Controlled (Gretel Koch Jewel Thief Book 2) Read online

  Marty rolled his eyes.

  “What's the matter now?”

  “I shouldn't have let you talk me out of taking the car. We’re supposed to be following that man, that's why I've got the tracker on his car. Now this way we'll have to do the next best thing.”

  “And what's that?” She followed him along the street to a parked car.

  He jimmied the driver’s side door and then popped the lock. “Hop in, it's open.”

  “We can't take –”

  “Get in,” Marty yelled.

  Gretel turned to see if anyone was watching and when she saw movement at the door of the building, she jumped in the passenger seat.

  Marty zoomed away and then threw his head back and laughed. “It’s been so long since I’ve done this.”

  “Yes and for good reason. As soon as someone sees their car has been stolen, they’ll call the cops.”

  “You can flash your badge at them if we’re stopped.”

  “I don't have a badge.”

  “Why not? I would insist they give me a badge.”

  “The subject of a badge never came up. What are we going to do now? We’ll have the cops on our tail soon. We don’t have to physically follow the car since it’s got the tracker. Stop, Marty!” Gretel screeched.

  Marty slowed down and stopped on the side of the road. “I guess you’re right. Kent can tell us where he’s going.”

  Gretel was relieved. “Let’s get far away from this car. Don’t leave anything behind and wipe your prints.”

  “Hey, this ain’t my first rodeo.” As he wiped down the steering wheel, Gretel was getting out of the car. “Are you going to steal that diamond?”

  “I'm going to fake steal it to get my sister back.”

  “Yes, but what if you were to steal it for real? Steal the real one for real.”

  “Don't tempt me, Satan.”

  He got out of the car and slammed the door shut and preceded to wipe down the door. “I've been called worse.”

  “I'm sure you have.” Gretel walked away from the car. When Marty was done, he followed.

  “If we stole this one, we’d never have to steal anything again.”

  She faced him. “We?”

  “Well, you with me helping, as always. Get the old team back doing something useful.”

  Gretel walked onward and said over her shoulder, “As tempting as that might be, you’re forgetting Hazel. What happens to her in your grand plans?”

  “What if we could get your sister back, keep the diamond, and fool the FBI into thinking someone else stole it?”

  Gretel stood still and then turned around to face him with adrenaline coursing through her veins. For the past few days, she’d been thinking about a scenario such as that. Now that Marty believed it was possible too, it suddenly seemed more likely.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Gretel turned to Marty. “Do you really think it’s possible?”

  Marty laughed. “The tables have turned. You’re usually trying to convince me to do weird and wonderful things ... like, for instance, break you out of jail via helicopter.”

  “Yes, well, it’s not as though you don’t do things like that every day.”

  Marty sighed as they walked along the sidewalk in front of some factories. “That’s the kind of life I live.”

  “Exactly my point. So, my question is, do you think it’s really plausible, considering how much security is surrounding it?”

  “You’ve been handed the golden ticket. Like in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.”

  “You mean because I’m on the security team?” Gretel asked.

  “Yes. Hello?” He knocked on her head. “Anyone home?”

  She swiped at him. “Stop it. I know what you’re saying, but at the same time, that’ll make me come under more scrutiny when something happens.”

  “It means you’ll have to cover your tracks well, yes. It’s not, not doable.”

  Gretel frowned at the odd phrasing of his comment, deciphering it while Marty stepped onto the road whistling at a taxi and waving both hands in the air.

  Gretel covered her ears, and then hurried to jump in the vehicle that had stopped on the road. As the taxi moved on, Gretel turned to look back at the car Marty had stolen. The police were already there. She dug Marty in the ribs and he turned to look. Then he turned around with a smug grin pulling at his lips. He wasn’t bothered by the close call one little bit. Yet, the day before, he’d warned her not to go back into Monica’s apartment.

  When they got back to Marty’s car, they sat in it and talked. Gretel broached the subject of what he'd just done. “Why did you take that risk just now? You could’ve jeopardized everything if we’d been caught.”

  “I’m sorry, Gretel. It was a moment of madness.” He patted his baldhead. “I was letting my hair down. Midlife crisis.”

  “We can’t afford for you to do that. I can’t afford for you to do that. I’m not going back to prison. Those girls will kill me for sure, the moment I step a foot back there.”

  “I know.” He sighed as though he was bored. “I heard all about your stories of horror.”

  “They weren’t stories, they were true.”

  Gretel’s cell phone beeped.

  It was Kent.

  “I’m sorry, Gretel, but Tony Alfretti’s just gone to his home address. I’ve had it checked out. He’s there alone.”

  Gretel sighed. “Thanks for trying, Kent.”

  “He might be involved,” Marty said loud enough for Kent to hear.

  “I know he might, but we’re running out of time.”

  Gretel said, “If he doesn’t lead us to Hazel tonight, we’ve got nothing. I sure hope the FBI has located her by now and have a plan.”

  “Nope,” Kent said.

  “They don’t?” Gretel asked.

  “No, Gretel. Nothing that they’ve put into place on their computers.”

  Marty said, “Everything hinges on you tomorrow, Gretel.”

