The Con Code

by Shana Silver

  “Mr. Porter!” I yell. “Wait!”

  He pauses just long enough to swivel his head toward me, wheezing. “Sorry, miss. But I’ve got—”

  “I just saw Colin drive off campus. He mentioned something about burgers?”

  Mr. Porter stops in his tracks. He casts one long glance toward the woods and another at me before his face melts into one of anger. He marches back in the direction of the school and does a quick sweep around the tables to confirm Colin’s absence. And then he parks himself at one of the tables in the back to keep watch but not be seen when Colin first returns.

  I hunker down at a table closest to the school parking lot, far away from my usual table indoors. The freshmen at the table all eye me like I’m crazy when I slide my legs onto the bench and then proceed to ignore them entirely by twisting around and facing the parking lot entrance.

  Something in my stomach hollows out, but it can’t be nerves. I never get those on any of my con missions.

  Still, I squirm in my seat. I half expected all the tension to drain from my shoulders once I ratted Colin out, but I feel even more anxious than before.

  My phone vibrates with a text from Natalie.

  Natalie: How’s it going?

  Fiona: Most of it’s going according to plan. Except one thing …

  I bite my lip and nearly type out a joke instead of what I actually want to say. But she’s my best friend. I can tell her anything.

  Fiona:… I might be developing a conscience.

  Natalie: Don’t feel bad. Just remember why you’re doing this. To keep your family safe. And to show him that you can fool him, too.

  Natalie: Also, remember there will be juicy delicious burgers at the end of this! Sure, no one’s going to get to eat them, but they’ll still be juicy!

  I swallow hard and hug my phone to my chest. My resolve returns. She always knows the right thing to say. Especially the part about the burgers.

  * * *

  A new text pops up on my phone from Tig, but it’s just the emoji of two eyeballs staring intently at something to the left. I groan and bang out a text to Nat.

  Fiona: Did you tell Tig about the plan?

  Natalie: Um.

  A GIF of men with bunny ears pops onto my screen.

  Fiona: Nat!!! Men with bunny ears is NOT an answer!

  Natalie: I wanted to impress her. Think it worked?

  I send an emoji of a head exploding in lieu of an answer.

  * * *

  Each time a car drives toward the lot entrance, I flinch. My leg rattles up and down until Colin’s sleek, silver Subaru pulls into the lot, engine revving, and I bolt upright. As Colin parks in his assigned spot, Mr. Porter hustles over to him.

  I stalk toward Colin’s car, too, careful to stay out of Mr. Porter’s line of sight. I duck behind the next car. The body of the car shields me so Mr. Porter can’t see me, especially not with his back to me, but I can still view enough of the action by peering through the windows. I want to see Colin’s face when he realizes I’m the reason he got caught.

  Mr. Porter knocks on Colin’s driver’s window, and Colin rolls it down.

  “Colin O’Keefe,” Mr. Porter says. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to report this. Violation of rule number seventeen in the school handbook carries a three-day suspension.” He tugs at his collar. “You’re just lucky pranking staff doesn’t carry additional time.”

  While Colin chews on that news, I shoot off a text.

  Fiona: Enjoy your mandatory vacation! It’s my gift to you. Or should I say … my warning.

  His gaze shifts toward his phone on his console, and his eyes narrow.

  “I’m going to need you to hand over those bags.” Mr. Porter juts his chin toward what I presume are two white paper bags oozing with grease. The scent of meat and cheese drifts toward me, and my stomach growls. Judging by the way Mr. Porter’s licking his lips, his stomach’s growling, too.

  Colin hands over one white paper bag through the window.

  Mr. Porter dips his head through the window. “That plastic bag, too. The one you just knocked onto the floor.”

  “That’s not part of the burgers. That’s—”

  “Don’t care.” Mr. Porter sets down the bag of burgers and crosses his arms. “Hand over the plastic bag, son,” he says as though he’s taking his job of security guard as seriously as if this was a cop show on a big-five network.

