Thick as Thieves

by Jillianne Hamilton

  “Maybe you should have just left me hanging,” I said, closing up the sealed compartment and zipping up the suitcase. “We have to get back and figure out what to do with Delacroix.”

  Rhys looked annoyed as we sat silently in the back of a cab on our way back to Abel’s.

  “What?” I said.

  He gave me the side-eye. “I just want you to know that what happened up there—”

  “We don’t have to talk about it—”

  “It just was a bad example of my … abilities.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just wanted to make that clear.”

  Has he forgotten that we’ve kissed before? It was good, too. Much better than whatever that was, anyway.

  “Oh, my god.” I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Usually, yeah!”

  The sun had set on Amsterdam by the time we got back to Abel’s street. Everything was lit up. Lights from the homes and businesses reflected in the calm waters of the canals, shimmering like liquid gold alongside dark sidewalks. The nightlife had come alive, and patios were packed with social drinkers.

  We let ourselves into the house. The place was dark and quiet. We placed the suitcase by the door and headed upstairs to check on Abel and Delacroix. I stopped.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said.

  It all happened so fast.

  Before I could even grab my phone to turn on the flashlight, the blast of a gunshot split the air. Loud ringing echoed in my ears. Rhys squeezed past me and rushed into the darkness where the shot had come from. I bounded up the stairs, pushing all fear further down into my stomach.

  Still deaf from the bullet whizzing past me, I looked around frantically. Someone grabbed around my ankle and pulled me to the floor. I landed hard on my side, kicking wildly at whoever or whatever had pulled me down. Whatever it was, my ankle was freed a moment later.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see Rhys and Delacroix only two feet from me, rolling on the floor and struggling to get the gun. My hearing was slowly coming back. Fearful whimpers and foot stamping came from the corner—it was Abel, now tied up and gagged.

  Way to make sure Delacroix didn’t get away, Abel. You’re a terrible criminal, and you should feel bad.

  The gun was thrown across the room, and I grabbed it before Delacroix reached it. Rhys punched Delacroix in the face a few times, and Delacroix nailed him in the ribs and once to the side of the head. Hard. I winced.

  Rhys rolled off of Delacroix, wincing in pain. “Can you shoot him, please?”

  I aimed the gun directly at Delacroix. I kept the gun aimed at his face as he struggled to his feet, breathing heavily and staring at me. His right eye was red and starting to swell, and his lip was split on the left side. Blood seeped onto his teeth, making him look like an animal that had just devoured a fresh carcass.

  “You’re not going to shoot me, cupcake,” Delacroix said. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  My hands were shaking, but his casual tone made me want to shoot him even more.

  “Like hell I won’t,” I said.

  Rhys slowly pulled himself up, leaning against the wall and wincing. Delacroix made a move towards him.

  “Don’t you fucking move,” I said. “I’ll blow your brains out, I swear.”

  Delacroix stood still, looking between me and the mouth of the pistol.

  “Rhys, go help Abel,” I said, fixing my eyes on Delacroix.

  While Rhys untied Abel, I considered my next move. I had no desire to shoot anyone. If it came to that, I wasn’t even sure if I could shoot him. I’d never shot a gun before. But I knew Delacroix wouldn’t just let us go. Of course, he didn’t know we found the painting and that it was currently downstairs in a suitcase.

  “You are making my life a lot harder than it has to be,” Delacroix said. “I’ve got people I have to see. They’re not happy with me because of delays you have caused.”

  “That’s not my problem. We’re all here doing our jobs. We just happen to be after the same thing,” I said. “How about this person you keep mentioning? The one who stood you up for dinner this evening?”

  “You don’t need to know that.” Delacroix wiped some blood from his lip and slowly licked it off his fingers in one long, slow stroke of his tongue.

  Rhys stood at my side. “Ew.”

  “Are you alright?” I said quietly.

  “I’ll live.”

