“All those jobs. You did them for your dad?”
“I did them for my family. Mainly my mom and Maria. My dad is a screw-up. If it were only him? I don’t know. I wonder sometimes if I still would’ve done the jobs.”
“You would’ve,” she says, her voice full of certainty.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, because the conversation’s gotten too serious, and this close to the job, I don’t want to think about all of this.
When we come out of the tunnel, I can hear fireworks, the familiar thumps, booms, and whistling sounds ripping through the sky. It’s only July 3, but because the Fourth lands on a weekend, there are lots of fireworks displays. It’s nice. Leaving the darkness of the tunnel and finding this. I take in a few deep breaths, glad for the fresh air, and look up at the sky. We’re surrounded by buildings, so all I see is a narrow patch of sky and the tail end of a red-and-blue explosion. “Come on.” I grab Lexi’s hand, and before she can protest, I lead her to the fire escape on the building opposite us. I pull down the ladder and we climb, floor after floor, until we reach the top. It’s an old warehouse with a sign draped across one side, just beneath the roofline, advertising new condos coming soon. Suddenly the sky opens up. Breathless, we walk out into the middle of the roof. To our right, giant flowers of neon blue, red, pink, and green light bloom before drifting over our heads and fading. I can see tiny remnants of them—dark black bits of ash—rain down around us.
“What is it about fireworks, anyway? They’re just explosions—lights—and yet every time I see them it feels like magic.” Lexi lies down on the roof, arms pillowing her head, legs sprawled out. God, but she’s beautiful under the neon glow. I stare at her a minute, and then I lie down next to her so that our shoulders are touching.
“The last time I really watched them I was about five years old,” I say. That was maybe the last time I remember Dad being completely sober. I could feel bad about it, depressed or whatever, but with Lexi next to me, the whole memory is far away, so distant it barely stings to think about it.
A red planet made of sparkles and ringed in white appears over our heads, and the momentary quiet is ripped apart by a thunderous boom I can feel in my chest.
“I’d forgotten how amazing this is.” Lexi turns on her side to face me. Her eyes are lit up like the sky, and her lips parted the slightest bit. I want to take her hand and hold it in mine, to trace the lines along the center of her palm with my finger and kiss the inside of her wrist. I want to sink a hand in her hair, pull her close, and kiss her again, this time when no one’s watching, when there isn’t an ulterior motive behind it.
“What?” I ask, half mesmerized by how close she is, by the beachy coconut scent of her skin.
“Why did your parents stop bringing you to the fireworks?” She rests her cheek on her arm and watches me.
I turn my face toward the sky again because it’s easier to keep it together if I’m not looking at her. Coming up here was impulsive and a mistake. We can’t complicate things less than twenty-four hours before the job, no matter how much I might want to.
“Dad started to gamble…and drink.” I hesitate. “Can we not talk about this right now?” I ask.
“We have a lot in common, you and I,” Lexi says softly. “Both our dads are screw-ups, and we’re on a mission to save our families, whatever it takes.” The fireworks finale finishes up with a deafening onslaught of explosions, each one more grand than the next, until the whole sky fogs up with smoke and the ghosts of the fireworks themselves.
In the darkness that follows, she tells me about her dad and how he was arrested and why. I’m surprised at how little anger she seems to have toward him. It’s like she’s taken all her hurt and anger and directed it at this Harrison guy to distract herself from dealing with her dad. I know this game. Hell, I’ve played it myself. Avoidance for the win.
“Do you want to keep talking about this?” I ask.
She rests both hands on the flat plane of her stomach, and I can’t help noticing that her shirt’s ridden up slightly so that a narrow line of skin shows just above the top of her shorts.
“No, I don’t want to talk about it. Or anything right now.” When she looks at me now, there is that same want in her eyes from before, that day we kissed.
“So what do you want to do?” I ask, getting closer.
“I want you to kiss me,” she whispers, her voice soft as she reaches up to touch my cheek with the backs of her fingers.
So that’s exactly what I do.
