“Merry Christmas, Brady.”
***
The get-together was also a planning session for their next heist, and both Avery and Shay sat in on it.
Mitch’s sudden death had derailed their earlier plans, but they still wanted to rob the County Fair.
What had also changed was Avery’s trial by fire, and the target they had originally picked for him was no longer in play.
“I have an idea,” Brady said, and then he proceeded to tell them about an armored car robbery that he had in mind. It involved hitting an armored car while it traveled to make pick-ups at area banks.
“What do you think the take will be?” Jake asked.
“My guess, less than fifty grand,”
“That’s small,” Craig said.
“It is, but it’s not about the money, it’s about us finding out what Avery is made of, right?”
Avery bristled at Brady’s words.
“I can handle myself, Ross.”
“And soon you’ll get the chance to prove it, kid.”
Shay looked surprised.
“What do you mean by soon?”
“The score we have planned will happen next week, and you’ll be a part of it too.”
The door to the room opened and Lindy and Selina walked in. While not a precedent, it was still unusual for them to sit in on a planning session, and when Brady studied their faces, he knew that something was up.
“We want to talk to our husbands, and Brady too.”
Shay seemed as if she had been expecting them, and she reached over and took Avery by the hand.
“Let’s you and I go watch TV.”
Avery looked angry that he wasn’t being included in whatever was about to happen, but he followed along beside Shay, and Lindy reached back and locked the door behind them.
Jake and Craig looked at each other and then at their wives.
“What’s up, Lindy?” Jake asked.
Lindy took a deep breath and then just spit it out.
“We want you guys to retire; Selina and I think it’s time.”
“What do you mean retire?” Jake said. “We don’t have that kind of money.”
“No, we don’t, but Mitch left the construction company to the three of you and that’s worth something now. Look at this lake job you’re doing, that’s huge and I know that there are a lot of expenses and payroll and insurance, but we’ll all still make good money off that job, and there could be more like that if you worked at it.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Craig said.
Selina sat beside him on the sofa and took his hand.
“Baby, face it, we’ve been lucky, all of us have, but the cops aren’t fools and after that guard died in the last robbery, you can be sure that they’re looking for you hard.”
“We’re not just lucky, we’re good,” Jake said. “Craig plans everything out before we ever make a move.”
“Yes, and the guard still died. Things happen, and I feel like we’re pushing our luck. Craig and I don’t need the money from the scores anymore. We’ve got some saved, the kids have college funds and the construction company is doing great. It’s time, Jake, it’s time to retire.”
Jake sighed.
“I’ll die of boredom if all I do is frame houses and file paperwork.”
“There’s something else to consider,” Lindy said. “Our kids aren’t kids anymore. Craig and Selina’s girls will both be out of high school in a few years, and Jake Jr. will be thirteen soon. What if they found out what we were doing? Or God forbid, have to visit you in prison.”
The men said nothing for several moments, but then Brady broke the silence.
“Everything that you and Selina said makes sense, Lindy, except for one thing, not all of us have money banked away. I haven’t been doing this as long as the rest of you and I could really use the score we have planned.”
“I’m surprised at you, Brady.” Lindy said. “I thought that you would be all over this idea. If you stopped pulling heists, then you could marry that girl of yours and not have to worry that she’d find out about you.”
“I like the idea, even though I hate thinking about going straight, but you’re right, if we all retired, then Mary and I could marry and settle down, but that takes money and this last score would really help.”
Selina and Lindy looked at each other and then Lindy shrugged.
“One more might be all right, and yeah, it would be good to have a little more money socked away.”
Brady made a face as he anticipated resistance.
“Actually, ladies, we’ll be doing two more; we have to find out what Avery is made of before we use him for the County Fair heist.”
“Will it be dangerous?” Selina asked.
“It’s a cakewalk,” Craig said. “It will also send the cops off in the wrong direction when we pull the big heist.”
“Alright, but just those two and then we’ll all settle down and grow old and fat,” Lindy said, and then she looked at Brady. “And you, you’ll marry that girl Mary and make babies, we could use some around here; our kids are nearly grown.”
“Speaking of Mary, I’d like to bring her here again. I want you all to get to know her.”
“I know the perfect occasion,” Lindy said.
***
When Christmas day came, Mary was back in Boston with Brady at Jake’s house, and everyone was going out of their way to make her feel a part of things, everyone but Shay, who, while polite to Mary, still made a point of not being near her any more than she had to.
Mary noticed, and asked Brady if she had done something that bothered Shay, and that’s when he told her that Shay was his ex-girlfriend.
“So you must still see her all the time, she told me that she was Selina’s cousin.”
“Yes, but we’ve both moved on, she’s with that young guy you met, Avery. The two of them have been dating for weeks.”
“I see,” Mary said, but she still wasn’t happy about the situation.
***
Avery took Shay by the hand and led her into one of the bedrooms and after closing the door, he kissed her.