  I glanced at him for a second, taking my eyes off Delacroix for only a moment. “Oh my god, your face is covered in blood!”

  That’s all the time Delacroix needed to leap at me, forcing me to the ground. He grabbed the gun from the floor beside us, aiming at Rhys. The gun went off, sending a bullet through a nearby window. Still pinned underneath Delacroix, I brought my knee up hard into his crotch and he rolled off me, moaning in pain. Rhys kicked him sharply in the side and helped me up, my ears ringing once again.

  “Abel, get out of here!” I yelled as we ran down the stairs, Rhys squeezing my hand tight. Rhys grabbed the suitcase by the door and ran directly to a small speedboat docked beside the sidewalk in front of Abel’s house. He shoved the suitcase into my hand so he could unloop the rope from the dock.

  “The fuck are you doing?”

  “It’s Abel’s,” he said, moving over to the front of the boat. “I grabbed the keys off the wall yesterday in case we needed to make a quick getaway. We have the painting, let’s just go.”

  Abel ran out of the front door at full speed after us, bolting down the street. “He has the gun!” He stopped midstep and glared at us. “Hey, that’s my boat!” His head whipped around when he heard a sound from inside his house, and he took off running down the street again.

  I climbed aboard as the boat’s motor roared to life. “Yeah, alright,” I said. “I’ll go for a boat ride. Sure.”

  A bullet splashed into the water nearby as our boat pulled away from the dock. I watched over my shoulder as Delacroix pointed his gun at a tourist boat, making them get off so he could use it.

  “Must go faster,” I said. “Must go faster.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Do you even know how to drive a boat?” I yelled to Rhys over the sound of the motor and the splashing of the water hitting the sides of the fiberglass boat.

  “Sure?” Rhys cranked the wheel and made a sharp left turn, nearly hitting the side of the canal.

  I looked over my shoulder as we skimmed across the water. Delacroix was hunched over the steering wheel of his stolen boat, glaring straight ahead. The speed of our boat and his caught the attention of nearby pedestrians, and they shrieked in surprise as we veered close to corners. A shadow passed over our boat as we whipped under a bridge.

  Delacroix’s boat stayed on course, following the frothy white wake from our boat, but we seemed to be staying a good distance ahead of him.

  “Hold on to something!” Rhys yelled.

  We whipped around a long pleasure boat where tourists were dining. We veered hard to the right, bringing the boat to a sharp angle. I grabbed Rhys’s hand just in time, the handle of the suitcase gripped tight in my other hand. The canal was just wide enough for us to maneuver around it, but a wave of canal water splashed up onto their boat, soaking several of the people aboard. The passengers wailing at us as we sped away.

  “You alright?” he yelled as soon as the boat was level again, gliding under another bridge.

  “A little notice would have been nice!”

  At least it’s dark out, so we might not be identified easily. At least the canals aren’t as busy at night as they are during the day. At least he isn’t shooting—

  A bullet hit one of the windshield panels, shattering it on impact, sending bits of glass flying backward, spraying glass over the right side of the boat. I shielded my face as one of the shards tore through the flesh on the outside of my right arm.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, ducking down in the boat and staring down at my arm, blood seeping fre
ely. “Ohhh, fuck me, that hurts!”

  “What?” Rhys hollered back to me. “Are you alright?”

  No! “I’ll live!”

  Rhys continued weaving through the canals as I pulled the first aid kit from under the back seat. I slapped a small piece of gauze on my arm, cursed loudly when the gauze made contact with the wound, and stuck a piece of tape over it. The wad of gauze was soaked red within ten seconds, but it would have to do for now.

  I glared back at Delacroix as we made another sharp turn. He was catching up.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” I yelled.

  “Good idea! I hadn’t thought of that!” Rhys threw an annoyed glance back at me.

  Our boat went under an especially low bridge, and the pedestrians walking over it screamed as we sped through the canal.

