Smash & Grab (29 page)

“Probably not,” I say.

Carlos chuffs. “Man, what does it matter? It's ours now.”

“No. We don't take any of this stuff, remember? It's sentimental stuff. Irreplaceable. You really want to do that to someone? This stuff is personal, bro. Family heirlooms. Special gifts.”

Carlos sighs. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. The point is to scatter it around, bury a few with Soldado and the boys.”

“That way the police can recover it when they get them.”

“I know!” he says, not really ticked off but disappointed. I get it. There is a lot of money represented in this room. Maybe more than Soldado estimated. A whole lot more.

I sit down on the floor with Harrison's deposit box. It has a series of files in it and a thumb drive. I flip through the files, but there's no way I can check the drive from in here. The paperwork is nothing special. Receipts for jewelry and hotel rooms. Probably proof he's having an affair, but nothing that'll get him locked up. I pocket the drive. It's what Lexi has to be looking for. Whether it has what she needs is a mystery, but in the end it doesn't even matter. For now it has the potential to be the key to getting Harrison, and so it's valuable enough that it makes a perfect bargaining chip. She won't be leaving us behind in here.

We open box after box and scatter the contents on the ground. Some of the stuff we pack into one of the duffels we'll pass down to Soldado. I stare at the piles and shake my head. What I don't get is the point in having something so valuable that you have to lock it up instead of enjoying it. The stocks and stuff are one thing, but the artwork and the jewels? Why buy them in the first place?

The vaults are ventilated, and normally (according to Lexi's intel) the temperature is a coolish seventy degrees, but with all of us in here working, it's getting hot. I wipe at my forehead and go down to the tunnel to get some water. It's nearly empty. There are just a few more pieces of equipment to be removed. I watch as the diggers pack it into wheelbarrows.

“You outta here?” I ask.

“Sí,” the guy closest to me says, his arms slick with sweat and grime. “It's all you now, cabrón.”

I glance at my phone. We've been working for hours nonstop. I thought it would feel slow, working for this long, but the time is flying past. I can feel it running out. Soon Lexi and her crew will be down here, getting into position, and Soldado, Twitch, and Psycho will be headed our way, guns drawn, ready to take us out once they have the loot. Just because we have a plan to stop them doesn't mean I'm not panicked.

We finish going through the boxes just after one on Monday morning. The contents of the main vault take only one hour more. Two hours (or less) until Soldado could show up.

“Can we really pull this off?” Eddie asks, his voice quavery. I've just shown them where the two ropes are and explained what will happen when we pull the one on our side of the tunnel. “What if the beam doesn't budge? Or it does, but the ceiling doesn't cave?”

“It'll work,” I say with a confidence I don't actually feel. The closer we get, the more I have the feeling that nothing will go according to plan. We could die. I don't want to think about it, but somehow it's
all
I can think about.

We bring a stack of the duffels down and place them in the tunnel, just beyond the chamber beneath the vault, where they will get trapped along with Soldado and the other guys. All we need to do now is wait for them to get this far in and pull out the doorway supports.

We sit just beneath the vault and wait. No one talks. I listen until my ears start to ring. I'm sweating and shivering at the same time. My fingers ache from gripping my gun. Every noise, every rustle of wind and we all startle. It's getting so the tension is driving me stark raving crazy. Sitting here is torture.

And then I hear them. Soldado's voice traveling through the tunnel.

We exchange looks. Benny, Eddie, and Carlos look terrified. I must, too. I feel it. My whole body is on high alert.

“Hey, dumbasses! You up there?” Soldado shouts, cocky as hell because so far everything's gone down exactly as planned.

“Yeah. We're bringing out the bags now. Got some of them in the tunnel already,” I yell, and my chest constricts. I don't sound normal. My voice is too tight. He's going to figure it out. Sense it. I look at Benny to see if he heard it, but he's staring at the ground, rocking. Of all of us, he's been the most betrayed by Soldado. He's not hearing me or him or anything, I can tell. He seems ready to throw up.

I can hear footsteps and low laughter—Twitch and Psycho. Probably gloating because they're in on Soldado's plan. Getting some share of the take once they kill us.

“Up there,” Twitch says. Psycho whistles. They're all the way in, standing in the section of tunnel where the bags are.

“Now,” I mouth to the boys, and together we pull on the rope. It sticks and I nearly scream, but then the beam shifts. We pull harder. It shifts more.

“You guys comin' down or what?” Soldado asks, and there is the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.

We pull until I think the blood vessels in my temple might explode, and the beam doesn't just shift this time—it flies out of place, slamming to the ground with a vibrating
boom!

The dirt above it comes crashing down like a curtain. Dust clouds explode into the air, and I have to squish my eyes shut to keep from going blind. It worked! But then, once I see that the dirt is still falling, that it's coming down too hard, I start to panic.

“Get up inside the vault. Now!” We scramble to make it. We boost Carlos up first, and then he helps pull the rest of us up. The chamber is filling up the way an hourglass does, dirt rising like tidewater.

We lie against the steel floor, coughing, dust puffing off our clothes.

“You think we killed them?” Benny gasps, coughing violently.

“It just looked bad. They're okay,” I say. The way the dirt was falling, most of it seemed to be collapsing in our direction. Even if some of the ceiling in the tunnel collapsed, there's a good chance that they got out of the way. Now the only unknown is whether Lexi and her friends were able to take care of their end.

I pick up my phone and text her.

The wait to hear back is agonizing. What if Soldado got out? What if he found Lexi's crew? The way he came into the tunnel, I wouldn't think so, but…the thought of her hurt or worse…my whole body goes cold.

My phone vibrates and I let out my breath in a rush.

