As they drove toward the city, Cameron looked at Amanda. "I still do not see what is wrong with my choice of clothing," she ventured cautiously. Amanda glanced at her and rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
They pulled up into parking space a few minutes later on the outskirts of lushly landscaped campus with modern, white stone buildings. Looking around, Cameron noted, "This neighborhood does not have many clothing retailers. Shopping is unlikely to be very fruitful in this area," she pointed out.
Grinning at her, Amanda said, "I might have stretched the truth about where we were going when we were at Duncan's."
Cocking her to one side, Cameron said blankly, "You lied to him."
"Not lied, per se, more just ... omitted a few specifics," Amanda hedged.
"You lied," returned Cameron blandly.
"No, I just let him form a misconception about where we were going," Amanda tried again.
"You fibbed, dissembled, deceived, and prevaricated," Cameron said innocently.
"OK! Yes! I lied! Are you happy now?" Amanda admitted, irritated.
"No," Cam replied calmly.
"That was a rhetorical question," Amanda retorted.
After a brief silence, she added, "It's just ... Duncan tends to suck the fun out of things, and I needed someone's help. Someone strong, like you. Besides, you owe me," she added.
"I do not owe you anything," Cameron said firmly. "My only loyalty is to John."
"Well, OK, maybe not 'owe,' per se," Amanda admitted. "But remember when you pulled two very large guns on me earlier today?"
Cameron looked at her. "I apologized for that," she said.
"Yee – es," Amanda drawled. "But this was a rather serious mistake," she pointed out. "I mean, I might have been killed!"
"You would have come back to life," Cameron replied emotionlessly.
"That's … that's not the point! When you point a gun at somebody in error, you need to do more than just say 'I'm sorry,' to make amends!" Amanda protested. "You need to make it up to them! A favor, a friendly gesture of goodwill! Come on, please?" Amanda added, a wheedling tone in her voice.
"Oh," Cameron replied, considering this. "I suppose you're right. Thank you for explaining. I will help you if this does not take too much time," she said, worried about leaving John unprotected for too extended a period of time. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'm glad you asked!" Amanda exclaimed. "Come on, I'll explain on the way. This is going to be so much fun!"
Meanwhile, Duncan was hopping around in pain, swearing up a storm. At least, John assumed he was swearing. The Scotsman's normally mild accent was now so thick as to be unrecognizable to John's American ears, but he could only assume that if he, too, had distractedly slammed a 96 pound kettlebell-a cast iron cannonball-like weight-into his shins and then dropped in on his foot, he would be swearing as well.
"Uh ... you OK?" John asked tentatively.
More unintelligible Scottish mutterings continued to emanate from Duncan's general direction before he finally composed himself. There might have been a few Spanish, Sanskrit and Japanese curses in there as well, though John was no linguistics expert. "DAMNIT!" Duncan finally swore. "That's it! We're done. Go shower and change, and hurry up, because we're going out."
"Where?" John asked, surprised.
"To find Amanda," he said. "She's up to something. She always is, and the sooner I find out what it is, the sooner I do damage control, and the less painful it's going to be for all of us when it blows up in our faces." And with that, he stalked away into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
"Ready?" Amanda asked Cameron as she peered around the corner, looking at security guard station where one watched an old movie on a tiny television screen while the other idly flipped through a well-worn magazine. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled out a tiny transmitter and pushed a button.
Immediately, an alarm could be heard going off in a nearby room. The guards reacted as if they had been shocked, getting up and sprinting out of the room.
A minute later, they returned, grumbling under their breath. Amanda counted to 10, then hit her transmitter again. This time, the alarm that sounded was more distant. Again, the guards sprinted off toward the clanging sound, only to return a bit later.
Amanda repeated this several times, and each time, the guards responded a little more slowly, and each time they grumbled a bit more loudly. The phrases "damn machine," and "stupid computer" and "piece of shit alarm system" were frequently heard. Finally, Amanda hit the button and an alarm went off in a random part of the gallery, but as one guard hauled himself wearily to his feet, the other one pulled him back down.
"Fuck this," he growled as he pulled out a keyboard. "The system's obviously malfunctioning. I'm not sitting here all night listening to that racket." With a few keystrokes, the klanging went silent in mid-ring.
Chuckling, Amanda crept away, beckoning Cameron to follow. Cameron looked puzzled. "I do not understand why you pulled that prank of the security guards," she said.
"It's simple, Cam. I got them to shut off the initial security sensors and the alarm system. Now we can take just about anything we want from here," she said, rubbing her hands gleefully.
"But I don't want anything here," Cameron noted. "And neither John nor Duncan would not approve of stealing."
"You know, we don't have to get their permission for everything we do, Cameron. Besides, we're not stealing," Amanda said. "We're just picking up something that belongs to me," she explained as she walked purposefully through the darkened halls.
Cameron's sensitive eyes scanned ahead, noting the many paintings and works of art that hung from the walls. "You could have just come back during the day to the lost and found," she pointed out.
Amanda laughed gaily. "But this is SO much more fun!" she said. "Besides, I don't think they'd just give it to me. Ah, here we are."
They were standing in a large echoing room full of bronzed sculptures. Amanda walked unerringly toward one statue in particular. "This is the one we want," she said, looking at a smallish statue set on a freestanding open pedestal, surrounded by velvet ropes. "Now here's the plan. You help me disable the alarm …"
But before Amanda could finish, Cameron marched right up to the statue, picked it up and hoisted it onto her shoulder with one arm.
"Or we could just grab it and run," Amanda finished lamely. "By the way, that thing is in excess of 300 pounds!" she whispered, amazed. "How did you …"
"Nevermind, we'll talk about it later. Run!" Amanda hissed, and, not waiting to see if Cameron followed her instructions, she sprinted back down the hall in the direction from which they'd come. Cameron easily followed, catching up to her in a matter of seconds. As they rounded a corner side by side, they both skidded to a halt.
Unlike many security guards, Jack Rebhorn did not come from a law enforcement or military background. He was merely doing it to earn money and put himself through art school. Plus, the gig gave him the opportunity to spend time alone with some of the greatest masterpieces ever created—a double win situation if he'd ever heard of one.
Jack was intimately acquainted with the works of the great Impressionists, the Cubists, the Modernists, the Post-Modernists, and the Surrealists. What he didn't know was what art thieves were supposed to look like. He certainly didn't expect to see two of him as he exited the men's room, and he definitely never dreamed that they would look like two gorgeous women--one tall, voluptuously curved with a certain feline quality to her, and the other a vision of everybody's dream girl-next-door, withwarm, open trusting eyes and a bewitching, sexy natural pout. Still, despite his surprise, Jack pulled his gun, aiming it at the two of them. "Uh … freeze!" he said with faux authority.
Amanda fairly shimmied as she walked toward him slowly, but without hesitation. "I don't think so," she purred, "I don't think that's what you really want me to do, is it?"
"Uh, what?" Jack stammered as he turned his head to stare at her. He didn't seem to know where to look, switching from her pelvis to her chest to her face in a shaky cycle over and over again. Dimly, he realized the other one was starting to approach as well. "I mean, stop right there!" he called, voice cracking slightly.
Cameron reached behind her with her free hand and pulled out a gun.
"N-n-no! Stay back!" he cried, stepping back from the two, eyes darting back and forth between the two women. Adrenaline and arousal competed for space in his veins, making him slow … and clumsy.
Which is why he stumbled as he backed away from the two women. And as he did, his gun went off.