  I moved to the passenger seat at the front beside Rhys, keeping the suitcase between my feet. I wasn’t going to lose that painting again.

  “He must be out of bullets,” I said.

  Rhys’s eyes went wide. I looked ahead.

  Oh, shit.

  Another boat was in the canal ahead of us. It was much wider than the last, taking up all but a few inches of the canal.

  “Hold on!”

  “You’re not gonna try—”

  “Hold on!” he yelled louder.

  Our boat skimmed over a dock and landed back in the water on the other side with a hard thud. The people on that yacht yelled as we flew down the river. Delacroix’s boat halted before reaching the yacht and managed to get turned around, heading back out the same way it came in.

  “He’s heading back the other way,” I said.

  Rhys increased our speed as we entered a wider canal with no other boats in it.

  I looked over my shoulder, checking for signs of Delacroix. “What’s your plan?”

  “We’re going to take this boat out to open sea and live as pirates.”

  Before I could roll my eyes, Delacroix’s boat whipped out from a narrow side canal and rammed the back left corner of our boat. Rhys and I jerked forward in our seats.

  “Okay, fine. If that’s how you wanna play!” I unzipped the suitcase and retrieved the gun.

  “You may wanna plug your ears for this.” I turned sideways and aimed the gun at Delacroix, firing one shot, taking out his windshield, shattering the whole panel, blinding Delacroix in a wave of sparkling glass shards.

  Delacroix’s cheek was bleeding, but he was still driving the boat just fine. I aimed the gun a second time, and he rammed us again, but not as hard.

  “You can do this,” Rhys said, glancing at me, veering sharply down a narrow waterway, splashing the stone wall on one side.

  I exhaled slowly. Come on, Miranda. You can do this. Focus.

  I aimed. I pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. I tried again. Click.

  I threw the gun in the water. “Who keeps a gun with one bullet in it? Asshole!” I screamed.

  Rhys side-glanced at me, looking concerned, but kept up his speed, putting a bit more distance between us and the other boat.

  Rhys looked around. “I think we just went in a circle.”

  I nodded. “Try to put a bit more space between us and Delacroix. I have a plan.”

  I quickly filled Rhys in, and we went as fast as our boat could go, even though it made us bump into some corners a few times.

  “If we die, I want you to know something.”

  I looked at him. “We’re not gonna die—”

  “No, it’s important,” he said. “I want you to know that … my middle name is Shakespeare.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Pardon?”

  Rhys frowned. “You wanted to know.”

  Once we reached a long stretch of empty canal with a sharp turn at the end, we made the corner and slowed down as much as we could as quickly as possible.

  Rhys dove into the canal off his side of the boat and I leapt into the water on my side, hoping the suitcase and plastic would protect the painting inside.

  I swam as fast as I could just below the surface of the river, holding my breath. I felt the rush of Delacroix’s boat speeding just yards away from me. I heard the crunch of the boats making impact while still under the water. I brought myself to the surface, cold and gasping for air. Both boats were too mangled and twisted together in a knot of plastic and fiberglass to see if Delacroix was alive or dead.

  On the other side of the canal, Rhys appeared at the surface. He spotted me and waved me toward a narrow canal nearby. We stayed low, keeping our faces just above the dark water while avoiding the areas illuminated by streetlights. I could hear sirens from the bridge over our heads.

  My body ached when we finally decided we were a safe distance away from the scene of the boat crash. We climbed up on a dock. Rhys’s chest heaved as he lay on the rough wooden platform, his wet clothes clinging to him. I lay beside him, panting, looking up at the night sky, my fingers still wrapped tight around the suitcase handle.

  “I should tell you something too,” I whispered.

  “What’s that?”

  “I can see your nipples through your shirt.”

  We walked back to Abel’s house, since it was only a few streets away. Abel was nowhere to be found. He was likely still hiding somewhere.

  Since the front door had been left unlocked, Rhys checked every room and every closet before feeling relaxed enough to fall onto a sofa.