We did it. Phase two is on.

I text her back, my fingers shaking so badly I can barely type.

Tunnel down here. See u soon.

She's okay. I feel like I've been holding my breath for hours. Suddenly I'm light-headed. She's okay. I repeat so I can start to believe it. I set the phone next to me and lean down into what's left of the space below us. The tunnel is completely gone where the beam supports were. Soldado is trapped.

And we're still alive.

Quinn, Oliver, Leo, and
I race for the turnoff where we hid our motorcycles and jump on. I'm buzzing, my whole body whirring like a helicopter, ready to fly. The plan played out perfectly! Our side of the tunnel went down just the way I predicted, the dirt avalanching like something out of a movie. Based on the way the supports were placed, I knew it would work. Still, it was crazy to watch it. Leo, Quinn, and Oliver take off, and I roar after them, leaning into the bike, picking up speed.

“So he's okay?” Leo shouts.

“Yeah. They all are,” I shout back.

There is daylight up ahead. I weave past the boys and aim for it. We burst out of the tunnel one by one and take off down the street, cutting off a few early commuters. The city spreads out around us, the buildings shimmering because it's already hot. LL National is right there, partially obscured by haze. The bank is ours. We've done everything according to plan. Now all we have to do is take it.

Whitney pulls up to
the front of the bank at precisely five minutes to eight.

“You guys all set?” Elena asks.

“Set.” Oliver slips on his gloves and places his gun in his lap. It's fake. A prop. Just one more thing we borrowed from the twins' dad. It appears real enough, though. Looking at it makes my heart beat faster.

“Okay. Guns out. Masks on. Gloves on. Hoodies up.” Elena goes down the list, and I mentally check off each item.

“They're starting to congregate outside,” Elena murmurs, gesturing to the handful of bank employees sipping from Starbucks cups.

“Four minutes.” Whitney taps the wheel.

“Any sign of cops anywhere?” I ask, leaning up into the front seat.

“All clear.” Elena turns in her seat, her face pinched like she might cry. “Be careful. All of you.”

“Three minutes.” Leo holds up his phone, the countdown timer gobbling up numbers.

The employees in front of the bank—the manager, Stella, two tellers, and a security guard—edge toward the door. Stella takes out her keys.

“Two minutes.” Leo again, his voice getting smothered up by his mask.

I slip my own mask into place. Oliver and Quinn do the same.

I feel like I'm burning up, like I might spontaneously combust. Every inch of my skin is on fire from the heat or nerves. Maybe both.

“They're going in,” Whitney squeaks.

“Now!” Quinn gives the order, and like a racehorse reacting to the starting gun, I bolt out of the car, legs panic-nimble, ears roaring, my fake gun smacking against my side as I pump my arms.

Time seems split in two. Some things happen very fast, while others feel suspended. The run seems to take seconds, but the woman walking down the sidewalk toward us doesn't seem to make any progress at all. My breath is fast inside my mask. Chugging like a train. It's all I can hear.

Quinn reaches the door just as Stella opens it. He crashes into her and they careen inside. Oliver goes for the guard, jabbing his gun into the man's back. I take one teller. Leo takes the other. I grip her arm with my gloved hand and move her into the bank. Her mouth is open. Is she screaming? I can't tell. There's just my own breathing, the awful gasping.

The door to the bank closes. With the blinds down, the interior is dusky. Filtered sunlight sends flickering shadows across the back wall and the carpet. I glance over at the stairs to the vault. Christian is down there, waiting.

“Make sure it's locked,” Quinn orders Stella before he follows her to the alarm system keypad and has her enter her code to disable it.

“Everyone else, on the ground. Now!” Leo hollers.

Tears stream down the tellers' faces. They fall to the floor. I wince as their knees hit first and they collapse onto their faces.

I zip-tie their hands together.

“Please don't hurt us,” Stella says, her voice calm but her bottom lip trembling. She twists her wedding ring around and around on her finger. “Please.”

We are monsters. That's how she sees us. Even if we are doing this to get Harrison, she'll never know that. I've crossed a line now; there's no going back. Much as I hate Harrison, how am I any better? Look what we're doing.

I knew what to expect, and yet nothing feels like I thought it would. Robbing this bank isn't a BAM. We're hurting people, but I can't take it back. Say I'm sorry. It's too late for that. The only thing to do is move forward.

“I didn't know,” I murmur.

“Focus!” Quinn snaps his fingers in front of my face. “We need to get them into the bathroom. Now.”

We walk the two tellers to the ladies' room and zip-tie each of them to the pipes behind the toilets so they can't escape.

“Stay here. You're safe,” Leo says. “We aren't going to hurt you.”

We keep Stella and the security guy with us. We'll need them to open the vault.

“Five minutes,” Leo says.

“You won't be able to rob the vault before the cops show up,” the guard says calmly as he enters his access code. “If you're smart, you'll leave right now. You have a chance if you do. Stay and it's over.”

“Shut it, dude,” Oliver barks, jamming his gun into the man's back even harder.

The minute the lock disengages, Quinn and Oliver drag Stella and the guard back upstairs to the bathrooms. We don't open the vault door until they are out of sight.

I lean against the wall, dizzy. I was hyperventilating. Now I might pass out. Leo pulls the vault door open, and a rush of earthy air escapes.

Christian, Benny, Carlos, and Eddie spill out, their zombie masks collared around their necks, each of them gripping oversized duffel bags.

“ 'Bout time you guys showed up,” Eddie says, his face ashen, covered in a layer of sand and dirt.

I look at Christian and have this inexplicable urge to cry. I want him to gather me up in his arms and tell me it'll be okay. But that can't happen. The only thing that's important right now is getting out.