Smash & Grab (19 page)

After seeing Psycho at
the house, I want to check out for myself these diggers Soldado's got lined up. With Maria's life threatened, I'm not taking any chances with this job. I want to personally make sure that everything's going according to plan and that there aren't things going on that my boys and I don't know about. I had Gabriel give me a copy of the drainage-system map right after we left the meeting. I was going to wait until morning to go underground, but Gabriel said the men work all night and rest during the day, when the noise might attract suspicion, so I ask him to take me there directly from the house.

Gabriel, Carlos, and Eddie all have work in the morning, and if they're too tired to show, it might look suspicious, so Benny is the only one going with me. Together we make our way to the exit point Soldado marked on the map for us. Using his directions, we move back toward the tunnels and the bank, where the dig site should be.

I switch on my flashlight. Benny does the same.

“It's full-on creepy in here,” Benny whispers.

“Haunted house creepy,” I agree.

The tunnel winds forward, disappearing into black where our flashlight beams can't reach. Water drip-drops somewhere up ahead. There are other sounds, too. Scurrying, foraging-type sounds. The scrabble of claws as something tries to get out of our way. We walk slowly, flashlights bouncing. We focus them on the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor again. I half expect bats to be hanging above us. Or vampires.

“The dig site's at least a mile or two in,” Benny says, examining the map. “We got about half an hour before we're there, at this pace.” I don't want us to jog it because I'm not sure if we'll run into anyone. We need to make as little noise as possible.

We walk in silence most of the way. Who knows how far our voices might carry into the tunnel. I listen, ears straining, for some hint that people are coming toward us from deep inside the tunnel or are sneaking in behind us. The echo is tricky in here. Twice it makes me think someone is coming when they're not. There are these little alcoves here and there that we can duck into if we need to, but they're shallow enough that we still might be seen.

“So how are things going with your connection at the bank? How'd you manage to get her to agree to give you the security stuff we need? You weren't lying, right? She's really going to get them?”

I point my flashlight toward my feet so he can't see my face. Benny has a way of reading into my expressions.

“She's going to help. That's straight-up fact. I meet her Saturday.”

“What's she like? This girl?” Benny is watching me in the dark, I can feel it.

“I don't know. Nice, I guess.”

“Nice, huh? Like the girl you met outside the Bank of America, the one who got your medal? That kind of nice?”

He can't know Angela and Lexi are the same person. But the fact that he's bringing up Lexi right now has me wondering if somehow he knows just the same. “Why would it matter?”

“It doesn't. You just seem…I don't know, to be sort of guarded, like you're not giving us the whole story.”

“What are you getting at?” I ask. “Spit it out already.”

Benny goes quiet a second, as if he's chewing over what to say. “I just think that the whole writer story doesn't add up. You got something on her. That's why she's helping, right?”

“What? You don't think my charm alone could convince her?”

Benny laughs. “Possibly, but in this case? Uh. No.”

“How would you know?” I say.

“Just a feeling.” Here's the thing about Benny. We're tight enough that it's hard for me to keep secrets from him. Turns out I want to tell him about Lexi. I need to tell him. If only so he can tell me what I already know. I have to blackmail her. There's no other option.

“Okay, the truth is that this girl from the bank is the same girl who showed up at the Bank of America, the one I clobbered that day.”

“Doughnut girl.”

“Yeah. Except now she's in disguise: wig, colored contacts, tanned skin, the whole nine yards…and suddenly working for LL National.”

Benny stops walking.
“What?”

“I don't have all of it figured out, but the LL National thing is about her dad. He used to work there. Before he got arrested—something to do with bad mortgages and shady lending. My best guess? She's trying to find something to help clear him. Or maybe she's planning to rob the place out of revenge. She is feisty. I'll give her that.”

“Okay, but either way you're afraid she could cause a problem for us, right? I mean, if she figures out who you are. You think there's any way she might already know?”

I shrug. “I've thought about it. Maybe, but I don't see how she can prove it.”

Benny nods. “So when you get the information we need, then what?”

