Fool’s Errand: Cartwright Brothers, Book 4

by Anderson, Lilliana

  I stopped, placing my hand on the top of the safe, the cool metal pressing against the warmth of my hand. It smelled like dirt in here. Dirt and cigarette ash. “He taught me how to be a locksmith.” I squatted in front of the door and inspected the dial, turning it from side to side. “He always told me to keep my nose clean. Lost his shit when he found the stash of jewellery and crap that I’d collected when we used to go tourist trapping.”

  “I haven’t been tourist trapping in years.” He moved closer, his arms folded across his chest.

  “It’d be weird if you did now, don’t you think? It worked well when we were kids and got invited back to the caravans and holiday houses, but now…”

  “I can get invited into caravans and holiday houses no problem.”

  The scoff came without me giving it permission. “As long as it’s some hot young thing.”

  “Even guys. They wanna learn to surf, or they like having a beer with a local. It’s easier than you think to get inside people’s houses and steal their shit. The problem with tourist trapping was doing it on our home turf. Too many people learn your face and that’s dangerous. You never shit where you eat, and you never keep the shit you take. Ever think that’s why Trev lost his shit about finding that stuff?”

  “So many uses for the word shit in only a couple of sentences.” I smirked.

  “I’m serious. When we say keep your nose clean, we aren’t talking about walking the straight and narrow. We’re talking about covering your arse and making sure no one can link you to the job once you’ve cleared out. Maybe he cracked it with you because you had a fucking stash of evidence. Everything gets liquidated, then you clean the cash by adding a little extra to your books each day. For you, maybe you add a few fake jobs like rekeying a door that doesn’t exist. Or, when you do an actual job, you charge the customer one price and put another price in your books. That way, all the dirty money becomes legitimate and your nose is clean. Get it?”

  I’d never thought about it like that before. “But why didn’t he teach me how to finesse a safe when I asked him?” And was that why the business was struggling? Because I wasn’t running fake jobs through the books?

  Abbot shrugged. “I don’t know, Sloane. Maybe he thought you were a dumbarse since he found you hoarding fucking evidence?” He pulled out another cigarette and lit up, stepping back so he wasn’t blowing any of his exhale in my direction.

  I sat back on my heels and thought for a moment. It made sense, but at the same time it didn’t make sense at all. Pop had had years to teach me how to do the books and who his unsavoury clients were so I could keep things running when he was gone. But he had chosen not to, and I had no way of knowing if he was going to tell me everything before he died. Ugh. This was so messed up. I felt like I’d been doing everything wrong since Pop died.

  Lookin’ over your shoulder is no way to live, kid.

  It was like I could hear his voice in my mind. He’d said that so often that I had to believe he didn’t want me involved. Just like he kept me away from the Cartwrights for a reason, too. Abbot was wrong.

  Standing up, I spun the dial with a dramatic flick. “I think you should get someone else to do this, Abbot. Pop didn’t think I was a dumbarse. He was protecting me.”

  “From what exactly? Getting rich?”

  “From prison. From people like you.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, shooting smoke from his nose in exasperation. “Now I’m insulted.”

  “That just makes it easier to say goodbye.” I wiped my hands on the side of my pants and headed for the door.

  “Whoa, whoa, Sloane Slater.” Abbot caught me by the elbow, cigarette in the side of his mouth, the smoke curling up and causing him to squint one eye. “Not so fast.”

  “I made a mistake coming here, Abbot.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “I’m disrespecting Pop. It doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “What’s so wrong about this? You’re going to sit your cute little butt down in front of a safe and open the door. No one will find out, and you’ll be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer at the end of it.”

  My mouth fell open. “That’s more than double what you originally offered.”

  He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and rubbed at the back of his head with his other hand. “Well, you were kinda supposed to haggle with me on that. Trev would have demanded more, so I start low and work my way up to the actual number. Negotiation one oh one.”

  “I see.” A quarter of a million dollars to open a safe that hasn’t been reported missing to the press. I pressed the toe of my worn-out sneaker into the concrete floor. I could do a lot with that amount of money. Make changes to the shop, advertise, fix up Lizzy, buy new sneakers…

  “Please, Sloane. We don’t have another safecracker we trust. Don’t make me go back there and tell them I lost the only one we have.”

  Something about the pleading look in his eyes softened my resolve. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The promise of a hefty chunk of cash melted it into a puddle on the floor.

  “One job,” I said, closing my eyes as I allowed the words to burst from my mouth. “I open that safe and then I leave and go about my life like a regular person, and you find someone else to do this shit for you in the future.”

  “I can make that happen,” he said, his voice soft and his pillowy lips fighting a self-satisfied smile. I rolled my eyes as I reached up and pulled the cigarette from between his lips.

  “Pop a mint, buddy. Your cigarette breath is killing me, and I’m not working with this stench filling up my nose. We’re in an enclosed space.”

  He took the cigarette back and dropped it on the floor, squashing it beneath his foot. “Your wish is my command. Anything else I can do for your royal highness?”

  I knew he was being sarcastic, but I answered anyway. “You can get coffee. I take mine white, with no sugar.”

