His family has set up for a party, so it shouldn’t be too hard to use the quick-release handle on the window—there to make sure the people inside the house can get out in case of fire—to unlock the iron bars and slip out unnoticed. (Christian’s room faces the side of the house where there is a thick clump of trees.) It’s a gutsy plan, but given the time frame we have, we need to be bold.
We pull around to the alley behind Christian’s house. It’s deserted, but that doesn’t put me at ease. Everywhere I look there are gang tags, but there are these wonderful, colorful murals, too, most of them of Mary Magdalene or Jesus, and a few of assorted saints.
“Let’s get you inside,” Quinn says, eyeballing the back of the house.
“But once we’re in, you leave,” I say.
“Yeah, I get it,” Quinn grouses.
Together we slip out of the van and scale the back fence as quietly as we can. Every time the chain link rattles, I grit my teeth and pray no one’s looking out a window at us right now. I’d wanted to do this at night after the family went to bed, but once we found out Christian was graduating and that the ceremony was today, it was the perfect opportunity, so we changed the plan. The neighborhood feels quiet. There is only the sound of a bee droning around the flowers near the fence and the faraway hum of a helicopter overhead. We drop to the ground at the same time and hurry across the backyard. The windows and the back door are covered in wrought iron, too. All except one smallish window that looks to be in the kitchen, possibly over the sink.
“Hoist me up,” I tell Quinn. He does a squat stance, and I step up onto his thighs so that my head is at eye level with the window. I try opening it, but it’s locked. “Hand me the glass cutter,” I say.
Quinn rocks a bit as he shifts position in order to reach the pack he brought with him. “Here.”
I run the cutter around the perimeter of the window, cleanly removing the glass pane from the frame. I let it down slowly, and Quinn sets it on the grass. My heart is jackhammering as I pull myself through the window. The space is narrow, but I manage, sliding forward onto the kitchen counter.
The room smells wonderful—rich and spicy. There are half a dozen aluminum pans covered in foil spread out across the kitchen table and countertop. Something delicious is simmering inside the Crock-Pot beside the sink. I wriggle all the way inside and then slide off the counter and onto the floor. I know the house is empty, and yet I can’t stop flinching at every sound. The tick of the refrigerator nearly sends me back outside.
“You okay?” Quinn asks, peering through the window. “I’m going to put the window glass back in. Once I’m done, I have to head back to the van, and you’re on your own in there.”
“Yeah. I’m going to take a look around. Text me if something’s up.” I try to sound confident so he won’t rethink this, but it’s hard. I’m so on edge I’m trembling.
I have my phone set to vibrate in my back pocket. The house is basically one big square divided into a series of tiny rooms. There’s the kitchen and the narrow living room directly across from it, as well as three small bedrooms and a bathroom. The whole place is neat and meticulously tidy. Pieces of lace cover most of the end tables and the sideboard near the kitchen table. Scattered around are prayer candles, and in one corner of the living room is a stack of cardboard boxes filled with cool vintage-looking T-shirts. As modest as the place is, there is something really warm about it. Pictures of the family hang on the walls in nearly every room. There is Christian as a little boy, and there he is at eleven or twelve, gangly and grinning, his hair stuck up in a dozen different directions. It’s hard to look at them and still picture Christian as a dangerous criminal. I touch the edge of one frame.
“Lex, hurry up,” Quinn says from the window.
I work my way back to what has to be Christian’s bedroom. There’s a Galaxy blanket across his bed (he must be into soccer), a UCLA poster and assorted soccer paraphernalia papering one wall, a scratched-up dresser, and a small bookshelf crammed full of books with titles that surprise me: Watership Down, Fahrenheit 451, and Lord of the Flies. Just above the bookshelf there’s a picture tacked to the wall of Christian and a little girl with braids. Other than that, the room reminds me of a monk’s quarters. It’s sparse and as neat as the rest of the house. Looking around, I know I have very little chance of finding anything useful.