“I let her go. She doesn't talk; I don't, either.”

“Do you like this girl?” Benny asks.

“What?” I feel blindsided. I don't see why it matters.

“You heard me. Do. You. Like. This. Girl?”

I snort. “She's hot, but do I like her, like her? No. I don't really know her.”

“I don't believe you,” he says, smiling. “I can tell. The way you've not talked about her? You've got it bad.”

I don't want to talk about this anymore, and besides, I'm starting to hear noises, faint ones, but noises that aren't of the scurrying or dripping variety. “Shh,” I say.

We start walking softer, straining to hear. We go another quarter mile and the noises get deceptively loud, like I can't tell if they're coming from around the corner or from where I think they should be coming from based on the map.

I motion to Benny that we should shut off our lights. I don't want to, but we have to if we want to stay hidden. I click off my flashlight, and with a sigh, Benny clicks off his. The world goes away. All that's left is a velvet-black void. My heart squeezes, panicked. My lungs tighten. I feel buried alive, but then my other senses take over and I can feel the open space around us again, can smell the air—dank, for sure, but also full-bodied somehow, like I can actually sense that the oxygen level's good. Benny's to my right. I can't see him, but I feel him there, the slight displacement of energy in the air around me.

“Use the wall to guide you,” I whisper. “It's a straight shot to the dig site after we turn this corner.”

The going's slow as we feel our way along. I trip a couple of times on stuff I can't make out. Hopefully, not some rat. I keep my teeth clenched in case I do step on something that moves. I'm not sure I can keep from screaming. Not macho, losing it over a rodent, but I am not into rats. At all. It's weird, because in a darkness this thick, your mind plays tricks on you. I keep thinking stuff is brushing up against my legs. I feel someone's breath on the back of my neck.

All at once there is a high-pitched metallic shrieking that knocks me out of my own thoughts and has both Benny and me hugging the tunnel wall. It's so loud I can't believe no one up above on the street hears it.

We inch forward and my feet hit…something. I test it with the tip of my shoe. Dirt. It's a huge pile of dirt. Very carefully we navigate around it only to find another pile and then another. Light. There is light up ahead, faint but there, to the right, glowing, flickering. I can see a bit better now. I look at Benny and can't help grinning. His eyes are huge in the dark, and his skin is covered in dust. He blinks at me and grins back—crazy wide. Teeth so white against the grime they glow. I must be just as dusty as he is, judging from how hard he's laughing. I couldn't see it before, but now, riding on the ambient light, there's this storm cloud of cement dust and dirt.

We peek around the corner at the tunnel to our right. About halfway down there's a hole in the concrete wall, the left side. The light's coming from it. Bright light. So bright I'm squinting trying to look at it. Shadows flicker, the looming shapes of people, dancing across the tunnel wall. I can hear laughter and voices, men speaking Spanish.

We wait a few minutes, and when no one's head pops through the hole in the wall, we hurry toward it, flank both sides. I peek in. There is a chamber beyond the hole, roughly dug, but a near-perfect square with arches made from thick wooden beams every few feet or so. There are battery-operated lanterns hanging on thick nails hammered into the arches. I can't see anyone in here, but they're close.

Do we risk going in?

I look at Benny and he shakes his head.

I hesitate a second, then climb into the chamber anyway, edging my way to the far end. It's about ten feet long, narrow, but tall enough that I don't have to crouch. I'm about halfway to the arch when the metallic shrieking starts up again and I nearly jump clean out of my skin. It is unbearably loud. I clap my hands over my ears, but it barely helps. If someone's coming, no way I'm gonna hear them.

The chamber I'm in ends. The next arched opening in front of me is covered by a comforter—to muffle the noise, I guess. Fail. There's nothing that can muffle that god-awful screeching. It's some kind of saw brought down here to cut the beams needed for the tunnel arches. Very, very carefully I lift the blanket a half inch. There's another chamber, this one bigger, big enough that they had to use some of the wood beams as columns at the center of the room and run crossbeams perpendicular to the arches. The whole place feels like a mine. No one's in this chamber, either. But there are stacks and stacks of equipment. Beams, saws, tool belts, shovels, and two very large wheelbarrows piled high with dirt. None of this concerns me. What does are the three crates tucked into the far right-hand corner of the room with what looks like TNT in them. Why do they need that? No way they can set that mess off anywhere near here without risking a tunnel collapse.

