Thief in the Night

A Lupin the 3rd fanfiction by Lywinis

Chapter Two: Stolen Hearts

"The Cara de Brouligiere?" Fujiko gasped. "The Ruby Princess?" She threw her arms around Lupin in a possessive hug. She seemed like an affection-starved kitten, clinging to him and nuzzling him. Cara felt slightly sick. She shifted uncomfortably, and felt Jigen move his hand discreetly to his revolver. She shook her head slightly. He wouldn't do anything. He couldn't. Lupin paid the bills.

"Lupin, you're getting me fitted for jewelry!" the slinky woman cried. "And here I thought you had forgotten all about my birthday, you sly sneak, you." Cara's sick feeling wound up in the pit of her stomach. Fujiko kissed Lupin, and she nearly turned away, nearly ran to the bathroom…. but she couldn't look away. So this was the "better things" he had told her of, vaguely, that night.

Cara got the feeling that this was what the woman, Fujiko, did…she led Lupin along by his crotch, extorting anything and everything she could. But she'd seen enough. She straightened her shoulders, the pendant at her throat sparkling almost angrily, and brushed her hair out of her face. "Actually, I'm here to help Lupin clear out the Sutton Hoo excavation site."

Fujiko looked annoyed that Cara would dare to speak in her presence. Cara returned the glare two-fold; tension suddenly descended in the room, thick and crackling. Jigen and Goemon stepped back; they had only seen Cara this angry when Lupin had told her to get her stuff and get out. The two women matching wills? They'd put their money on Cara.

Fujiko took a step forward, her whole body rigid with hostility, hands on her hips. "And what makes you think you're cut out for such work, little girl?" she demanded, casting a scornful look at Cara's clothing and her ratty tennis shoes.

Cara smirked, her stance relaxed. She glanced over at Lupin. "Shall I show her?" He nodded, the beginnings of a grin touching the corners of his mouth, making his lips twitch.

Suddenly, Cara exploded into motion, flipping over the surprised Fujiko and grabbing the woman around the neck, her slim lock-picking knife at the woman's throat. She murmured in the older woman's ear. "You know…there was a time I would have been in your position, threatened by a younger, more qualified woman…but I got out. What are you in for, hmmm? Let's just find out. And when I do, I'll blow your cover wide open, Fujiko."

Fujiko snarled and slapped the knife away. Turning, she launched a short punch at Cara's face, but her fist met nothing but empty air. Cara laughed softly, her knowing blue eyes sparkling from across the room, where she leaned against the wall.

"How do you know she won't rip us off?" she asked, turning to Lupin. Her eyes were narrow and her brows were pinched in an unappealing way. He laughed at her.

"How do we know you won't?" snapped Jigen, his hands clenching at his sides. "The last time you gave us a good deal was never."

Fujiko glared at Jigen, her hands going back to her hips. She wasn't afraid of him. "Who cares what you think, you drunken bastard? Just because she tosses you an expensive bottle of scotch, she's your best friend. You pant after her like a dog after a bitch."

"That's enough, Fujiko," Lupin stepped in. "Either you work with the team, or get out. You know the rules."

Fujiko pouted, but remained silent. Cara slipped her knife back into its forearm sheath, still smirking. Jigen noticed Lupin watching her a lot more than he should be. But that's the thing, he thought. You can't not watch Cara. She has…this…aura.

Fujiko noticed, too. She wasn't pleased. Little bitch…

She would have to see about an untimely "fall" for Cara.


"The plan is this," said Lupin as he bent over the map of the excavation site. Cara watched, impressed, as his expressive hands swept over the map while he explained. She found herself being swept up in the lulling power of Lupin's voice once again. No, she couldn't do that…concentrate…

She and Jigen were to drive to the gates of the excavation site, where she would flash her credentials and ask to be allowed in the site to appraise the jewels. Once inside, she would lift the security guard's key and give it to Jigen, who would unlock and open the truck delivery gates. Lupin, driving an unmarked, silenced van, would load the gold with Jigen, Fujiko, and Goemon. The site where the gold was kept was watched with security cameras, but when had that ever stopped Lupin? He already had it all planned out with wafer thin screens, which had footage of the site with the gold intact on a continual loop. He and Goemon would go around and place the screens over the camera lenses and disable the skeleton security force present only at night.

