The Con Code

by Shana Silver

  The plain white key card digs into one palm while my other flies to the necklace bouncing against my clavicle. Inside my room, I grip Colin’s shoulders. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

  “Had the same thought,” Natalie says, tapping her phone. “Tig’s hacking into security now.”

  Our backpacks are already stuffed with new disguises and not much else. We still have no idea where my mom’s clues lead. They could very well lead right to the very place I just sent the FBI.

  Tig’s mouth flops open. She holds up her phone, and our faces pale.

  The agents are everywhere.

  Stationed at the bar. Reading a newspaper in the lobby. There’s even one huddled in the parking garage.

  “How the hell are we going to sneak by them?” Colin rakes a hand over his head. “Escaping a hotel can’t be easy.”

  Natalie and I exchange glances, and the twin smirks that pop onto our lips tell me we both had the same idea. We escaped a hotel once. We can do it again the same way.

  “We hide in a cleaning cart, and Natalie dresses as a maid to wheel us out of here.”

  Colin blinks at me. “I see many holes in this plan. Like the fact that we don’t have a maid’s cart.” He ticks off on his fingers. “Or a maid’s uniform.”

  “Yes we do!” Natalie rummages through her luggage. “I used it on another heist, and we decided to pack it just in case it came in handy. And look at that! It did.” Natalie starts pulling her shirt over her head and replacing it with the uniform top.

  Colin looks away and crosses his arms. “Okay, but I stand by point number one. No maid’s cart.”

  “Well, not yet. Not until you sweet-talk a maid when she’s inside a room and we push the cart away. Then all you need to do is swipe her access card and join us inside the cart.”

  He purses his lips. “This plan keeps getting worse.”

  Natalie heads into the bathroom, and when she emerges a minute later, the pants are on, and her frizzy wig is gone, replaced by a dark wig with a bun at the nape of her neck. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s do this before Lakshmi gets here.”

  She starts to head toward the door, but not before smashing her phone. We follow suit, stomping the life out of those devices with the stilettos Natalie packed for me.

  Tig and I shrug our backpacks on and carry Colin’s and Natalie’s for them. I drop the broken cell phones beneath the silver cover on a discarded room service tray someone left outside their room. A cleaning cart idles a few rooms down. Colin cracks his neck side to side and heads over to it. The three of us hang back, waiting. Listening.

  He steps into the room being cleaned. “Excuse me, miss?”

  “Sir, you can’t be in here.”

  “Won’t touch anything. Promise. I just—this is going to sound so weird.” He rattles out a shaky breath. “But I think we might be related?”

  Thank God we’re a few feet away so she can’t hear the giggles that erupt from me and Natalie. That’s what he chose as a distraction?

  I wave Natalie and Tig forward, and the three of us tiptoe past the room. A quick glance reveals that the maid’s an older woman, possibly in her sixties, and her furrowed expression indicates she’s incredibly confused.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you have a son?” he guesses, and I hope like hell he guessed right.

  Natalie braces her hands on the handles of the cart and pushes it a few feet away. I cringe at the squeaking wheels.

  “Yes,” the woman answers skeptically.

  “He’s my father. I know, I know—it’s crazy. I only just found out yesterday, and I had to come and meet my—” There’s emotion in his voice. “Grandma.”

  “I don’t—No. Not possible.” She speaks with a thick accent.

  “It is. I just found out. He just found out.”

  “Are you telling me my son cheated on his wife? She’s infertile.”

  “Shit, guys,” I whisper. “Better pick up the pace.”

  Natalie pushes faster, and I start grabbing towels from inside the cart. I toss them in the corner of the soda machine area and say a small apology to the laundry staff that will have to wash those again. As we wait for the elevator, Tig and I squeeze into the cart, knees bent at odd angles, while Natalie hides the backpacks on top under a few more towels.

  It was cramped when I rode in the cart alone, but this is like claustrophobia on steroids. My elbow jabs Tig’s ribs. Her knee whacks my nose. And Colin’s not even here yet.

