Smash & Grab (24 page)

I don't like hospitals.
Not since my abuela died. I know most people come here to get better, but to me, the place reeks of death. I never seem to acclimate to it, even after we've been in the waiting room for hours while Gabriel goes through surgery. He really was run over by the backhoe…but only after he was beaten down to the ground. The cops came early on, and we heard them talking to the nurse about his injuries and how they needed to talk to him once he stabilized. Benny and I made ourselves scarce and hid out in the hospital cafeteria until after they left.

We don't ask permission to go see Gabriel once he's placed in a recovery room. We wait until the nurses are busy with their paperwork and we slip in on our own. The room is dim and cool and filled with noise: the rhythmic beep of the machine he's hooked up to, the faint echo of footsteps in the hall outside, the soft in-and-out sound of Gabriel's breathing. Benny and I work our way to his bedside, both of us going slow, reluctant to look too closely.

He's a mess. There's no other way to describe him—flat on his back in the hospital bed, IV snaking from one arm, a cast encasing the other. His face has the look of a bruised and rotting banana.

“Gabe?” Benny calls softly, resting a hand on the bed beside Gabriel's leg.

Gabriel groans, licks his lips. “Hey.” His voice is nothing more than a whisper and tight with pain.

“Man, what happened?”

Gabriel takes a long, shaky breath and blinks at us. His eyes are swollen to slits, the skin around them a violent smear of purples, reds, and blues. He grabs at my shirt to pull me closer and misses. His arm flops down at his side and he winces. “Listen to me. I found out something I shouldn't have.” He tries to sit up, winces, and then falls back against his hospital pillow. “The job is a death sentence.”

A chill runs up my spine even though I've known there was trouble from the minute I saw him lying on the Madison Street house lawn. “Why?”

“He was never planning to let us go. It is the last job, but we aren't meant to walk away. Dad overheard some of the Eme talking. Soldado's been bragging about the job to some of the brothers, the carnales, at the prison. He keeps telling us that they're the ones who want us to keep doing all these heists, when really it's him. Soldado is going to let us”—he swallows—“I mean, you guys get the dough, and then they ambush you in the tunnel and open fire. No one's supposed to make it out alive. They shoot you and take the cash and then collapse the tunnel. He gets to keep the whole take for himself—minus what he owes the Eme.” Gabriel coughs, and Benny grabs the cup of water on his nightstand and helps him get a drink.

So the tunnel guys have it wrong. Soldado isn't going to strand us in the vault so we get caught. I believed it because I never thought he would go this far, not with us. He's been in our homes. Hung out with our families. He
was
family. I thought jail was the worst thing that could happen, but this? This is so much worse. My whole body goes numb. “So what are we supposed to do?”

Gabriel stares at me. “You have to find a way to trick him somehow. You run, and he'll kill you and your families for walking out on the job.” He sucks in a breath and hisses, holding a hand to his ribs. “Psycho did it. He found out that I knew. He told me if I said anything to you guys, he'd kill my dad. And my mom…” Tears roll down his cheeks. “They'll kill her, too, but not before they…um…they…uh…” He can't finish the sentence. I close my eyes and try to steady myself. The room feels like it's spinning.

Benny walks over to the window. He's breathing hard, folded over like someone's punched him. He leans against the windowsill and looks out. There's not much to see. Just another wing of the hospital building, floor after floor of windows and brick wall.

So this is it. We can't go to the police—we have no proof. Our word against Soldado's, that's it. And considering that he's got a handful of cops on the payroll, he'd know the minute we walked into the precinct. If we want to keep Gabriel safe, we have to pretend he didn't tell us anything. Either we walk into the job knowing we're going to die and accepting it to save our families, or we figure out a way to save ourselves. But how? I want to rage. Smash the windows out. Yell at the top of my lungs. Find Psycho, Twitch, and Soldado and obliterate them.

“So this is how it ends?” Benny asks, his voice ghost-hollow.

I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. My temples are throbbing so hard my face feels hot and full of blood. “No.” I think about Lexi and the plan. It could still work. We just have to make Soldado believe that we don't know what's really going on.

“We can still make it out of this,” I tell Benny and Gabriel. “All of us. We'll do whatever it takes.”

It's nearly noon on
Sunday. Quinn is in his room playing video games with Oliver, and I'm in my room with Leo, Whitney, and Elena, the four of us sprawled out on my bed watching heist movies because, after our meeting at the zoo yesterday, Whitney insisted that we get together to watch
Ocean's Eleven
and
The Thomas Crown Affair.
Neither has anything to do with bank robberies—they're about more glamorous casino and art heists—but according to Whitney, they're both required watching anyway.