  Colin’s fingers tighten on the wheel. “Can I start my suspension immediately? I’ll leave right now and—”

  “You hiding drugs in there, boy?” Mr. Porter presses his forehead against the top of Colin’s window. “Out of the car or I call the cops. Now.”

  Reluctantly, Colin pushes himself out of the car. He shoves his hands in his pockets and ducks his head. An uneasy feeling washes over me. I’ve only ever seen him be cool, calm, and collected, but right now he looks as if he’s one second away from freaking out.

  Mr. Porter crawls into the driver’s seat to grab the plastic bag from the floor.

  Colin squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for something.

  My stomach winds up, coiling tight. What did he do?

  “Holy crap.” Mr. Porter ducks back out of the car. He holds up handfuls of small plastic rectangles, and the sunlight reflects off them in a prism of colors. One of the rectangles falls out of his hands and skids beneath the car I’m hiding behind, stopping at my feet. My eyes widen. California state IDs, complete with holograms. The only thing missing is the portrait and information, but that’s probably the point. Colin just needs to type it in, print it out, and bam! Fake.

  “They’re not mine.” Colin holds up his hands in surrender. “I was just transporting them, I swear.”

  Vance’s gig must not have been the only one he agreed to do at lunch today.

  A muscle in Mr. Porter’s jaw twitches. “Whose are they, then? I have to report this to the cops. No choice there. Creating and selling fake IDs is a serious offense.” He steps into Colin’s line of vision, forcing Colin to look at him. “But I’d rather report the person who these really belong to. So tell me a name, and I won’t tell them yours.”

  Colin clamps his mouth shut, and for some reason this makes something painful shoot through me. He’s not a rat.

  But now I am.

  “All right, come with me. We’ll call the authorities from inside.” Mr. Porter takes a step toward the building.

  My heart leaps into my throat, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I only meant to teach Colin a lesson so he would step back a little. Instead, I ruined his life.

  I get out my phone and type words I’ve never said before: I’m sorry. But before I can bring myself to hit send, a text pops up on my phone.

  Colin manages to steal the last word without ever opening his mouth:

  Colin: I guess this means you won the turf war after all.

  CHAPTER 8

  I stare into my locker in a daze, barely registering which book I’m taking out. I’ve been a walking zombie for four days now.

  Natalie nudges me with her shoulder and gives me a sad smile. She’s wearing her most subdued disguise yet: simple fishtail braid in a shade of brown that would never stand out from the crowd, cat-eye plastic-rimmed glasses, and nude lipstick. “I thought you’d be doing ballerina twirls in the hallway now that Colin’s out for the count, not … moping.”

  I swallow hard, unable to stave off the guilt eating me inside the past few days. “I wish I didn’t feel so guilty.”

  Natalie bites her lip. “This is what you wanted, though, right? To get him out of your hair.”

  A gaggle of girls congregate at the locker next to me, and when I spot Olivia, I straighten. I don’t want to be like her, or Jessica, or all the other girlies swooning over Colin. For the last few days, they’ve been sniffling into tissues, big fat tears streaming down their cheeks as though they’re mourning his death and not his suspension.

  “I heard his dad negotiated a reduced sentence,” Olivia says
to her friend near my locker. “Three months’ house arrest. He’ll be free by the time school starts next year!”

  Olivia’s friend’s smile increases. “Maybe his dad will do some ‘negotiating’”—she even uses air quotes—“with Principal Van Lowe in the form of a hefty donation.”

  Tension drains from my shoulders at this news. Maybe I didn’t ruin his life forever. Only his summer vacation. But then I remind myself that it doesn’t matter if he comes back here in three months. By then I will have already found my mother and joined her wherever she’s hiding out. In three months, I won’t be here, either.

  * * *

  For the next three and a half weeks, I throw myself into finishing up the last forgery and helping Dad finalize plans for the remaining heists. We’re going to hit them all up consecutively for a summer of wham-bam-thank-you scams. Everything looks rosy colored for our departure next week … until Dad drops a new bomb.

