by Shana Silver
The sting in my throat starts slowly but swells faster than I can stop it. I suck down desperate gulps of air to try to quell the tsunami about to explode. But it’s too late, and I’m too helpless. Big fat tears rush out of my eyes. My gulps turn into sobs, and suddenly I can’t catch my breath.
“Fiona?” Colin whispers in my ear. “You okay?”
I can’t speak. All I can do is succumb to the racking sobs.
“I specifically said not to cry,” Colin says in a tone of jest, and even that doesn’t break the tension.
“Oh my God, Fiona!” A new voice precedes the rush of footsteps and the arms that engulf me in a hug. “What happened?” Lakshmi shrieks. “Are you okay?”
I nod through escaping wails. Then shake my head.
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m here for you. Cry it out.” She pulls my head against her shoulder and lets me release all the emotion I’ve been holding back.
Because my mom’s gone, and it’s looking less and less likely that I’ll find her. Not without trading the FBI my secrets for the guitar clue. And my dad’s gone, trapped behind steel bars, probably for the next ten years. I have no idea what comes next for me if I can’t succeed in this mission. And the one guy I trusted had been working against me.
I let it all out. Directly on Lakshmi’s beautiful silk shirt (funded by the FBI). I don’t stop until my throat’s raw. My eyes burn. And I’m more vulnerable than I’ve ever been in my life, with the guy who broke me, listening, and the girl who’s only here to catch me, comforting me.
“What’s wrong?” She traces her palm over my hair, smoothing it down.
“My mom,” I say, my voice cracking on the word and a new rush of tears sliding out of my eyes. It goes against everything Colin just tried to teach me, but if I don’t salvage this situation, if I don’t succeed in conning Lakshmi, then I’m at even more of a loss than before.
“Fiona, stop,” Colin coaches. “You can’t just launch into it. You have to ease—”
I ignore him. “This lake reminds me of the last time we were together. As a family, I mean. One of the most magical days of my life.”
“Quick,” Colin says in my ear. “Pretend you don’t want to talk about it. It’ll only make her more interested.”
“It’s silly.” I frantically wipe away my tears, listening to him for once. “It’s just a lake. It’s not the same.”
“Now ask her about something else. Anything,” he coaxes.
“Did you catch any fish?” My voice is still incredibly shaky.
Lakshmi studies me with a look of utter concern, her lips pursing. “Fiona, if you’re this upset about something, we should talk about it. Where was the other lake, exactly?”
“Near Seattle. Well, more like two hours away, but still.” We agreed not to give her too many details on location quite yet. Just enough to get her mind churning, but not enough to send out a search party.
“Reminisce about how beautiful it was, make her truly interested in it, but keep it generic,” Colin suggests.
“God, it was so beautiful. Mountains in the background. Clouds in the sky. Crystal-blue water and perfect weather.” Can’t get more generic than that.
“Sounds amazing,” Lakshmi agrees, her eyes lit with a glint of interest. “What was so special about that day?”
Now I take his advice without being prompted, almost involuntarily. A small smile pops onto my lips. “My mom and I—we decided that it was the most perfect place to escape.” I let that word linger in the air for just a beat as the lump in my throat shrinks. “There was just a peace to it. And a simplicity. A fishing rod. A tent. A knife, and you’d be set.”
Her brows shoot way up, but then she corrects herself, and her face morphs back to one of concern. “You mentioned this was the last time you were all together. How old were you?”
“Nine? Ten, maybe? It was right before my mom left.” I make sure not to say she disappeared. I’m just a girl that was abandoned by her mother, not a girl whose mother went on the lam.
Lakshmi strokes her chin, taking this in. I can see the wheels turning in her mind.
“Quick, thank her! Make it seem like you really needed this chat, but now it’s over.” Colin’s voice in my ear prompts me to throw my arms around her. “Thank you. I never feel like I can talk about this stuff to Nat. She’s got a normal family life. Two parents. Annoying siblings. The whole shebang. She doesn’t get it.”