Meanwhile, Cara was to go and appraise the gems, switching them with clever holograms. Lupin's team of experts had done their research. The gems each had a specific hologram, down to the last chip of diamond. The theft would, more then likely, not be noticed until they were long gone. Cara had to admit, no one had style quite like Arsene Lupin the III.

He looked at each of them in turn, his dark eyes searching out their own. "I want to make this quick and clean as possible," he began. "No shooting unless you have to, and if you have to, use your damned silencers." He looked at Fujiko, his eyes narrowing slightly in predatory hunger. "And you will be staying with me, so I don't get double-crossed this time." She swallowed and glared at him, willing him to burst into flames. Cara was glad she'd never given her former infatuation reason to mistrust her.

Lupin turned to Cara. "You can do this, right? I'm sure being the Ruby Princess has its advantages, but if you need help, we can be there in a flash." He handed her a radio, his hand lingering over hers. "We'll keep in radio contact at all times." He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the way that used to make her weak. She was surprised to find that it still did. The saying was true. You never really got over your first love.

She stuck the earpiece in her ear and nodded. "Of course I can do this, Lupin, I'm Cara, remember?" She grinned at him in acerbic self-deprecation. "I'm the one that helped you nick the crown jewels out from under Scotland Yard's nose. This is a cakewalk."

He nodded. "You've never disappointed me before, Cara. One last hurrah, eh?"

"Sure, Lupin, whatever."


Jigen pulled the sedan over to the side of the road, next to a hedge. Cara, dressed more respectably in a pantsuit and pumps, her hair coiled at the nape of her neck, moved to the back seat, the walkie-talkie stashed in her purse and the earpiece in her ear. She had a letter of introduction that was forged with her father's signature, her credentials, and her jewelry examination kit, along with the holograms, in a sleek briefcase. Even Fujiko had to admit, she was beautiful when she cleaned up. Cara was all business, playing her part as the heiress of the Brouligiere throne to perfection.

He turned around and pushed his fedora up on his forehead with his thumb. "You know Fujiko won't let you get away clean with your take, Cara."

"I know."

"Well, then, damn it, let me protect you!"

Her eyebrow arched and a slow smile spread across her face. She patted Jigen's cheek with a gentle hand, her eyes taking on the gleam of a hunting cat's. "There's nothing Fujiko can try that hasn't been tried before. Trust me, being a rich heiress is more dangerous than being Lupin's partner." Her knife flickered into view, and was gone again. "I'll take care of her if she chooses to make her move."

He sighed and turned around, his heart aching for the loss of her innocence. He knew he was partly to blame, and the mutinous part of his brain that kept whispering disloyal things about Lupin to him…the part of him that was only there for the money. Part of him wanted to turn the car around, drop Cara at her house, and take her inside and make sure she was treated well.

He turned into the excavation site's driveway.

Cara acted according to plan, charming the security guard for all she was worth, flashing a dazzling smile and her letter of introduction. In a few minutes, the advance team was well on their way to completing step one. Cara murmured the go ahead into her lapel pin, fitted with a hidden mike by Lupin. Jigen looked up at the ridge of stone that surrounded the site, saw a flashlight blink once, and nodded.

Smooth, quick and quiet.

Once inside, they were directed to a squat, unremarkable building near the center of the site. Dusk was just falling, but the scientists had been busy for weeks, working day and night to clear the new discovery from the earth. A visit by one of the museum's leading supporters at this hour was uncommon, but no cause for alarm. The Brouligieres were known for being eccentric, and besides, her father shelled out enormous amounts of money to the bloody museum, so why not show up to see how the work was progressing? She smiled; it was too easy.

Smoothing her features as a man approached, she settled into her business-like manner once again. Jigen got out of the car and held the door for her, like a good chauffer should. She stepped out with a sly wink to him and walked over to the approaching man.

He was in his late thirties, tall, trim and weathered. He regarded her with light green eyes that crinkled into a smile as she approached. He extended a work-roughened hand, flipping his auburn hair out of his eyes with his other, and she took it boldly into her own, shaking it without fear.

"Ms. Brouligiere, my name is Kenneth Foley, I'm the supervising archaeologist for the dig. It's nice to see our monetary backers showing interest in our little project, let me tell you." He smiled again, and led her inside. Jigen went back to the front seat of the sedan to wait it out, his thoughts spinning in disloyal turmoil, edging him toward Cara even more as he watched her work the scientist over, her smiles often and interested.

