The Zoo Job Page 13

  The woman on the other side of the rack shot her a look. “Excuse me?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Parker said, even as Hardison replied.

  “Yeah, and I’m setting it up so that they get yesterday’s images of animals runnin’ around instead of you break-in’ in.”

  Parker nodded, but that wasn’t what she needed to know. She found a T-shirt, then walked away from the rack and the woman with the accusing gaze. “Can you dig up a picture of the damage the raccoon did that one time?”

  “I think so, yeah.” A pause, then: “Okay, sendin’ it to your phone.”

  She was now standing in front of a wall that had a bunch of knives on it. Her phone beeped, indicating a new e-mail, and Parker called it up, then got the attachment. “What’s the size of these node things?”

  Hardison said, “About five inches wide, a foot long, three inches tall. Why?”

  Parker didn’t reply, but stared at the picture, tried to figure out the exact size of the claw marks on the device’s outer edge, then found a knife that had a blade of roughly the same size. “Just trying to make it look good.”

  “Make what look good?”

  “My raccoon impersonation. I figure I’ll damage one with a knife that’ll look like raccoon marks, then stick a bird’s nest by the other one, and I’m in.”

  She paid for the knife, black T-shirt, black jeans, black leather gloves, and brown hiking boots with Alice White’s credit card. Hardison had set up a payment system for that card that was untraceable by the banks, drawing from Parker’s own accounts.

  A gas station next to the thrift store had a bathroom that Parker changed clothes in, tossing the grease-covered clothes into the trunk of the rental car, and hoping she could get them cleaned before Sophie got back from Africa. Then she hopped in and followed the directions Hardison had provided to the hiking trail’s parking lot.

  Forty-five minutes later, she finally made it to the eleventh node of the e-fence.

  Looking up, she tried and failed to find a bird’s nest.

  It was time to climb a tree.

  Parker had always loved to climb things. In fact, the first thing she ever climbed was a maple tree behind one of the foster homes she had lived in. It was a small house in the Bronx, and there were four trees in the backyard: a maple, an oak, a weeping willow, and a mimosa. The maple was the only one that was climbable, but it was the perfect climbing tree: plenty of handholds, places to sit, and more. She remembered the first time she got high enough to see over the roof of the house. To the north, she could discern the local church that her foster parents kept trying to get her to go to. To the south was a big apartment building. To the east was a bunch more houses with small yards, some of which also had trees, but they weren’t as nice as hers. And to the west was the elevated train. That very same train was the one she took the first time she ran away from that home and went down to Manhattan to pick people’s pockets.

  And one of those pockets belonged to Archie, who began to train her.

  She was put into a different foster home after running away that time, and the next one didn’t have trees in back.

  The maple tree in Vermont wasn’t anywhere near as good a climbing tree as that one in the Bronx had been. The branches were poorly arranged, for one thing—a couple of times she practically had to hug the tree to get up high enough, as the branches were too far apart for even her strong legs to navigate.

  One of the branches snapped under her weight at one point, forcing her to grab another one and dangle for a second before swinging herself upward.

  Mostly, this served to remind her why she preferred to climb around in buildings and elevator shafts—much less shoddy construction than trees.

  Finally, she got to a decent vantage point. The only view this tree gave her was of more trees, none of which seemed to have any nests.

  With a sigh, she looked down to find the right branch for a foothold—and saw a bird’s nest on the ground!

  At least, it looked like one. There was a divot in the ground, and it was filled with branches, bits of grass, and six eggs. Standing next to it was a bird with blue wings. Parker knew very little about birds, but figured it was probably a bluebird since it was, well, blue. Mostly.

  Parker leaped down from the tree with a happy yelp. The divot that held the nest was on the other side of the hiking trail from the e-fence, but how hard could it be to move it?

  Within a few minutes, she realized the fallacy of that position. She had assumed that the nest was portable, but after thinking about it for a second—a second’s more thought than she’d previously ever given to bird’s nests—she discovered that that made no sense. Nests weren’t supposed to move, they were supposed to support. Structural integrity wasn’t high on the list of characteristics that birds went for.

  Parker discovered this after her attempt to pick up the nest with her gloved hands resulted in a bunch of scattered branches, an egg rolling toward the hiking trail, and a bluebird kicking up a fuss.

  “Dammit,” Parker muttered as she ran to retrieve the egg, gently carrying it back to the now-less-nestlike divot.

  Luckily, the bluebird was small and limited in its ability to cause Parker harm beyond chirping pissily.

  Running back across the hiking trail, Parker went over to the area just next to the e-fence device and started digging a small hole, using the knife she’d bought to loosen the dirt.

  Once the hole was about the same size as the divot on which the nest rested, she started collecting branches and grass and such, arranging it in a similar way to how the nest on the other side of the trail was arranged. Satisfied that she had a nice nest, and making sure it was right up against the e-fence controller, she then carefully brought all six eggs over, much to the consternation of the bird, who was throwing a fit.