“And T’s not exactly the best person to talk to, either,” she jokes, and we both laugh. “Seriously, you can come talk to me anytime. I’m here for you.”
I smile through gritted teeth, hoping it looks genuine … and not like I know the only thing she’s here for is to use whatever I say against me.
* * *
When I return to my friends … and Colin … my eyes sting, and there’s still a hitch in my throat.
Colin stands in a copse of trees with his hands shoved in his pockets, looking completely out of place and unsure he still belongs in this convo. In this group. With me.
“Good job.” He places a palm on my forearm, and I reflexively shrug out of his touch, stepping backward. He snaps his hand back and shoves it into his pocket, studying his feet.
“We still need an exit strategy,” I blurt in an attempt to distract myself. It’s probably the wrong time to discuss this, but the rest of the campers are still laughing on the lake, not skulking through the woods like us. “As soon as we pretend to decipher the clues, we have to flee. And they’ll be vigilant to find us.”
Tig digs out her phone, scrolls through some saved links, and then shoves it at Natalie. Natalie squeals and wraps her arms around Tig. “Wait. When did you find this?”
Tig whispers something in her ear, and Natalie scoffs. “And you didn’t bring this up until now?!”
Colin rolls his eyes and snatches the phone out of Natalie’s hands. He purses his lips. “Okay, not a bad idea. But how do we even know what planes will be there that day?”
He shows the phone to me. North Liberty Aviation in South Bend, Indiana. A small airport for private planes. No major security team and there might not even be TSA agents, though Tig will create some fabulous fake IDs just in case. If we can get our new identities on the roster of a private plane, we’ll be golden.
Tig waggles her fingers for the phone and types in a few more things. She tilts the phone screen toward us, showing us a hacked-in screen with all the flights scheduled to take off that day. She points to one particular section on the screen.
Hearts for Vandals Private Tour Jet. 11:49 p.m.
Destination: Teterboro, NJ. Gate 1.
Private Owner. 11:55 p.m. Destination: Bahamas.
Gate 2.
Tradewinds Charter Company. 12:30 a.m.
Destination: Jacksonville, FL. Gate 1.
Private Owner. 12:21 a.m. Destination: Roswell,
NM. Gate 2.
Jetstream Charter. 12:57 a.m. Destination:
Bellingham, WA. Gate 1.
Natalie plunks her finger on the screen. “I vote Bahamas.”
“We’re going to have to decide that night. Whichever flight gets us closest to wherever my mom’s really hiding.” I turn to Colin. “You’ll have to convince the private owners or the charter folks to let us on somehow.”
“I can probably do that.” He scratches his chin. “But we should back it up somehow and get ourselves on an official roster so we have tickets in case we’re wrong about private airports not having proper security.”
Natalie gasps. “Wait! Hearts for Vandals is playing at Notre Dame that night! If we can convince them that we’re contest winners for their flight or something, we’ll be able to get past TSA. And from there we can decide if we ditch them for another flight or stick with the boy band.” She turns to me. “Can you create fake VIP passes to get us into the concert?”
I shrug. “If you can keep Lakshmi away from me for a few hours, then yes. I’ve got all the supplies here already.”
Colin drop
s his head into his hands. “I can’t believe our best option for escape is convincing the most famous band in the world to let us ride on their private jet.”
I pat him on the shoulder. “Hey, at the very least, this holds up with your alibi of being obsessed with them.”
* * *
We spend the next two days preparing as much as possible. I seize every spare minute that Natalie manages to distract Lakshmi to work on fake IDs. Tig uses her hacking skills to dig up information about the private jet owners—one a billionaire in town for business and another a frat boy who just turned twenty-one and finally received access to his trust fund. The latter will be far easier to convince than the former, but Colin plans to kill me all over again with another sob story about how I’m dying and need an urgent flight out for a heart transplant to hopefully convince the billionaire. The charter companies are both running tours, mostly targeted at the elderly, but there’s no specific age limit. A few backdated emails “proving” we’ve paid for the tours in question should do nicely here.
