Chapter 10
At half past ten on Thursday morning a couple of weeks later, Rogue pulled up outside of the Thibodeaux home. The week previous she'd gone up and down the street pretending to be collecting donations to raise money for SIDS research. This not only helped her to identify which homes were more likely to have people in them at this time of day, but also gave her a close enough glimpse of the inside of her mark's home to reveal that there was a security keypad next to the door. This meant that there would be some kind of motion detectors and potentially video surveillance when they were triggered. She had also done a few drive-bys in different vehicles and figured out which car belonged to the maid. The cars belonging to the Mr and Mrs were housed in the garage. The maid's car wasn't parked in front like it usually was when she was there, so Rogue knew that the house was empty.
The view of the front door from the street was obscured, so Rogue didn't have to worry about being seen picking the locks. Guild tech let her disable the security system without triggering any motion or tamper sensors. This done, Rogue made her way upstairs and located the main bedroom. Given that no one was expected home for hours, Rogue didn't rush, although she didn't dawdle either. It was easy enough to locate where her mark kept the bulk of her jewellery – in the jewellery box on her dresser. Rogue located a safe in the wardrobe and dusted the numbers on the lock. Five buttons came up more or less clean, so Rogue knew those were the ones that got used the most. What's more, the numbers matched the numbers that made up the Thibodeaux's wedding anniversary. After a quick check to make sure it wasn't hard-wired into the wall or anything, Rogue punched in the most likely combination of numbers and got it on the first try. There was more than one way around these things, but sometimes the simplest approach was best.
Upon opening the safe, Rogue located only a couple more pieces of jewellery. There was also, amongst other things, a wad of cash. Rogue tossed up taking the money as well, but her instructions only said jewellery and Gambit had warned her about the perils of being greedy. She tucked the jewellery away with the rest of it, closed the safe and cleaned up the dust just enough so that no one would notice it looking either too dusty or not dusty enough. She departed the house then, making sure to re-enable the security system on her way out.
By the time Rogue got back home she was quite giddy with excitement and the only thing that kept her from pouncing on Gambit was the fact that he was busy playing with Olivier.
"I did it!" she said gleefully.
"Yeah?" Gambit asked, his eyes still on Olivier. "Did you sort and label the jewellery?"
"Well, no, not yet - I only just got back."
"Then you haven't done it yet, have you?"
"Oh, psh you."
Gambit just laughed.
Gambit felt like the only time he got out of the Guild Hall these days was to stock up on nappies and baby wipes and the like. The commute to work every day might be non-existent, but he was starting to go a little stir crazy. He definitely wasn't used to staying in one place this long.
He parked his motorcycle in the only space left in the parking lot, next to a GranCabrio with its top up. Gambit smirked as he passed, momentarily considering how easy it would be to take off with the convertible, and continued on his way inside the store. As he went through the automatic doors, Gambit walked past an older, grey-haired gentleman, easily in his sixties, who looked vaguely familiar, but that brief moment of passing wasn't enough to make a proper identification.
Gambit quickly forgot about him as he headed down the aisle with all the baby products. He grabbed what he needed and a couple of things he wasn't sure of but figured they'd probably need and then headed to the checkout. No point shoplifting from a place he was only going to return to, although given the number of checkouts they had open - or didn't have open - shoplifting probably would have been faster. On the other hand, he wasn't exactly in a rush to return to the Guild Hall either.
Finally out of the store, Gambit dawdled back to his motorcycle. He opened his carry bags and managed to stuff the nappies in one side and everything else in the other. As he was doing this, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was so small that it was a wonder his peripheral vision had even caught it at all: his brake line had been cut. What's more, whoever had done it knew what they were doing. They knew exactly how to cover up a cut brake line. If he hadn't been familiar with motorcycle engines or the methods of Assassins, there's no way he would have seen through it.
Gambit swore to himself as he pulled out his phone and dialled Henri's number. Gris Gris had warned him that some of the Assassins weren't happy with Bella Donna's decision about lifting his exile. He never should have let an Assassin get this close.