  He rushes toward us just as the elevator doors open. We all squeeze inside the elevator. “Well, I may have just broken up a happy marriage.” He eyes the cart skeptically. “How the hell am I supposed to fit in there?”

  “Uncomfortably,” I mutter.

  He hands Nat the key card and then folds his body beside mine, pulling his knees up to his chest. Our limbs are all entangled, and Colin manages to take up more space than the two of us combined. There are body parts I can’t even identify jabbing my back.

  Every bump of the cart makes me knock into both of them. My body aches from contorting at such odd angles.

  “Freedom in one, two, three.”

  There’s a beep as Natalie swipes the key card at what is likely a restricted area that leads to the back entrance, just like last time. She wrenches open the door.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  The cart jerks to a stop. We all freeze, my pulse amping.

  “Where are you taking that cart?”

  A second passes. And then another. I wince on behalf of Natalie. A moment later, she finally responds. “I wasn’t taking it anywhere. I just needed to step outside for some fresh air.” She sputters a cough. “My asthma’s acting up.”

  The man who stopped her doesn’t say anything for a full minute, probably studying her intently, and my heart is in my throat. Inside the cart, Colin grabs my hand and squeezes. I do the same for Tig.

  “Okay, only a minute, though. We’re fully booked tonight, and I need all rooms ready in time for check-in.”

  “Understood,” she says.

  “Actually, I’ll join you,” the manager says, and it takes all my effort not to suck in an obvious breath.

  There’s a beep when she swipes again. The door opens. They both step outside.

  And we’re abandoned.

  We can’t move. We can’t leave. But we’re sitting ducks here.

  I count to sixty seconds in my head, but there’s no sign of the door opening again, Natalie, or even the manager. I count another sixty. Then a third.

  After a fourth minute, the door pops open again, and Natalie pulls the curtain on the cart. “Quick, come on. In the middle of that manager guy chastising me for slacking on the job, he noticed someone milling about in the restricted area. An FBI agent stationed here, I’m guessing. He’s escorting the guy back to the lobby, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of minutes before the FBI find a way to replace him.”

  I take a deep breath. And make my second daring escape from the FBI in only a few weeks.

  CHAPTER 27

  The thing no one tells you about running from the law is that it involves very little running. Actual running would just draw attention to us. So we walk casually until we flag down a taxi a few blocks away. A nervous flutter warms my belly and bubbles over into a laugh. We did it. We actually evaded the feds.

  Natalie, Tig, and I squeeze into the back seat while Colin takes the front. The first cab drops us off clear across town, and we immediately flag another cab a block away to take us halfway back to where we started. We switch cabs three more times until we finally near the venue for tonight’s Hearts for Vandals performance.

  Taking a cue from our last escape, we hole up in a gas station bathroom with four hours to go until the concert begins. Natalie doles out our party favors.

  A chic sandy-colored wig with cascading waves straight off a runway for me. A sophisticated side part of light brown hair for Colin to give him an older, douchier appearance. A fishtail braid in cobalt bl
ue for Tig. And Natalie—

  “This is what I look like. For real.”

  I gasp. Instead of a heavy wig of curls, a short bleach-blond pixie cut jars me, snipped short to make wig application easier. A tiny yet perky nose commands attention at the center of her face, one she can easily build up into other shapes. Crystal-blue eyes peer out from deep-set sockets, rounded out by a heart-shaped face. Her thin lips look so bare without their usual plump. This is my favorite version of her yet. Natural.

  “Does it look bad? Should I put on a wig?” She runs a hand over her hair that’s only a few millimeters longer than Colin’s buzz cut. “I just figured no one would ever recognize me like this.”

  Tig’s fuchsia lips stretch into a smile. “You look perfect.” They’re the first words I’ve ever actually heard come out of her mouth. And they’re the best words she could have said.