Kenneth led her deep into the complex, the twists and turns of the maze of hallways dizzying. Cara kept a mental map in her head of where she was going, and the security station's location. She chatted easily with Kenneth ("Call me Ken, please, I sound more like a museum piece than a person if you call me Kenneth."), giving details of what she knew about Sutton Hoo and obviously impressing him with her knowledge. He was completely oblivious to the fact that she carried a snub-nosed pistol in her purse, and that she would not hesitate to put a bullet in his brain if things went awry. She preferred them that way.

He opened a final door marked "Section 64-C" and strolled inside, pausing at the entrance to put on a pair of surgical gloves. Turning to her, he held out a smaller pair, which she slipped on.

"This is where we keep the pieces that would interest you, Ms. Brouligiere," he said, indicating the tables and drawers that lined the walls. "All of the gems that were recovered from the second boat have been kept in this room."

She nodded, then, smacked a gloved hand to her forehead. "Oh, dear, I seem to have forgotten my briefcase. Let me run and go get it, and then I'll help you with the appraisal." He nodded, and she hurried out, leaving the gloves behind.

She stopped at the security station, seemingly to ask directions, and left with the gate keys in her slim fingers. The guard went back to his soccer game on the radio, oblivious to the theft.

Jigen was leaning against the car door, smoking, when she came back out. "I thought you were never going to come out," he complained impatiently. She grinned at him and tossed him the keys, snagging her tools from the back seat and walking back inside. He sighed and left her to her work.

Lupin was waiting.


"Damn it, where is she?" Fujiko slumped against the lumpy seat of the van. She was tired of waiting out here in the countryside like some damned flunky. She wanted to see some action – and some gold. "I'm telling you Lupin, if she's double-crossed us –"

"-- Then Jigen wouldn't be driving up the road to meet us," Goemon replied calmly, leaping down from the top of the truck's cab, where he had been meditating. He pointed to the pinpoints of headlights in the valley below.

Indeed, Jigen pulled up a few minutes later. "Come on, let's get the show on the road," he muttered, his hat pulled over his eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips. He got out of the sedan and leapt into the back of the truck, banging on the side with the butt of his revolver.

Lupin revved the engine, humming quietly down the road. In his earpiece, he listened with a smile as she gave the man – Kenneth Foley, he thought, what a silly name – appraisals on the gems as she switched them. He wiped the smile from his face as he pulled up to the gate, the guards both glued to the crime show they were watching. He hopped down out of the truck, his cap pushed back on his head and his oily, sweat-stained overalls seeming faded in the harsh glare from the truck's headlights. He jammed a clipboard under the nose of the nearest guard.

"Oi, what's all this, then?" The guard asked, annoyed by Lupin's impertinence. He glanced at the clipboard, unimpressed. "Delivery for the hoity-toity scientists? Big deal. I never heard of no delivery, so bugger off." He turned back to his television.

Lupin banged the clipboard down on the counter, making both guards jump. Screeching at them in his best Cockney, he proceeded to belabor the point about how hard working blue-collar men like himself couldn't get a decent day's work done because of higher ups who couldn't do their jobs. He shouted he wanted to see the supervisor. The two guards looked nervously at each other, then the rude one waved them through, punching the gate's opening mechanism.

Fujiko smiled at him as he hopped back into the cab. "You know, you sounded like an angry fishwife."

"Well, I guess it fits, what with you being catty." She glared at him.

The truck hummed to a stop in front of a passageway dug into the earth. A huge pit loomed out before them, hollowed into the earth by curious archaeologists. Floodlights made the whole area glow as Lupin, Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko all climbed out of the truck. They began unloading empty boxes marked 'tools' onto handcarts, moving the crates into the housing where the gold was kept. Except for the guards who watched the perimeter and the security cameras, the place was deserted for the night. One slash from Goemon's Zantetsuken took the doorknob off the storage unit, and they all hurried inside. While Goemon and Fujiko loaded up the gold, Lupin installed a new doorknob and Jigen kept a look out, checking his watch every few minutes.

Almost as soon as the gold was loaded, Cara murmured into the radio that she was on her way out. The entire operation had taken less than two hours. Jigen hopped off the truck as soon as they reached the sedan and took off to go pick Cara up. She was waiting for him, chatting easily with the charmed Foley. As he opened the door for her, Foley assured her that everything was in order and that her appraisals had been most helpful. He even asked her out to dinner. Jigen's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. She politely declined, smiling at him and brushing him off with a gentle, "Perhaps another time."

