Thomas (Erotic Romance) Book 2 (The MacKenzie Brothers Quartet) by Liliana Hart

 
     
    Chapter One
     
     
    Cat Randolph was a thief. A damned good one.
    Her marks—a Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Bixby—were out for the evening, which was why she’d picked tonight to divest them of an artifact worth several million dollars. The Mayan mask was made of solid gold, and the percentage she got from this acquisition would add a very nice chunk of change to her retirement nest egg.
    The darkness surrounded her as she used the shadows to reach the Bixby’s Hollywood Hills mansion. The pack on her back was light and unobtrusive, and the black spandex jumpsuit she wore clung to her body and allowed her movements to be fluid. A stocking cap covered her flame colored hair and thin black gloves protected her hands.
    One of the streetlights in front of the palm-tree-lined, stone fence that enclosed the mansion had mysteriously gone out— careless of the security team if you asked her —and she counted the seconds off in her head as she made one last scan of the street. She was all alone. Perfect.
    She climbed up a fat tree with the skill of a monkey and crawled out to the end of a sturdy branch. Timing was everything. If she landed on the other side of the massive stone fence at the wrong moment, she’d trip the infrared sensors and set off the alarms. She looked at her watch and set her timer. She knew every quirk of the Bixby’s alarm system. She’d made it her business to know.
    The seconds ticked off in her head, and with a quick prayer, she leaped soundlessly to the ground below, landing in a crouch. She didn’t have time to waste. The sensors that scanned the ground never came close to the trees. It was a weakness she’d noticed immediately when she’d studied the schematics of the system.
    She sprinted from one tree to the next, keeping to the shadows, until she was pressed against the side of the house. Her breathing was steady and her pulse was only slightly elevated because of the adrenaline rush breaking and entering gave her. The large, stained glass window the Bixby’s had installed in their bathroom was the only one in the house that wasn’t wired for security. Mrs. Bixby hadn’t wanted to ruin the design.
    Cat took duct tape out of her bag and taped a square large enough for her body to squeeze through in the middle of the window. She grabbed the glass cutter and had the piece removed and set aside in less than two minutes.
    The bathroom was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly. She peaked into the empty hallway, listening for the creaks of floorboards or the tap of shoes. The house was silent as she followed the blueprints in her mind and crept down a long corridor toward the art gallery. She had seven minutes until the guards on duty made their rotation. Seven minutes to get in and get out.
    The small electronic device in her pocket would take care of the cameras and put them on a constant loop. Getting past the infrared beams sweeping the floor would be the tricky part.
    Her thumb rested on the timer of her watch and she counted the seconds in her head. She started her watch, cut off the cameras, and began the dance and sway across the floor of the gallery, avoiding the sweeping beams of red. She didn’t stop to admire the mask when she had it in her hands, but instead tucked it into her bag and made her way back out the way she’d come.
    She didn’t hit the stop button on her watch until she was safely back outside the bathroom window. 4:58 . She’d heard the heavy footsteps of one of the guards just as she’d closed herself back in the bathroom. He was two minutes early. Shit . Cat sprinted towards the copse of trees at the perimeter of the property just as the alarms sounded.
    Floodlights blinded her, and masculine shouts to stop drowned out the blood rushing in her ears. Gunshots had her ducking instinctively as she found the darkened street light. She scrambled up a tree and over the fence the same way she’d entered, and she was just about to drop to the ground below when another