  “We’re gonna have to buy Abel a new boat,” he said, lying on his stomach and mumbling into a throw pillow.

  I headed upstairs. “We need to pack and get on the next flight to Paris. I’m so done with this shit.”

  Rhys sat up. “We should just get a rental car and drive.” He yawned. “It’s only a day of driving and we’re more likely to get by customs.”

  “Fine. But we leave tonight. We’re going to change into some dry clothes and get the hell out of the Netherlands.”

  * * *

  The suitcase was waterproof, thankfully, and the painting was fine. I raided Abel’s first aid kit and bandaged the cut on my arm. I was lucky. That could’ve gone a lot worse.

  I was also happy that I’d slipped my phone into the suitcase before diving into the canal, because I used it to navigate us out of Amsterdam. Rhys’s phone wasn’t so lucky.

  My eyelids kept drooping as we drove out of the city. We were still a ways from the Belgium border when a police officer waved us down from the side of the road.

  “Shit,” I whispered. “What do we do?”

  “It’s fine. He’s probably just checking to see if we’ve been drinking.”

  Rhys slowed to a stop in front of the policeman and lowered his window.

  Rhys leaned out and looked up at him. “What can I do for you today, officer?”

  The police officer slowly leaned down to peer in the car, his cap tilted low over his eyes. “Just checking in, fellas.” He’s American. I know that voice. Oh my god. This is not good.

  The police officer slowly slid his gun from his holster, pushed his cap higher on his head with it and then put it to Rhys’s temple.

  “I’d like the two of you to step out of the car, please.” The fake cop smiled at me, still poking the side of Rhys’s head with his gun. “Now.”

  It was Stan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Once again, Rhys and I were zip-tied together at the wrist. But instead of a hotel room, we were fastened together in an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of Amsterdam. Stan had driven us here in silence with the two of us in the back seat.

  Several candles arranged around the living room flickered in the darkness, a draft causing the tiny flames to dance. A mouse skittered across the floor. I’d seen several mice in only a few minutes. Rhys and I sat side by side on a sofa while Stan, still wearing his cop outfit, flipped through a dusty magazine he’d found in the kitchen.

  I crossed my legs. “Your Holland home could use some renovations, Stan.”

  He looked at me from above the pages of his magazin
e. “You sound like your dad.”

  “So I keep hearing.” I spotted another mouse by the base of a staircase. “I feel like I’m going to catch a disease here. What exactly is the holdup?”

  Rhys nudged his knee against mine.

  “We’re waiting for my associate,” Stan said, not looking up from his outdated issue of Kampioen.

  “Do you read Dutch?” I said.

  He peered over the top of the magazine. “Ja.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Means yes,” he said.

  A beam of light shone through the dirty windows of the living room as a car pulled up. The driver turned it off and joined us, leaning in the doorway.

  Delacroix, having somehow survived the crash, had seen better days. He was still swollen from the earlier tussle with Rhys but had since added a list of new injuries: several cuts over his face, a small gash on his neck, his shirt was soaked through with blood on his left arm and his right eye was purple.

  I burst out laughing. The whole thing was just too ridiculous.

  “Seriously, Stan? Seriously? The two of you are working together?” I said, still laughing. “I don’t even believe this!”

  Rhys was giving me all kinds of “Shut the hell up” looks, but I ignored him. I was too tired and sore and scared and stunned by all of this.

  Stan looked Delacroix up and down. “The hell happened to you?”

  His whole body tensed up as he spoke. “There was an incident … with a boat.”

  Stan waved his hand. “Whatever. You’re late. I don’t like when people are late.”

  Delacroix opened his mouth to speak, but Stan cut him off.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  I gave Delacroix a pitying look. He just crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor like a scolded mutt. His phone rang, and he answered it.

  “You’re gonna answer your phone this second?” Stan said, tossing his magazine across the room. “Who do you think you’re dealing with here?”