Lost.

She stands shivering next to a wide expanse of road. She'd had to get off of the bus, needed something to draw her back from the precipice she was standing at the edge of, and for some reason she'd thought the cool night air would do it. Now she's less concerned about the mess her life currently consists of than the fact that she's left her jacket and lighter inside.

Where they've stopped, miles from anywhere, is kind of comforting though.

She fights a sudden urge to run. Running won't help, it hasn't for the rest of her life, but the impulse is so deeply ingrained within her that it takes real effort to ignore it. Instead she leans back against the bus and tries to order her thoughts. Unfortunately, she has as much luck with doing that as suppressing the desire to leave. Everything remains resolutely chaotic, flashes of what happened, what could have happened, and what could still happen emerging from the recesses of her mind to taunt her.

These thoughts have her so tightly tangled in a web that she never hears him approach. "Bea, we've got to go," he says offhandedly, letting no hint of emotion creep in to his tone. He knows just as well as she does how fatal that could be. She nods, not trusting herself to reply to him. As she turns to go back inside she catches him watching her, and for a second they stand trapped in time. He moves instinctively towards her, and that's what breaks her out of her reverie. She walks past him and through the door - never looking back.

Art.

The police report said she'd pulled seven cons. "Works of art," she'd responded, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke as she did so, "Con sounds so... cheap." Whatever else you could say about Courtney Banks, she never did anything cheap. Each of her projects was elaborately constructed, preying on the decadence and hedonism of New York's elite.

Her gift was making them feel valued for something other than their bank balances, injecting a little reality into their lives. "There's nothing more attractive to those over privileged morons than a little carefully constructed reality," she'd explained to the rookie policeman they'd sent to guard her hotel room, and he'd nodded eagerly. Personally, he'd cheered her on as the reports came in of massive losses suffered by the most self righteous pricks in the city - they deserved all they got in his opinion. He could tell that she felt the same way about them from her dismissive tone, so he voiced his thoughts. Courtney's eyes lit up as he spoke, excited to have found a like minded spirit, and that spurred him on. "Darling, I couldn't agree more. The corruption in this city breaks my damn heart - it means honest cops like you can't touch the real bad guys. As I see it, that's where I come in."

The rookie was so caught up in her explanation of her work that he never even noticed the room key slipped from his pocket.

Even as he stood later on her words resonated in him, driving him to wonder exactly how he could help. The appearance of an old maid hunched over her cleaning trolley on what was supposed to be a secure floor broke into his reverie, and he told her sharply to leave, surprised at the level of incompetence of his colleagues.

Resuming his post on the door, he was unaware he was guarding an empty room, the only sign that someone had once been in the lingering scent of perfume and a cigarette butt smouldering in an ashtray. By the time he realised his mistake, Courtney would be on a plane, glass of champagne in hand and maid's costume safely stored in a locker at JFK.

Another work of art complete.