Page 41 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
Chapter 7: The Unraveling
Saturday
“Look at us,” Aurora teased, glancing around the cozy round table where she, A.J., and Aaron were seated. “Playing in the same sandbox, and nobody’s died.” They’d ordered Asian takeout for dinner and were engaged in a lively round of Uno. The trash talk was loud and thick. She seriously couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun.
“Nobody’s died…yet,” A.J. taunted, raising a single eyebrow in a way that never failed to make her heart race.
“Don’t,” she begged in a breathy voice, but his hand was already coming down on the play pile. It was another Draw Four. “Noooooo,” she groaned. “Not again!”
His eyes glinted wickedly at her. “You’d be bored out of your mind if we rolled over and let you win, darling.”
“But we’ll never know, will we? Because you two are constantly ganging up on me!” She mock-glared at him as she drew her four cards. It was hard to keep her glare intact, though, after looking at whatshe’d drawn—two Draw Two cards, a Wild card, and a Reverse. As hard as it was, she forced herself to keep glaring, not wanting them to guess how lucky she’d gotten. They’d probably accuse her of cheating since she’d dealt the last round.
Even though I’m innocent.
When it was her turn, she mechanically played her Reverse card to put her in a position to pay A.J. back for his meanness.
“Cheer up,” her brother drawled. “It’s only a game…that you’re losing,” he crowed in a louder voice, slapping a Draw Two down on the stack.
She wrinkled her nose in dismay. “Again?” Yeah, they were totally ganging up on her, two guys making an Aurora sandwich by smashing her between them. “You’re no fun.”
Aaron quirked his eyebrows at her. “That’s rich coming from the woman who stomped all over my soul during the last round.”
She supposed she’d gotten a teensy bit excited when she’d finally won. And a teensy bit loud. Okay, she’d gotten pretty loud, but only because it was two against one, making her win feel all the sweeter.
“Uno,” A.J. announced in a rubbing-it-in volume. He won on his next turn.
“You’re the only friend I have left,” Aurora crooned to Bandit, ducking her head to bring them eye level.
Grinning, her brother coughed out the words, “Sore loser,” into his hand.
“Yep! My only friend,” she repeated to Bandit. The sweet cat was sitting on the empty chair between her and A.J., watching the game with interest. Every so often, he’d slowly stretch out a paw toward the discard pile, as if plotting to steal a card. He wasn’t paying much attention to her.
While Aaron shuffled the cards, she wastempted to tell him to deal Bandit into the next round just to see what he would do. Knowing him, he’d abscond with a card or two to add to his stash beneath his bed.
Leaving me alone again. Wallowing in self-pity, Aurora allowed her brain to wander while her brother dealt each of them their next hand of cards.
Aurora was a whizz at math, so she could easily calculate the odds of each play based on the cards she’d been dealt. However, there was no way to anticipate the luck of the draw, so there was no way to control the outcome.
Control the outcome.She repeated the words inside her head. “That’s it,” she blurted. That was what it felt like every time she looked at the map of red dots A.J. was keeping updated. Someone was stacking the deck, so to speak, so they could control the outcome. There was no other way to explain such precisely coordinated clusters of jewelry heists in the towns where she and her brother lived and worked.
“Aw, have you had enough?” A.J. played a Reverse card before she could pound him with the pair of Draw Two cards she’d been saving for him.
Good grief!There wasn’t enough room in her hand to hold many more cards. “Actually, I was referring to the burglaries that follow us around the country.” She hated spoiling their game night with talk of work, but the theory simmering in her brain felt like it was worth sharing. “They’re too precise, too deliberate to be anything other than premeditated. And if they’re premeditated, then someone is running the operation. Or several someones.”
The two men studied her with mixed degrees of concern and fascination.
A.J. laid his cards face down to give her his full attention. “Did you come up with this theory while playing Uno?”
“More like losing at Uno,” her brother jeered.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “The clusters of heists feel like stacking the deck, but on a much bigger level. Whoever is behind it isn’t just breaking into stores and helping themselves to merchandise, either. They’re on retrieval missions. They’re targeting specific stores and specific items. And as much as I hate to admit this, logic says they’re connected to us. I don’t know how, but they are.”
Aaron nodded gravely. “It’s already happening again right here in Heart Lake. First, the pawnshop. Then the bee farm. Then the antique store.” The owners of the antique store had determined that a pair of kerosene lamps had been taken. Old lamps that weren’t for sale because the owner’s mother had picked them up secondhand and kept them on the mantle over the fireplace in her office until the day she’d died. In addition to the broken shards of lamp bases, the owners had recovered a third strip of barbed wire.
“It’s definitely happening again,” Aurora agreed. “But why? Why does it only happen when we’re in town?” She was grateful to have A.J. present, adding his brainpower to theirs. After their uncle’s refusal to discuss bringing him on board, she and Aaron had ultimately decided to bring A.J. unofficially on board.
His expression grew calculating. “It’s almost like you and Aaron are serving as the advance party to the operation.”