"Henri? Need a favour," Gambit said. "Can you pick me up?"
"Pick you up?" asked Henri. "From where?"
Gambit told him, but just told him to bring a pickup and hung up when Henri asked him why. There was no way Gambit was going to start telling people that Assassins were out to get him; they'd just make him stay in the Guild Hall all the time. He would, however, start varying which stores he went to from now on. Obviously he'd been noticed going to the same store all the time and someone had been waiting for him.
Gambit was silent when he walked into the living room after Henri had picked him up. In the end all he had told his brother was that the brake line was busted and he needed to replace it. Rogue was on the computer with the baby monitor on the desk beside her. She looked up as he came in.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," Gambit replied. "I put everything in Oli's room."
"Okay," she paused and looked at him curious. "You all right?"
"Oui, I'm fine," he said. "Whatcha doing?"
"Something stupid probably," Rogue admitted with a sigh as she looked back at the screen. "Just looking at Danielle's twitter."
"Danielle?" Gambit asked as he moved to look over her shoulder.
"Thibodeaux," she said. "My mark."
"Oh right. Well, that's not necessarily stupid, since you have a way of doing it discreetly," Gambit said. "It's a way of checking up on yourself to make sure you got away clean."
"Yeah... I don't think I have to worry about getting caught," Rogue said, sounding glum.
Gambit regarded her curiously for a moment.
"That's a good thing," he said finally.
"Yeah I know," she said with a sigh. "I guess... I just feel bad. I mean, she didn't call the cops straight away - "
"Also a good thing."
"- because she thought that her husband had stolen her jewellery," Rogue said, pointing to the latest entries, "and given them to his girlfriend."
"Oooh, convenient scapegoat. Nice."
"Remy, she's really upset," Rogue said, sounding rather distressed herself. "Apparently they hadn't had much of a sex life since Kayla was born 'cause she hasn't been feeling very sexy or whatever and he's gone elsewhere and she was trying to pretend like nothing was going on, except now he's stolen - or she thinks he's stolen - her jewellery and she's packed up her things and taken Kayla and gone back to her parents. Which on the one hand kinda makes me want to roll my eyes at her being such a Daddy's girl, but the point is she's left him and she's talking about divorce, and of course he's denying doing any such thing and -"
"You're right, chérie," Gambit said. "You did make a mistake: You got personally involved."
Rogue was silent as she looked down at the keyboard. "I just... I just don't like the idea of being responsible for someone's marriage failing."
"Chére, unless you're the one he was having an affair with - in which case we've got problems - you can't possibly be responsible for their marriage failing," Gambit said firmly. "They were already having problems well before we got involved."
"I guess," Rogue reluctantly conceded.
"If one robbery is enough to split a couple up, then they probably didn't have a good relationship in the first place," Gambit said. "Don't feel bad, Roguey. You didn't do anything wrong."
"Well, other than, you know, breaking into their house and stealing from them," Rogue pointed out dryly.
"You're not developing a conscience now, are you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I always had a conscience. It just got buried when I started stealing for survival, vengeance and sport."
Gambit chuckled, wrapped his arms around her from behind the chair and kissed her cheek.
"It can still be fun," he assured her. "Just go back to thinking of them as 'marks' rather than by their names. You start calling them by their names and that's when you start thinking of them as people. Once you start thinking of them as people, it gets personal and you start to do what you're doing now; sympathising with them. If you can't emotionally detach yourself from your victims, then you'll never rob anyone."
"Unless you hate them."
"Unless you hate them, oui."
"And do you, Remy, as sponsor, agree that Rogue completed her test with the competency of anyone of Journeyman rank?" asked Jean-Luc.
Rogue was standing in the council room with Gambit standing next to her. Jean-Luc was behind his desk while Henri and Theoren stood on either side. Behind Rogue were a couple of other councillors and lookers on. On Jean-Luc's desk was the jewellery she had stolen, neatly labelled, sorted, and on display.
