Fall from Grace (15 page)

HE TYPED
Happy Thanksgiving
, then hit Send.

He smiled. He'd have to let Wayne know.

Just the rents, aunt/uncle, Gram, and my cousins
, he typed, then added a question he knew the answer to, but if he didn't ask, it'd seem weird.
How about you?

You wouldn't go
. For a second he imagined that she did have fun, that she was just early, that her family all arrived after he bolted, that she knew other people who were there, good people who were making it through some tough times, that she got to laugh and joke around and be the center of attention, famous in her own way, rich in the things people say really matter. But it wasn't like that and he knew it, and that kept him texting.
Doing anything tonight?

She texted
Ever done it?
Then, before he could send his smartass response, she wrote
I mean shopping on Black Friday.

Yeah. It's like that all night on Black Friday
, she texted, and
he waited. It took her longer than he thought it would, but she caught up.

Another pause, this one stretching out over two minutes, then,
I'm all set.

 

He read the text twice.

It was ridiculous.

How could she be all set? She lived ten miles from the art museum. He texted back.
I don't mind. Spent the whole day with family. I need to get out of the house
.

She ignored the question and typed,
I'll call you in the morning with the juicy details.

“All set”?

What was she going to do, take a bus? Hitchhike? The first was ridiculous, the second was stupid. And he could see her doing them both. Then he thought of a third.

Maybe she had convinced someone else to give her a ride.

Some guy from a date gone wrong.

A guy who'd give her a ride, no questions asked.

A guy who'd expect something in return.

Who thought no meant maybe.

No response.

Nothing.

Five minutes later, he sent the last text.

He watched his screen for thirty minutes. She didn't write back.

SAWYER FOUND A
parking space on a residential street, five blocks from the art museum. He would have liked it better if there hadn't been streetlights, but there were enough cars so that no one would notice his, and with the bars closing there were even a few people on the streets, groups talking louder than they realized, or strays, like him, walking fast and alone.

He wasn't tired but he should have been. He hadn't slept much the last couple nights, and he was at St. Mary's at five that morning, but after telling his mother he was going to be one of the first in line at Best Buy—great deal on a tablet!—he had climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling, piecing things together until the alarm went off at two. He got dressed again—dark jeans, black
T-shirt, black sweatshirt, dark blue coat—stuffed a knit cap in one pocket and pair of gloves in the other, and headed out. Ten minutes later he stopped at an all-night 7-Eleven, then headed west into the city.

Aunt Paula had been right, there were a lot of cars on the road. Most were pulling off at the exit near the mall, but there was enough other traffic so his car didn't stand out. By two thirty he was parked and making his way down the sidewalk toward the back of the art museum. His aunt was right about the weather, too. It was cold but not freezing, the heavy cloud cover keeping the temperature up, which was good, and blocking out the moon and stars, which was even better.

He knew where she'd be—in the shadows near the air-conditioning unit, up close to the shrubs—and he knew she'd wait till three before she made her move.

That was the plan.

At least, the plan she told him.

Sawyer cut through the synagogue parking lot, crossed an empty street, hopped the waist-high fence without breaking stride, and blended into the blackness that bordered the back of the building. He leaned against the side of a tree, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and when three
minutes passed and he couldn't see any better, he started toward the darker shapes that he hoped were bushes. It was farther away than he thought, the dried-up, hard lawn going on and on and on, him out there, in the shadows, yeah, but nothing to hide behind or duck into, exposed if someone knew where to look. And it would be just as big and open and exposed when she came running out, something he didn't think she'd planned on.

It felt like it took an hour, but it was closer to thirty seconds.

He got to the row of head-high bushes and slid between the first two, slow and silent, the branches barely moving, stepping onto the narrow path that ran the length of the room-sized air-conditioning unit. He leaned against the tall metal side and waited, listening for footsteps, hearing only his muffled breathing, his eyes straining to separate the shades of black on black.

Then something moved.

His fists balled up and he eased off his heels, ready if he was wrong, and willed his voice to a whisper.

“Hey,” he said, then jerked his head back as something sharp and cold pushed up under his chin, holding there, tilting him off balance. He swallowed hard, the
sound loud in the silence, and tried again.

“Grace. It's me. Sawyer.”

He could feel the point against his skin, the end of a straightened wire coat hanger digging in. Then the shadow moved and the point was gone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Her voice was low, her words whispered with a hard edge, a quiet yell.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She breathed louder than she spoke. “I'm fine. Now go away.”

“How'd you get here?”

“I took the bus, what do you think? Now just go.”

“All right. But I'll wait here till you come out, just in case they're chasing you.”

“
What?
No. Get outta here.”

“I can distract them.”

“Don't you get it? I'm about to commit a crime.”

“I know what I'm doing,” he said.

“You're
this close
to being an accessory.”

