by Lili Valente
I brake behind a row of cars already stopped at a red light and turn to face him, grateful for the chance to look him in the eyes. “Where are we going?” I ask, stomach gurgling with nerves. “What is this?”
His focus slides my way, the intensity in his expression enough to make me shiver. “We’re going to get the money you need to keep your home and take care of your family.”
“How?” I ask.
“You’ve already sacrificed your life on the altar of sisterly duty,” he says, ignoring my question. “I’d hate to think all of that was for nothing.”
“Keep your smartass comments to yourself,” I say, gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles start to ache. “Or you can get out right here.”
“I’m not being a smartass,” he says, a gentle note in his voice that’s almost as unnerving as his penetrating stare. “I heard the gossip after you left school. You dropped out to take care of your brothers and niece because your dad’s an alcoholic and your sister bailed on her kid, right?”
“Yeah. So?” I turn my attention to the road as the cars begin to move, grateful for an excuse to break the eye contact that’s making my skin feel too tight.
“Well, it isn’t hard to read the writing on that wall,” he says. “With four kids to feed, no diploma, no time or money for your own education, and no support from your family, there’s no way you’re getting out. Unless you dump the dead weight and let the state take the children, but you don’t seem like the type.” He pauses, cranking his window down a few inches, letting cool air and the smell of the honeysuckle starting to bloom beside the road rush into the car. “Unless something changes, you’re headed down a long, hard road, with your chances of creeping above the poverty line ranging from slim to none.”
I swallow, ignoring the lump in my throat, hating his prophecy, hating even more that it’s already coming true. I haven’t even had time to get my GED, let alone start college. I’ll never make my dreams of getting a degree a reality, not when I have to work fifty hours a week just to keep food on the table.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, again in that kind way that sort of makes me want to punch him. “Like I said, the system is rigged. America isn’t the land of opportunity, not anymore. It’s a place where the rich get richer, and the poor get to watch reality television on increasingly affordable electronics.”
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”
“I’m not clever, I’m realistic,” he says. “I give my share to charity, but even if I gave my trust fund away, it wouldn’t change a flawed system. Facts are facts, and the only way that certain people can break out is to stop playing by the rules and start playing to win.”
He lifts a hand, pointing to the next turn onto Orchard Street. “Pull over up here and go around the block. We can park at the end of the street and sneak in through the back.”
I take the turn onto Orchard, but instead of going around the block, I pull to the side of the road and shove the car into park.
“Sneak into where?” I ask, gut churning because I have a feeling I already know the answer. “What the hell are we doing, Gabe?”
“We’re tipping the scales of justice in your favor with a little breaking and entering.” His smile is so pleasant you’d think we were discussing the score of the latest RiverDogs game. “Sounds good, right?”
I shake my head. “No it doesn’t. Not even a little bit.” But even I can hear the uncertainty at the core of my words, gooey like a rotten nougat center.
How else am I going to get my hands on the kind of money I need before it’s too late? Maybe Gabe is right, maybe there is only one way out for someone like me.
And maybe Mr. Purdue deserves whatever he gets…
“I can’t,” I say, heart racing. The voice in my head is seductive, but this isn’t me. I’ve never stolen anything in my entire life. But then, I’ve never known the person I was planning to steal from was a monster, either…
“You can,” Gabe says, a smile in his voice. “I know you have it in you. I saw it on the dance floor.”
“No.” I press my lips together. “I’m not that kind of person.”
“Sometimes we don’t know what kind of person we are until we’re put into an impossible situation,” Gabe says. “Situations that force us to think about what matters, and what’s the best thing we can do with our lives in the time we’re given. To me, taking care of your family seems a lot more important than obeying a law that says you can’t steal from a fucking evil bastard.”
I pull in a breath and let it out in a rush. I can’t believe how much sense he’s making.
The good girl in me still wants to turn my back on temptation and walk away from all this on principle, but my gut is screaming that principles have never gotten me anywhere. I can’t afford principles, and why am I fighting to resist something that doesn’t feel wrong in the first place?
“Come on, Cooney.” Gabe brushes my hair behind my ear and I prickle all over, like my entire body is a sleeping limb struggling to come fully awake. “Let me help you get what you need.”
What I need.
The way he says it, it’s about so much more than money. It’s about the way he makes my skin hot and my lips tingle, it’s about the way he makes my heart race and banishes the exhaustion that’s been my constant companion since I quit school to be a full-time surrogate parent. It’s about the flicker of hope he lights inside me. That flame isn’t much bigger than a candle right now, but I can sense how easy it would be for it to grow, to rise higher and higher until it sets my world on fire.
I’m standing at the threshold of a moment that will change my life, and not necessarily for the better. I know that, I know it with everything in me, all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
But still I nod.
And take his hand.
And let him lead me out into the night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gabe
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” –Shakespeare
Television sets flicker behind living room curtains and loud laughter echoes down the street from a party further up the block as we make our way down Hawthorne Street, but no one sees the two silhouettes moving swiftly through the shadows beneath the broken streetlights.
