Pretty Sly (11 page)

“That sounds like a plan,” I said. Never mind that we had no details on how we would do that.

“I’m just going to double-park in front,” Aidan said,
as he pulled into the driveway of the Hadley. “You can run in and grab it. Try not to make too much of a scene.”

He was joking, and ordinarily I might try to zing him with a comeback, but it would be a long time before I would be able to find any humor in this situation. Like, a decade.

He pulled up to the hotel’s entrance, with its flags of many countries and spotlit palm trees. The valet I’d talked to earlier was still standing by the doors, waiting to assist the next patron. As I neared, the glass panes swished open. Then they swished closed again. I was still standing in place.

Because I’d glanced inside and saw all that I needed to see.

“Aidan,” I whispered as I climbed back into the car. “I can’t go in there.”

He bent down to look through the passenger-side window and took in what I was talking about: two uniformed policemen talking to the woman at the front desk.

“No,” he said. “You can’t.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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NINE

WITH NO MONEY
and the police on our tail, and the two of us desperate for sleep, we discussed our next step. We couldn’t spend the night in the car—it was too exposed, too visible. We couldn’t keep driving—not unless we wanted to prop Aidan’s eyelids open with toothpicks.

There was only one option, really, and that was to find a place to squat. Which meant I would have to resort to my old tactics of breaking and entering. And pretend like I had probation amnesia. But what did it matter now? We’d already broken three laws and counting.

Aidan seemed to like this suggestion because it would give us a chance to shower and get off the road. Also, he just liked the idea of being a badass. It kind of came naturally to him.

“Finally, I get to see the Sly Fox at work,” he said. “I can steep in the wisdom like a delicate tea.”

“Eh, it’s more like espresso. Coming at you hard and fast.”

“Either way. It’s gonna jolt me. Now where to, boss?”

“We need to find a second home,” I said, chewing on my thumb. There wasn’t much time to think. “A place that we know will be empty for the night.”

You couldn’t throw a bottle of Bain de Soleil without hitting a beach house around these parts—it was pretty much vacation central. But nothing near downtown Santa Barbara would do. It was too near to civilization, the houses too close to one another, with too many possible prying eyes.

Aidan drove on into the neighboring town of Montecito and then up into the hills where lights twinkled from distant ridges. Now that we had a purpose, the mood in the car was oddly calm, and I felt that with the decision to break into a house, however crazy it was, I had some control over the situation again.

Then there was that old giddy excitement pumping through my veins, the familiar sensation before I was about to go rogue. Bubblier than bubbly—it went straight to my head. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t psyched.

The road was winding and Aidan slowed to allow for the sharp turns as we ascended farther upward. Outside my window, the edge of the pavement dropped dramatically into dark woods.

“Keep going,” I instructed. My instinct was that higher ground meant better views of the ocean and thus,
more vacation homes on bigger, more isolated lots of land. If we were going to do this, at least we wouldn’t be breaking into poor people’s houses. We passed what looked like a vineyard and then turned around another curve. The road broke off in a Y, and I instructed Aidan to bear right, where we could see some glowing lights nestled in the carpet of darkness.

What I’d learned from my earlier forays into thievery was that there was a certain level of intuition involved— you had to go with your gut.

“Now turn here,” I said, pointing to a stucco gate. “Let’s try this one.”

Aidan did as I asked. He was a trusty second-in-command, it turned out. Frankly, I was surprised he took direction so well. The road narrowed into a driveway, which climbed still farther.

Finally, a home came into view. Well, technically, it was the pool we saw first: a turquoise diamond, lit up from the inside. The house, which seemed to be built around the pool and not the other way around, was modern, all glass and peachy-colored stone, flanked by huge columns and topped with square hip roofs. On the side of the building was a helipad, a round expanse of neatly trimmed grass.

“Why do you even need that?” I asked Aidan, who was going to have to be my go-to for all questions about rich people.

