by Jamie Pacton
“It’s not break time!” she says with a laugh. “Though, I’m sure you’ve earned it today. Phew, I always forget how busy these October nights are. Can one of you go yell at the jerks in the corn maze who are throwing water balloons at people?” She lets out a frustrated breath.
The corn is over six feet tall, and in the middle of the maze, there’s a ten-foot platform where you can stand and see across the ocean of corn. It’s a great view, but, unfortunately, it’s also a great spot to lob things at the other people still stuck in the maze.
“Not it!” Bran and I call out at the same time.
At night, the corn maze is also full of “Halloween haunt” actors who are paid to jump out and frighten folks. I scare easily and suspense kills me (I can’t even resist the temptation to peek at the endings of most books, so forget horror movies or thrillers). My one-time maze walk-through at the start of the season was more than enough for me.
“You’ll both go,” Bran’s mom decides.
“But who’ll watch the café?” Bran asks.
“Me,” his mom says. “I need those guys out of there before the hayride gets back so the families can go through the maze without getting drenched.”
“Fine.” Bran stands up.
“We’ll take care of it, Mrs. K,” I say as we head out the door.
She gives me a tired wave and doesn’t look up from her phone.
OUTSIDE, IT’S A BEAUTIFUL OCTOBER NIGHT. THE LAST RAYS OF SUNSET paint the sky peach, and the charcoal-stroke outlines of tree branches make the world look like a stained-glass window. A line of geese fly across the horizon, and the moon rises, a pale fingernail in the east. I love nights like this. As Bran and I head into the maze, we can hear shouts and the splat of water balloons from somewhere ahead of us.
“I hate assholes like this,” Bran says. The corn rustles, and I’m praying none of the haunt performers jump out. I will absolutely scream if that happens.
“Hard same,” I say as we turn a corner. “What does your mom think we can do? Confiscate their water balloons?”
Bran shrugs. “I guess. If nothing else, we can take their pictures and get them banned for the season.”
Against my every instinct, I propose Bran and I go in separate directions when we reach a fork in the maze.
Splitting up means I don’t have someone to grab if a creepy haunt actor does jump out at me, but it also means we might get back to the café faster.
“I’ll go left, you go right,” Bran says. I wave to him as I stride off down the path.
I walk for a few minutes, trying not to think about the lengthening shadows and how chilly it’s getting as the sun goes down. The stupid platform should be around here somewhere, but I think I took a wrong turn or something. Voices behind me make me freeze in place. What if it’s one of the actors in a serial-killer mask (or worse! A real killer, who could TOTALLY hide in a place like this)? Panicking, I dive into the corn, getting whacked in the face as I settle in among the stalks. I’m not even sure this is good cover, since it’s like being in a forest of sticks. Surely the darkness can hide me, though. Maybe? The voices grow louder as the approaching figures move closer to my hiding spot.
Two people come around the bend in the maze, and I separate the cornstalks so I can see them.
Ahhhh. So, good news: It’s not a serial killer, but possibly worse, it is Holden and Banks.
Should I clamber out of the corn and say hi all casual, like, “Sure, yes, I’m hanging out in the cornstalks, what are you up to?” Would that be the weirdest thing ever? Or should I stay put?
Too late. They’re beside my hiding spot before I can decide. Their conversation floats toward me.
“So, you’re hanging out more with Jane?” asks Banks. “I thought you two broke up.” He holds a bucket full of water balloons, because of course he and Holden are part of the jackassery Bran and I are trying to stop. They probably went to replenish their supplies. I really should step out of the corn and demand the balloons, but I’m frozen in place by hearing my own name.
Holden laughs. “It’s complicated. We’ve been doing a few things lately, if you know what I mean.”
Banks gives a knowing laugh that makes me want to punch him.
They keep walking, and I have to scramble to keep up so I can hear them. Luckily, the wind is blowing so my crunching through the cornstalks isn’t too obvious. I hope.