  With a chuckle and a shake of his head, he placed his hand on the door. “Get to work, woman.”

  I saluted him before turning towards the safe. Two seconds later, I heard the lock tumble in the door. So much for trust.

  Chapter Seven

  Challenge Accepted

  “Um…I think you should come and look at this,” I said, my voice shaking slightly as Abbot returned with two coffees and a bag of food. I’d removed the outer panel to the safe door while he was gone and was struggling with the sight in front of me.

  Abbot placed his offerings on the top of a bank of filing cabinets against the wall and walked over to me. “What’s up?”

  “This isn’t an old-fashioned anti-theft device. This is new.”

  He crouched down beside me, minty air blowing out of his lungs as he took in the sight before us. “What the fuck?”

  “Most of these devices are about the size of my hand and only contain small vials of Chloropicrin. They were invented before drilling to open a safe was an option. Burglars would use a sledgehammer to knock the spindle off, or a crowbar to jimmy the door. That kind of forced entry would disrupt and crack the tubes, releasing the gas and sending the thief running.” I spoke like I knew what I was saying, but I’d literally learned most of this information over my coffee this morning.

  “But this is something else?” He indicated the flat glass casing that covered the entire midsection of the door. It was filled with the same noxious liquid, but it wasn’t an old device leftover from the ’20s.

  “This is custom-built,” I said. “Made specifically to prevent modern safecracking techniques. I’m surprised it didn’t crack when you moved it. Wasn’t it bolted down?”

  “Yeah, but we used those crank levers that popped the bolts out of the floor. Super quiet and it saves us from breaking our backs. Plus, we saw the warning label, so we were super careful.” He pointed to the sticker that said ‘Caution. This safe is fitted with an anti-theft device.’

  Closing my eyes, I spun the dial back and forth in my fingers, trying to see
if I could feel any changes in the weight of the wheels. “The only way we’re getting in is to figure out the code,” I said. “I was hoping I could remove the vial and drill, but I can’t without cracking the glass.”

  “You reckon you can figure the code?”

  I opened my eyes and met his. “Eventually.”

  “What if we like, drain the chloro-stuff out of those vials?”

  “How? The slightest bit of air will turn it into gas, and that shit doesn’t just make you cry.”

  “OK. So what do we do?”

  “I channel my inner Pop and do it by touch.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’ve never done it before.”

  * * *

  By the end of the day, I thought I had the first number range based on the gentle tap I was feeling between fifty-two and fifty-five. But there was no way to be sure until I could work out the other three wheels and try the sequence together.

  Despite the way this looked in the movies, safecracking was not an easy thing. Only a handful of people could do it in less than an hour. Most took several, others took days. But when you understood the mechanics, it could be done. In time.

  “Don’t you two look picture-perfect together? You’re just the right heights,” Jasmine said when we returned to her place, her smile falling when she noticed our sullen expressions. “What’s the problem?”

  I opened my mouth to explain that I couldn’t drill, and wasn’t the finessing wizard Pop was when Abbot spoke for me.

  “It’s booby-trapped. A massive vial of tear gas. The dial locks up after every wrong turn, so it’s going to take time for her to find the combination.” He told a boldfaced lie so casually that even I almost believed it.

  “Is there any way to disable it?” Jasmine looked at me for the answer and I shook my head truthfully.

  “It’s embedded in concrete. If we try to get it out, it’ll crack the glass, then we won’t be able to go near the thing without a professional cleaning crew, and that’s gonna raise some flags.” I read that a small vial would make a building uninhabitable for a week, so one that size could take a month to dissipate.

  “Motherfuckers,” she said, shaking her head as she stalked into the kitchen.

  “Hey Abs. What’s up?” a biker-looking dude said from behind the bench. He had dark hair and a big beard, and was in black denim and a white shirt with tattoos covering every available piece of skin on his arms and hands. I’d have found his presence alarming if it hadn’t been for one thing: he was holding a palette knife in one hand while he turned a cake stand in the other, smoothing chocolate ganache over a twenty-centimetre tall cake. “Who’s your friend?” the baking biker asked when he looked up and spotted me.

  “This is Sloane. She’s staying with us while we work out how to get that safe open without gassing ourselves.”

  “Hey Sloane,” he said, placing his palette knife down as he stepped towards me. “I’m Breaker. Jasmine’s fella.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I smiled and shook his hand, a firm grip that pinched a little due to the fact he had some chunky silver rings adorning his fingers. “That cake looks great,” I said of the creation he’d been icing.

  “You think? I’m testin’ out some flavour profiles for the weddin’. It’s chocolate genoise soaked in raspberry sauce with a mousse fillin’. I love anythin’ choc berry myself, but I wanna see what Ronnie and Kris reckon over it.”

  “Sounds amazing.” I drooled at the thought.

  “Kris’ll eat anything,” Abbot told him before grabbing my arm. “Come upstairs a minute.”

  Leaving Jasmine and Breaker to the cake, I followed Abbot up the stairs until we got into his room.

  “What was that about?” I asked as soon as the door closed. “Why did you lie for me?”