"Oui, I do," Gambit confirmed solemnly.
"Then it is with pleasure that I declare Rogue is no longer Novice, but Journeyman Thief," Jean-Luc said.
Mild applause followed as Jean-Luc presented Rogue with a new, quality grappling hook; the symbol of her new rank. Great, now she just had to learn how to use it.
"Aside from the job requirement," Theoren said to Rogue as they walked down the hall a couple of days later, "there are three trials you have to complete before you do the final test. If you fail any of the trials, you can retake whenever you want, even the same day, but, for every fail you have to pass twice. So, if you fail five times, you have to succeed ten times."
"Wow," said Rogue. "That could get tedious."
Theoren chuckled. "That it does. Still, good incentive to practice beforehand."
"Why do you have to succeed twice if you fail?" Rogue asked as she followed Theoren around the corner.
"Because if you fail five times, and succeed once, the 'once' could be a fluke," Theoren replied. "We have standards to uphold and that means proving that you have the skill to do the work. The three trials are picking locks with your mouth, stealth and..."
Rogue looked at Theoren expectantly as he opened up a nearby door and flicked a switch on the wall inside, right next to the door. The empty room lit up with a series of red beams.
"The obstacle course," Theoren said with a hint of smugness in his tone. "This room was designed so that we can change the configuration. You'll be assigned one configuration to study. In the event that you fail, we can assign you different configurations for your second and third attempts, and so on. Obviously for the test itself, you won't be able to see the beams; these are just for demonstration purposes."
Rogue nodded as Thoeren closed the door.
"When you're ready," he said, "just ask me for the first config sheet. Take as long as you need to study it."
"Okay," Rogue said. "Uhh, what's the stealth test like?"
"Walking across the ballroom floor in tap shoes," Theoren replied. "There's good acoustics in there, so we will hear you."
"That's encouraging," Rogue muttered, not at all looking forward to the prospect.
Theoren chuckled.
"There's no rush," he assured her. "It's not like you're one of the kids who grew up in the Guild who've been training their entire lives and take it as a matter of pride to get their Mastery as quickly as possible."
Rogue grinned at him.
"Like you?" she asked mischievously.
"Oui, moi, Henri, Remy, Etienne, Emil... the lot of us," Theoren said, grinning. "For someone with very little prior training, you're doing very well."
"Thank you."
That evening, at the isolated Boudreaux Mansion:
"... and tomorrow I need the final roster for the Cortez job," Bella Donna was saying to Gris Gris as they walked down the hallway.
"You'll have it," Gris Gris replied. "There are only a couple of minor details to work out, but otherwise we're good to go."
"Bon," Bella Donna said as she stopped outside her bedroom door. "Bonne nuit, Gris Gris."
"Good night," Gris Gris answered with an incline of his head.
Gris Gris turned as Bella Donna put her hand on the door handle and began to walk back down the hall when he heard Bella Donna swear. He turned back to see Bella Donna looking through the open doorway with a shocked expression on her face.
"Belle?" he inquired.
Bella Donna didn't answer, but she didn't have to as Gris Gris looked for himself and saw one of their new council members, Jason Moreau, most recent leader of the Moreau clan, lying gutted in the middle of Bella Donna's bed. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Bella Donna wanted to be sick; the sight of this much blood didn't usually phase her, but that much blood didn't usually belong to one of her friends either.
"Merde," Gris Gris hissed under his breath. "Who...?"
"Who, Gris Gris? I'd say that any member of the former council is a strong contender," Bella Donna replied, trying to sound professional.
"He and his père were close though," Gris Gris said, unable to tear his eyes away from the body. "Do you really think he'd..."
"Right now, we can't rule out anyone. Now, let's see... who do we have that's fond of eviscerating?"
"Dead?" Gambit repeated, staring at Henri in horror the following afternoon.
"Oui," Henri replied gravely from his usual chair in Jean-Luc's office.