  Natalie beams, and her shoulders relax. She strips off her maid uniform without a care and changes into shorts and a Hearts for Vandals tee. Something completely inconspicuous. Tig and I replace our shirts with Hearts for Vandals tees as well, and Colin slides on a gray blazer and designer jeans. He has the decency to completely turn around this time.

  Once we’re all in new disguises, we stand in the middle of the bathroom and glance at one another expectantly. Their eyes flick toward my backpack, which contains the book.

  They’re right. Now that we’re finally in a safe place, I should try to find my mom’s last clue … but there’s something I need to do first. Before I comb through this book. Before I find my mother. I need to let Colin know that I’m on his side, too.

  I take slow, methodical steps across the small bathroom space. We do love our bathroom rendezvous after all. Four gray walls surround us, and two onlookers watch my every move. The scents emitting from the toilet provide the exact opposite of ambience, but somehow this is the perfect place for me to stand on tiptoes and press my lips against his. For real this time, not because of some ruse.

  We’ve been in sync for weeks, even before he admitted what he’d done, and we’re in sync now as our lips part in unison. His hands hesitate for a moment before encircling my waist. I lean into him and let myself finally give in to everything I’ve been feeling for weeks and everything I tried to forget in the last few days. He tastes like mint gum and possibilities I never thought could be mine. His teeth capture my lower lip and bite gently before he plants drops of butterfly kisses along my chin and up my jawline. His warm breath lands against my ear and sends goose bumps down my arms. When he speaks, his voice is a whisper. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

  “Yes.” I pull his lips back to mine.

  We kiss for another minute or two, each one growing more intense than the last, until Natalie clears her throat with a loud ahem.

  When we pull away, we’re both wearing sheepish grins. I notice Tig and Natalie are holding hands, too.

  With Colin at my side, I start to thumb through the book more carefully and methodically than I did on the bus earlier. The FBI’s right. There’s no obvious clue in this one like the others. It’s not written in English but instead Latin calligraphy. I’d painstakingly copied every letter based on images uploaded to the internet multiple times, first for practice, and then finally to re-create both versions of the book I made. I’ve memorized every curve that belongs on those pages.

  And every curve that doesn’t.

  It’s subtle at first. Difficult to see if you don’t know to look for it. An extra dip on one letter. A minuscule rise on another.

  “Quick, I need paper.”

  Tig quickly unearths a notebook from her bag and rips out a sheet. I set it on top of the page and copy all the various extra curves and swirls from each individual letter.

  When I pull back and squint to eliminate the spaces between the marks, the entire message becomes clear.

  Vertical dashes on the left side make a straight line. In the center, the various curves create the illusion of an oval. And on the right, a horizontal line of dashes on top meets with vertical dashes up the side.

  It’s a number: 107.

  “One oh seven!” I say out loud. “That’s the last clue.” I sag in relief. I figured it out! My dad would be so proud of me. Hopefully my mom will be, too.

  Wow, we weren’t too far off with our fake-out of 123.

  Natalie bites her lip. “Guessing it’s like the others and has no connection to anything else?”

  At first glance, it all appears to be completely unrelated. 107. Hesiod. 2nd. Ag. 47. 11. D5. 92.5. Plus whatever we’re missing.

  I press a palm to my forehead, trying to dull the pounding in my temples. A heavy fog settles over my brain. “I have no idea.”

  Tig opens her laptop to show a million ciphers she’s run on the existing clues. She adds 107 to the mix but comes up with nothing.

  Colin squints at her work. “Wait, Natalie, repeat what you just said.”

  “Um.” She taps her lip. “I asked if the clue has any connection to the others?”

  Colin snaps his fingers. “Maybe that’s it! The key to this. There isn’t a connection to the others. We have to solve each one individually.”

  “But I don’t know what any of them mean. It’s all just…” My voice trails off. My mother wouldn’t have been able to ensure we’d find every clue she left. So maybe she made sure each one had enough information to find her. I get out my new burner phone I packed in my bag and pick a clue at random. I type in what does Ag mean?