“I guess for when Madonna or visiting heads of state
drop by,” he said as he pulled the Volvo around the circular driveway, palming the wheel like we owned the place—or, for that matter, the car. “Anyway, it might come in handy for us, if we need to make a getaway.”

“But we’d need a helicopter, wouldn’t we?” I said.

He pointed a thumb at his chest. “I got connections, babe.”

I shook my head at this Aidanism. Of course he did. His parents probably had a whole fleet of helicopters. Clearly, I was going to have to be the practical one here. “We should probably try to hide the car.”

“I’m going to park it behind the guesthouse,” he said.

“Good idea.”

We drove toward what looked like a miniature version of the mansion, sitting next to a six-car garage. Then we got out of the car and moved toward the main building. I went first, dancing into the darkest parts of the lawn, and Aidan followed.

Finding a shadowy wall, I pushed my face up against the glass and peered in. Sure enough, most of the furniture was draped in white sheeting, a good sign. The lights were clearly on a timer; the landscaping was probably maintained on a weekly basis.

It was always possible that tonight would be the night the owners showed up for their vacation, but since we were a week away from Thanksgiving I was willing to hedge my bets that they were at one of their other homes.

“How do you propose getting in?” Aidan asked.

I’d already been working this through in my head, thinking back to my lessons with Tre. “We have a couple of options. We can break a window on the first floor, then wait for the alarm. Sometimes the alarm system isn’t more than a siren. If no one shows up, we go in. That’s the longer, safer option.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “And what’s the shorter, riskier option?”

“Going in through a second-floor window, and, if we need to, disarming the alarm system from the inside. Second floor may or may not be wired.”

Aidan seemed to be taking this in and making his own calculations. “I’m a shorter, riskier kind of guy, I guess. Option B seems more efficient. And look, I still have this.” He lifted up the screwdriver and wire cutters he’d used to steal the Volvo.

“Perfect,” I said. “Short and risky it is, then.”

I led the way, enjoying, for the moment, the fact that I was in charge, which was a good distraction from the fact that I was totally nervous about the whole endeavor. With Kellie’s house, at least, I’d had the security code. And every house was different. These big places almost always had custom systems, so you couldn’t assume anything.

We circled the house on foot, stopping on the east side in front of a stone wall that enclosed what looked like the living room. Suspended above it was a wraparound balcony that must have led to the master suite.

“Climb up there,” I instructed Aidan. “Then we’ll go in through the bedroom window.”

Aidan scrambled up the wall, easily finding traction with his sneakers digging between the stones, and I followed. Then, like some kind of suburban ninja, he jumped up to grasp the balcony railing and hoisted himself over it, landing in a squat.

“C’mon,” he said, whispering down to me as he straightened himself up. “Jump.”

Easier said than done. The first time, I didn’t jump high enough and I couldn’t reach the railing.

I got it on the second try, feeling the cool metal press into my fingers. I knew I didn’t have the upper-body strength to pull myself all of the way—stupid X chromosomes. As I dangled there, I realized I didn’t have much grip strength, either—I could feel myself slipping.

Luckily, Aidan grabbed hold of my wrists and pulled me until I could reach his upper arms. (The biceps, incidentally, were as solid as they looked.) Then he had me by the waist and he swung me around.

“You can drop me now,” I said.

“You sure?” he teased.

“Drop me, Murphy,” I growled.

He let go and my feet touched down on the concrete.

We stepped around the balcony to the mountain-facing side. “Use the screwdriver to wedge open the window at the lower hinge.”

“Okay,” Aidan said. He bent over and edged the flat
blade into the crack of the window. I stood guard, watching over the empty darkness. The night was placid—but in a couple of hours the sun would be coming up.

People were way too trusting.
If I had a place like this,
I thought,
I would have a seriously mean pit bull. Or maybe a wolf dog for the pants-wetting factor alone.

“I got it,” Aidan said. He turned back to me and grinned, impish.

Then he lifted the window from its frame and crawled through it, disappearing inside. I went in after him, my feet touching down on thick white carpet.