  Leaving the mother bird to rearrange the nest to her own specifications—surely knocking the controller out of whack in the process—Parker then hiked down the trail to the next node.

  Using the picture on her phone for reference, she simulated the four claw marks of a raccoon, spacing them the way they were spaced on the previous raccoon attack.

  This time, though, sparks started flying from the controller, and Parker squeaked and jumped back.

  Hardison’s voice came over the earbud immediately. “Parker?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly.

  “Well, whatever you did worked, ’cause number seventeen just went down. And there goes number eleven.”

  Parker grinned. “Knew Mama Bird would come through for me.”

  “Okay, where you are’s still hot from the next node down, so you need to go about forty feet up the trail—that’s where the hole in the fence is.”

  “Got it.” Putting her knife inside her hiking boot, she ran up the trail.

  She jogged until Hardison said, “Now,” at which point she turned left and ran through the thick tree line onto McAllister’s property.

  At this point, she was relying on Hardison to be her eyes.

  “All right,” Hardison said. “I’ve got the security feed that the guard can’t see. He’s gettin’ into a golf cart—he’ll be there in, like, six minutes.”

  “Right.” Parker continued to run through the trees, eventually coming through to a clearing—

  —where she found herself face-to-face with an emu. She stopped running, and also stopped breathing.

  “Uh, Hardison?”

  “It’s all right, just don’t move forward. Sorry, still trying to find all the smaller e-fences for the animals. A’ight.” Hardison took a deep breath. “Back up about four steps then turn left and go about thirty feet, then turn right. That emu’s right on the edge of its enclosure.”

  Parker got her breathing back under control and did as Hardison instructed. The emu lo
oked way too much like a horse, except not really, and anyhow, she was totally over her fear of horses, except she wasn’t, entirely. Exactly. She’d been around horses that were okay, but she’d also never entirely forgotten that horse that killed the clown right in front of her.

  Stupid horse.

  She tried not to think about it too much. And tried very hard not to look at the emu that looked way too much like a horse.

  Doing as Hardison told her to do had become second nature to her, and most of the time she was okay with that. She was part of a team now, and this way was definitely better.

  It was, however, a lot more confusing, too, and she wasn’t always sure she liked it. Particularly on days like today when she worked by herself.

  But she wasn’t by herself. Nate was kibitzing, like he always did, and Hardison was helping her through everything. They were there with her.

  She found herself remembering what Hardison had told her once: “I got you, girl.” Which he said right before he packed her bag with a parachute, just in case she’d need to make a quick exit off the roof of the second tallest building in the world.

  “All right,” he said. “Keep going until you catch sight of the bears.”

  “Bears, plural?” Parker asked as she jogged away from the emu.

  “It’s fine, they’re behind the e-fence.”

  “Hope so.” She didn’t like the idea of being mauled by a bear.

  However, the bears turned out to be asleep on a big rock.

  “All right, Parker. I need you to head for that tree just north of you.”

  Parker blinked for a second. She generally had an idea of the direction of the compass points, as it was the only way to keep track of where she was when she was crawling around a building’s ductwork, but she hadn’t seriously oriented herself yet to this place.

  However, it only took her a second to realize Hardison meant to her right. Turning, she saw a big tree.

  It wasn’t until she was climbing it that she thought to ask, “Why?”

  “Golf cart on approach.”

  “I don’t—”

  Then she did hear it: a very quiet hum, just before a white cart came into view, being driven by a middle-aged man in an ill-fitting suit.

  “Stupid quiet golf carts,” she subvocalized so only Hardison could hear her on the earbud.

  Then she felt something fall on her back. Somehow, she managed not to scream—no sense in alerting Mr. Golf Cart that she was in the tree he was about to drive under—but she did flail her arms and almost lose her footing on the branch.

  Grabbing another branch, she managed to steady herself, hoping that whatever fell on her would be all that Golf Cart would notice.

  He cried out “Jesus H!” but the golf cart didn’t stop. Looking down, Parker saw that it was some kind of monkey, like the type they used to have for organ grinders. It was little, with long arms, white fur on its head, and brown fur on the rest of it.

  “You okay, Parker?”

  The cart was now going off into the distance, so Parker felt comfortable whispering. “I’m fine.”

  The monkey chose that moment to climb back up the tree. It scrabbled up and sat right next to Parker on the branch.

  And then it just stared at her.

  “Hardison?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s a monkey here.”

  “Where here?”

  “In the tree. It’s staring at me.”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “A little monkey! White fur on the head, brown fur everywhere else. A little over a foot long, not counting the tail.”

  “Okay, hang on.” A pause. Parker could hear the clicking of Hardison’s fingers over his keyboard. The monkey kept staring at her with what Parker was starting to realize were very adorable dark eyes. “That’s what I thought. You got yourself one of the few animals McAllister has a record of. That’s a capuchin monkey. But—” A few more keystrokes. “That’s weird.”

