The Love of My Afterlife(54)
I take my phone from my purse. There’s a text from the Italian restaurant on Kensington Park Road letting me know that Mr. Yoon’s order has been delivered. Fab. Then I notice the time.
“Wait—another fifteen minutes and we’ll be late! I thought you said we’d be inconspicuous? The two of us rocking up after it’s all started will totally draw attention to our lack of invitation!”
“My plan involves us being fifteen minutes late.”
“Oh?”
“While you got much wrong about the life of an author earlier on, you did not stray too far from the truth when it came to awards. I have won two Daggers.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means I write books about heists that have won respect and admiration from my peers. Getting into a charity gala without a ticket is not going to be a problem for me.”
Hmm. I’m not sure I believe him.
“We’ll be there in no time,” he says confidently as we set off across the pub car park.
* * *
The back of my heel is bleeding. We’re on what looks to be a never-ending country lane being followed by a lone sheep who baas at us every so often as if to tell us we are going totally the wrong way.
“Are you sure this is the right direction?” I ask, not for the first time.
Cooper stops walking and rubs his hand across his jaw. “I beg of you to stop asking. I have checked and double-checked. Christ, I spent almost the entirety of yesterday making sure that this would work.”
“You did?” I ask in surprise. “The entirety of yesterday?”
“I did,” he returns, exasperated. “I said I would. This is the only way to get to the back of Derwent Manor without being seen. And then I will tell you the remainder of the plan.”
“I don’t understand why you won’t tell me now, though. What if it’s not a good plan and I need to make adjustments? I need you to understand how important it is that this works!”
He takes a step towards me, his nose a mere inch from mine. I notice that his dark green eyes are flecked with tiny splashes of olive green. They glint, making me think of a flinted emerald. “Because, Delphie,” he says, his voice low, “you make cynical remarks at every possible opportunity and ask far, far too many questions.” His eyes travel over my face. “Have you ever planned a heist?”
“Well, no,” I say, noticing then that he has shaved, the usual scruffy stubble shorter and neater.
“I have planned many.” He tugs at his bow tie.
“Fictional, though. Not real ones.”
“Can’t you have a little fucking faith?”
I blink.
Faith. Huh.
In the absence of a suitably cynical response, I nod my head.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
His eyes linger on mine for a moment longer before he turns on his heel and continues to stride down the country lane, me hobbling after him, the errant sheep trotting away after me.
* * *
Soon enough we turn a corner and the rear of Derwent Manor comes into view. It is vast and even grander than it looks in the pictures online.
“Whoa,” I breathe. “It’s blummin’ gorgeous. And so old! I wonder if it’s haunted. I wonder if Lady Derwent sleeps in a four-poster bed. Ooh, do you think there’s a scullery?”
Cooper ignores me, purposefully striding towards a tall black cast-iron fence enclosing the whole back of the building. I’m about to ask Cooper how the hell he figures we’re going to get over the fence, but before I can, he starts quietly counting the iron bars. “There should be a small lock about one hundred and fifty railings to the left,” he murmurs to himself.
We start counting the bars together and, just as he said, there’s a lock at number one hundred and fifty. The railings here are slightly thicker, and in the middle of one of them is a small rusting space for a key.
“A secret gate!” I breathe, straight-up enchanted. I think this is what having fun feels like.
Cooper reaches into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a Swiss Army knife, inserting one of the fittings deftly into the keyhole and wiggling it from side to side, his tongue poking slightly between his teeth.
“Picking a lock!” I exclaim, impressed despite myself.
“You going to narrate this whole thing?” He flashes me a look before giving the lock one last firm yank. The hinges squeak open with a noise that suggests it’s not been touched in perhaps a century.
“We have to leave you here,” I say to the sheep lingering behind us. “We’d take you with us but it’s too dangerous.”
Cooper turns to the sheep. “Thank you for helping us to get this far,” he adds, straight-faced and earnest. “But your stench would arouse too much suspicion.”
“We will never forget you.” I reach out to pat the sheep on the head but decide against it because Cooper is right about the stench and sheep is not a good bouquet on anyone trying to attract the man of their dreams.
“Goodbye, Special Agent Balthazar.” Cooper says with a solemn bow of the head.
Special Agent Balthazar?
I bark out a laugh so loud it shocks me and makes the sheep literally shit on the grass beneath him.