No sheets up here. The room was minimally decorated but lush, with an enormous, floor-hugging bed, wall-sized flat-screen TV, and marble fireplace. Everything was white and gray and very clean, an oasis of wealth and good taste.

“Now wait,” I whispered. “The alarm could go off any minute. If it does, we need to find the control panel ASAP.”

We paused, crouching. Then we looked at each other quizzically. No sound. Maybe it wasn’t wired.

“It must be a one-zone thing. Let’s go downstairs.” I looked back over my shoulder to make sure he was with me.

Like clockwork, the siren sounded.

Burr-rrip. Burr-rrip.

Loud and dissonant, like a school jazz-band reject.

Aidan covered his ears. “Painful.”

“C’mon,” I said, waving him along.

I wandered through the rooms looking for the wall-mounted box. The alarm kept going.

I knew from Tre that the wired systems were usually mounted in the basement next to the circuit breaker.

But we were in California. Houses here didn’t have basements. Which meant the system was most likely wireless. Which meant that we couldn’t just disable the phone line. Which meant I was just going to have to wing it.

“Maybe near the back door?” Aidan suggested.

We went through the kitchen and beyond that into a laundry room/mudroom.

I spotted the box next to the door. “Yep. Good call.”

I snapped the box cover open and saw the code pad. “Screwdriver, please.”

Aidan handed it to me and, my heart throbbing in my throat, I worked on the tiny screws, loosening them until I could remove the metal plate.

“Do you have those clippers?” I said to Aidan, stepping aside. “Cut it.”

“Which one? The red, or the green? There’s like twenty wires here.”

“All of it. And quickly.”

He did as I asked, leaning in and pinching away at the little threads.

“Now pull out the control pad.”

He frowned. “Like, out of the wall?”

“Yes.”

He reached and ripped out the metal frame, holding it up like the beating heart of an animal sacrifice.

Within a fraction of a second, the siren quit.

“Is that it?” he asked nervously.

“That should be it,” I said. “That should disable everything.”

I couldn’t be 100 percent sure. We were still frozen, afraid to move.

We looked at each other. The alarm had gone on for less than a minute, but it felt like much longer.

Aidan waved his hand experimentally. Silence. I took a few steps. Slowly, then faster, making exaggerated movements.

“Clear,” I said, dizzy with the thrill of getting it right, getting in. Finding the solution. Like those times when I’d pickpocketed someone or broken into their locker or car and it all fell into place like it was meant to be. Maybe this was our payoff for bearing all the stress of the past couple of days—our sign that we were doing the right thing on this trip. Maybe our luck was turning around.

“This place is amazing.” We fist-bumped. “Sly Fox, you’ve done it again.”

Tell me more, big boy.
Some girls like to hear how pretty they are or how nice they are. As much as I hated to admit it, the Sly Fox talk stroked my ego in all the right places. Back at home it was still a painful memory,
but now that we were far from Paradise Valley I was remembering what I’d liked so much about stealing.

We wandered back through the kitchen into the great room with its exposed beams sloping down on all four sides. The floor was tiled with veined stones like crystals and there were stunning views on both sides—the ocean in one direction and the mountains in another.

By now I’d been in some extremely fancy Paradise Valley homes, but I was still blown away by the wealth and beauty in which some people were lucky enough to live. Did they even know how lucky they were?

“Did you see their DVD collection? It’s like an entire library.” Aidan ran from one room to the next and back again, puppyish.

I followed him into the media room, which was more like a theater, lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves of movies, a screen built into the wood-paneled walls, and a row of white couches set up in front of it.

I would have expected Aidan to be less impressed, having grown up with this sort of stuff, but he seemed to be enjoying the walk-through tour as much as I was. “Look at that kayak,” he said, pointing to a thirty-foot wooden boat that was suspended from the ceiling in the dining room, hanging over the enormous table that had to seat twenty-five people. “I think that’s Native American.”

It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement— in his excitement, specifically.