Free Hot Ice by Cherry Adair Page B

been for only a few hours, but she'd crisscrossed the city. Backward and forward. Changing her appearance at every stop until she was positive she'd shaken the tail.
    She'd trusted the feeling enough to go straight to the airport from the house party, instead of returning to her hotel.
    Tonight that feeling of being watched was back in spades. She never ignored her instincts, and right now every nerve and muscle in her body warned of impending danger. If she was fanciful—which she frequently was—she imagined a jungle cat, sleek and black, watching her from the darkness. Waiting to pounce. Her heart hammered.
    She forced herself to crouch there, absolutely still for a few more valuable seconds as she listened carefully for the slightest out-of-place sound, a movement, a change in the air around her.
    Nothing.
    Nothing.
    Another precious few seconds passed as she waited. Still nothing. If danger lurked in the darkness, it wasn't going to disappear while she hung around waiting for it. Time to get moving. Taylor suddenly had a quick, visual memory of the man in San Cristóbal—
    No, damn it. Concentrate . No sudden jarring moves. Keep it smooth. Steady.
    She couldn't afford to use a light, but in her mind's eye she visualized the necklace on its cream velvet bed shooting blue fire. Come to mama .
    The clear poly tube was eighteen inches in diameter and eight feet tall. The exhibits had been carefully placed on motion-sensitive pads, then the open-ended tubes lowered over the top to fit snuggly into magnetic rims on each base.
    Other than removing the tube—impossible without large equipment—the only way in to the gems was to lower herself down inside the tube.
    Standing on her toes, Taylor jumped up, gripping the outer edge of the display tube between her tightly gloved hands, and without missing a beat, lifted herself up over the rim. She went down headfirst into the cylinder, her feet hooked over the rim to hold her in place. It was a tight fit.
    Two minutes forty seconds. Piece of cake.
    Blood rushed to her head with the sound of the ocean roaring as she unhooked a weight from her belt while feeling carefully with her other hand for the cool silver links of the necklace at the bottom of the case.
    Velvet… velvet…
    Bingo.
    She skillfully exchanged the weight for the necklace, another for the earrings, then stuffed both into her leg pack and inched herself backward out of the tube.
    Barely out of breath, sitting balanced on the thick rim, legs dangling inside the display case, Taylor gave herself a few seconds to readjust her equilibrium.
    She couldn't shake the sensation of being watched. But she could see the guards wending their way back—still hundreds of yards away. And the red eyes of the cameras were dark. She'd clipped a few wires and looped the security feed earlier. No one was watching her, of course, but the hairs on the back of her neck said otherwise.
    To hell with it.
    Pushing off the rim with her palms, she withdrew her legs from inside the tube, then crouched on the outer edge, like a frog about to hop. She grinned. Damn, this was fun. Slowly, she rose to straddle the opening, arms extended for balance to stand eleven feet above the floor.
    The victory smile slipped from her face as she heard a sound to her right. She froze. No, not a sound, more a feeling of that dark presence. Someone else was out there watching her.
    The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and her heart leapt into her throat.
    Her imagination.
    No. God, no . She felt someone there.
    Where? She looked around again, careful not to topple off her perch, trying to discern who, where , in the inky blackness.
    Nothing but the thick darkness, and the approaching twin beams of the guards' flashlights looming ever closer.
    Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
    Flexing her knees, arms raised above her head, palms held high and flat, she jumped. Her left palm struck the air-conditioning grid above her head with a soft click while she