  “Funds,” he says, drumming his fingers against the desk in my bedroom. “By my calculations, we’re at least twenty thousand short.”

  “But how?” I tilt my computer screen to show him the elaborate Excel spreadsheet that tracks all the costs we’ve anticipated, all written in code, of course, in case the feds ever snoop around. From apartment rentals to gas mileage to disguise fees, it should all be accounted for.

  “Johnny and Jorge. They’re demanding a bigger cut. Immediately—or they won’t help.” Dad lets out a sigh and runs his palm through his dark hair. “We can’t do the heists without them, Fiona.”

  My eyes flutter shut, and I breathe in sharply through my nose. An IOU won’t work in this scenario, because that’s the currency we’ve been paying them in, knowing that finding Mom means finding the real versions of her stolen art and the buckets of cash we can get after Dad fences them all on the black market. We don’t have time to find anyone else. “Is there anything we can sell to get that kind of cash?” We have a lot of nice things in our house. Maybe we have 20K worth of nice things.

  “Well, it’s not just a bigger cut. It’s another job they want to hit to get that cash. Tonight. But it’s dangerous.”

  Apprehension knots in the base of my throat. “What job? How dangerous?”

  “Stealing a statue from a wealthy owner before it goes to auction.” Dad swallows hard. “The auction is tomorrow.”

  My stomach lurches. A wealthy owner means a fancy alarm system. Maybe even security guards. And maybe those guards will carry guns. Not to mention no time to fully plan this out so we can come up with an exit strategy for every possible scenario. “I’ll come with you.” My voice sounds a little less confident than I intended it to.

  Dad shakes his head. “We don’t need a forgery on this one. Standard smash and grab. Jorge, Johnny, and I got this.” He points at my stack of textbooks. “Besides, don’t you have finals tomorrow?”

  I let out a sigh. “Only in English … and AP History.” I try to bite my tongue, but it doesn’t work. I can lie to strangers just fine, but I can’t ever bring myself to do it to the one person I trust with my life. “Okay, fine, and pre-calc.”

  Dad pats me on the shoulder. “You focus on studying tonight. And then tomorrow, we’ll both celebrate a job well done.”

  I can’t help but feel a little jealous at missing out. FOMO and all that. I wear all black to study, in solidarity.

  By 11 p.m. when I finish studying, Dad’s not home, but that makes sense. The best smash-and-grab heists are performed during the cover of night, where fewer eyeballs might rest on your misdeeds. I attempt to crawl into bed and go to sleep, but my mind has other plans. I lie there, waiting for the telltale sign of a car pulling up, engine switching off, footsteps pounding up the stairs, and the relief that comes from knowing my dad’s okay.

  But 11:10 p.m. passes in silence. 11:35. 11:50.

  By midnight, I propel myself out of bed and start pacing the floor. A quick check-in text to my dad yields no results. Same for Johnny and Jorge.

  Dad sometimes doesn’t text back during the middle of a heist, but Jorge’s the getaway driver. He’s just sitting in the van, waiting to put pedal to metal.

  12:18.

  There’s a knot in my chest that won’t subside. Overnight jobs usually don’t take this long.

  12:49.

  My stomach squeezes in fear that something happened to Dad, something involving a gun.

  1:23.

  I park myself at the kitchen table, eyes trained on the door, leg rattling under the table. I’m going to fail my finals from exhaustion at this rate, but I can’t possibly sleep until I know Dad’s okay.

  2:01.

  My nerves grow even more raw. This is late. Even for a dangerous heist. Even for Dad. But I can’t shake the feeling that something bad happened. I’m giving it one more hour before I start calling hospitals to check if Dad’s been admitted.

  At 2:57 a.m., headlights swing into the driveway and beam spotlights through the window so bright, I have to squint. I bolt to my feet, eyes stinging. My bare soles skid against the cold hardwood floor as I race to the front door and wrench it open so fast, it slams into the wall behind me.

  I’m expecting to wrap my arms around Dad in relief, but instead a man in a suit aims his dark soulful eyes at me, eyes I’m probably supposed to trust. He flashes an FBI badge at me, and all the breath leaves my lungs. My gut was right. Dad’s not okay.

