Thief

by C. L. Stone

  “I needed to know who you were, Kate. I needed to know you weren’t going to get crazy and run to the local police with what I was up to.”

  “Could they have done anything?”

  “They could slow me down. Make things difficult for me. I’ve got a rather tidy criminal record, meaning to say, there’s nothing there. I’m not usually on their radar. I’d like to keep it that way.” He smiled and looked at me. “Not that I mind beautiful FBI informants crashing my party, but you have to admit, not all of them are as lovely and interesting.”

  I hid an eye roll and the glint of a smile at the corner of my mouth. He did it so smoothly. I didn’t believe him for a moment, but you had to admire a guy when he was trying. “What do we do?”

  “Well,” he said, leaning over the wheel and checking a street sign. “If you’re not put off by this plan, I say we go in as a couple planning an expensive party.”

  “How can we just walk in?”

  “They know this is a bad batch. I don’t think they know exactly how bad yet. Word on the street is people aren’t coming back, buyers aren’t buying, now they’re looking to get rid of it. It’s probably why it’s out in Moncks Corner. They couldn’t get the middle class to buy again after samples were spread out. They’re just trying to pawn it off on kids. The ones I’ve had to deal with so far have been more than happy to relinquish it for a lot of cash.”

  “They didn’t worry about you being the FBI or DEA?”

  “It’s not illegal to buy,” he said. “They only work in this underground system because when smoke shops started selling this stuff, the cops would seize merchandise in raids. Cops wait until a batch was made illegal, and raid the shop looking for old merchandise. They’d use the opportunity to get a hold of new merchandise and test for new synthetics to make illegal. Handling it through the underground drug rings made it easier. Made it harder for cops because it takes them longer to make these illegal. Now smoke shops just give you an address. This last batch was hard to track, because it was the last one, and it’s a big one, because no one wanted it and they all funneled it out to Moncks Corner. I was about to get it last night before it got that far.”

  “But...”

  He smiled. “Turns out I got distracted and had to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  If everything he was saying was true, Blake Coaltar wasn’t doing anything illegal at all. He was buying what was currently legal synthetic weed and he was getting rid of it in a way that he had every right to. “If you buy this, doesn’t it just encourage drug dealers to continue making bad batches?”

  “Not when we’re done with this,” he said. “Drug dealers generally don’t want to kill off their market. Doyle is helping spread the word about this particular batch, but word of mouth is slow in an underground world where they have to filter out rumors. When they hear this stuff killed people, they’ll want to get rid of it. There will probably be a lot of change higher up this particular drug ring. But this will be a process. For the moment, we’re getting this really bad batch off the street before anyone else gets too hurt. One thing at a time.”

  I sat back. “What do you want me to do?”

  He slid a glance at me and then back out front, where rain drops had started to splatter against the windshield. “Let’s just get through this part. If you don’t believe me after this, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  He rolled into the location, which really wasn’t an abandoned house, but a pit in the ground where there may have once been a house, and a warehouse planted nearby as if watching over the pit.

  He stopped the car a short distance down the road, but we were still within sight and probably pretty obvious to anyone paying attention.

  “Okay,” I said. I’d been quiet for a while, trying to absorb all of the information. It all seemed surreal. He seemed surreal. I felt a million miles away from home, and completely out of my element, drawn to Blake Coaltar and his cause, and to him in a strange way. Part of me was excited that I was finally getting an answer. I was starting to feel that the boys had been completely wrong. That my brother was safe. That after this was over, those Academy guys didn’t have anything to worry about and I ... I wasn’t sure what would happen to me, but whatever it was, it had to be better than what it had been.

  “I understand what you’re doing,” I told Blake. “I still don’t understand why. I mean, you’ve got a big house, and a yacht, and a fancy car, and a tiny boat.”

  “Hey, now. Don’t you start talking about my sailboat.”

  “I mean, you didn’t wake up one day and decide to start buying synthetic drugs and save a bunch of strung out teenagers from themselves.”