  Google tells me it’s short for the word agriculture, which isn’t any help. But Google also supplies other frequent searches people have done.

  What does Ag mean in text?

  What does Ag mean in slang?

  What does Ag mean in chemistry?

  It’s the last one that ignites a bulb in my brain. All those chemistry postcards my mother used to send me pop into my mind, each one depicting a drawing of the periodic table and nothing else. I thought it was just her trying to make up for missing my education. Or maybe a new art style of hers, Art Nouveau Chem or some other name she might give it. But maybe it was more than that. It was her preparing me for this moment.

  When I click on the search term, I discover that Ag is the chemical compound for silver. And the number 47 rests in the corner of its periodic-table box. Two of the clues, right there.

  “Silver!” I jab my finger at the screen. “It’s silver! Check the other clues.”

  It all works out.

  107 = Atomic weight for silver.

  11 = Group 11 for silver: otherwise referring to a group of elements based on modern numbering known as “coinage metals” due to their usages in currency.

  D5 = Period 5 and d-block: There are seven periods in chemistry, and silver belongs in the fifth. And the d-block is on the middle of the periodic table, encompassing elements in columns 3 through 12.

  92.5 = The weight to classify silver as “sterling.”

  Hesiod = Author and creator of the Silver Age of man.

  2nd = The Silver Age is the second of five ages according to Hesiod.

  “But what does silver mean?” Colin reads over my shoulder.

  I purse my lips. “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  Tig wraps her fingers around the charm on my silver necklace and taps once.

  Blood pounds in my ears. Of course. Silver. My necklace.

  My heart fills. A few weeks ago, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to solve this without my dad’s help, but I have a crew here. I know all too well that your crew is stronger than blood.

  I scrub vigorously at the metal with my shirt and twist the flame-shaped jewelry in my palms. Everything looks the same as always. No hidden clues that could unlock my entire world. But of course, there wouldn’t be anything visible on the outside. It would be hidden, just like the treasure.

  “I think there’s a clue inside.”

  * * *

  Colin and I both reach for the door to the Jewelry Center at the same time, and he snap
s his hand back. It only took a quick Google search to locate one a few blocks away. Tig and Natalie hung back at the bathroom so as not to have four fugitives out on the street at once. We still have over three hours before the concert starts.

  “Sorry, you go,” he says. I start to pull the door open when he reaches out again and stops me. “No, wait. Let me get it for you.” He bounces on his toes, head darting, eyes sweeping to mine and then hastily away.

  Eek. He’s nervous after our kiss earlier. And nerves are the one thing that could kill a con artist on contact.

  Glass counters form a maze throughout the store, colorful gems sparkling beneath spotlights. An overexcited woman tries on engagement rings next to a guy who looks like he might pass out. Several clerks eye us suspiciously as we pass. Colin juts his chin toward the back, and I follow his gaze to a counter that sits in front of several gritty drill machines.

  When I spin and lift my hair to allow Colin to remove the necklace from my neck, his fingers graze my skin, sending electric bolts of tingles down my back.

  An old man comes out of a back room, pushing the loupe onto his forehead to look like he has a third eye. He shuffles over, taking his sweet time. “How can I help you?”

  “We need you to melt this.” Colin lifts my necklace into his palm, standing so close his warm breath sends the hair on the back of my neck flying.

  “I think there’s a message inside,” I add.

  The man holds the necklace up to the light, squinting at it through his lens. “My, it’s exquisite. If I melt it, it’ll be ruined.”

  “That’s fine,” Colin says fast, and then tilts his head to me. “Is it?”

  My chest cinches tight. This necklace is my last link to my mother. Removing it permanently feels like removing an arm. I suck back my strangled cry and nod.

  The man takes the necklace into the back, where the sound of a machine grinds. Every molecule that connects my body feels coiled tight like a spring, ready to explode. Colin leans against the counter next to me, arm brushing mine.