The Raven Strikes Again.

 Amelia took a deep breath and stepped out from her hiding place into the huge room.  The blue glow from the security lights made it feel more like an aquarium than a museum.  The walls were adorned with paintings and pictures, from a period of Russian history that Amelia didn’t recognize.  Nothing was really to her taste, she was more of a renaissance girl if anything, but each to their own.  The display cabinets around the room housed various pieces of clothing and jewellery purporting to be from Catherine the Great.  The Russian exhibit had been a huge boon to the museum and brought much kudos to its curator.  Nothing interested Amelia thought, apart from the display at the centre of the room.  On a plinth sat a purple cushion on which was displayed a necklace the like of which even Amelia hadn’t seen before.  It was cast in gold, and held fourteen diamonds and fifteen sapphires in an exquisite shape that looked stunning. It was supposed to be a present from Catherine’s husband on the occasion of their marriage in seventeen something.  Amelia hadn’t bothered with the full history, all she cared about was how to lift it, get it out of the museum and exchange it for the four million she had been offered to steal it.  Simple really.

The museum had spent a small fortune on installing a clever security system for the exhibit, but Amelia’s man, Marcus was cleverer.  The exterior alarms were off and the security cameras were all showing a video feed from the previous night on a loop, so far so good.  She felt in her pocket for the replacement necklace.  Supplied by Alfred Duchess, the best forger in town, from pictures of the necklace posted all over the internet.  The next part was the tricky part.  

She stepped towards the plinth and unclipped a spray can from her belt.  Spraying across the space in front of her highlighted the laser beams protecting the plinth, just as Marcus had said.  Amelia counted to twelve, the beams went out for a second and came back on.  She counted to twelve again, just to be sure, and the beams faded once more.  Marcus had hacked the system and built in a reset every twelve seconds.  He really was a genius.  She had one second to step through.  Just enough time.  Amelia held her breathe as she counted again, and on thirteen she was through and standing in front of the plinth.  No alarms. She breathed out gently.  A movement in the corner of the room caught her eye.  She peered into the darkness, nothing moved.  Maybe she had been mistaken.  She slipped the fake necklace from her pocket and quickly exchanged it for the real one, being sure to hold down the pressure pad under the cushion just enough.  Slipping the necklace into her left pocket, she watched the beams and counted again. On the count of thirteen she was through and safe.

‘That was a neat trick, you must tell me how you did it sometime.’

Amelia froze.  The voice came from the shadows.  She knew there had been a movement, how could she have been caught.  A figure stepped into the centre of the room, illuminated by the pale glow of security lights.  He was medium height, wearing black clothing and a black ski mask covered his face.  Amelia could have been looking in a mirror.  At least it wasn’t a security guard, this might not be as bad as she thought.

‘Now you’ve done the hard bit, I think I’ll take the necklace.’  He said.

‘In your dreams.’  Amelia laughed.  But she stopped when he pulled out a pistol and aimed it at her head.  Well, this was going from bad to worse.

‘Take it out of your pocket, slowly, and throw it to me.  Then we can all leave and everyone’s happy, no one gets hurt.’  

Amelia stuck her hand in her right pocket and pulled out the necklace.  She looked at it, then tossed it to the masked figure, who caught it with one hand.  

‘That was easy wasn’t it.  Now wait there while I run away.’  He laughed.  The masked figure slowly backed away towards the entrance, the gun still trained on Amelia’s head.  Just as he reached the doorway, he threw the gun at the plinth.  As it sailed through the laser beams all hell broke loose.  Alarms went off, high pitched screeching noises coming from all corners, the main lights in the museum came on, and shutters began to descend on all exits.  Amelia felt her heart skip a beat.  The Raven prided herself on her cleverness, it would not do her reputation any good to be trapped like this.  She leapt towards the stairwell entrance.  Ordinarily a backflip or fancy cartwheel would have been her choice of escape methods.  Something showy and ostentatious, but this time she opted for a good old-fashioned run like hell.  She threw herself through the doorway under the shutter just in time, galloped down the stairs two at a time and made it to the fire exit door which she had left wedged open, just in case.  Her black BMW Z4 was parked where she left it.  As she slipped behind the wheel, she pulled the real necklace from her left pocket.  Alfred thought she was being over cautious when she asked him to make two copies, but as she said, you can never be over prepared, not in this game.

Quite who the other thief was she didn’t know, but once he discovered he had a fake necklace, he probably wouldn’t be too pleased.  Still, that will teach him to try to muscle in on the Raven’s turf.  The audacity of the man!  Still, it might be a good idea to lie low for a while, maybe figure out who he was and what he was doing.  Her step mother had been nagging her to visit, perhaps a trip to the seaside would be fun.