Wait…unless…

Do they want a tunnel collapse? Is that how Soldado's gonna cover our tracks? Blow up the tunnel after we haul the cash out? It makes sense, but I don't like that he didn't tell us this part of the plan.

I look toward the opposite side of the chamber, where there's another comforter hung up in that archway, too, light bleeding out from under it. The voices are crystal clear now, as if the guys are within a few feet of us. Unfortunately, most of what they're saying I can't understand. Just snatches. My Spanish amounts to a handful of words and a few choice phrases. That's it. Damn. I make a pact with myself to take a Spanish course at UCLA next year.

I watch Benny listen in. He and Rosie speak Spanish almost exclusively at home with Tia Jeanne, so I know he's getting most of what's being said. From the pained look on his face, it's obvious something's wrong. I give him a questioning look, but there's no way he can translate right here.

The saw starts up again. It's time to move. I don't want to risk being here too long, even if I still have little to no idea what's going on. On a whim, I take out my phone and start snapping pictures of the site so I can show them to the other guys later. Benny watches me silently. He looks sick, and my pulse starts to race. What exactly did he hear?

“This is the only
chance we have to get inside while no one's home, so let's do it like we planned. Quick and by the numbers,” Leo says. “Christian's whole family is at his graduation right now. From what I've seen, it is one of the rare times that the house is empty. And there was some cyberbullying at the school. An incident. Student cell phones are banned from graduation.”

We're in one of the craft-services trucks from the latest film the twins' dad is working on. It's a nondescript white cargo van with no windows in the back and no seats, either. We didn't exactly get permission to take it. It was more like Whitney called in a favor. The guy who drives the van owes her for not telling her dad that he took some on-set pictures of the two leads and sold them to
Star
magazine.

Elena's riding shotgun, and Leo, Quinn, and I are tucked in between boxes of fruit and Smartwater, trying to keep upright. Oliver had to pass on our little Christian recon adventure because he's busy setting up for our bank break-in tonight.

“I'll go in and get the phone,” Quinn tells me for the hundredth time as he stares at his phone. He and Leo are busy monitoring Christian's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

“We've been over this. I'm going in. Just me. I'm smaller, and the window's not big enough for you to fit through,” I say. “And if for some reason everything goes wrong, he won't hurt me because he needs me. You he doesn't even know. You'll get shot. Besides, if all of us get out of the van and head into the house, the neighbors will likely notice, right? How long before they call 9-1-1?”

“Children, please, can we get through one car trip in peace?” Leo says, eyes closed, head resting on a stack of tablecloths. “No ice cream for either of you.”

Quinn rolls his eyes and starts back in again. The boy is relentless when it comes to protecting me. But I'm just as relentless about getting my own way.

“We're here,” Elena says, bouncing in her seat, her GPS announcing our arrival in the sexy male Brit voice she programmed it to use. “Yep, yep. This is it.”

The house is small—a stucco box with a handful of windows, all of them covered with wrought-iron bars. There's a rectangular patch of front yard bordered by a chain link fence and a set of stairs that lead down to the sidewalk. Covering the entire length of the chain link are brightly colored streamers and a homemade sign that reads
CONGRATULATIONS, CHRISTIAN
!
It's kind of messed up—breaking into his house the day he graduates from high school. But then, if we're careful, he won't know we've done it.

His family has set up for a party, so it shouldn't be too hard to use the quick-release handle on the window—there to make sure the people inside the house can get out in case of fire—to unlock the iron bars and slip out unnoticed. (Christian's room faces the side of the house where there is a thick clump of trees.) It's a gutsy plan, but given the time frame we have, we need to be bold.