  “Thanks, Kent.”

  “Have you had any more thoughts about that Star Wars movie, Gretel?”

  “The new one?” Marty asked. “Is it out yet?”

  “Soon. Want to see it with me?” Kent asked Marty.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Good. I’ll be busy that day. Bye, Kent.” Gretel ended the call, and then said to Marty, “We’ll talk soon.”

  Gretel left him and walked back to her apartment.

  There’d been no time to plan for her to steal the diamond for real. All that mattered anyway was getting her sister back alive and well.

  The day of the fake robbery arrived. Gretel didn't feel the usual adrenaline pulses that she felt when she was preparing to steal something for real. There was no real excitement buzzing in her body, only fear and dread that a mistake would be made that would lead to Hazel’s murder in cold blood.

  By now, the whole robbery had been arranged and orchestrated with the help of the auction house in conjunction with the FBI.

  Gretel knew exactly what she was doing and the whole thing was more like a dance than a robbery. She was playing a part in a play and knew her role. It wasn't even possible that anything could go wrong.

  The only thing that could go wrong was after the robbery when she had to swap the diamond for Hazel.

  That was when the scary part would start.

  Of course they were going to check the diamond first and the SWAT team would have to save Hazel before those men checked the diamond.

  As soon as she called those men to tell them she had the Purple Promise they would move Hazel into place. And then she had to play the biggest role of her life. The biggest bluff of her life. She could do it, she had to.

  She got to the auction house at two in the morning after changing taxis three times along the way.

  In through the first-floor window, and up into the air conditioning shaft she went, and up from there into the ductwork beneath the roof. Then she pulled her body along the narrow space with
only inches to spare.

  She reached the area where the auction house’s vault was. Gretel pulled off one of the ceiling panels, and then lowered herself to the floor.

  Wasting no time, she quickly covered the motion detector with an aluminum sheet attached with double-sided tape. No alarms had gone off and that meant the hairspray Jack had gotten someone to spray the day before had worked.

  Dummy tapes had been installed, playing the ones from two nights ago for the security guards on watch who weren’t in on the plan.

  She looked around the small white room. There were at least one hundred boxes of varying sizes. The Purple Promise—the fake one—was in Box 89. She walked toward it taking out her lock picking tools.

  She smiled when the box clicked open. Everything was going to plan.

  When she heard a loud noise behind her, she spun around.

  He’d jumped down from the ceiling. He’d followed her.

  There, looming in front of her and staring down, was Ryan Castle.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “I knew you had to be involved in this somehow.” Her words were spat in anger.

  “What's that you've got there?” His eyes zeroed on Box 89.

  “It's the Purple Promise. You can have it as long as I get Hazel back.”

  “I'm not an idiot, Gretel. I know you've told your… what exactly is Jack to you? Kissing boss, kind of like a kissing cousin? It’s a pretty cozy situation. He’s at your house every other night.”

  “Just take the diamond, let Hazel go, and get out of my life.”

  Ryan threw his head back and laughed. “I know for a fact that the Purple Promise isn't in the box you just opened.” He looked all around. “But it is in one of these other boxes.” He looked back at Gretel and grinned showing his perfect white teeth, too perfect for a man with a heart as black as his. “What do you say we go halves?”

  “Don't be ridiculous. I'm not doing that anymore.”

  “Is that so? Yet, here you are.”

  She couldn't argue with that. “I was forced to steal because of Hazel.”

  “Once a bad apple, always a bad apple.”

  “You sure you haven't met my mother?”

  “Let's start opening these boxes. All of them. Unless you know which one is housing the real Purple Promise.”

  “It’s this one.” She pulled out the beautifully carved wooden box containing the fake.

  “I’m not an idiot.” He grabbed the jewel box housing the replica stone, and pushed it back into Box 89 and closed it. “Find me the real one, Gretel. I’ve got as long as you want, but unfortunately, your sister doesn’t. If I were you, I’d hurry it up.”

  “If you want them opened, why don't you open them? I'm sure they would be easy to open with a crowbar or something. The locks don’t need to be picked.”

  He sat down on the floor. “Why bark when you have a dog?”

  “I'll have to get out of here—I've only got a few minutes before they discover they’re watching last night’s footage.” She pointed to the white security camera in the corner.

  “Well, I suggest you better start opening those boxes.”

  He reached behind him and unhooked something from his belt, something black and made of fabric, and he threw it at her. “Here, fill this.” She picked it up off the floor. It was a black bag.

  “Or what?”

  He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “Or your sister gets shot in the head.”

  He said it in exactly the same voice as the man who had called her.

  Gretel set about working. The first two boxes she opened were empty. She could sense Ryan's growing frustration. Then she moved to the opposite side and the first one she opened contained a large diamond necklace. Gretel took a second to admire the old mine cut diamonds, dangling like rain droplets suspended from the sky. She dropped it into the bag. The next box she opened held a large ruby the size of a hen’s egg. It looked like it might have come out of the Indian crown jewels. It was breathtaking. She could feel the history surrounding it. That too went into the bag.

  “Move along, Gretel.”

