Chapter Eleven

Nathan checked his watch and looked over at Haley, who was sitting to his left with her knees huddled close to her chest. Since there was hardly any space in the closet anyway, Nathan had come to the conclusion that she was doing so to prevent her body from touching his. Trying to ignore the insult, he whispered, "Haley?"

"Yeah?"

"Right now all the guards will be in their room so I'm going outside. You should wait here; I'll only be a few seconds."

Haley nodded. "Okay." She watched him slip something out of the sleeve of his dinner jacket; it was the boomerang she had seen in his room the previous day. Before she could ask him about it, he opened the cupboard door and crept into the main room.

Nathan carefully stepped over the rope and then into the main room. However, instead of approaching the Venus he remained where he was. Concentrating, Nathan took his aim, just like he had been practicing, and threw the boomerang.

It came back to him swiftly, but his aim had been too wide and it missed his target. Nathan took a deep breath and threw it again. This time, the boomerang did just what it was supposed to. It went close to the Chellini Venus; not close enough to knock the sculpture over, but close enough to pass through the lasers, which was what Nathan wanted. The moment the boomerang cut the first laser, the alarm sounded, ringing through the entire museum.

As soon as he caught the boomerang, Nathan ran back to the cupboard, where Haley was standing with a terrified look on her face and had her hands clapped over her ears. He realized that he had forgotten to tell her that the alarm would go off, but he had no time for explanations.

Nathan pulled Haley by the elbow to a little corner of the cupboard that was further in. It had even less space than they had been previously sitting, but the sheets and brooms and other odds and ends that were there would hide them from view in case someone came to check.

……………

The moment the alarm went off all the guards in the room bolted upright. Quickly putting their jackets back on, they all ran out to see what had happened, except for the guard Tim. He stayed behind to clean up the cards on the table. If something had been stolen then he didn't want the owner of the museum to walk into the guard room and see that they had been playing poker. Especially since he would be the one to get the blame.

Tim put the card pack away, took a sip from the open bottle of beer, put his jacket on and walked out of the guard room. Two seconds later, he returned, took another sip of beer, hid the bottle in his jacket and went outside again.

When he reached the main room of the museum, the alarm was still blaring and all the guards were running around trying to find what was missing. The head guard, Mr. Salamone, saw Tim just standing around and ordered him to check the basement.

Sighing, Tim made trudged past the roped off area and past the cupboard door. Behind that was a board of keys and the door to go to the basement. Tim put down his bottle of beer on the floor below the keys and went into the basement.

Soon, the police had arrived and they came to the same conclusion as the guards had – absolutely nothing had been stolen. After the police left Mr. Salamone went back to the guard room and picked up the piece of paper where he had written down today's code for the alarm. He punched it in, turned the key in the lock and, inside the little safe, he reset the alarm.

The silence didn't last for long, though. Only half the guards were back in the room when the phone rang. They all watched as Mr. Salamone answered it. "Hello?...Mr. councilman?...Yes, I know it is loud…Nothing was stolen……No, I don't know why it went off…Yes, sir…Very well, sir." Mr. Salamone cringed as the city councilman slammed the phone down in his ear. Like it was his fault the alarm went off for no reason!

……………

Haley inhaled deeply to calm herself down, equal parts annoyed and pleased when the scent of Nathan's cologne filled her nose. The severe lack of space in this corner of the cupboard meant that her head was now buried in Nathan's chest. Resisting the urge to place her hands there too so that she could better feel his muscles, Haley tried to ignore the sound of his escalating heartbeat and concentrate on slowing down her own breathing. This was somewhat difficult, considering the fact that the alarm was still blaring and Nathan's hands were currently resting on her hips. She contemplated asking him to move them, but that created 2 problems: where would he put them instead (since there was very little space left) and did she really want him to move them at all?

Haley tried again to push out her thoughts and concentrate on her breathing. 'Breathe,' she thought to herself. 'Just breathe. Think only of breathing. And not of how Nathan feels and smells really good right now. No – no – don't think of Nathan. Breathing. Think of breathing. Breathing is good. Just calm down, Haley. – Oh my God! How am I supposed to control my own heart rate if Nathan's keeps going up? Does he not realize that this whole stealing thing is stressful for me? I mean, my family's future depends on it! No, of course he doesn't know that because I didn't tell him. Well…he should still try to be a little considerate and slow down his own heart rate so that I can lower mine. What does he have to be all excited about anyway, stealing must be a regular thing for him…Unless...No, it couldn't be……Oh, will they just hurry up and turn the stupid alarm off!'

'God, Haley looks hot,' Nathan thought. Her hair was brushing against his neck, and he contemplated running one of his hands through it – to calm her down, of course, since her heart beat was going through the roof – the mission seemed to be scaring her – but then the alarm was turned off.

Somewhat reluctantly, Haley and Nathan made their way back to the larger (but only by a very small amount) area of the cupboard and sat down.

"Well…" Haley began, breaking the silence that had come over them ever since Nathan returned, "that's something which doesn't happen everyday."

"No, it doesn't," Nathan agreed.

"So, how much more waiting do we have to do before your next move?"

"About an hour," Nathan told her. The awkward silence settled once again, until a few minutes later when Haley was sure she heard Nathan mumble, "Uh, oh."

"Nathan…"

He moved closer to the door and rattled the door a bit, "Haley, don't freak out, but…"

"But what?"

"We're locked in."