  “Hi, Miss Spangler. I’m Ian O’Keefe.”

  I freeze; my blood beats in my ears. Ian O’Keefe. The guy who had the gall to spawn my biggest nemesis.

  My arms fly to cover my chest like a shield. “Wh-what do you want?”

  “I want you to step aside.” He shoves a sheet of paper in my face. “Search warrant.”

  My stomach drops. “But—you need probable cause to get one of those. You need—”

  “Miss Spangler, I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve taken your father into custody along with his accomplices.”

  I back up a step, shaking my head, as cold hard panic sluices through my blood. Ian goes on to tell me what I already figured out. They’ve caught them stealing the statue and have reason to believe my dad’s hiding other stolen goods inside the house. Goods that might reveal the location of my fugitive mother. Goods that helped expedite the search-warrant approval process.

  Hot tears press against my eyes, and a strangled sound I don’t recognize breaks from my throat. I’ve already lost my mother to the lam. I can’t lose my father, too.

  “How?” My voice comes out all pitched, so I try again. “How did you know my dad was going to hit the statue?”

  Ian doesn’t even blink. “Because I’m good at what I do, Fiona. I know a lot more than you think.”

  My skin turns to ice. Does he know where my mom is?

  The FBI agents carry evidence out of our house in clear plastic bags, all neatly numbered and labeled. Our laptops. Random notebooks (though thankfully not the one with the clues. But they did take my US history one, which I need to study with, damn it). My mom’s forgeries, each one containing the very clues we worked so hard to retrieve. All the postcards. They even take the ancient-book forgery with the two stolen pages as well as the eight other blank ones I didn’t need, though they thankfully leave the guitar and amusement park skull prop behind, likely mistaking them for my high school pastimes or fandom collectibles.

  And they don’t take me. The handcuffs never materialize around my wrists. I’m not the fish they’re here to fry.

  Instead, I stumble through school the next day, trying to distract myself with my finals and staying awake while Dad’s whisked off to his arraignment. I rush over there straight from school and barely make it in time to hear Dad’s lawyer’s speech about circumstantial evidence, how they only confiscated forgeries and not the real things, and those forgeries were created by my mother, Lianne Spangler, and not my dad.

  My heart gives a little tug at all the narrowed eyes in the room. At the way the lawyer sells out Mom to try to save Dad. But it do
esn’t work.

  “How do you plead?” the judge asks, his face void of expression. Every head in the room turns to Dad.

  I hold my breath.

  He squeezes his eyes shut, swallows hard, and then mutters, “Not guilty.”

  He sounds so utterly defeated, and he hunches forward like a withering flower. I want to rush over and wrap him in my arms, tell him it’ll be okay.

  But the judge slaps his gavel with a thwack that makes my teeth snap and announces that bail will be set at one million.

  One. Million.

  Six big fat zeros following the number one.

  Holy shit.

  Even if I drained our bank account and sold our belongings. Even if I pooled all the spare cash Natalie and I have raked in. Even if I started an online fund-raiser. We wouldn’t come close to a tenth of that.

  Dad deflates even more, tilting his back toward me as though he can’t bear to face me.

  Since Dad doesn’t have a way to pay for his freedom, the judge decides to ship him off to the state penitentiary to await his trial. Jorge and Johnny join him in separate vans, their bails set equally high. My throat closes at the sight of the prison van, and I gulp down desperate breaths of free air to savor like souvenirs of this last moment with my dad.

  My esophagus stings. My fingers twist my necklace—a goodbye gift from my mom—but I have nothing from Dad except this moment, this memory, and the realization that I’m only seventeen. I’m still a minor. Which means without any proper guardians, they might try to punt me into the foster care system for the next few months.

  Just before Dad steps into the idling van, he twists on his heels and glances back at me. His gaze pierces mine. “Don’t stray from the plan, kiddo.” Dad gives me one last smile before they shove him into the van.