She couldn't see the smile on his face, the way he shook his head at the thought. “I've been an accessory for years. I'm upgrading to accomplice.”

“No, you're not. This is a one-person plan,” she
whispered as she poked a finger at his chest. “
I
get in,
I
run down the hall,
I
cut the wires,
I
get the picture,
I
get out the door, and
I
get away. This is
my
plan.”

Sawyer sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

“Now leave. I'll call you later.” She turned to go, and then he remembered.

“Hold on. I got this for you.” He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a plastic bottle, and handed it to her. He'd bought the smallest one, but it looked huge in her hands.

“What is it?”

“Dish soap. When you go down that last hall, pour it on the floor behind you. They run on that, they'll go flying.”

There was a pause, then, almost laughing, she said, “Clever. Really, it is. But it won't work.”

“Trust me, it will.”

Grace shook the bottle. It was full so it didn't make a sound. “So now you're an expert on soap?”

“No, on slipping.”

“What do you know,” she said, that laugh in her voice. “You really
are
an insurance actuary.”

“No, I'm just a dishwasher at Saint Mary's soup
kitchen,” he said, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. Later, he would think of all the things he should have said, but at that dark, dead-quiet moment, he couldn't think of anything.

Another pause—a longer, awful pause—hung in the air between them, then three tiny electric beeps broke the silence. Grace pulled back her sleeve and checked the illuminated dial of her watch.

“Showtime.”

She pulled off her knit cap, stuffed it in her backpack, and put on her black beret.

“You can't wear that,” he said. “Your face will show on the cameras.”

“I won't be looking at the cameras. Besides, it's my lucky hat.”

He nodded. “Don't forget to have fun.”

“I always do,” she said, and even in the darkness he could see her smile. She turned and stepped toward an opening in the bushes, then stopped and reached back. “Here,” Grace said, handing him the plastic bottle. “It's not part of the plan.” He felt her gloved hand slide off the bottle and squeeze his arm. “But thanks for thinking of me.”

Sawyer watched as, crouching low, she went straight
for the set of glass doors of the museum's back entrance, the same ones he'd come through when the school bus dropped off his class in fifth grade. The bright lights around the entrance made the night seem darker. And then there she was, out of the shadows and up to the doors, kneeling down, wiggling the hook end of the straightened coat hanger between the crash-bar doors.

Only it wasn't working.

The coat hanger wasn't wiggling through.

He watched as Grace tried bracing against the L-shaped door handle, leveraging more space, but she didn't have the weight to move it.

“Come on, push,” Sawyer whispered, watching, his muscles tensing as he mirrored her motions, his mind racing with things she had taught him about doors and gaps.

She switched sides, putting a foot up against the door handle, then switched back, going at it again, the hanger clattering against the glass.

It was taking too long.

Her plan falling apart before it got started.

She had to be inside by now if this was going to work.

It was as good as over.

He started running.

Grace pressed her shoulder against the glass, her dance-class trainers slipping on dirty concrete, and she gasped when he reached around her and grabbed the handle. Eyes wide, she looked up at him.

“Sawyer, no.”

He braced his foot against the other handle, the paper-thin gap widening as he pushed and pulled. He looked at her and smiled. “Now, you ready for this?”

She hesitated, then wiggled the straightened coat hanger between the doors, snagging the crash bar with the hook, pulling it toward her, the first door popping open.

Fifty seconds.

Grace darted in, then Sawyer, grabbing the handle on the second set of doors. Grace worked the hanger through, and when it popped open and Sawyer ran in first, Grace didn't stop him. They were inside now, running together down the long, dimly lit corridor, racing past dark paintings and white statues and the blinking red lights on the security cameras.

Thirty seconds.

They had made the first turn and could see the hallway with the photographs when the alarm went off.

“Keep going,” Sawyer shouted over the high-pitched
buzz, slowing down to snap the top off the plastic bottle, rolling it back across the smooth tile floor that led to the main gallery.

Twenty seconds.

He caught up to Grace as she ducked into the dark passage. “This one,” she said, stopping halfway down the hall, handing him the wire cutters as she held up the frame.

In the distance, under the alarm, they could hear shouting.

Ten seconds.

Both hands on the grips, he snapped through one wire, then heard a crash and someone swearing and knew the soap had worked.

Six seconds.

He snapped the second wire and Grace swept the photograph away.

Four.

“Let's go,” she said, running for the exit at the end of the hall.

Three.

Behind them someone yelled stop.

Two.

They hit the crash bar together, bursting out into the
cold darkness, a new alarm going off as they jumped over the short ramp, Grace grabbing his hand and pulling him close, looking into his eyes, holding them, smiling, her eyes lighting up like the first time they met, then Grace shouting “I'm sorry, Sawyer,” as the spotlights from a half-dozen police cars lit up the night.