“I need an intervention,” I say to Whitney and Elena as we enter the parking garage near the Bloc outdoor shopping plaza. I glance at the little booth farther down, where the sole security guard is housed, to make sure he’s still looking down at his cell phone. He is. We’re doing just fine so far. Our mission is to snag a decent getaway car for Monday. Cue the Mission: Impossible music. Except the only thing set to destruct around here is me. The closer we get to the job, the more I can feel myself starting to panic.
“For what?” Elena asks.
“I’ve gone and kissed him. Twice.” I don’t have to say who him is. They both know.
“Ah ha ha, I knew you would! Go get it, Catherine!” she says, nearly clapping her hands. “How was it? Is he Thomas Crown–worthy?”
“Dangerous,” I say. “And, yeah, he’s definitely Crown-worthy.” I can feel myself blushing, so I get busy pulling on my gloves and double-checking my pack to make sure I brought everything we’ll need.
The twins do a silent squeal and quietly high-five each other.
“Don’t celebrate. This is screwed up,” I say. “How am I supposed to like a guy I can’t trust? Who says he won’t try to pin it on us? I’d do it to him. I won’t jeopardize us for a guy.”
“Cut the crap—you won’t double cross him,” Elena says.
“I would,” I insist.
We walk past the elevators and go deeper into the garage. There’s a shadowy area toward the far corner with a couple of cars that look promising.
Whitney grabs my arm and spins me around. “Hey. I know you. You try hard to put up this front like you’re coldhearted, like no guy can get close to you, but that’s a lie. Can you trust Christian? I don’t know. Risk is always involved, Lex. But what’s the alternative? Never fall in love?”
And this is maybe the best thing about having friends like Whitney and Elena. They push me to face my fears. Still, I can’t shake this free-fall feeling in my gut. I’ve had it ever since that first kiss out on the sidewalk by the bank. And it terrifies me because the thing about falling is that sooner or later you are going to hit the ground.
“So which one?” Whitney asks, deliberately changing the subject because she must realize how tense I am.
Both girls eyeball me like I have some kind of sixth sense about what car we should try to take. I don’t. They all look the same to me, which is to say they look locked and intimidating, nestled in their parking spots, their windows dark and their engines quiet, like mousetraps set to snap at the slightest touch, taking fingers when they do.
Whitney pulls out her phone and consults the website she already has queued up, the one that gives a step-by-step guide to breaking into cars. Christian gave us a tutorial back at the beach house, but I like having the information at the ready just in case. God bless YouTube. The only way it could be better is if the information downloaded directly to your brain Matrix-style. “First we need to check for hidden keys—on tires, tucked into magnetized boxes stuck to the underside of the cars. Oh, and don’t forget to just try opening them.”
We trot in between the cars, stopping to look for keys, try doors, peer in windows. Row after row and no keys, no unlocked doors. Either we’re in a particularly cynical neighborhood or that information is mostly wishful thinking. Maybe it’s even a trap to catch amateurs. I glance around the parking garage, nervous now, feeling watched. Of course, we could be. I didn’t see any security cameras, and we picked this lot specifically because ther
e aren’t supposed to be any, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
“The kit, gimme the kit,” I say to Elena as calmly as I can, but my heart is a pogo stick in my chest, leaping up and down against my ribs.
I take the tow kit from her and start pulling out the tools: a wedge to jimmy the door open and a sticklike thing to unlock the lock once I do. We’ve been practicing at home on our own cars, all three of us, timing ourselves to see how quickly we could get in. After more than fifty tries, we’re down to less than a minute each. It only occurs to me now that we didn’t rotate around and practice on each other’s cars, not just our own. Basically, unless I spot my parents’ BMW sedan in one of the rows, I might be in trouble here.
We walk up and down the rows once more, this time looking for a car similar to the ones we practiced on and when that fails, one that’s old enough not to seem intimidating. After discussing a few, we settle on a nondescript white Toyota Corolla with a set of multicolored bead necklaces hanging from the rearview mirror and a bumper sticker that reads SOMETIMES I WRESTLE WITH MY DEMONS. SOMETIMES WE JUST SNUGGLE. It’s the perfect combination of ordinary and old.