We pull around to the alley behind Christian's house. It's deserted, but that doesn't put me at ease. Everywhere I look there are gang tags, but there are these wonderful, colorful murals, too, most of them of Mary Magdalene or Jesus, and a few of assorted saints.

“Let's get you inside,” Quinn says, eyeballing the back of the house.

“But once we're in, you leave,” I say.

“Yeah, I get it,” Quinn grouses.

Together we slip out of the van and scale the back fence as quietly as we can. Every time the chain link rattles, I grit my teeth and pray no one's looking out a window at us right now. I'd wanted to do this at night after the family went to bed, but once we found out Christian was graduating and that the ceremony was today, it was the perfect opportunity, so we changed the plan. The neighborhood feels quiet. There is only the sound of a bee droning around the flowers near the fence and the faraway hum of a helicopter overhead. We drop to the ground at the same time and hurry across the backyard. The windows and the back door are covered in wrought iron, too. All except one smallish window that looks to be in the kitchen, possibly over the sink.

“Hoist me up,” I tell Quinn. He does a squat stance, and I step up onto his thighs so that my head is at eye level with the window. I try opening it, but it's locked. “Hand me the glass cutter,” I say.

Quinn rocks a bit as he shifts position in order to reach the pack he brought with him. “Here.”

I run the cutter around the perimeter of the window, cleanly removing the glass pane from the frame. I let it down slowly, and Quinn sets it on the grass. My heart is jackhammering as I pull myself through the window. The space is narrow, but I manage, sliding forward onto the kitchen counter.

The room smells wonderful—rich and spicy. There are half a dozen aluminum pans covered in foil spread out across the kitchen table and countertop. Something delicious is simmering inside the Crock-Pot beside the sink. I wriggle all the way inside and then slide off the counter and onto the floor. I know the house is empty, and yet I can't stop flinching at every sound. The tick of the refrigerator nearly sends me back outside.

“You okay?” Quinn asks, peering through the window. “I'm going to put the window glass back in. Once I'm done, I have to head back to the van, and you're on your own in there.”

“Yeah. I'm going to take a look around. Text me if something's up.” I try to sound confident so he won't rethink this, but it's hard. I'm so on edge I'm trembling.

I have my phone set to vibrate in my back pocket. The house is basically one big square divided into a series of tiny rooms. There's the kitchen and the narrow living room directly across from it, as well as three small bedrooms and a bathroom. The whole place is neat and meticulously tidy. Pieces of lace cover most of the end tables and the sideboard near the kitchen table. Scattered around are prayer candles, and in one corner of the living room is a stack of cardboard boxes filled with cool vintage-looking T-shirts. As modest as the place is, there is something really warm about it. Pictures of the family hang on the walls in nearly every room. There is Christian as a little boy, and there he is at eleven or twelve, gangly and grinning, his hair stuck up in a dozen different directions. It's hard to look at them and still picture Christian as a dangerous criminal. I touch the edge of one frame.

“Lex, hurry up,” Quinn says from the window.

I work my way back to what has to be Christian's bedroom. There's a Galaxy blanket across his bed (he must be into soccer), a UCLA poster and assorted soccer paraphernalia papering one wall, a scratched-up dresser, and a small bookshelf crammed full of books with titles that surprise me:
Watership Down, Fahrenheit 451,
and
Lord of the Flies.
Just above the bookshelf there's a picture tacked to the wall of Christian and a little girl with braids. Other than that, the room reminds me of a monk's quarters. It's sparse and as neat as the rest of the house. Looking around, I know I have very little chance of finding anything useful.

Still, I open the closet and start going through his clothes. The tiny space smells like him, like cologne and boy, and both smells are better than the food ones in the kitchen. He has a few pairs of jeans and a handful of T-shirts, as well as two button-down dress shirts and a pair of black pants. There's a tie or two and a few pairs of shoes lined up beneath the clothes. I check his pants pockets, the back wall of the closet, and the shallow shelf above it. Nothing. I try his dresser next, moving quickly through the underwear drawer. He's a boxers kind of guy. Nice. Then the other two drawers. Nothing. The bookshelf is also disappointing. The only place left to look is under the bed. I jump as my butt starts to vibrate.