I think she just wants an excuse to eat popcorn and deconstruct why both movies continue to be popular with people so long after their releases. If she doesn't follow in her dad's footsteps someday and become a director, I'll be shocked. When the phone rings, we're forty-five minutes into
The Thomas Crown Affair,
and the twins have convinced themselves that Christian is my Thomas Crown and I'm his Catherine Banning—the younger, considerably less refined versions, anyway. It's ridiculous. I'm not in love with Christian. In another world,
maybe
I'd let myself be in serious lust with him, but love? No way. I don't do love. In that way, Catherine Banning and I have a lot in common, except unlike her, I intend to stick to my guns.

I stare at the caller ID, at Christian's name in bold block letters, and debate answering.

I shake my head and turn away from the screen. I press talk and put the phone up to my ear
. Great.
Thanks to the movie, now I'm picturing Christian and me dirty dancing.
So much for sticking to my no-lust guns. Nice willpower, Catherine
….I get up off the bed to go talk in the bathroom, where I might be able to hear him better over the TV and so no one notices that I'm blushing.

“You ready to start your training?” he asks. His voice is gravelly, like he just woke up. I picture him lying on his bed now, the phone to his ear, his hair sleep-twisted, the hand not holding the phone resting on his bare chest.

“If you're ready, I'm ready,” I say, blushing harder.

Behind me, Whitney and Elena start to giggle.

“You should bring your friends along. I'll bring one of my boys, too. There is a lot to go over between now and the job. What do you say we meet somewhere near you? Somewhere we can talk and not worry about being overheard?”

I cover the phone's speaker.

“What does he want?” Elena whispers, a handful of popcorn halfway to her lips.

“To start training us to rob the bank,” I say. “Where do you want to meet him?”

“The beach house would probably be best,” Leo says. “My parents will be with their friends at the club all day. And my brothers are away on some surf overnight thing. We'd have the whole place to ourselves.”

“You sure you want him to know where you live?”

“Why not? He obviously knows where
you
live, which means he could find out on his own easily enough. And it
is
our usual spot for plotting mischief.”

“So?” Christian asks. “You have a place yet?”

I give him Leo's address.

“See you in an hour, okay?” Christian asks. There is a click and a sudden flood of silence as he hangs up before I can answer. After yesterday I'd expected him to flirt more, but this morning he's all business. Good. Fine.
Excellent.
The job is the priority. I walk over and turn off the movie.

Less than an hour later we're sitting out on Leo's deck, waiting for Christian and his friend to show up. Leo's gone all Martha Stewart and prepared a couple of pitchers of lemonade and some chocolate chip cookies. They're smack in the center of the table, artfully arranged on a wicker tray. I keep staring at them and cracking up. Only my bestie would bring snacks to a heist-plotting session.

When the doorbell finally rings, I leap out of my chair and run to get it.

“Nice place,” Christian says, his gaze drifting over the entry hall. He steps inside. “This is my cousin Benny.” It's the guy from the Mary Kay van. Benny is shorter than Christian, but it's easy to see that they're related. They both have the same cleft chin and thick dark eyelashes.

Benny slips inside and shakes my hand as he gives me an appraising look. “It's good to finally meet you.” His eyes cut over to Christian as he presses his lips together to keep from smiling. Obviously they've had a conversation or two about me. Cue the roller-coaster plummet sensation in my stomach.

I lead them straight out to the deck and introduce them to everybody. Whitney and Elena nearly explode out of their chairs to shake Christian's hand. “Hey there, Thomas,” Whitney says, looking sidelong at me.

Christian looks down at his hand, which is still firmly in Whitney's grip. “No. Christian.”

The girls dissolve into giggles.

“What's so funny?” Christian asks, frowning.

“She's referencing an old movie,” I explain. “About a thief.” I don't elaborate, because the whole plot of the film is basically a seduction and Christian might get the wrong idea.

“Okay, a couple of things right up front.” Christian settles into a chair. “My team goes in to start the job two weeks from yesterday. Between now and then we need to familiarize you with how my boys and I rob a bank, get you identical disguises and equipment, and steal your getaway car and ours. We need to do all of it without leaving any kind of trail for the cops to follow.”

“That's all? And here I thought this was going to be hard,” Quinn jokes.

Christian's expression is granite—hard and unyielding. “This isn't like the stunts you guys usually do. We get caught and we do serious time. If you're going to treat it as a joke, you shouldn't be a part of it.”