  He ran his hands through his hair and slumped into his chair. “I told you I’d tell them what they needed to hear. Jazz isn’t always as cool as she seems. She doesn’t always react well to bad news, so I thought it better if she was pissed at the safe owners and not at you.”

  “Who were the safe owners?” I tried, not really expecting an answer.

  He shrugged. “That information is on a need-to-know basis.”

  Just as I thought. Shit that didn’t concern me.

  “Listen, I need to go back home. If this is going to take a while, I need some clothes, and I need to get someone to cover the shop.” I had one employee who worked weekends so I wasn’t on seven days a week. I had to hope he could cover completely until this job was done. I’d work something out.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice flat and his expression warring. “I’ll take you out there tomorrow.”

  “I can go tonight.”

  He frowned. “Whatever. Fine.” He stood up suddenly then swiped his keys from the bedside drawers. “Let’s go then. We can stop and eat on the way.” He stepped to push past me, but I blocked him with my hand to his chest.

  “Are you pissed at me?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Then we can go tomorrow. I can wait.”

  Closing his eyes, he pressed his forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. “No. Let’s just go now. Get it out of the way.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Just…why did you want this job, Sloane? You knew you weren’t the same calibre as Trev but you acted like you were.”

  “Do you wish I wasn’t here?”

  “It’s not that, it’s just, the longer you’re here, the closer you get to the family, the harder it is for you to leave.” Ouch.

  And here I was thinking they’d been happy to see me again. Guess I was wrong.

  “I promise you that the moment this job is done, I’m out of here in a puff of smoke. I won’t overstay.”

  “It’s not even about that, it’s just… Don’t listen to Jasmine. She gets these fucked-up ideas in her head, and—” Oh.

  “Is this about the picture-perfect comment?”

  The softening of his expression was enough to confirm I was right.

  “Worried I’ll fall in love with you and refuse to go?” I scoffed, offended. “Don’t flatter yourself. You and I are friends at best.”

  His eyes flashed. “You perv on all your friends?”

  “If they look like you, hell yeah. But you can relax, I’m not planning to touch the merchandise. I know my place.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” He let out his breath and raked at his hair again. “Let’s just go and get your shit.”

  * * *

  “Two-minute noodles OK?” I asked after rummaging through my barely stocked pantry for food since we drove straight through. His Jag was so smooth on the road that I was the one who fell asleep this time. Now I was starving. “It’s either that, or a tin of pea and ham soup with an ambiguous use-by date.” I turned with the items in my hands and leaned against the counter, finding Abbot poking around my tiny flat, looking at the pictures on the walls.

  “You’re really into this triathlon thing, huh?”

  I placed the soup and noodles on the bench and moved to stand beside him.

  “That was at the Shepparton Challenge about five years ago,” I said of the picture he was focused on. “We never win anything, but the participation medals are fun to pose with when you finish.”

  “Who’s the dude?”

  I turned away. “Which one? There are several in the picture.”

  “The one holding on to you like you belong to him.”

  “That’s Mark. We were best friends in school.”

  “Were?”

  I shrugged. “Things got complicated as we got older.”

  “Because you slept with him?”

  “Something like that.” I went back to the kitchen and started rummaging for a saucepan.

  “Friendship between men and women never works out,” he stated, following me in.

  “I don’t know.” Filling the saucepan with water, I set it on the s
tove to heat. “Most of my friends are guys. Always have been.”

  “And how many of them did you end up sleeping with at some point?”

  I picked up the noodles and looked at the pack like I needed the instructions. “A few. But that’s not the point. Sex hasn’t changed things. We’re all still friends.”

  “Even Mark?”

  I met his eyes. “I went to his wedding.”

  “And where did you sit? Up close to the bridal party, or somewhere in the back.”

  Closing my eyes for a second, I played with the pack between my fingers. “At the single’s table.” I’d been miserable and left early. When he called to ask where I was, I pretended that the champagne had given me a headache.

  He released a burst of air from his nose. “In no mans land.” He reached out and took the pack from my hands, opening it before dumping the noodle cake into the boiling water. Repeating it with the whole pack of five while he continue talking. “Despite what anyone says, men and women can’t be friends without sex coming into it. It’s basic biology. And once you do have sex, the friendship isn’t the same anymore. You become something other than what you were.”

  “You sound like you’re talking from experience.” Picking up the flavour sachets, I shook them between my fingers before opening all five at once with a pair of scissors.

  He made an ‘eh’ sound and bounced a shoulder while he focused on me tipping the powder over the noodles. “Every girl I try to be friends with, I end up fucking. Then, because I’ve never wanted a girlfriend, the whole thing gets messed up.”

  Scrunching the empty foil in my palm, I looked up to meet his eyes. “Then let me be the first girl you’re actual friends with.”

  A smile crept across his face as he studied me. “With the way you look at me? Nah, I’ll end up fucking you too. Give it time.”

  He probably meant that as a joke, but it felt like an insult. Like he didn’t want to have sex with me right now, but he’d probably cave after I wore him down. Arsehole.