“Are you trying to get back together with her?” asks Banks. An excellent question.
“Don’t know,” says Holden. “Really, I’m just taking it a day at a time. I’m super interested in the investigation she’s doing with Bran. So, you know, I thought I’d get closer to her. See what she knows.”
Holden’s words carve out my insides.
He’s hanging out with me to find out more about the investigation?
I can’t help but think back to Monday at the House on the Rock. Was he just playing me to find out more about the investigation? But he hadn’t even asked much about the lotto winner then. So, maybe he does still like me a little bit after all?
Not that I even care, but …
Ugh. This stupid, confusing boy.
I definitely hate him.
I’m definitely over him.
Totally.
The more I think about Holden’s and my relationship, the more it’s so very achingly crystal clear why he was not the right person for me. Which is terrible, because I spent the last two years thinking he was my person. And I was grateful that I had a person.
But I do have a person, I remind myself. Or people. I have Bran. I have my mom (sort of). I have my grandma. I’m not alone, and I don’t need Holden to anchor me in the world.
I know this rationally. But the heart is a wild creature that walks its own path.
Banks scoffs, bringing me back to their conversation. “They’ll never find the lotto winner. That person’s not coming forward until they’re ready.”
“Oh, I have an idea of how to find them,” Holden replies. He and Banks have stopped moving. I pause too, straining to hear what they’re saying.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to break into Wanda’s tomorrow night and get the surveillance tapes,” says Holden. “Then I’ll know who bought the winning ticket, and I can find them. Do you know what I could do with all that money?”
Surveillance tapes?
Well. That shoves all other thoughts about lost love out of my mind.
Banks doesn’t ask the questions I’m dying to know: What tapes? I thought there were no surveillance tapes. And once Holden’s got the tapes, what will he do? Would he really be able to find out I was the one who bought the ticket? Surely not.
Nevertheless, it’s not a chance I’m willing to take. Meaning, I have break into Wanda’s before he does.
Perfect. Just perfect. If I wasn’t a criminal already, I’m certainly well on my way to that now.
I bite my lip to keep from screaming as Holden and Banks walk away and a cornstalk digs into my shoulder. As soon as they’re gone, I set off to find Bran.
I come across him near the tower where, indeed, there are still more jerks with water balloons. Holden and Banks are up there too now, and Holden waves down at me.
“Cut that out!” I shout as Banks lobs a water balloon in my direction. I dodge out of the way, but the balloon hits Bran. Bran swears loudly as it soaks his jacket.
“You all need to get out of here,” shouts Bran. He takes a picture of them, while Holden grabs Banks’s arm and stops him from throwing another balloon in our direction.
One more balloon flies past my head, but somehow Holden convinces the other boys to stop flinging them. They shuffle down the tower steps, and Holden drops a bucket of water balloons at my feet.
“For you, my lady,” he says with a wink. “Didn’t know you were working tonight or we wouldn’t have come. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
It’s hard not to believe him, but I just cross my arms and po
int toward the path out of the maze. “Goodbye. You’re banned until next season.”
Holden laughs and waves over his shoulder. “Talk to you later, Jane! Text me.”
I pick up a water balloon and lob it at their backs, but it just lands on the cornstalks with a splat.
“Text me,” says Bran mockingly, as we clean up pieces of smashed balloons.
“Ugh. Never again,” I say. Quickly, I fill him in on what I overheard Holden saying, including why Holden has been hanging out with me and his plan to break into Wanda’s. Bran makes an indignant noise at the part about Holden’s treachery, and his eyes widen in surprise when I get to the part about the surveillance tapes.
“I knew it! I knew there’d be tapes!” Bran starts pacing. “What are we going to do about it?”
I grab his arm, stopping him midstride. “I was thinking we break into Wanda’s tomorrow and get the tapes before Holden does. Are you in?”
