Page 127 of The Prize

Tobias set to work on the door. A trickle of sweat stained the back of his shirt but other than that he continued to exude the calmness I knew him for. Even after that threatening shot from Burell’s gun Tobias was self-assured. Waiting for him to decipher the combination to the large chrome door felt like a lifetime.

He stuck a small flat square against the keypad and threw me a smile. “How are you doing?”

“You’re wearing a wire?”

He lowered his voice. “Coops is recording everything. Just in case.”

“Not the feds?”

Tobias looked amused. “No. They’d slow us down.” He nodded to the room. “The GPS is pinging from in here. This is it.”

I wanted him to open the door right now.

No, that was a lie, I didn’t want him to open the door, because if my paintings weren’t in there we’d risked our lives for nothing. And I loved this man with all my heart and nearly lost him—

“Zara?” Tobias had gone on and was standing inside the open doorway and he was holding his hand out to me.

My heart sensed them before I even turned the corner, this invisible thread tugging me ever closer to those paintings.

Here now, seeing them again for the first time in years I comprehended their profoundness, their sheer existence validating everything Tobias had told me.

As I pivoted around and around, my gaze found each painting, each masterpiece: the Degas, the Rembrandt, the Picasso and more, like old friends from my past. These were the paintings my family had risked their lives to save, the paintings my father had given up on to protect me. The paintings that deserved to be enjoyed by many. Over there was our fakeMona Lisahanging on the wall and staring back with her subtle smile as though approving of us having used her to find this lost treasure.

There were other paintings here too.

My soul sang out when I set eyes on the others stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, their Rembrandt, a Vermeer, a Manet and sketches by Degas.

“There’s too many,” I realized.

“Help me stack them.” Tobias snapped the order. “Take them off the wall and rest them against it. Line them up ready. Hurry, Zara.”

There was the delicate Renoir that Daddy had kept in his office...She reminds me of you, little one, he’d once told me.

“Zara!”

I rose out of my daydreaming and tried to fathom how Tobias was going to get them out of here.

“Coops,” Tobias spoke into his watch. “This is our location. Send in the drones.”

From here I could see the text appear on Wilder’s watch in reply, and Tobias’s nod confirmed Coops had gotten the message.

With all the paintings secured at one end of the room, I watched Tobias head over to another door. He turned to me. “We have about ten minutes when I cut the power.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Open the door. We’ll secure two paintings to each drone.”

I wondered how strong the drones were for this feat and then remembered they could manage someone of Wilder’s weight or mine.

“This is insane.” I couldn’t help but say it. “The guards will see the paintings on the security cameras.”

“I’m cutting the power. I’ve got a security breach set for the Egyptian exhibit. That’ll keep them busy. The police will be notified of the alarm and will respond all the way at the other end. We’ll be cutting it tight. Coops is ready to receive the paintings and stack them in the back of the van.”

“Burell didn’t call the police on us?”

“He’s probably heading for his plane. That shit I have on him will put him away for life.”

“Tobias.” I looked at him with awe.