  She turned around to look at him. “It would be quicker if you helped.”

  “No it wouldn't because we're going to close those boxes and they won't know anything is missing. How much time have we got?”

  She glanced at a wristwatch. “Ten more minutes and then we have to go.”

  “Keep moving, fill up the bag as much as you can. If you don’t find the Purple Promise, your sister is dead. Don’t think I’m joking.”

  The next box she opened held a highly polished wooden box, similar to the one from Box 89. She opened it and couldn't believe her eyes. She was equally pleased and devastated. Ryan would win again. He’d outsmarted and outwitted her once more.

  She was holding the Purple Promise in her hands, and it was too late to pretend the box was empty. “Just a few small diamonds,” she said as she pushed it into the bag.

  He immediately jumped up and grabbed the bag from her, retrieved the box and looked inside it. Then he snapped the wooden box shut. “You’re a dreadful liar. That's all we need. Let's get out of here.”

  Wanting him to get arrested she said, “That's not very smart. You know that's going to be hard to move. Why don’t we leave it here and take the rest of the goods?”

  “No.” He looked above him at the ceiling. “Now what did you plan as a way to get out of here?”

  “The way I came in.”

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  She removed a wire rope from around her waist. It had a small grappling hook on one end and a mechanism that worked like a winch attached near the other. “I’ll show you.” She threw it up and it hooked on the metal frame of the ceiling-access. Once she was up, and the bag of jewels with her, she pulled her legs up and over the edge of the ceiling opening and ducked into the void.

  “Okay that's good, Gretel, now throw it down for me.”

  “Bye-bye, Ryan Castle.”

  “Stop, Gretel. If they don't get a call from me in a certain time they have orders to kill Hazel.”

  She couldn’t risk it. There was a chance he was telling the truth. She sent the rope back down. “I was gonna do that all the time. I just wanted you to sweat a little bit.”

  He grabbed the end of the rope. “Will this hold me?”

  “Yes, but you’ve got to lift your legs into the ceiling, the same way as I did.”

  This wasn't unfolding as she hoped or planned. Ryan would now be in possession of over 50 million dollars' worth of other people’s jewels. They couldn’t have planned for this happening.

  As soon as he got up into the roof with her, he grabbed the bag. There was nothing she could do about it.

  “You've got the diamond, now what’s going to happen?”

  “I’ll wait until I'm out of here, free and clear. Then I'll make the call for them to release your sister.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “Yes. Now lead the way out of here.”

  By now Jack would know something had gone wrong. She was supposed to have called him over five minutes ago, but she couldn't call him in front of Ryan.

  “I remember the rest of the way. I’m going first.” Ryan slid along the ceiling and made his way to the room where Gretel had originally broken into. Ryan, holding tightly to his bag of jewels, dropped down first.

  Gretel heard a scuffle. She looked down to see a SWAT team with guns trained on him.

  Gretel desperately hoped they knew she was innocent. What if they thought she was genuinely trying to steal the diamond in partnership with Ryan?

  Ryan said to them, “Know what I got in here?” He held up the bag and threw it into the air. He used the momentary distraction to get the gun off one of the men and just as quickly had the man around the throat, had prised off his helmet and was now using him as a hostage. She was amazed at Ryan's skill. He had to have been trained in some sort of warfare or specialized combat to be able to overpow
er a man in an armored suit.

  Then Ryan was gone. One of the men caught sight of her. “Come down with your arms up.”

  A gun was pointed at her.

  “I’m not armed,” Gretel said. “I’m Gretel Koch, working with the FBI.”

  “Come down with your arms up.” There was no sign he'd even heard what she'd said.

  She dropped to the floor, landing on her feet, and then another yelled at her to put her hands behind her head. She did as told, and heard one of them speak into a mouthpiece. “We've got one of them, female.”

  “She's one of us,” she heard the other voice say. “Stay with her until I get there.”

  It was hard to tell, but she thought the voice was Jack's.

  “That man who ran out of here just now—he's holding my sister hostage. Don’t kill him. He needs to tell you where she is. Did he get away?”

  No one told her anything. They were silent. She sobbed. They thought she was a criminal, and what would become of Hazel?

  When she heard machine gun rounds being fired, Gretel covered her ears. The man ran out and left her alone.

  Gretel collapsed to the floor, sitting there and sobbing. It seemed as though they’d killed Ryan and now she’d never know what happened to her sister. The rest of the gang would hear about what happened to him and what use would they have for Hazel?

  None.

  Soon, she felt arms around her.

  She opened her eyes.

  It was Jack, on his knees beside her.

  “Hazel?” she asked.

  “We’ve got her. She’s safe in the hospital getting checked over.”

  Relief washed over Gretel and she put her head against his shoulder and sobbed anew. After a couple of moments, she looked up at him. “Ryan Castle?”

  “He … unbelievably, he slipped through our fingers.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  He swallowed hard. “I'm sorry but it is. He was seen clutching a black bag of sorts. Tell me he didn’t have the Purple Promise in that bag. We’ll be in a lot of trouble. And, it’ll be hard for me to convince them you didn’t play a part.”