“Okay, this one, then,” I say as I examine the passenger side door for the best spot to place the wedge.
“Wait. Why do you get to do it?” Elena asks.
“Because…” I can’t think of a good reason.
“If we’re doing the driving, we’re doing the breaking in—or at least I am.” Elena holds out her hand for the wedge.
“You brought us on to help, so let us help,” Whitney says.
I hesitate, not because they don’t make sense, but because I’m not ashamed to admit that I like to be in control. I’m less nervous that way.
“Give it up, Lex,” Elena says. “God, it’s so insulting when you hesitate, like you’re the only person capable of taking care of things.”
“Fine. Here.” I hand her the tools. Now all I want to do is get out of here. “Just hurry.”
“Hey, fast is my middle name, okay?” Elena says, then freezes. “Wait, that came out so wrong.”
Whitney and I crack up, and Elena smiles. “Cut it out or I won’t be able to do this.” She gets to work, placing the wedge and then working it back and forth until the doorframe is warped. She slides the tool that unlocks the lock into the space the wedge created. I watch it wobble through the car’s interior, down to the armrest on the door. It takes her multiple tries to get the thing positioned directly above the button that unlocks the car. One, two, three, four times she misses. Five excruciating minutes later, she finally lines everything up and presses the button. There’s a clicking sound as the tool hits the button dead center. All the doors unlock, and then she’s opening the driver’s side door and slipping into the seat.
I look down the length of the garage to make sure we’re still clear, my ears straining to hear the slightest noise, my skin tingling with the effort. It’s dim, and every shadowy patch has me concerned. Could someone be watching us? I walk to the end of the row and peek over at the elevator. No one’s there, nothing’s changed. So far we’re okay. Still, when a tractor-trailer truck whizzes past the garage, I can’t help startling. The sooner we’re out of here and on the freeway, the better. The whole plan could fall apart right here.
“Hey, wake up, Lex. Hand me the computer thingy.” Elena leans out of the car to get my attention. The wedge that’s been lying on the seat beside her falls out of the car and lands on the concrete with a clang so loud it makes my ears ring. The resulting echo seems to go on forever. I stiffen, and so do the twins, each of us staring at the others, horrified. The security guard up front—there’s no way he couldn’t have heard that.
“We should forget this and go,” Whitney says as she swipes the wedge from the ground and starts stuffing it into my backpack.
“No, get in the car and get down!” Elena hisses. Whitney and I dive into the backseat at the same time, nearly smacking heads in the process. She lies across the seat, and I stuff myself into the narrow floor space. Elena shuts the front door and ducks under the steering wheel. We stay as still as we can, breathe in short, quick breaths, and try to make as little noise as possible. In the garage we can hear the echo of footsteps coming from the elevators and getting closer. I watch the window, fully expecting to see the security guard’s head appear at any moment. I have this overwhelming urge to sit up and get it over with. Wondering when he’ll confront us is excruciating. I see the arc of a flashlight beam travel over our car and the ones beside us, illuminating the insides for a few seconds but not stopping. A moment later the footsteps move away, fading. To be safe, we stay put for ten more minutes anyway, until both of my feet have fallen asleep and my neck is cramped. Just to be sure.
“Okay, let’s finish this.” I hand Elena the drill and she sticks it into the ignition to drill out the pins inside. Even though the sound isn’t loud, it’s enough to jangle my nerves.
“Come on, come on,” Whitney murmurs.
“Crap!” Elena fiddles with the drill. “Okay, you two, out. I can’t get this with you both breathing on me from back there. Your nerves are tweaking my nerves.”
I set the screwdriver on the seat next to Elena so she can insert it into the ignition once the pins are all drilled out. Whitney and I crawl out of the car. Then we each walk the garage in separate directions to keep a lookout. It’s taking too long. Any minute I expect someone to walk through the garage: the owner of this car or another. It’s so late it’s not likely, but with every minute that passes I become more convinced that someone will show up. By the time we get back, the car is running and Elena is leaning on the side of it, arms crossed over her chest, looking mighty pleased with herself.
