Nate rocked back in his chair and knocked the wall of Lucille's cramped quarters. He absently grunted what passed for an apology, but never took his eyes off the display showing the view from Sophie's button camera.
"Hey, careful man," Hardison said as he reached back to inspect any potential damage to his baby. After a moment, he turned back to the twin displays. With one hand, he raised the 2-liter bottle of orange soda to his lips and the other tapped a command on the keyboard. The second display lit up with a view of the shop from the camera Sophie had placed on entrance.
"I'm not seeing anything on Rose's list," Hardison said as he glanced from the Rose's lavender paper to one of the displays and back.
Doing his own quick investigation, Nate also found the shop lacking. He shook his head. "If they considered Marisa a problem, anything incriminating would be long gone."
Except the mastermind was betting these guys weren't that sharp.
His gaze jumped from one display to the other verifying Cobb's place at the front of the store. "Where are you, Parker?"
"There are, like, five rusty locks on this door," Parker complained as she was finally getting to the last lock. A good thing she wasn't timing herself.
Worst. Record. Ever.
Once finished, she turned the knob and gently pushed the heavy metal door open. Rusted metal on metal squealed the instant the door swung back causing Parker to freeze. Squeezing her eyes closed with a pained expression; she waited with held breath in the pressing silence that followed.
"What do you mean cubic zirconium?" Sophie's wail was so powerful that Parker didn't need the ear bud to hear the agony in the grifter's voice. "Barry said it was worth a lot!" Sophie sounded close to tears.
Parker slipped into the back of the pawnshop only to find it filled with overflowing racks. "Wow, there's so much junk," she noted as she carefully closed the door behind her.
Noticing a pretty little vase, the thief hovered near a shelf with many deep layers of dust and plucked the singular object from its place. Glancing about to make sure no one was watching, she tipped the vase over.
Made in China.
She sniffed the intricately painted design and suddenly grabbed her nose to stifle a dust driven sneeze. Tears welled in her eyes, but she could see clearly enough to put the offending fake back in its place.
The room pulsed with the glow of an overhead light that flickered and dimmed. Her gaze darted about the corners and high ceiling to make sure there was no unexpected security. Hardison's intel had said the place had only cameras out front—recorded on tape. Tape. Hardison had laughed at that word. She giggled softly, though not entirely sure why Hardison found it so funny.
Past the shelves and onto the next obstacle, she easily worked the double locks on a wooden door. These were in better shape and gave her no resistance though she was a little more careful opening this door to the combination office and buy room. Once inside, she glanced about the shelves and wasn't certain the contents were any better quality than in the storage area she had left.
"I'm in."
First, she slipped the little USB device from her belt pouch and looked at the computer half-buried in folders and trash on the desk. With the tip of a long finger, she carefully scooted a wadded up hamburger wrapper out of the way and plugged the drive into the nearest port.
The screen of the old CRT lighted up, and Parker jerked back. Leaning forward she studied the image burning into the screen. "Oh no, Mr. Teddy Bear," she whispered and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth.
"Parker?" Nate asked.
She reached out and quickly turned off the monitor. "Nothing," she hissed and turned her attention to the desk drawers. Focus, she told herself. Finding a stack of colored papers in one drawer she pulled them out and flipped through the pile. Nothing but bills and old invoices. About to return the papers, she paused when she noticed the handgun nestled next to a rubber band ball and two banded stacks of ones.
"Don't these people know we're in the twenty-first century? Seriously? Windows 98?" Hardison asked. "There's nothing on the computer. Well, not nothing exactly—"
"You're looking for a ledger," Nate interrupted.
Parker frowned as she scanned the dirty, crowded room. "There's a lot of paper in here. A real fire hazard."
"No fires, Parker."
"They steal from old people. Poor old people," she snapped as she flipped through a pile of folders. "Oh wait. Got something here." Pulling out her phone, she quickly started scanning sheets.
Eliot's gruff whisper caught her attention. "We've got a problem."