Caitlin walks silently along beside me, a full two inches shorter now that she’s slipped into a pair of tennis shoes we found in the Bug’s trunk. She’s so petite that the top of her head barely reaches the middle of my arm. I don’t usually go for short girls—too hard to make six foot one and five foot one match up in certain situations—but I’ve decided to make an exception in her case.
All kinds of exceptions. Breaking all the rules of engagement tonight…but what else are rules good for?
I smile, grateful Caitlin can’t see my face in the darkness. I know she’s scared—any sane person would be; we’re about to commit a felony—and I don’t want her to realize how little this bothers me. I’m not a sociopath, at least not in the true sense, but she doesn’t know me well enough to understand that it took a lot of time and thought for me to come to peace with breaking the law. She might be spooked by the smile and rethink her decision, and I don’t want her to bail. I’ve never had an accomplice before, but I can already tell that crime is more fun when shared with someone special.
And Caitlin is special. She’s fierce and shy, hard and kind, wild and domesticated, all at the same time. I was too stupid to appreciate someone like her back when we were in high school, but now I’m intrigued by her contradictions, and even more curious to see how she’ll perform under pressure.
“How are we getting over?” Caitlin whispers as we stop beside the chain link fence surrounding the back of the pawnshop.
On the other side, the innards of rusted out machinery, old refrigerators, and a variety of battered bikes and once brightly-colored kids toys litter the hard-packed earth, belying the quality of the goods inside the store. But I know this isn’t
your average second hand junk store. Mr. Purdue has a thriving business to lose if he goes to jail. There is good money to be had within those crumbling brick walls and Caitlin and I are going to take our share of it.
“We’ll climb over,” I say, stripping off my shirt. “I’ll go first and leave this on top of the barbed wire so you won’t cut yourself.”
Caitlin takes a shaky breath. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to pick the lock? What if they have a security system?”
“Does this look like the kind of place that has a security system?” I begin to climb, knowing it’s best not to give Caitlin too much time to think.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “But what if it does?”
“Then we’ll climb faster on the way out.” I lay my shirt on the barbed wire at the top of the fence and swing a leg over to the other side. I doubt the Giffney P.D. will bother to check the fence for bloodstains, but best to be safe. There will come a day when I won’t care if I’m caught, but that day hasn’t arrived yet.
By the time I step down onto the ground, Caitlin is maneuvering over the barbed wire at the top of the fence. She has a harder time—her legs aren’t as long and she ends up grabbing on to part of the tee-shirt-covered wire for balance—but she makes it over without cutting herself and starts swiftly down the other side. I stand watching her, head tilted back, wishing the moonlight was stronger so I could get a better look at the no-doubt delicious view of her jean clad ass.
As soon as she’s within reach, I wrap my hands around her waist and lift her the rest of the way down.
“I’ve got it,” she says, brushing my hands away with a sharp exhale before stepping out of my arms.
“Don’t be nervous,” I say. “But don’t touch anything. You’re not wearing gloves and you’ll leave prints.”
“What about you?” she asks, following me across the junk-littered enclosure.
“I’ll find something inside to wipe the knobs down on our way out.” I pull my wallet from my back pocket and fetch my pick set from inside. “But even if I miss something, it’s better my prints are found than yours. I have a lawyer in the family.”
“All I have is crazy in mine,” she mutters, crossing her arms and huddling close to my side, casting anxious glances around the yard as I go to work. “I always thought the gene skipped me, but now…” She shivers, despite the balmy early April night. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Everyone has crazy in their family,” I say, slipping my tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole. “And you’re not being crazy, you’re being brave.”
She shakes her head. “I’m still not sure this is right, no matter what a waste this guy is.”
“Would you say you have a well-developed sense of right and wrong?” I tease my pick into the lock above the tension wrench, raking it back and forth, getting a feel for the pins. There are five, maybe six. It isn’t a complicated lock. We should be inside in five minutes, maybe less.
“I think so,” she says. “I mean, considering the way I was raised, I think my conscience is probably in better working condition than most people with parents like mine.”
“Dad and Mom not the best role models?” I find the stubborn pin—the one I need to set first before I can move on to the others—and lean in, listening for the faint click that will let me know it has slid into place.
“My dad’s a drunk, but he tries…or he used to, anyway. And my mom wasn’t a bad person, just a flake and anxious all the time,” Caitlin whispers quickly, making me think she’s a little anxious herself. “She was okay when she was drinking, but once she got clean she couldn’t handle all the noise and the chaos at the house. She ran off with her AA sponsor the day after she got her one month sobriety chip.”
I grunt in amusement. “I always knew AA was bad news.”
“Driving mothers away from their obnoxious children since nineteen thirty-five,” she says with a soft laugh.
“I like that you laugh about it.”
“It’s either laugh or cry,” she says, bumping my admiration for her up a notch, making me even more certain that I want to help her.
The thought of Caitlin getting kicked out of her house after all she’s done to hold her family together sets my teeth on edge. The second her friend explained why Caitlin wasn’t in the mood for partying, I resolved to make her problems go away.