“Say it,” she whispers, looking from me to Whitney and back again.
“No, no way,” Whitney whispers back.
“Say it!” Elena demands.
Whitney rolls her eyes and exhales heavily. “Fine. You’re a rock star.”
“And a goddess, don’t forget that bit.” Elena grins.
“And a goddess. You are such a pain in the butt when you’re gloating, you know it? Can we go now?” Whitney opens the passenger door, banging it into the car next to the Toyota, and suddenly the entire garage is alive with the blaring howl of the other car’s alarm.
“Crap!” I say.
We all dive back into the car. Elena throws it into gear before we’ve even managed to shut our doors and peels out of the parking space and down the ramp, the tires screeching almost as loudly as the alarm. She stomps on the accelerator and we literally launch out of the garage, all four tires off the ground for a half second before the car slams down and connects with the road again. We barrel down the street, all of us screaming our heads off.
We stop screaming somewhere between the next two intersections and the freeway, but we don’t talk for a while, each of us too stunned to think of anything to say. I watch the road behind us from the backseat, hoping not to see a row of police lights trailing us, but feeling like it’s a distinct possibility that they’ll appear at any minute. We’re accelerating up the freeway on-ramp before I finally let out the breath I’ve been holding. We did it. Holy freaking crap, we did it!
I slump back against the cloth seats that reek of cigarette smoke and floral perfume and try to get my heart to stop convulsing. Soon we will be helping the Romero Robbers rob LL National. This is really happening.
Up front, Whitney and Elena are still silent, recovering.
“Well, that could’ve gone better,” I say after a while.
Elena dissolves into hysterical giggles. “Whitney, when you hit that other car with the door…Your face!” She struggles to breathe. “Wait until the guys hear.”
“No. We aren’t telling them! I don’t want them to think we couldn’t handle this one job on our own.”
“We won’t,” I say, relief making me want to laugh hysterically, too. “What happens in the parking garage stays in the parking garage.”
I wanted to make sure she was okay. That’s why I followed Lexi and her friends to the parking garage. Plus, I wanted to see her one last time before the job. After that kiss on the roof, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. The way she felt in my arms. The way I felt having her there. I thought something shifted between us—like maybe she was finally letting her guard down a little, letting me in. Thinking I could be with her had me convinced that my luck had finally changed. Yeah, Soldado was a problem still, but I had her and we had a plan. Looking into her eyes on the roof, I felt like it could all work out.
Lexi’s words echo in my head, tear at my gut. “Who says he won’t try to pin it on us? I’d do it to him. I won’t jeopardize us for a guy.” I slip out from behind the elevator where I’ve been hiding. She won’t trust me, so I can’t trust her. This job has to happen, and I need her to help me pull it off. All this other stuff, whatever I thought was happening between us, is just a distraction. Benny, Eddie, Carlos, and I can’t collapse both sides of the tunnel, and she has to let us out of the vault. We need her team.
I wait a beat and follow the girls. The way they’re moving through the garage…it’s too unsure. They look suspicious. Part of me hopes they get caught, but mad as I am, I can’t let that happen, so I get as close as I dare and keep watch over the front of the garage. I can still make out the guard station. As long as he stays put, they should be all right.
It takes them forever to settle on a car, but once they do, I’m relieved to see that it’s an old Corolla. Smart. I’m almost impressed—until they drop their tools. I check on the security guard. He’s on the move. Headed this way. He’ll catch them for sure. Cursing, I scramble down the row of cars to my left and head for the opposite corner of the garage. I take out my tow kit (I wanted to have it in case they needed help) and reach for the crowbar.
Smash!
I knock out the driver’s side window of the car next to me. The sound is explosive, but just to ensure that the guard comes after me and not them, I smash another window. Then I can hear him, feet slapping as he runs this way. I vault over the low wall beyond the car and hang for a moment. We’re up one level from the street on this side of the garage, but not high enough that I can’t drop to the ground from here. I let go, land on my feet, and take off.
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