  “Hardison, I’m sitting in a tree being stared at by a monkey. What’s weird?”

  “You’re not inside one of the e-fences. Does the monkey have a collar?”

  Parker peered closely at the monkey’s neck, but did not see a collar. There had been one on the emu and both bears. “Nope.”

  “Huh. That’s weird. All right, well, you’re clear now, so keep going toward the house. The security guy’s gonna need at least ten minutes to check everything out.”

  Jumping down from the tree, Parker landed softly, then got to her feet.

  The monkey jumped down and landed next to her.

  With a sigh, she started to jog in the direction of the estate.

  To her annoyance, the monkey continued right alongside her.

  She stopped running, and the monkey stopped, too.

  Pointing at the oak tree they’d both just climbed down, Parker said, “Go back!”

  The monkey just stared at her.

  “Parker?” Hardison asked.

  “It’s the monkey, it won’t—” She groaned. “Never mind.”

  Deciding to simply ignore the monkey, she kept jogging toward the estate, Hardison directing her around the other e-fences on the grounds—which were, Parker noted, incredibly green.

  She didn’t like that much green.

  That damned, stupid, if rather cute monkey kept pace with her the whole way, right up until she came in sight of the huge mansion. Parts of it looked like a typical old-fashioned mansion that there were lots of in small New England towns, but there were add-ons, and they’d been done fairly sloppily, without much regard to aesthetics. Which Parker actually liked, because that kind of carelessness with architecture usually also meant carelessness with security.

  Hardison spoke in her earbud. “All right, the security on the house itself is—”

  “Irrelevant.” Parker grinned. The door to the sunroom was ajar. “I can just walk in. Mr. Golf Cart forgot to close the door behind him.”

  “O-o-okay.”

  “First rule of being a thief, Hardison. No amount of training, preparation, equipment, or smarts can beat the mark being a total moron.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Parker slid through the space left between the door and the frame, being careful not to disturb anything.

  The first thing she noticed was the computer desk. There was an e-reader abandoned on the desk chair, a nearly empty mug of coffee next to the keyboard, and a wide-screen monitor showing all the security feeds. One of the latter included a view of the capuchin monkey—still by her side—in a tree, but none included the golf cart.

  “What if he notices that he’s not on the footage he’s looking at?”

  “He hasn’t yet,” Hardison said. “First rule of being a thief, remember?”

  With a chuckle, Parker said, “Right. Where do I go now?”

  “McAllister’s got good computer security. The network’s hardwired, with the only wireless signals going to a few tablets. I could probably break in given enough time, but you should have one of my jump drives.”

  Parker nodded. “Where’s the security guy?”

  A pause. “Still looking at the mess you made.”

  “Good. Where’s McAllister’s office?”

  The capuchin monkey then ran ahead of Parker and through the north door just as Hardison said, “Take the north door and head down the hallway to the staircase.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  Walking quickly through that doorway, Parker saw that the monkey was standing at the foot of the very staircase Hardison had directed her to. As soon as she came close, the monkey ran up the stairs.

  As Parker followed him up, Hardison said, “Turn left when you get upstairs and it’s the last door on the right.”

 
When Parker was three quarters of the way up the stairs, the monkey dashed to the left. Upon arriving at the landing, she turned to see the monkey standing in front of the last door on the right.

  Grinning, Parker said, “Okay, that’s cool.”

  “What’s cool?” Hardison asked.

  “Um—nothing.” She didn’t feel like getting into an argument about the monkey. The one thing Parker didn’t like about working with a team was the disagreeing and the arguing that often came with it. She’d gotten enough of that in the foster homes.

  Pushing open the large wooden door, Parker stepped into a small room with a huge picture window providing a view of the grounds, including a lion (currently asleep) and an ostrich (currently drinking from a small pond). The window took up the entire east wall, with the door to the hallway on the west wall. A mahogany desk was parallel to the north wall, a leather chair between the desk and the wall, and a bookcase filled with leather-bound volumes sat against the south wall.

  She described it all to Hardison. “The books haven’t been touched by anything but dust in ages. I’m betting they don’t even have words in them—just someone who wants leather-bound books on the shelf to make himself look smart.”

  “Yeah.” Hardison didn’t sound interested, but then he didn’t care much about books. Neither did Parker, really, unless they were really valuable books—which was why she nailed these as sham antiques right off. “There a computer on the desk?”

  “Mhm.” Parker sat in the leather chair, which was way too low for her, but she didn’t adjust it, as that was the sort of thing that let people know that someone had been in the room. It was one of the first things that Archie taught her: to put things back the way you found them. Better still, not to move them at all, but that wasn’t always an option.

  The monkey jumped onto the desk, and just sat there, staring at Parker.

  Parker grabbed the mouse and moved it back and forth, and a password screen came up. “Computer’s on, but it’s asking for a password.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Hardison said. “Long as it’s on, my jump drive’ll work its magic.”