Bran’s face lights up. “You mean, do I want to get more information for this story and beat Holden at something? You don’t even need to ask me twice. Let’s do this.”
Before I can say anything else, a Halloween-haunt actor dressed as a zombie carrying a fake chainsaw comes racing toward us. We do the first thing any soon-to-be-criminal team would and start flinging water balloons over our shoulders while running for the safety of the pumpkin-farm café.
HOW TO PLAN A HEIST PREPARED BY JANE BELLEWEATHER
Okay.
If we’re going to steal the tapes before Holden, we better learn how to commit a crime. Or a heist. Or whatever.
Luckily, the Internet is full of helpful information about criminals who have succeeded.
This is what I’ve learned so far:
First, obviously, if you’re breaking in somewhere, be sure to have a way out. Sure, this seems like Crime 101, but a ridiculous amount of criminals get caught simply because they didn’t figure out how to walk away.
Second, make sure you have a good team. It helps to have someone on the inside, which I don’t. But Bran is at home right now doing his own research, so I know he’ll be prepared.
Third, go through all the ways the plan could work out and all the ways it could fail, like, a dozen times.
Fourth, disappearing in plain sight or into a crowd is a great diversion. In 2006, four criminals stole $50 million worth of art from a museum in Rio de Janeiro during carnival. They disappeared into the crowds, and they still haven’t been caught.
Now that the Harvest Festival is over, I’m not sure Lakesboro can generate crowds of any size, but maybe if we go when everyone else in town is busy …
Fifth, be sure to have enough gear. Depending on what you’re trying to steal and where it’s secured, you might need ropes, glass cutters, tools to break stone, bags to remove debris …
But let’s be honest. Getting into Wanda’s to steal a surveillance tape might not need as much tech as Mission: Impossible or Ocean’s 8.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, EVERYONE IN TOWN IS AT THE HOMECOMING football game. It’s the Lakesboro Honey Badgers versus the Carlsburg Cobras. Because we are not a subtle town, every window in downtown is painted with variants of honey badgers eating cobras. Normally, I’d be at the game with everyone else, but alas, no honey-badger rallying cries are happening tonight.
Tonight, Bran and I are heisting.
Sort of.
It’s the perfect time to break into Wanda’s. Downtown is mostly empty—there are only three cars parked on the street, no one is walking around, and the diner and the hair salon both have signs in the window: Gone to the game, open again tomorrow. The sun is already down, and it’s dark enough that we should be able to slip into Wanda’s unseen.
I can hear the news announcer now: “It was a perfect October night in a perfect small town. Perfect for a crime, that is …”
Despite my nerves, I laugh out loud at that.
“What?” says Bran in a voice that’s stretched thin. We’re walking toward Wanda’s, both of us jumpy.
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “I just thought of something funny.”
“There’s nothing funny about crime, Jane,” Bran says in a cheesy voice, like he’s giving a PSA.
I can’t help it. I start laughing again. It’s what I do when I’m nervous.
“Honey badgers don’t give a shit,” I reply.
Bran laughs at that and then gestures toward my backpack. “What do you have in there? A table saw?”
“Possibly. I just grabbed everything I could find.”
“Hedge trimmers?” He points to the pair poking out of the top of the backpack.
“You never know what will arise during a heist,” I say, quoting some of my research material.
We get to Wanda’s far too quickly. I mean, of course we do, our town is tiny, but I’m not ready to actually begin the heist.
Bran peers into the darkened window. “It looks the same as always. Except, you know, closed.”
I shift my backpack again. We’re really doing this. Breaking into Wanda’s. The part of me that was secretly guilty of breaking the law by buying a lotto ticket is now fully guilty as soon as we bust in. But I can’t let Holden get those tapes. Who knows what he’ll do with them?
Thinking of Holden makes my stomach lurch. A great, slimy feeling of sadness, regret, and rage fills me.
Fuck this. No more being sad.