I have no idea which flight we’ll end up with, and that scares me. It means I don’t know my mother well enough to even guess.
But despite all the scurrying and planning we’re doing behind Lakshmi’s back, with only two days to go before the library heist, we still need to keep up the ruse of good little campers. So on a tour of Graceland, I try my best to pay attention. As our guide blabbers on, Colin slips a slim black device into my palm. A string of headphones wraps around it. Rule #14: When attempting subterfuge, don’t look immediately. Wait until you’re away from Lakshmi or whatever other FBI agents they’ve planted here.
“What’s this?” I whisper.
He tilts my head to the side and his warm breath coats my ear. I try not to shiver. Or cringe. “My way of showing you I’m trustworthy. You once checked if I was wearing a wire. This time I actually did.”
I squint at him, trying to make sense of what he’s saying.
“It’s my conversation with the FBI last night when I was giving them my report. So you know exactly what I told them. And because I got you a bit of info in exchange as well.”
I want to rush through the ornate entryway right then and listen, but I force myself to be patient. Not be suspicious. I wait a whole thirty minutes before I excuse myself to the restroom. I settle into a stall and stick the buds in my ear, closing my eyes against the bright fluorescent lights. I have to grip my necklace for comfort as I press play.
There’s static and some rustling for a few seconds before a dial tone comes on. The sound of it startles me so much that I let out a small gasp, and the woman in the stall next to me asks if I’m okay.
The phone rings four times before a man says, “Hello?”
* * *
I can hear the croak in Colin’s throat. “Hi, Dad. Checking in for my nightly report.”
His dad responds with a snort. “Wow, five days in a row now. I’d say I’m impressed … if this wasn’t the exact deal you agreed to.”
Colin sucks in a shaky breath.
“Did you learn anything today? Anything at all?”
Colin sighs. “Nothing. Not one thing.” His voice rises in frustration at the end of the word. “She refuses to tell me anything, no matter how close I get.”
“Then get closer. Do what you’re good at. Smile. Make her feel—”
“I’ve been doing that. It’s not working.”
I pause the recording here, my heart pumping painfully. Water splashes in the sink as the woman who was next to me washes her hands, and I let the sound drown out my thoughts. It takes a moment of courage before I hit play again.
“I need something else. Something that would really make her think I’ve got her back. Something she wants.”
“Like what?”
Colin’s voice changes to one of confidence now that he has his dad’s attention. “Info about her father, maybe. She’s worried about him and misses him so—”
Ian laughs. “How are you going to get that info, if not by talking to me? If you tell her that, you’re exposing our deal.”
“I thought about that. But I can tell her I called the correctional facility. Posed as you or something to get him on the phone. I think if I’m able to tell her a small tidbit, even if it’s just that he’s okay, she’d start to trust me again.”
Ian considers this for several excruciating seconds. I lean forward on the toilet seat, chest trilling.
“Are you sure you can sell that?”
Colin’s voice is shaky at the doubt in his father’s voice. “I have to.”
“Okay, in that case, I do have a message from her father that I’ve been keeping in my back pocket.”
“A real message?” I can hear the excitement in Colin’s voice.
“Yes, I visited him last week and explained that I wanted to get a message to her under the ruse that I wanted to get her to stop. He said to tell her, and I quote, ‘What happened to our talk about hotel rooms and boyfriends?’”
Colin and his dad part ways under the agreement that he’ll continue to give reports every night.
Two emotions fight a war on my face: the smile that emerges at my dad’s inside joke and the tear that slips out of my eye because I miss him something fierce.
I clutch the recording to my chest, savoring this small piece of my dad. How he knows me way too well and how, given the opportunity to tell me anything in the world, he went with something that would make me feel loved rather than spur me onward. Though I guess making me feel like he has my back does exactly that.
