Page 18 of The Diamond Thief
8
Jade
Ifeel cut off from the world. I can’t talk to Sabrina or I might endanger her. I have to avoid my own apartment in case Jacob has figured out who I am. I can’t go to the Den and speak with any of the other thieves. Jacob could go there and recognize me.
I’ve stayed holed up in a hotel room in Queens. I sent the tiaras to my usual safe, but it was trickier deciding what to do with the swords. Whoever had them couldn’t know what they were, but they had to treat them like the most valuable thing they owned.
I finally decided on a friend who owns a pawn shop with a side business handling stolen goods.
She’s not part of the Den network, so Jacob Holt shouldn’t know about her. She’s small-time. I told her the swords were important for their historical value. She has a safe in her store, and I can only hope that they are okay there, and no one among Jacob’s allies figures out where they are and involve her in this.
For five days I haven’t left my hotel room. I have to subsist on what cash I have on me, afraid to touch any of my accounts. I’m paranoid beyond belief that I’m being watched.
But on the sixth day after my theft from Jacob Holt, I begin to relax. He doesn’t know where I am, or he would’ve found me by now. It’s possible he doesn’t even knowwhoI am.
In fact, maybe he hasn’t been into his vault to even notice the swords are gone.
I start to breathe again.
I venture out into the world and buy a new burner phone from a guy on a street corner. I call my friend Elena from the Den. She trained during the same period that I did, and her area of interest is gold. There isn’t a brick in this country that she doesn’t track.
Since tiaras rarely use enough gold to interest her, we never cross on jobs and never have to compete. So we became friends.
I sit in the far corner of an ordinary deli and dial her.
Elena picks up with suspicion. We all do when we are called unexpectedly.
“Who is this?”
“Elena, it’s Marissa.”
“Where the hell have you been? The Den is a bore without you. All those asshole men preening like peacocks as if none of us ever did a job as big as their dicks.”
Elena makes me laugh. She also just told me a lot. One, no one is asking around the Den for me, at least not obviously enough that she would hear.
I can relax.
“I’ve been keeping a low profile,” I say to her.
“You should come on down,” she says. “I’ve heard that Elliott Gill is going to give us a fresh list of upcoming jobs. One’s a transit. Armored cars are like a convenience store for thieves.”
She isn’t wrong.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” I say, “but I’m a little anxious about being at the Den since I had a run-in with someone.”
“Oh, dish!” she says. “That jerk Robert has been talking smack about some female thief, and I wondered who had gotten under his craw. Was it you?”
I consider my answer. This might be a good way of staying away from the Den without alerting Elena to anything that might get her in trouble later. “I never was a fan of Robert,” I say. That’s the truth, at least.
“No one is,” she says. “The Den won’t be very fun without you if you’re avoiding him.”
“I just did a heist,” I say. “I might take a little time off before I train up on another.”
“Oh no, you totally want in on Elliott’s scheme. Six tiaras. One very rare. First time on tour.”
My skin prickles. “Which one?”
“I don’t know my crowns, but he mentioned the Fife tiara? Is that a good one?”