They r home!

Christian's back from graduation. Suddenly I can hear them, voices by the front door. There is the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into a lock. I slip under the bed and scoot as close to the wall as possible. I was expecting it to be dusty, but surprisingly, it isn't. I lay my palms flat on the floor and wait.

“I'll be out to help in a minute. I just need to change real quick.” Christian strides into the room. I can see his shoes from where I'm lying. He drops something onto the bed and then walks over to the dresser. I breathe as shallowly as I can, but every inhale sounds ridiculously loud. I close my eyes and pray it's just my imagination getting the better of me.

“Everyone will be here in fifteen minutes. Hurry up, mijo,” Christian's mom calls out from the kitchen. I wait for her to say something about the window, to notice something's up with it, but there is only the clatter of dishes and the sound of hurried footsteps.

Christian lets out a breath and kicks off his shoes. Then his shirt and pants drop to the floor and I can see his bare legs. I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to giggle. This has to be one of the most absurd things I've ever done. I watch as he pads around the room in his socks, quietly humming something. He pulls on a pair of jeans and a shirt. I can't see it all, but I can hear the rustle of fabric. His hand appears as he scoops up his discarded clothes. I hear something thud on top of the bookshelf—his phone, maybe? The rebel took it to graduation anyway. Christian is striding over to the closet. I can hear him put his clothes away, and then the closet door creaks shut. Suddenly the bed moves, and the space around me narrows as he sits on the edge to put on his shoes. I hold my breath and get perfectly still.

“Mijo, please. We need you.” I can hear them, a crowd of voices, each talking over the other, getting louder.

“Christian, come on!” A little girl rushes into the room, small enough that I can see most of her. “Play with me.”

“I can't, Maria. Mom needs me to help her out in the kitchen. But tell you what. I promise right after that we'll play.”

Maria lets out a disappointed sigh. “Oh, okay.”

Suddenly Christian's scooping her up and tickling her. I can feel her feet kick the bed and I can't help smiling. She must be the girl from the picture. It's cute, this little tickle session. And totally unexpected. He's a big brother. Yet another thing about him that further confuses and fascinates me.

“Stop!” Maria squeals, but it's obvious she doesn't mean it.

“Come on, big girl. Let's get out there before Mom has a meltdown.”

They both get off the bed and leave the room. I wait for five minutes. Listening. There are at least four people, from what I can hear in the kitchen: two girls—Maria and Christian's mother—and two guys—his grandfather, from the sound of it, and his father?

“I'm going to lie down a little,” one of the men says. There is the clink of ice in a glass, and then whoever it is walks toward the bedrooms. I get a brief glimpse of a man carrying a bottle of vodka and a glass of ice, and then there is the soft snick of a door shutting. Christian's dad? He's pale white, with thinning brown hair and a sleeve of tattoos on one arm, and he's staggering in such a way that I'm pretty sure that bottle isn't his first of the day. The defeat in the way his shoulders hunch reminds me of my own dad.

I stay still a minute longer.

When I am sure I am alone, I slip out from under the bed and head straight for the bookshelf. Yes! Christian's phone is there, lying screen up. I grab it and then pull out the little container of baby powder I brought with me and very carefully sprinkle it onto the screen. Fingerprints begin to appear in the powder. I have ten tries to get this before his phone locks up. I try one combination. Wrong. I try another. Wrong. The third try? Wrong, too.
Well, crap!

People are starting to arrive at the house. I've gone back under the bed to get out of sight, and I'm starting to feel suffocated. I have to get out of here. Quinn and the others will be frantic. I take out the phone and stare at the powdery prints, trying to predict the right order. I try my next guess. Wrong. Sweat forms on my back and neck. With shaky fingers I try again. This time it works! I don't waste any more time. I navigate straight to his photo album and begin looking through what's there, starting with the most recent history. It takes all of about two seconds to find what I'm looking for. “Oh, bingo!” I murmur before I delete them all and wipe the phone off with my sleeve before inching out from under the bed.