Still, I open the closet and start going through his clothes. The tiny space smells like him, like cologne and boy, and both smells are better than the food ones in the kitchen. He has a few pairs of jeans and a handful of T-shirts, as well as two button-down dress shirts and a pair of black pants. There’s a tie or two and a few pairs of shoes lined up beneath the clothes. I check his pants pockets, the back wall of the closet, and the shallow shelf above it. Nothing. I try his dresser next, moving quickly through the underwear drawer. He’s a boxers kind of guy. Nice. Then the other two drawers. Nothing. The bookshelf is also disappointing. The only place left to look is under the bed. I jump as my butt starts to vibrate.
They r home!
Christian’s back from graduation. Suddenly I can hear them, voices by the front door. There is the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into a lock. I slip under the bed and scoot as close to the wall as possible. I was expecting it to be dusty, but surprisingly, it isn’t. I lay my palms flat on the floor and wait.
“I’ll be out to help in a minute. I just need to change real quick.” Christian strides into the room. I can see his shoes from where I’m lying. He drops something onto the bed and then walks over to the dresser. I breathe as shallowly as I can, but every inhale sounds ridiculously loud. I close my eyes and pray it’s just my imagination getting the better of me.
“Everyone will be here in fifteen minutes. Hurry up, mijo,” Christian’s mom calls out from the kitchen. I wait for her to say something about the window, to notice something’s up with it, but there is only the clatter of dishes and the sound of hurried footsteps.
Christian lets out a breath and kicks off his shoes. Then his shirt and pants drop to the floor and I can see his bare legs. I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to giggle. This has to be one of the most absurd things I’ve ever done. I watch as he pads around the room in his socks, quietly humming something. He pulls on a pair of jeans and a shirt. I can’t see it all, but I can hear the rustle of fabric. His hand appears as he scoops up his discarded clothes. I hear something thud on top of the bookshelf—his phone, maybe? The rebel took it to graduation anyway. Christian is striding over to the closet. I can hear him put his clothes away, and then the closet door creaks shut. Suddenly the bed moves, and the space around me narrows as he sits on the edge to put on his shoes. I hold my breath and get perfectly still.
“Mijo, please. We need you.” I can hear them, a crowd of voices, each talking over the other, getting louder.
“Christian, come on!” A little girl rushes into the room, small enough that I can see most of her. “Play with me.”
“I can’t, Maria. Mom needs me to help her out in the kitchen. But tell you what. I promise right after that we’ll play.”
Maria lets out a disappointed sigh. “Oh, okay.”
Suddenly Christian’s scooping her up and tickling her. I can feel her feet kick the bed and I can’t help smiling. She must be the girl from the picture. It’s cute, this little tickle session. And totally unexpected. He’s a big brother. Yet another thing about him that further confuses and fascinates me.
“Stop!” Maria squeals, but it’s obvious she doesn’t mean it.
“Come on, big girl. Let’s get out there before Mom has a meltdown.”
They both get off the bed and leave the room. I wait for five minutes. Listening. There are at least four people, from what I can hear in the kitchen: two girls—Maria and Christian’s mother—and two guys—his grandfather, from the sound of it, and his father?
“I’m going to lie down a little,” one of the men says. There is the clink of ice in a glass, and then whoever it is walks
toward the bedrooms. I get a brief glimpse of a man carrying a bottle of vodka and a glass of ice, and then there is the soft snick of a door shutting. Christian’s dad? He’s pale white, with thinning brown hair and a sleeve of tattoos on one arm, and he’s staggering in such a way that I’m pretty sure that bottle isn’t his first of the day. The defeat in the way his shoulders hunch reminds me of my own dad.
I stay still a minute longer.
When I am sure I am alone, I slip out from under the bed and head straight for the bookshelf. Yes! Christian’s phone is there, lying screen up. I grab it and then pull out the little container of baby powder I brought with me and very carefully sprinkle it onto the screen. Fingerprints begin to appear in the powder. I have ten tries to get this before his phone locks up. I try one combination. Wrong. I try another. Wrong. The third try? Wrong, too. Well, crap!