But there’s something even more important in this message from my dad.
It proves Colin really is on our side. I can truly trust him.
CHAPTER 25
Despite Colin earning back my trust and my quick, muttered thank-you when I handed back the recording device, I’ve still felt a little weird around him. He keeps glancing at me expectantly, and I keep avoiding his eyes. Because the thing is, earning trust back and earning his way back into my heart are two separate things. And he’s only managed one so far.
The problem is I’m not sure what it will take to earn the other.
But I don’t have much time to dwell because the day after Graceland is the last heist, and I need to throw all my energy into that. While Lakshmi showers, we pack our “go” bag and make sure she has no opportunity to snoop inside it before we leave the hotel room. Colin slips me a handwritten note at breakfast, and I make an excuse to go to the bathroom before I read it in a stall.
Told my dad the message from your dad worked and you confided the escape plan to me.
The “escape” plan we fed to the FBI was that we’ll lay low until 3 a.m. and then flee by train to Chicago, figure out our next move from there. We also had Colin plant the idea that my mom might not emerge from hiding unless she knows I’m the one finding her. Translation: Keep the FBI far far away.
He agreed to not send any agents tonight. He’s going to let me keep up this ruse and accompany you to her location until she comes out of hiding. I promised to check in every hour once we escape.
I flush the note down the toilet. Hopefully, this means the FBI will let us walk out of here at 3 a.m. without any issue. From there it’s just a matter of not going to the train station, as we led them to believe. We figured the safest way to leave was if the FBI knew about it and let us.
On the way to the bus, we exchange glances, and this time I don’t look away as quickly as I have been. Lakshmi clears her throat, and we stumble onto the bus and try not to make anything obvious during the fifteen-minute ride to the Hesburgh Library at Notre Dame.
Our voices carry across the quiet atmosphere of the library. The wooden chairs surrounding the study carrels are probably older than the now-defunct card catalogs. Light gray walls and a geometric carpet draw my eye to the black shelves packed with books that are stacked like dominos in a row.
“Follow me to the rare books collection,” our librarian tour guide says, pressing a wrinkle
d finger to her equally wrinkled face. A cloud of white hair circles her head like a halo. She ushers a few of us into an elevator. “We pride ourselves on housing the rarest collection of books, from medieval manuscripts—”
“Bound in actual medievals,” I whisper, the sound of the hydraulics covering my words.
Colin keeps close, his body curving toward me, and mine replies with the same answer for a second before I take a step away.
“—and even an entire collection on sports research,” the guide continues.
“Are we going to see the book bound in human skin?” Lakshmi fans herself with a brochure, and her fishtail braid flops on her shoulders as she bounces on her toes.
Shut. Up. Lakshmi. I grit my teeth together. This must be a game to her. Make it harder for me to steal the very thing she needs me to steal.
“We’ll get to that in a minute, dear,” the tour guide says. The elevator door opens, and we all wait outside a room enclosed in glass while the tour guide descends back down to escort the next group of campers. Rectangular glass display tables secure the rare books. My eyes immediately settle on the little green blinking lights at the very bottom of each case. A sign above the door reads RARE BOOKS, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, SPORTS RESEARCH.
“I’m going to find a bathroom.” Natalie pivots on her heels and beelines down the hall, despite the fact that there are two bathrooms flanking the elevators. Her backpack drags, heavy with tools. I lift my eyes to the security camera and give it a wink. Tig rigged them by looping yesterday’s footage back through the feed. Doesn’t matter, though. The FBI needs us to succeed in this heist and won’t be stopping us. Cutting the feed is all for show.
“Now, children,” the tour guide says once everyone has reached the second floor. A few groan at her use of the word children. “The books I’m about to show you are very delicate indeed. You may look, but please do not touch. Fingerprints on the glass cases will disrupt the experiences of the next tour group.”