I have fifty grand in my checking account and could get my hands on more if I wanted to—my grandmother removed the age restrictions on my inheritance a few months ago, so the sky is pretty much the limit. I could have given Caitlin the cash as an anonymous gift, but I’d already planned to hit Mr. Purdue’s place sometime this week and couldn’t resist the urge to kill two birds with one stone.
Besides, a shared secret brings people together, and eliminating Caitlin’s money troubles will free her up to get into other kinds of trouble.
Trouble with me.
I hear the final pin click and my mouth fills with a sweet, electric taste. It’s the taste of victory and forbidden things, two of the best tastes in the world.
I turn the tension wrench to the right and the door swings open.
“We’re in?” Caitlin grabs my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin.
“We’re in,” I say, marveling that even that simple touch is enough to make me thicker.
This girl does something to me, something I can’t wait to explore further…as soon as we get what we’ve come for.
“Let me check for an alarm.” I move inside, scanning the walls on either side of the long, dark hallway. I don’t see any control panels or flashing lights, and no cameras visible near the ceiling—not that anyone watching security footage would be able to make out our faces in the near-darkness, anyway.
I motion for Caitlin to follow, and we move down the hall, through a pair of swinging wooden doors, and into the main portion of the pawnshop without making a sound. Her steps are even softer than mine and I’ve had enough practice that I move like a ghost, barely touching the floor beneath me.
“Are you going to try the register?” she whispers as we stop behind the display cases.
I shake my head. “I doubt there will be any money in it. I’m going straight for the safe, see if I can get lucky.”
“I’ll find the keys to the display case and clean out the jewelry,” she says, grabbing several tissues from a box on the back counter, taking my warning not to touch anything with bare hands to heart. “That’s the most valuable small stuff. I can put it in my pockets, and I won’t have to try to carry anything while I’m climbing back over the fence.”
“Brilliant,” I say, with a wink. “You’re a natural.”
“Say that after we get out of here without getting caught.” She takes a deep breath in and out. “Because right now I feel like I’m about to throw up.”
“Don’t throw up.” I squat beside the safe. “They might decide to test it for DNA.”
“Is there DNA in vomit?”
I give the lock an experimental turn, pleased when it sticks in one place. “Yes. In the cells from your stomach lining and your saliva.”
She hums thoughtfully, the keys to the display case tinkling as she pulls them from a hook near the register. “But they’d have to have something to match the sample with, right? And I’m not in the police database.”
“Let’s keep it that way.” I grab my own fistful of tissues. “In and out in ten minutes or less. That’s my rule. Fill your pockets. I’ll give the safe five minutes and if I can’t get it open we’ll get out of here.”
“All right,” she agrees.
I hear her moving around behind me and glass doors sliding open, but after only a few moments I lose awareness of anything but the subtle gumminess of the safe’s dial near numbers sixty-three and the soft hitch in the rhythm near numbers fourteen and seven. I spin the digits from lowest to highest and back again. I try two more combinations with no luck, but on the third the safe pops open with a satisfying thu-
gunk.
“Thank you, Mr. Purdue,” I whisper, grinning as I pull stacks of rubber-band-wrapped bills from the safe and shove them into my back pockets.
“You did it?” Caitlin asks in an awed voice as she crouches down next to me. “Jesus Christ, you’re a full-fledged criminal, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes.” I lean my face closer to hers, unable to resist the urge to flirt…just a little. “Want to play Bonnie and Clyde?”
Her green eyes widen. “Bonnie and Clyde killed people.”
“Robin Hood and Maid Marian, then,” I say, my lips only a breath away from hers, close enough to smell the sweet-and-sour candy scent of her breath and the wild spice of her perfume. I’m a chin tilt away from stealing a first kiss to go with the stacks of bills tucked into my pockets, when I hear muffled voices from the sidewalk outside the shop.
“Who’s that?” Caitlin hisses, eyes flying wider. “Mr. Purdue?”
I shake my head, the hair at the back of my neck lifting as I pinpoint two, distinct male voices conversing in furtive tones. “I imagine it’s—”
Before I can finish my sentence—or encourage Caitlin to start moving her sweet ass toward the exit—the sound of shattering glass slices through the silence, followed closely by the blare of an alarm.
I lift my hands to shove Caitlin toward the back door, but she’s already on the move, darting out behind the display cases and booking it down the hall.
“Holy fuck, man, somebody’s already in here!” a male voice shouts behind me as I follow Caitlin’s lead.
When the first gunshot rings out, I’m already shoving the back door closed behind me, wiping it clean with the tissues in my fist, and sprinting across the yard. My footsteps pound the hard-packed dirt, eating up the ground with adrenaline-fueled swiftness. By the time the fence comes into view, Caitlin is already at the top, swinging her leg over the barbed wire.
My chest loosens with relief—she’s going to make it out, even if I get shot in the back before I can follow. But I don’t plan on getting shot, not if I can help it. Four feet from the fence, I jump, making it halfway up before my hands claw into the ribbons of metal and I begin to climb.