People are starting to arrive at the house. I’ve gone back under the bed to get out of sight, and I’m starting to feel suffocated. I have to get out of here. Quinn and the others will be frantic. I take out the phone and stare at the powdery prints, trying to predict the right order. I try my next guess. Wrong. Sweat forms on my back and neck. With shaky fingers I try again. This time it works! I don’t waste any more time. I navigate straight to his photo album and begin looking through what’s there, starting with the most recent history. It takes all of about two seconds to find what I’m looking for. “Oh, bingo!” I murmur before I delete them all and wipe the phone off with my sleeve before inching out from under the bed.
The hallway is really small. Anyone could come this way at any moment and I would never have enough time to duck back under the bed. I need to open the window and release the bars over it quickly. Spotting the release handle is easy, but getting it to work is not. I tug and tug, my heart in my throat, my whole body humming with panic. When it finally lets go, I nearly cry out with relief. I keep turning around to check the doorway, sure that Christian will be standing there, but he isn’t. In the kitchen there is music playing, laughter, and loud, excited talk.
I slide the windowpane up and climb outside. I can’t replace the bars, but I close the window. With luck, he won’t notice right away. There are people in the front yard, and they nearly see me before I’m able to crouch behind the trees beside the window. Men clinking bottles of beer together in a toast. I take one last look, and then I turn and quickly scale the chain link fence, drop to the other side, and run for the van.
I don’t breathe until I’m safely inside.
“Well?” Leo asks.
“I deleted the pictures on his phone. But I couldn’t find anything else,” I say.
“The pictures were the main thing. The rest we can get. When you see him Saturday and he knows you have those pictures of him in the van, I’m pretty sure he’ll spill the heist details,” Quinn says, smiling, obviously relieved to have me back safe.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, but after what I just saw, I’m not totally convinced I’ll be able to blackmail him back.
LL National looks different at night. Mysterious, even though I know it’s just a building. Four sides with lots of glass and row upon row of cubicles inside.
We’re in the back, on the top level of the parking garage. The whole crew, Oliver leading the way, a lunatic grin on his face, happier than I’ve ever seen him. Two opportunities in less than a month to mess with his dad’s work sites. He’s in heaven.
I, on the other hand, am having trouble keeping it together. Breaking into Christian’s house this afternoon really messed with me. I don’t know what I was expecting it to be like, exactly, but what I found was a total surprise. He’s this regular guy with a family who love him and a dad who seems to be just as messed up as mine. And seeing it all, I can’t believe he’s a coldhearted criminal. It doesn’t add up. But then, I believed my dad was a good guy, too, and it turned out that everything I believed to be true was a lie. I’m not sure I know how to tell anymore. What’s real and what’s not.
“You ready for this?” Oliver asks as we make our way toward the giant trash bin positioned beside the building. The Left Coast Construction logo is everywhere. Even the long white trash chute hanging from the eleventh floor is covered in the logo.
“I got it all prepared this afternoon. We’re set to go. Used my dad’s security pass. Even wore his glasses. I don’t know whether to be proud of myself or skeeved out because I looked enough like him that no one asked to see my ID.” His grin slips a little when he mentions his dad, and I wonder if things at home have gotten rough again. Usually when they do, he comes to our house and bunks in Quinn’s room, but lately our place isn’t much better.
He hoists himself up into the trash container, a giant rusted-metal rectangle almost full with layers of old insulation, warped pieces of metal, crumpled-up McDonald’s bags. He lifts the end of the trash chute and points it at us. Lolling out of it like a tongue is a thick, knotted rope. “This is gonna be fun,” he says, his dark black hair bobbing as he balances on top of the trash.
“You want us to climb?” Whitney stares at the rope and then puts her hands on her hips. “All the way up there?”
Oliver nods.
“But that’ll take us forever. And I’ll get calluses,” she complains.
“No. Not forever. I timed it. The first person takes the longest. Thirty minutes. But then once I get the winch working up top, it’ll be like three minutes apiece, and if two of you go up at the same time, it won’t even be ten minutes total for the five of you. Just grip tight, okay, because falling back down that many floors would be a bad idea.” He ducks under the trash chute, lets it swallow him up. “I’ll go first. See you losers at the top.”
