmed down so, “She’s—”What could it hurt?“My sister. Nimue. She’s a computer hacker in the deep web. She lives in Florida.”
“Is she a Swan?”
“No.” She fell into step behind him. Clearly he’d decided to be in charge. “She just helps me out when I need it.”
“How’d you become a Swan?”
Oh.“I got recruited.”
“Out of jail?”
“Ha, ha, but... let’s say that I had a small reputation for... my ability to get in and out of locations without being seen.”
“Like what, bank vaults?”
“Have you ever heard of the Scepter of Charles V of Spain?”
“I’ve never even heard of Charles V of Spain. Why?”
“No reason. Just...”
He stopped, and she nearly bumped into him as he rounded. “Did you steal it?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. I mean, technically yes, but I was caught. Although not by the police.”
“You stole a national treasure? From where?”
“The royal palace in Madrid. But again, they got it back. Sheesh.”
“How?”
“Oh, I’ll never tell all my secrets.” She smiled.
His eyes narrowed.
“Fine. It involved a month of surveillance, a detailed 3D map, Nim’s hacking abilities, and a trial run to test their system.”
He turned back around and kept moving. “I’m going to need more.”
“Fine. But this stays between us.”
“What happens in the mines of Moria stays in the mines of Moria.”
“Thank you, Gandalf.”
He laughed then, and maybe they were okay. She could just forget that she still wanted to reach out, stop him, and?—
Nope.
“So, I pulled off the job during the Fiesta de San Isidro. It was chaos in the city, and I knew the palace would be understaffed.”
“Smart.”
“Thanks. Nim disabled the security, and I jammed the electronic feed from the scepter’s display to a separate security sensor. I was in costume, thanks to the fiesta, so I just switched out the scepter with a replica. And then I walked out the staff door, which I’d already stolen the code for. Blended into the crowd. Bam. The hard part wasn’t the theft—it was the fence. Is that light ahead?”
He turned off his flashlight. The softest ribbon of light bled into the tunnel. He flicked the flashlight back on. “I have the overwhelming urge to weep.”
She laughed.