  “Shows how little you know me, sweetie.” The sly grin spread to bunch up his cheeks. “Maybe I do have a few secrets left.”

  “What makes a wealthy playboy want to take the risk?”

  “What makes a girl crash a party of a man she doesn’t know, just to try to sniff out all his dirty little secrets? Why not just get a job in a retail store and behave like everyone else?” He swung his head around as he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “It’s the same reason you’re in this car now. You’re not begging me to take you home. I see that look in your eye. You’re curious.”

  “Are we playing that game again? We’re doing things because we’re curious?”

  “It’s been the same since the beginning, we just didn’t know the details that made up what we were curious about.” He reached out, taking a hold of my elbow. He slid his grasp down until he could capture my wrist. He clutched it between his fingers and brought it to his lips. “Kind of sad, though.”

  “What is?”

  “I was kind of hoping during any part of this, when you figured out what I was up to, I thought you’d finally admit the truth.”

  I raised an eyebrow, my fingers twitching in his grasp. “What truth?”

  “That you were curious about me,” he said, the gold flecks glinting. He kissed the knuckles of my hand. “You like me.”

  I tried to pull my hand from his but he held on too tightly. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “But what you do know, you like. You’re intrigued.”

  “Can we just get this over with?”

  He laughed, releasing my hand and started opening his door. I opened my own door, closing it loudly.

  “Now listen,” he said. “I don’t want to make a fuss about this, but I think it’s best if I do the talking.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “You’re the expert drug dealer.”

  He smirked and led the way to the warehouse.

  Despite the light smattering of rain, we took our time to get to the door. The small warehouse was big enough to be packed with criminals and my mind was thinking something along the lines of a mob movie I’d seen once. Wouldn’t they have loads of guns and take out anyone they didn’t know? I didn’t know who we were up against, but I wanted to duck behind Blake if someone started shooting at us.

  Blake stepped onto a small concrete porch and knocked twice at a door and we waited.

  The door opened, and a head poked out. He wore a thick hoodie that shadowed his already dark face. He was young, maybe my age. His shoes were worn, Wal-Mart brand. His tight curly dark hair was cut short enough at the sides of his head that you could see the skin. He took one look at Blake, one look at me and then looked at Blake again.

  “This is private property,” the guy said.

  “Yeah,” Blake said. “I’m looking for Ronald.”

  “He’s not here.” He started to shut the door.

  Blake leapt, jabbing his foot into the opening to prevent it from closing. “I’m buying the new stuff,” he said. “The JH-14.”

  “Who are you?” The guy asked.

  “Look, I’ve got a party happening tonight, and I need something. The girls, you know, they like their shit.” He swung his head, jerking his chin in my direction as if he was talking specifically about me. “Got to get them to loosen up,
you know? I heard you had some of the new stuff.”

  The guy was shaking his head. “Back off.”

  Blake wasn’t going to get anywhere this way. I didn’t know how he was dealing with other drug dealers, but this was a street kid. They didn’t trust anyone other than their own. The poor and equally run down. It didn’t matter if the stuff they were selling was illegal or not. They avoided business with people they didn’t know or trust.

  I crossed my arms, trying to pretend to look irritated. “He don’t know nothing,” I said, faking a hick accent. “He’s just a kid.”

  Blake’s eyes met mine, as if trying to silently call me insane. “Pumpkin,” he said.

  “Look at him,” I pointed to the hooded kid. “We’ll go down to Tucker’s. He’s probably got a new batch of the real stuff anyway.”

  The man inside the door opened up wider. “Who’s Tucker?”

  I shrugged. “He’s got some real weed growing out back on an island in one of those mini-lakes out in Goose Creek,” I said, going with an old rumor I heard in high school. “They don’t get many batches, but I heard he got some of the real stuff.”

  “Sweetheart,” Blake said, starting to make a bit of a whine. This was better. He thickened his Southern accent, moving from his refinement to something I could consider middle class. “They don’t want the real thing. They want the fake shit.”