“Let’s go,” I say, taking a lock-picking kit out of my backpack. “I’ll get the door open. That way, you’re not guilty of the actual break-in.”
I do indeed know how to pick a lock, thanks to all the times I’ve accidentally locked myself out of my room.
I pull a thin strip of metal out of the kit and slip it into the lock.
Bran steps forward, hand outstretched. “Jane, are you sure? Let me. I was researching lock picking all last—”
Before either of us can show off our lock-picking skills, the door swings open with a little tinkling of a bell.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whisper. “It’s unlocked. What if a real criminal is in here?”
What if it’s Holden? Of course it’s going to be Holden. What am I going to say to him if he’s already seen the tape? Will he really be able to tell it’s me buying the ticket?
“This isn’t very Ocean’s Eleven,” whispers Bran.
“Ocean’s 8 is what we’re going for,” I reply. “I’m Cate Blanchett.”
Bran glances at my knockoff Ray-Bans, gray thrift-store overalls, black T-shirt, and my purple knit hat (in my defense, it was the only one I could find in my closet). He snorts.
I shift my backpack. “Before the Met Gala, dork. When she was just cool and planning stuff out.”
He laughs harder.
“Never mind. Let’s go. Keep your eyes open.”
With a glance at the street behind us, we step through the door. I flick on my flashlight and send it around the store. The beam bounces over metal racks full of chips, making enormous lumpy shadows on the floor. I slip my sunglasses into my pocket.
Bran’s eyes meet mine. In his black jeans, black turtleneck, and black snowboarding jacket, he definitely got the memo on how to dress for a heist.
We creep through the darkened space, moving quickly past coolers still humming as they keep drinks cold.
“Weird that we could take anything we want,” I say, half to myself. “Want some Cheetos?”
“We’re not thieves,” Bran hisses.
I scoff.
“Well, not regular thieves.”
A drawer slams from the back of the store, making Bran and me jump. My fingers dig into his arm.
“Back there,” I mouth, pointing. I lower my flashlight so its beam skims the floor. Bran grabs a snow scraper off a shelf and holds it like a weapon.
“You look ready to attack a very frosty windshield,” I whisper, nodding at the snow scraper and his puffy jacket.
“Shut up,” he mutters as I cover my mouth, trying not to laugh.
There’s another noise, a loud banging as if someone’s going through a filing cabinet, and we both stop laughing. This could be bad. If it’s not Holden back there, it could be a real criminal. They could be breaking into Wanda’s while the owners are gone. They could have guns, or there could be more than one of them.
You know it’s Holden. I shove that thought away because the truth is, I don’t want it to be Holden. I want Holden to like me for me, not for my millions of dollars or for any information I could give him about the lotto ticket.
Ha.
I deeply hate this perfidious heart of mine.
Bran and I tiptoe through the stockroom, past the bathrooms, toward the small office at the back of the store. A light shines from under the door.
“On three,” I whisper to Bran. I rest my hand on the door.
“One, two, three …” he counts it down. I push the door open, and we burst in.
Dammit.
It is Holden.
He’s hunched over a small wooden desk, watching security footage on a TV-VCR combo that looks like it’s from the ’90s. On the small TV screen in front of him is a girl in a hoodie and a light-pink jacket, buying a lotto ticket. Her back is to the camera, but I don’t need to know that when she turns around, her face will match mine. Or that the ticket she holds in her hand has a very specific, very familiar row of numbers: 6 28 19 30 82. Though surely you can’t make out the numbers on the security footage. Right?
Holden spins around as we burst through the door.
“Jane? Bran?” he asks. His voice is full of surprise. “What are you doing here?”
I don’t greet him. I don’t think. I just slam my finger into the eject button on the VCR. When the tape spits out, I snatch it and smash it as hard as I can against the desk. It shatters into pieces. With one quick motion, I pull the gray magnetic ribbon out of the insides, like a child tearing open a package.
“Jane!” Bran’s voice is startled. “What are you doing?”