She smiled at him.
“It’s not going to happen, the kids are here.”
“I didn’t bring you in here for that.”
Avery handed her a box from a jewelry store. The box was covered in blue velvet and oblong-shaped, and when Shay opened it, she saw a gold necklace with a diamond dangling from it.
“Oh my God, how much is this worth?”
Avery laughed.
“It’s worth thousands, but don’t worry, the guy who owns the credit card I used can afford it.”
“You hacked into someone’s account?”
Avery looked worried by the question, but answered truthfully.
“Well, yeah, it’s what I do, I mean hell, we’re all thieves here, right?”
Shay kissed him.
“I wasn’t judging you. And thank you; it’s a great Christmas present.”
“Listen, I have to run to the store. Lindy asked me to buy more eggnog. Do you want to come with me?”
“On that bike of yours? No thank you, it’s freezing outside.”
“It keeps me awake.”
Shay stood in the bedroom doorway, watching Avery go, as she held the necklace in her hands. She was planning on breaking up with Avery, but not until after the holidays.
She had only begun seeing him to make Brady jealous so that he would break up with Mary, and that didn’t seem to work.
She knew what would work. She could tell Mary all about their night together and that would end things between them for certain, but she couldn’t do that, because she knew that it would also hurt Brady.
Shay wiped away a tear, put on her holiday face, and joined her family in celebration.
CHAPTER 23
FBI headquarters in Boston looked like a ghost town on the day after Christmas, and although they were both on vacation leave, Agents Curtis Weathersby and Ella T
yson came in dressed in casual attire when they heard that there was a break in one of their cases.
“The credit card is a fake, but the number on it is real and belongs to a dentist from Waterbury, Connecticut,” Tim Wilson said, as he showed them video taken at a jewelry store in Provincetown.
The video showed Avery as he was buying the necklace he’d given to Shay. The video quality was good, but because Avery was wearing a baseball cap, most of his features were obscured from the camera, which was positioned on the ceiling and pointing downward.
“The storeowner says that the clerk is vacationing in Florida, and agents down there are making contact and will get a sketch, we also took prints at the store, but as you can see, he’s wearing gloves.”
“He’s a thief, but how does any of this tie him to the guys who hit the armored car and killed the guard?” Curtis asked.
“Ah, he used a computer to contact the store after searching for it on the Internet and we know that the IP Address he used was the same one used to hack into the armored car company’s systems.”
Ella rose from her seat and walked closer to the huge monitor. She was dressed in jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt. A small woman with minimal curves, brown hair and brown eyes, and yet, every time Curtis looked at her he wanted her.
He decided that when the meeting was over he would drive to the nearest motel and take her. He could always tell his wife that something came up, and the funny thing is, in a way, it would be the truth.
Ella asked Wilson to freeze the video and then she pointed at a corner of the jewelry store window.
“That looks like the handlebar on a motorcycle.”
Wilson blew up the picture, sharpened it and nodded.
“You’re right and that means that our boy might be its rider. I’ll have the film analyzed and send you the results.”
Wilson ended the meeting and Curtis and Ella stayed behind. Within seconds, Ella was on her knees between Curtis’ legs.
“Ella, Jesus, this is so dangerous, hell, anyone could walk in here.”
Ella smiled up at him.
“I know; that’s what makes it so hot.”
Since the day they had nearly been discovered by Wilson, their couplings have grown riskier, and they had even made love in a movie theater and the men’s room of a crowded bar.
They both knew that it was reckless, insane even, but they found the excitement addictive.
Curtis leaned his head back, said a prayer for luck, and hoped that no one would open the damn door.
CHAPTER 24
Avery’s test came on New Year’s Eve, as the gang robbed an armored car in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Shay was a part of it, and a crucial player, as she and Avery were acting as decoys for the men inside the armored car.
The truck traveled along a county road that normally saw maybe forty cars an hour, but with the holidays, the traffic was even lighter.
After the armored car had entered the road it went around a curve, and that’s when Craig, dressed in jeans and a yellow hardhat, dragged several thick cables onto the roadway, along with a barricade stating that the road was closed due to downed wires.
The wires were actually sparking, as they had been rigged to do so and were powered by a car battery hidden behind a tree. At the other end of the road, Jake was doing the same thing, as Brady waited hidden behind a tree near the trap they’d set.
With the entrance to the road blocked, Craig jumped back into the car he had stolen for the job, and sped off to catch up to the armored car.
***
The man driving the armored truck was named Hector, and all Hector was thinking about was the New Year’s Eve party he was going to that night.
Carla would be there, fresh from her divorce from that jerk she married only a year earlier, and Hector intended to leave the party with her.
He knew that he might simply be a rebound love interest and possibly even a one-night stand, but that was all right, because Carla was gorgeous and Hector had wanted her since high school, which was twenty years ago.
After going around yet another curve on the winding road, Hector slowed as he came upon a bad accident.