  “God knows why,” I said. “If you want to waste your money on them.” I turned to the man in the door. “Do you have anything that will shut him up? I don’t even care if it’s good.”

  The guy made a face, pouting his lips. “We already have another buyer.”

  Who was buying this? I recalled Blake had said someone else had returned to buy more. Probably some crazy stupid kid? Or maybe this stuff didn’t give whoever was buying the same side effects.

  I slid a look across at the street, as if checking to make sure no one was around. I leaned into the door. The man inside willingly inclined forward to hear me out.

  “We’ll take it off your hands right now. Whatever it is, he’ll probably pay double the price you were going to sell it for. They’re a bunch of rich snobs from the peninsula. In my opinion, it’d serve them right to get the fake stuff.”

  He glanced once at Blake and then at me. “You don’t tell them where you got it?”

  “I’ll tell them it’s a smoke shop blend,” I said. “Bath salts or whatever they’re calling it now.”

  He laughed and opened the door wider. “That shit will kill you.” He side stepped away from the door. Blake followed behind me. Smart. He was willing to let me take the lead.

  The inside of the warehouse was a barren space. There were two chop shop cars sitting around with the hoods up. The tops of the cars were dusty, though, and I suspected it was the front used in case cops did come poking around.

  The man walked up to one of the cars, inserted a key into the trunk, and opened it up. “They even prepackaged them,” he said. He lifted out a tiny bottle that looked like it was supposed to hold eye drops but without the label. Inside was a half a teaspoon of crystal-like grains, like clumpy sand. “These kids only buy twenty to a hundred dollars at a time. It’s all they can come up with.”

  “Must be slow business,” I said, sidling up beside him and glancing into the trunk. There were cartons full of these little bottles, and all stacked neatly together, and the trunk was packed. “Oh wow, there is a lot.”

  He shook the bottle in his hands again and then passed it to me. “Do you need to test?”

  “Never touch the synthetic stuff,” I said. I held the bottle between my fingers and became temporarily dazzled by how the light reflected off of the tiny crystal particles. Deadly and beautiful. “I don’t really get the big deal.”

  “Me neither,” the guy said. “But I’m just a distributor. We don’t get to touch the merchandise.”

  I nodded. “Is this it? Is this everything?”

  “The other trunk is full, too,” he said.

  I turned to Blake. “Do we need that much?”

  Blake grimaced, planting a palm on the back of his head and rubbing at his hair, looking sheepish. “Might as well. I won’t have to make another purchase later. It was hard enough to find.”

  I rolled my eyes, angling toward the drug dealer guy conspiratorially; he leaned in to hear me out. “He’s still new to this.”

  “I can tell.” He straightened. “If you really want the whole set, you’re looking at $25,000.”

  I bit my tongue to hide my shock and steadied a stare at Blake.

  Blake shrugged. “That’s a lot for a bunch of cartons.”

  “You wanted to double the price,” I said.

  He nodded and then turned to the man in the hoodie. His face changed into something more professional, businesslike. “I’ll tack on an extra five grand if I can get someone to deliver.”

  “Where to?” the man asked.

  “There’s a yacht at the City Marina,” he said. He reached into his front pocket, pulling out a business card. “Pack these bottles into food boxes, but closed and use packaging tape to seal them. If someone stops you, give them this card. There’s a dozen deliveries made to those yachts every day. You won’t be noticed.”

  “A yacht?” The man sucked saliva through his teeth, making a clicking noise. He turned to me. “Is this joker serious?”

  I waved my hand in the air. “That’s what I said.”

  He shrugged, rubbing his fingers over the back of his head. “Alright. You’re lucky this shit isn’t illegal yet.”

  Blake nodded. He reached into his back pocket, pulling out a wallet. “I’ve got five thousand now.”

  “Five thousand? Bitch, you said thirty.”

