The Rules of Survival (Mercer #1)

RoS Chapter Six

He'd been a genius when it came to taking things right out from under people's noses. Never once had he been detected, and when he'd taught me the tricks of the trade he'd ensured I learned enough never to get caught either.

Watch them without watching them.

Always the first words out of his mouth when he brought me with him on what he called "training exercises". A shiver ran down my spine as I imagined him standing here with me now, whispering instructions calmly in my ear. The first few times he'd chosen my targets for me and sent me towards them, supervising from a distance.

And those first few times I had been certain I would be stopped by security, or by someone who'd noticed the sweat beading at my temples and my shaking hands. I'd been absolutely terrified. More than that, I'd never wanted to learn in the first place. But Kalen had been adamant it was a skill I needed to have.

If for some reason I'm no longer around, you need to make sure you can still put food on the table. Never rely on Teresa. Only rely on yourself, because the kids will be depending on you.

He couldn't stress that enough over the years. Whenever he'd lectured me I'd only ever been half listening because the idea of a world without Kalen in it was incomprehensible. He'd always been larger than life and simply unstoppable. Catching myself before I fell into a well of despair, I scanned the crowd around me, everyone making their way to a train or to the end of the platform leading out.

Time to size up potential paydays.

Of course, the onset of winter encouraging people to bundle up made it harder to pinpoint their wallets, and it wasn't like I could walk up to someone and ask them to hold still long enough for me to pat them down. A little frustrated, I blew into my hands which I could never seem to keep warm and walked further down the platform.

Noise amplified by the enclosed space allowed for stealth without effort; short of screaming in someone's ear, any racket I made would go unnoticed. It was why I'd come here; I needed every advantage I could get. The smell on the other hand, was something I could do without. A pungent combination of mold, stale sweat and urine, it was enough to have me screwing my face up in distaste.

I dawdled along at a snail's crawl for five minutes when one man in particular caught my attention. Wearing a beige shin length coat and carrying a brief case, he was careless about his surroundings, bumping into several people as he yammered away on his cell phone. His coat flapped open, revealing a bulge in his left sweater pocket that clearly screamed wallet.

My heartbeat picked up in anticipation. I picked my way through the crowd, purposefully bumping into a couple of people, and kept my eyes up; Kalen always maintained a guilty person was someone who could never look you in the eyes, even before they'd committed a crime.

Just as my target passed me I held my breath for luck and bumped him, the split second contact giving me just enough time to slip my hand into his pocket and uplift his wallet without him noticing. Rushing out an apology, I slid the heavy leather billfold behind my back and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans.

Oblivious, he kept walking, and it wasn't until I casually ducked behind a cement column that I released a shaky breath.

My anxiety didn't stem from a lack of faith in my ability; I was fairly good at picking people's pockets. It was more the fact that no matter how many times I did it, guilt still racked me, and my conscience screamed that today could be the day karma came back to bite me in the ass. Because like it or not, nobody was infallible, most definitely not me. I was simply one of the few who could admit something as stupid as groping the wrong person could bring me down.