There was a motorcycle laying on its side in the middle of the roadway, along with the two people who had been riding on it, a man and a woman.
Hector stared at the woman, whose head was resting in what looked like a puddle of blood, but his eyes were focused on her legs, which were long and sexy.
The man was wearing a helmet, but was as still as a stone, and Hector thought it probable that they had both died after spilling the bike.
“I’ll call it in, Hector.”
Hector nodded at his partner, a new guy named Ron Simmons who was too quiet for Hector’s taste, and the long stretches of silence between them made the day drag.
Movement glimpsed in the side view mirror caught Hector’s attention, and then he heard something clang against the truck’s rear doors.
A moment after that, a man in a ski mask came running up alongside the truck and aimed a shotgun at him, even as vehicles approached from both directions and blocked the road.
“Ron, do whatever they say; the money isn’t worth our lives.”
Simmons couldn’t see the man standing on the other side of the truck, and so he looked at Hector with confusion showing on his face, but when the back doors blew open with a blast that rocked the vehicle, he understood.
That sound was also the signal for the “victims” of the crash to stop their playacting, and both the man and the woman rose from the ground.
The woman wiped at the side of her head with a small towel to remove the fake blood, and then she calmly walked towards the car that had approached from the front, which had turned and was now facing the other way, while still blocking the road.
Hector never saw the woman’s face, and when she reached the car and got in, all he could see was the back of her head and the long dark hair that was hanging down.
Two men entered the rear of the truck and one of them was the motorcyclist, who still wore his mirrored helmet, but was now also carrying a shotgun.
“Just be cool and you won’t be hurt,” the man said, and Hector was relieved to see that Simmons had followed his lead and had raised his hands in the air.
As one man gathered up the money, the other grabbed the weapons off their hips, and less than a minute after first spotting the woman lying in the road, the robbers had the money loaded in a car trunk and were leaving.
As the guy in the motorcycle helmet righted the bike and started it, the other man turned and spoke to them.
“If you try to follow us we’ll kill you.”
The man fired the shotgun at the truck’s grill, and then he ran for the car the woman had climbed into, just as the motorcycle sped off past him. Then, the car drove away, leaving Hector and Simmons feeling lucky to be alive.
***
Shay was sitting beside Brady in the back seat of the car, while Jake drove and Craig rode shotgun, literally, as he had a Mossberg lying in his lap.
“How did Avery do?”
Brady smiled.
“The kid was good, no nerves at all that I could tell.”
Jake looked at him in the rear view mirror.
“What do you think the take was?”
“Chump change, maybe fifty grand, but the money wasn’t the point, right?”
Craig turned in his seat.
“That’s right, and when the Feds check out the car we left behind, they’ll be looking in the wrong direction when we make our last heist.”
“What’s that mean?” Shay asked.
Jake answered her.
“Our boy Brady came up with a plan that was worthy of Mitch. There’s an outdoor concert happening in this area at the same time that we’ll really be going after the County Fair in Vermont. Brady left a clue behind in the car back there that makes the concert look like our next target.”
Shay gave Brady a quick kiss on the lips.
“You always were smart, well, except for when you broke up with me.”
Brady’s eyes drifted downward to take in Shay’s sexy legs.
“Aren’t you cold dressed in that short skirt?”
“I’m freezing.”
Brady reached over and ran a hand along her right leg.
“Goosebumps,”
Shay covered his hand with her own and smiled.
“Tell me about it.”
***
FBI Agent Curtis Weathersby stared at the two evidence bags lying atop the hood of his vehicle, one of which held a spent bean bag round, while the other contained a piece of paper with notes scribbled upon it.
Curtis and his partner Ella Tyson were at the scene of Brady’s latest robbery and trying to make sense of it.
Ella walked over and stood beside him.
“The take was about 52K.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, pretty lightweight for this crew.”
“If it is our crew,” Curtis said, and Ella pointed at the bean bag.
“It fits their MO.”
“Yes, and from what the guard said when I spoke to him, they fired it just before they left the scene, almost as if they wanted us to know it was them.”
Ella sucked on her lower lip as she looked thoughtful.
“Hmm, and finding that note is convenient as well.”
“Isn’t it though,”
The note had the name of an auditorium written on it, along with the words, THE TAKE COULD BE HALF A MIL and bore a crudely drawn map of the area around the auditorium that highlighted the major roadways. There was also a date listed, the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend.
“Of course, we’ll have to confirm that this doesn’t belong to the owner of the stolen vehicle, but if it’s real, it’s a goldmine,” Curtis said.
“Or a red herring,” Ella offered.
“Exactly,” Curtis said, before looking around to see that no one was within hearing range. “I have to be home in time to greet the guests at this New Year’s Eve party my wife is throwing, but I’ll try to come by your place in the morning.”
Ella smiled. “I’ll also be at the party, remember?”
Curtis stared at her in shock.
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