We watch the chute vibrate and wiggle as he works his way up. It looks alive, like a giant tapeworm or something, burrowing into the trash bin.
We sit in the shadows by one of the cranes and wait.
Almost precisely thirty minutes goes by, and then Quinn’s phone starts vibrating.
“Who’s next?” Oliver’s voice floats out of the phone, making him seem farther away than just eleven floors.
I opt to go second to last. Quinn chooses last. Whitney and Elena are first and second. Leo shrugs his way into third. We line up like we’re at the playground waiting to go down the slide—or, in this case, up. There’s a swishing, nylon-rubbing-nylon sort of sound, and a knotted rope drops out of the bottom of the chute, and then a second, unknotted one. Whitney corrals them to her chest.
“He says you should attach yourselves to the first rope and use the other one to help climb so the winch doesn’t get overloaded,” Quinn tells her and Elena, holding the chute above her head for just a moment so he can kiss her. She touches his cheek with her fingers, then waits as Elena secures a belt-type thing around her waist and clips it to the knotted rope, just above one of the knots, before she does the same. Quinn lets the chute drop over both of their heads, and I can hear them start to move upward, the winch attached to the knotted rope doing most of the work, so the chute barely ripples this time.
“You think we’ll really find anything up there?” Quinn asks once Leo starts up and it’s just me and him on the ground.
“We need to,” I say.
“But will it really make much difference? In the end, I mean. Dad’ll still go to jail. Even if Harrison was in on it. There’s no denying he’s guilty, Lex. You get that, right?”
I don’t want to believe it, but after eavesdropping on a few of the late-night phone conversations my mom’s had with my aunt, the evidence is overwhelming.
“I want him caught, Quinn. If our family goes down, shouldn’t his? Shouldn’t every single person involved hurt the same way we are?” We’re losing everything. My dad can’t come home because we couldn’t make bail. We’ve had to liquidate what we could to help pay for Dad’s defense and for our expenses, but we’re losing our house and maybe our motorcycles. Definitely Dad’s Mercedes. Mom had to let our housekeeper, Anh, go—the one person in the family besides Qu
inn who really looks out for me. Now she’s with another family, and I’ll probably never see her again. Then there’s our college savings accounts. I thought that money would carry us for a while, but the truth is, it probably won’t last the summer. I gave up the one thing I really cared about, and it won’t save us. Mom is selling all her jewelry and staring at the classifieds every morning, brooding over them. I can’t think about it for long without wanting to cry.
And then there’s Harrison, still on top, buying fancy necklaces for his wife and walking around the financial district like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It’ll make me crazy if we can’t figure out how to expose him for what he is.
The rope sails down again, and this time Quinn and I crawl into the chute. It’s dark—not pitch, but close. I tug on the rope to let Oliver know we’re ready, and then up we go. It’s a weird sort of slow-motion thrill ride, the reverse of our BASE jump.
The eleventh floor is wide open. No interior walls, a scratched-up concrete floor, the ceiling a maze of wires above my head. There is plastic tarp covering the open outer walls where the glass has been removed so the crane can bring supplies straight up. It makes this sucking flapping noise as the wind hits it. A creepy, desolate sort of sound. I take a cleaning-crew cap and uniform from the pile Oliver got for us. It’s a one-piece jumpsuit kind of thing, so I slip it on right over my clothes.
We’ll all go up to the twenty-first floor together, but only Quinn, Leo, and I will hit Harrison’s office. Elena, Whitney, and Oliver will pretend to clean the cubicles and other offices, keeping watch for the real cleaning crew.
“Okay, picture time,” Leo says, waving his hand at us to gather closer together.
“Didn’t you get enough of us coming up the chute?” Quinn asks, sighing.
“Not of us all together. Come on, you’ll thank me later.” Leo sets the camera on a stack of drywall, checks the timer, and runs over to join us.
“Weirdest BAM photo ever,” Oliver says, shaking his head, and by the time the flash goes off, we’re all cracking up.
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