Page 26 of Love Bomb

Unfortunately, she wasn’t so pleased with the weather. It was freezing. She could hardly feel her fingers under her mittens. Not to mention her teeth were chattering so badly she thought she might break one of them.

“Wait until the night is darkest and everyone’s asleep.” She mimicked Margaret’s voice as she rattled off the advice she’d been given.

Yeah, great. Wait until it’s so dark you can’t see a bloody thing. Oh, and don’t forget that when it’s darkest, it’s also coldest! Rona blinked hard as the icy air stung her eyes.

“Can eyeballs freeze?” she muttered.

It felt like there were icicles forming on her lashes. She reached up and pulled the hastily made ski mask over her face. To hell with hiding her identity. She needed it to keep warm. Why they’d bothered to cut a hole for her mouth, she didn’t know. It’d seemed sensible at the time. Two holes for her eyes, one for her mouth. But why no nose hole? And why did she need the mouth hole? It wasn’t like there was anyone to talk to. Did Margaret think she might need a snack?

She groaned at the heavens and silently wondered why she wasn’t still in bed, like any sensible person. But no, she was in the snow, about to attempt a break-in to steal explosives she had no idea how to use.

“This is why prisons are full of desperate people,” she told herself.

With difficulty, because her feet sank deep into the snow with each step she took, she rounded the car and opened the trunk. There’d been a long discussion about whether she should take her own car for the heist, or borrow someone else’s to preserve her anonymity. They’d also toyed with the idea of her stealing a car for the night, but seeing as neither she nor Margaret knew how to steal a car, that was off the table. In the end they’d decided her car was best, as she could just park out of range of the cameras.

Why they’d bothered to spend so much time discussing cars, she didn’t know. Because there was no one outside to witness her criminal activity. She could have driven to the shed in the Batmobile and it would have gone unnoticed.

She clipped a reading light to the front of her coat. It was the best they could come up with for a handsfree flashlight on short notice. On full beam, it was bright enough for her to see where she was going, and she had a regular flashlight to see anything else. Now, all she had to do was sneak up to the shed, find the cameras, and disable them.

Easier said than done.

It took two trips from the car to ferry all her gear to a spot near the shed, out of sight of the cameras. She’d brought everything she thought she would need—including Dougal’s toolbox, because she wasn’t sure what tools she’d need to get inside the shed. Her lock picks might not be enough.

“They make this look so much easier in the movies,” she muttered.

Using the hand flashlight, she swept the exterior of the small building, making a mental note of where the cameras sat. Then she wedged the flashlight into the V of some branches nearby, aiming it at the building. Between her makeshift floodlight and her reading light, she was good to go.

After stuffing what she thought she might need into the oversized pockets of the coat, she grabbed the small ladder she’d brought and made her way toward the first camera, placed high on the left-hand corner of the shed. Even though she hurried, each step was like wading through treacle. She sank into the snow and tripped over hidden grass clumps, at one point grabbing a nearby bush to stay upright.

At last, she was under the camera.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

The folly had to go.

With determination, she removed the can of red spray paint from her pocket.

“Wake up,” Conall shouted, telling Bain he’d slept on the sofa again, instead of going home to his own bed. “Wake up! Somebody is breaking into Bain’s shed.”

If only Bain had been asleep. Instead, he’d been lying in bed, wide awake, trying to figure out what to do about Rona. As soon as he heard Conall’s shout, he jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper, and thrust his feet into his boots. He was thumping downstairs within seconds.

“What’s going on?” he demanded as he rushed into the living room.

Darach stood beside the TV, laptop in hand. “A motion sensor went off a few minutes ago, then one of the cameras turned red. I’ve got the feed from the camera facing the shed, so we can see what they’re doing. As soon as we’re all dressed, we’ll head out there and stop the bastard.”

“Show me,” Bain ordered his younger brother.

The TV came to life with a wide view of his lab. Sure enough, someone was sneaking up to the camera on the right-hand corner. They hugged the wall, as though that would keep them off camera.

The thief was dressed in an oversized black coat, with an odd-looking ski mask pulled down over their face.

“What’s that they’re carrying?” he said. “Is that a ladder?”

“Looks like one of those small stepping things short people use to get up to their kitchen cupboards,” Darach said. “They won’t get onto the roof with that.”

“Why would they want to get on the roof anyway?” Bain said. “All the doors and windows are right in front of them.”