A/N - Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this story. Sorry about that. Can't promise I won't do it again though. My fanfiction loyalties are now divided between 'Leverage' and 'Bones'. If there are any 'Bones' fans reading this, please check out my one-shot series 'Learning to Fall', and tell me what you think. And now, back to Eleanor Spencer.
Chapter Three – Too Many Thieves
The doctor insisted on accompanying them, and Eleanor couldn't think of a good reason to refuse. She helped Impostor Bioko to his feet while her thoughts raced ahead, rewriting her plan to account for the new elements. "Don't overdo it," she growled in his ear as he leaned on her theatrically.
"Just selling the part," he whispered. His real accent was from the slums of New York.
She gritted her teeth but didn't say any more. The doctor was already looking at them curiously.
A bearded man escorted them solicitously to the same "employees only" door Pink Dress had disappeared through. There was a touchy moment when Beard couldn't find his key card. So that was where Pink Dress had lifted it from. Fortunately the door suddenly opened from the inside, and a man in the uniform of the museum's private security came through. He stopped short when he saw them all standing there. "What's the problem, Mr. Gladstone?" he asked their escort.
"Oh, Coswell. Good," Gladstone said. "There's been a medical emergency. If you could just let these people by. The medical suite is the third door on the left," he told them.
Eleanor though she saw a flicker of suspicion in Coswell's face as they passed him, but then Gladstone went on, "Everyone's very upset. I think we should close the gallery and start processing the artifacts right away."
Coswell was distracted and not very happy with the idea. "Are you sure? The gala-" Eleanor heard him say before the door closed between them.
She wasn't happy either. That mean she had less than an hour to find the dagger's shipping information, change her clothes, and get to the loading dock while dodging security, and she still didn't know who all the players were. This job was turning in to a real pain in the ass.
The "medical suite" was just an unused office that someone had shoved a cot in to. Eleanor dumped Impostor Bioko on it none too gently, and closed and locked the door before turning to the puzzled doctor. "Thank you so much for your help, Doctor…" She held out her hand as the sentence trailed off questioningly.
A lifetime of societal conditioning overcame his suspicion for a moment. "Abernathy," he said, shaking her hand. "Wes Abernathy."
In one smooth movement, Eleanor twisted his arm and got him in a choke hold. He struggled instinctively, but though Eleanor was smaller than him, she knew how to apply leverage.
"Hey, hey. Easy," Impostor Bioko said, bouncing up off the cot. "Don't hurt him. I ain't bein' part of no murder. I don't like blood, a'right? Makes me pass out."
"And I should care why?" Eleanor snapped. "I'd be happy to have you out of the way too." But though it would have simplified things immensely, she had no intention of killing the doctor. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She pushed him down in to the desk chair in the corner. "Sit there and be quiet," she ordered. She turned to Impostor Bioko. "What are you after?" she asked. "The dagger?"
She didn't expect him to answer truthfully. She didn't need him to. His face answered for him. "No," he started to say. "I wasn't gonna take anything. I was just gate crashing."
"Right. You're a terrible liar," Eleanor said.
"What the hell is going on?" the doctor asked, looking back and forth between the two of them with wide eyes.
Eleanor cuffed him around the ear. Not very hard. Just hard enough to shock him in to silence. "I told you to be quiet. Disobey me again, and I'll rethink not killing you. I have no time to waste." She returned her attention to Impostor Bioko who looked a little frightened of her now. "How many people are on your team? I know about the woman in the pink dress."
He looked genuinely puzzled at that. "What woman in a pink dress? No, I work alone."
It had the ring of truth, but… "How did you reboot the security system? I was with you the whole time."
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. "These systems are all run by computers now," he said as smugly as if that was his own doing. "Age of the geek, baby."
Eleanor gave him her coldest glare. "If you value your life, you will never call me 'baby' again. So you're a hacker. That explains a lot. Next time you impersonate someone, you should find out more about them than their name."
She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. If he really was working alone, then who was Pink Dress? Another thief? What were the odds that three different people would decide to rob the same museum on the same night? Actually very good when that night was the night a lot of valuable artifacts were being shipped back to their owners. Transport was almost always the best time for a grab, and the gala made it fairly easy to get in.
There were footsteps in the hallway. Eleanor's eyes flew open, and she moved towards the doctor, but it was too late. His shout escaped, and the footsteps stopped. A moment later, the door opened and a woman looked in.
It was Pink Dress, although she'd changed in to a lab coat and sensible flats and put on a pair of glasses. "What the-" she said when she saw Eleanor with her hand clamped over the doctor's mouth.
Eleanor laughed mirthlessly. This was beginning to feel like one of those old comedy movies where everyone was working at cross purposes and having hilarious misunderstandings. Except it wasn't at all funny when your life was at stake and time was running out. "Come on in," she said to the woman. "Join the party."
"Party?" the woman said in apparent bewilderment. "I don't understand. What's going on here?" Her voice had changed too. It was high and quavering with a hint of a lisp.
"Well, at least you're a better actor than him," Eleanor said, jerking her head at Impostor Bioko. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you're after something other than the Dagger of Aqu-Abi."
To her credit the woman also knew when to give up. "Afraid so," she said in her real voice, or at least the voice she'd been using before. "Sophie Deveraux. Grifter." She gave a theatrical little bow.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow at the name. "Are you now? Interesting. Eleanor Spencer."
Sophie raised an eyebrow in turn. "Yes. I've been hearing about you more and more in the past few years. They say you're very good."
"They say the same about you," Eleanor said.
Both women looked expectantly at Impostor Bioko. "Alec Hardison?" he said hopefully.
Eleanor shook her head. "Sorry. Doesn't sound familiar."
He deflated a little but recovered quickly. "Just wait," he said. "After I steal the Aqu-Abi Dagger, I'm gonna be a legend."
"Not if I get there first," Eleanor and Sophie said at the same time.
A/N#2 - Okay, this story has so far received a grand total of 2 reviews, and they were both from the same person. Now I know more than one person has read this because there's this handy thing called a page view tracker. So here's the deal. I write because I enjoy it. But I publish to get other people's opinions. You can love it to pieces or damn it to hell. I don't care which. You can call it the worst thing written since 'Twilight'. You can tell me to do the world a favor and go live in a cave and never write another word as long as I live. I won't do that, but feel free to say it if that's what you think. Just tell me what you think so I know I'm not sending this stuff in to a black hole. Thank you.