"Do they know who?" Jean-Luc asked, leaning on his desk.
"If they have any firm suspects, my contact didn't know," Henri replied. "But I think we can figure out a pretty long list ourselves; Bella Donna has been making a lot of enemies with her council rearrangements."
"And why leave the body on her bed?" asked Gambit. "Was she and Moreau having a thing or something?"
"I have no idea if they were in a relationship," Henri told Gambit seriously. "More likely it was a power play; they were telling Bella Donna that she's not untouchable by leaving the body in a place of personal sanctity."
"I guess that makes sense," Gambit said. "So, stupid question; how's Belle taking it?"
"You're right, that is a stupid question," Henri said with a slight smirk. "Like she'd ever give the enemy a sign that they'd gotten to her."
"And the Moreau clan leadership?" asked Jean-Luc.
"Not sure what's happening with that yet," Henri said. "But that's something for the Moreau clan to decide and I think Jason's children are all under-age, so I couldn't even give you an educated guess."
"I should call Belle –" Gambit began.
"Non!" Jean-Luc objected sternly.
"But –" Gambit attempted to interject.
"It's none of our business," Jean-Luc said firmly. "It's an internal Guild matter and it's not our place to get involved."
"Belle's my friend," Gambit insisted.
"And she has plenty of other friends who aren't political dynamite," Jean-Luc said. "We will send a letter of condolences and that is it, understood? The last thing Bella Donna needs to deal with right now is being seen or heard talking to you. Any Thief for that matter, but especially you, Remy."
"Père's right, Remy," Henri said gently. "The best thing we can do to help her right now is not getting involved. Unless of course... we are already involved?"
Gambit returned Henri's inquisitive look with an innocent expression of his own.
"Why Henri," he said drolly, "whatever could you be suggesting?"
"Not suggesting anything," Henri replied. "Just saying that if we have any reason to believe that the Assassins' internal matter might spill out onto the Thieves... well, that is why we're discussing the matter in the first place."
"Spill out, hein? Like Assassins getting into fights with Thieves?" Gambit asked.
"A certain amount of that is normal, but it doesn't usually get too violent," Henri said, regarding his brother seriously. "An escalation in violence, Assassins trying to kill Thieves, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to know about, and it's also something Bella Donna should know."
"Well, fortunately," Gambit said with the appearance of complete self-satisfaction, "I can say that I haven't heard of any Assassins trying to kill Thieves in, well, years actually. A couple of decades even."
"Good to know."
Jean-Luc hid his interest at his sons' conversation. After the meeting finished, Jean-Luc waited until Gambit departed and then caught Henri's arm.
"What was that about before?" he asked. "About Assassins killing Thieves?"
Henri glanced towards the closed office door, then back at Jean-Luc and lowered his voice:
"I think someone tried to knock off Remy," Henri said. "The other day when I had to pick him up because the brake line had broken? Yeah, I got a look at the brake line; it had been severed."
Jean-Luc was silent for a moment.
"You think one of the Assassins..." he began and trailed off, not really wanting to finish the sentence.
"You know Remy," Henri said with a sigh. "I can't get him to admit that there was anything fishy about it. I do know that there are a number of Assassins – Bella Donna's age group and up – who didn't approve of her decision to rescind Remy's exile. I have reason to believe – especially in this current climate – that some of them might decide to... you know."
Once again Jean-Luc fell to silence. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, a slight frown on his face. Henri waited expectantly.
"Keep him in the Guild Hall," Jean-Luc said finally. "Don't let him leave until this blows over."
"There's no telling how long that will take, Père," Henri pointed out. "And you know how stir crazy he's been getting. He actually looks forward to going out and buying baby wipes, for goodness sake."
"Well, we're going to find someone else to do that," Jean-Luc said firmly. "We should try and keep Rogue here too, unless she's going out of the state for a job or something. I doubt she would be considered a priority target, but let's not get sloppy."
"Right."