Sliding into the back seat finally, she let out a heavy sigh. "I'm getting too old for this." Jigen shrugged; he didn't know if she meant stealing, or fending off men. She laughed at his noncommittal response. They drove back to the Commodore in companionable silence, Jigen humming a little and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

The hotel room was unoccupied. She knew Lupin and the others were stashing the gold, and she slipped off her pumps and wriggled her toes appreciatively. Sitting on the loveseat in the sitting room, she accepted the glass of juice Jigen offered. Setting her briefcase on the table, she rested her chin in her palm, suddenly very tired. The years had been kind to her. What a morbid thought, she mused. I'm only twenty-five…I have a few years ahead of me, if I'm lucky. She played with her pendant, noting Jigen's silhouette outside on the balcony, the lit tip of his Pall Mall extra long glowing in the chill air.

She was shaken awake seemingly a few minutes later, a smiling Lupin holding out another glass, this one filled with champagne. "For such good work, I must commend you, my dear," he said. Fujiko sulked in the corner.

"Hm? I didn't do anything," she murmured.

"You got all of the jewels, didn't you?"

"That was business." She set down the champagne, favoring her orange juice.

"True enough. Well, then, let's see your take." He gestured to the locked briefcase, to which only she had the combination.

She spun out the combination of the sleek leather case, opening it reverently. There they were, over seven billion dollars worth of gems and set jewelry, hidden in a secret compartment. Lupin crowed in sheer delight. Even Fujiko was grudgingly impressed. She hadn't missed a single diamond chip.

"So, on to the division of spoils," he said, running his hands over the stones. "Cara, you can take as many of the gemstones as you like, or you can have all of your sum in gold, which will be wired to your account in Switzerland, like in the old days."

Fujiko made a small sound of protest. "She didn't do anything, not really! All she did was steal some jewelry; you had me out there busting my ass lifting boxes! That's hardly fair!"

Lupin glanced at Fujiko, his eyes snapping with mirth. "Fuji-cakes, you know we're getting to you, you get a large share of the spoils as well. In fact, we're all pretty wealthy right about now. But Cara's credentials got us in, instead of me having to bust our way in. We got in, quick and quiet. If not, we would have had Pops breathing down our necks," he explained patiently. He had gone over this with her earlier, when everyone else was busy securing his or her tools for the job ahead. She still had to bring it up, as a matter of personality.

Cara shrugged, her head aching. "You can have the jewels. Just send my share to the Switzerland account." She put her head in her hand again, not really in the mood to hear the harpy who had taken her place bickering about who got how much. She glanced at Jigen and noted he was propped in almost the exact same way, except his bottle of Oban was nearly halfway empty. She felt a surge of pity for her two friends.

But Lupin paid the bills, and so Lupin made the rules.

Standing, she made a show of stretching. "I think I'll change and head home, Lupin, if you don't mind. Nice working with you again."

"You too, Cara. You sure you don't want to…?" Again the question, and again the denial.

"No, you know my answer to that, Lupin. See you around."

She changed and hugged Goemon and Jigen goodbye, then nodded cordially to Fujiko. Lupin brooded out on the balcony. Nothing was left to be said. At least not on Cara's part. Fujiko stepped outside for a moment to speak with her.

"You did well," she grudgingly admitted.

"So did you. We all worked as a team, I guess," Cara replied. She shifted in her sneakers, uncomfortable next to this woman who had groomed herself to be the envy of all women and the carnal desire of all men. She nodded at Fujiko again. "It…was nice working with you, even if you don't care for me too much."

Fujiko returned the nod. "For what it's worth, see you around." She extended a hand, and Cara took it, shaking it firmly.

Fujiko watched Cara walk away, a strange smile on her face.


Cara let herself in by the front door, too tired to climb the rose trellis outside the house to get into the library window. Glancing at the clock, she was surprised to see that it was nearly midnight.

Her father dozed in the library. She covered him with a blanket, a small gesture of affection she couldn't help, despite her dislike for the man sometimes.

A voice made her whirl around, her eyes widening.

"Hello again, Cara."

Zenigata was seated in the corner, his coat and hat on the table next to him; a pair of handcuffs was spinning on his index finger.