  “Five thousand on hand,” he said. “What do I look like? A walking bank? When you deliver, the rest will be in cash on the yacht. It’ll be in the fridge. Place the cartons on board, take out the cash and walk away with it.”

  “Make sure that shit is in twenty dollar bills.”

  Blake rolled his eyes. “You guys need PayPal.”

  “You guys will get into shit if you leave electronic trails. Paper’s the only way to go.” He took the cash from Blake and tucked it into his back pocket. “When do you want it?”

  “Deliver it tonight if you can. There won’t be much in the way of security at the marina. Just a girl stationed in the boathouse. Look like you belong there, and she won’t give you any problems.”

  “How come this sounds like more trouble than it’s worth?” he asked. He looked at me. “Maybe you should go with Tucker.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “I keep telling him...”

  THE REAL KATE

  Within less than an hour, we managed to get back to South of Broad and back to his house. Rain followed us the entire way. It fell in sheets by the time he was parked in his drive as close to the front door as he could get. Blake ran over to open the door to his house first, before he came back to open my door. It was pointless. By the time we were inside, we were both drenched, anyway.

  My heart was still pounding in disbelief. I couldn’t believe this whole time the boys had been worried about Blake, and Blake was really actually helping out. He might not be doing it exactly perfect. If it were up to me, I’d probably have worked out a deal another way. But Blake was probably right. This way, this dangerous drug gets off the street quicker. It sounded crazy, I didn’t think the drug pushers would stop. They’d get a new batch of bad stuff at some point. Then what?

  “What do you do now?” I asked him as I stood in the foyer of his house, dripping. I shivered at the cold water making my shirt and shorts stick to my skin.

  “Right now, we get a towel and change our clothes.” He motioned to the stairs and started toward them.

  I followed, stepping up the stairs behind him and trying to keep up. I tugged my shirt away from my body but it fell back heavily against me and clung. “I mean where are you taking the drugs?”

  “I’m about to make anot
her trip. I’ll dump it all in the ocean somewhere along the way. It’ll be gone, and no one will know.” At the third floor, he turned down the hall, opened a door, and I recognized the bedroom I had been in earlier. He went to the closet, turning on the light. It was huge, with racks of clothes hanging up on either side, more than I thought he could ever wear in years.

  I stepped onto the black rug, only feeling mildly guilty about dripping on it. “Will you go to Europe?” I asked, trying to ignore the size of his closet.

  He shrugged and grinned opened mouthed at me. “I don’t know. Why? Want to go?”

  I blinked at him. Was he serious? Now that the charade was over and I knew what he was up to, reality had settled in for me. I was a creepy girl who had invaded his party, his life, to find out he was actually a good guy. “Blake...”

  He started unbuttoning his shirt, letting it slide off his body and onto the floor. Underneath was a white-ribbed tank shirt. He caught the hem at his neck and pulled upward, revealing fit abs and then his tight muscled chest. His tan was perfection along his skin, all the way down to where his jeans hung low on his hips. He crumpled the tank shirt. “Kate, are you telling me you still think of me as the bad guy? After everything I’ve just showed you? After everything you’ve helped me do tonight?”

  I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t feel like he was the bad guy. We had possibly stopped kids from dying. And my brother was safe. I didn’t have to hide anymore. This was what I wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  The only problem was, what was I supposed to do now? I was eager to go back to the guys. I wanted to go back to my brother and let him know I was okay. I wanted all the promises the boys made about getting Wil into college and maybe, finally, for once, having a normal life. I wanted to apologize to Marc. I wanted to go back to Corey and Brandon. I even wanted to play with Raven and Axel.

  I also wanted to stay with Blake. I was afraid to go back. I was afraid once this job was done, the boys would send me back to my hotel room, or even if they kept their promises and helped me get an apartment, maybe with a job at the pretzel stand or elsewhere, I wasn’t sure if they would want me hanging around. And Blake wanted me, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, either. I’d still just met him.