There's something up with him. I didn't notice at first, but now I see it—the shadowed hollows around his eyes, the way he and Benny keep exchanging glances. At the zoo he was almost playful, but now he's all business.

“Be careful,” Quinn warns him.

There is a tense moment, and then Leo clears his throat. “So do we start with getting the disguises or…”

Christian rubs the back of his neck. “That would be a good idea, since we have to track down a place that carries our particular brand of mask.”

“Wait, we have to steal the masks, too? How many robberies are we going to commit here?” Oliver asks.

“If you buy the masks online or in a store, the cops can track you. All they have to do is figure out which stores carry them, go through every receipt created around the time of the bank robbery for sales of that particular mask, and then check up on the customers who bought them. Even if you use cash, they can go back through the security-camera feed to the time the sale occurred, and get a visual image of you.”

I stare at him openmouthed. The boy has definitely done his homework.

“What do the masks look like?” Whitney asks. “Do they have a specific name?”

“Radioactive zombie,” Benny says.

“Okay, cool.” She whips out her phone and starts tapping it. “There's a good chance that at least one of the costume-supply warehouses my dad uses has them. The inventory in those things is so huge, it's pretty likely we could sneak some out and then put them right back after the heist without anyone even realizing they're gone.” She swipes the screen and squints. “This it?”

Christian and Benny get closer so they can peer at the screen.

“That's it,” Christian says. “How secure are these warehouses?”

“They have cameras and security guards—an alarm system for sure. Looks like they have over…fifty. Must've been used in a zombie horde scene or something. So it's perfect, right?”

“I can hack the system,” Quinn tells him. “Wipe out the alarm and intercept the camera feed.”

“So can I leave the planning to you?” Christian asks.

Quinn nods. “Whitney, give me the address on that warehouse.” Quinn and Oliver hunch over Quinn's laptop and scroll through the warehouse's website.

Down on the beach someone squeals, and Christian jumps as if he's just heard a gunshot. He and Benny stand up, eyeballing the door. I don't like how jittery they are.

“Hey. Can I steal you for a walk down there?” I ask him, gesturing toward the long stretch of sand that constitutes Leo's backyard. “We have a couple more things to discuss.”

He shrugs, which I decide is a yes. I grab hold of his hand and pull him down the weatherworn stairway.

“What's up?” I ask.

“Nothing's up.”

“You're acting weird. Why?” I lead him to the wet sand, where it'll be easier to walk and wait for him to answer me. Shining nearly directly above us, the sun is unrelenting, beating on my head and back until I feel like I'm igniting. I edge closer to the water and walk through the surf, stooping briefly to cup some and pour it over the back of my neck.

He watches me silently, the serious expression on his face unchanged and worrisome.

“Come on, what is it?”

He avoids looking at me and starts walking down the beach, kicking up clumps of wet sand. His shirt ripples in the breeze, crackles like a sail. “Nothing I want to talk about.”

He walks and I keep pace, neither of us speaking. It's a strangely somber moment, given all the banter we've exchanged back and forth the past few times we've met. I don't know what to do or say, but I feel like he's waiting for me to say something, to find the perfect combination of words that might get him to release whatever he's bottled up inside. Except unlike BAMs or bank robberies, this isn't a challenge I feel confident I can tackle, so I do what I do best: ignore and deflect.

“I want to see the tunnels under the bank.”

He snorts. “No.”

“I'm not asking permission,” I say. “If we're going to do this job with you, I want to see what your half of the plan looks like. For example: how are you going to collapse the tunnels?”

He whirls on me. “I said no! This isn't a game, all right? You aren't getting anywhere near the tunnels. They're dangerous. And besides, what does it matter? They won't be a viable way out for any of us after the job. We leave the bank through the front door. The only thing you have to concern yourself with is getting us out of the vault. You don't trust me. Good. You shouldn't. But the tunnels aren't your concern.”

I glare at him, blood roaring in my ears, my heart beating hard. “Every part of this job is my concern. You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do. We're in a stalemate, remember? Equally compromised.”

He laughs bitterly. “No. We aren't. You're looking to expose Harrison and get some thrills. Things don't work out and all of us get caught, you're not looking at life in jail once all the charges come down. They'll probably cut you a deal if you testify against my team. You fail and you lose
stuff.
I fail and not only do I go to jail, I lose
people
I care about. The men I do the jobs for kill my family. Benny's family. Carlos's, Eddie's, Gabriel's.” His nostrils flare. “So don't tell me we're the same. You have zero idea of what you're talking about.”

He turns abruptly and takes off down the beach without a backward glance, and I'm so shocked by his outburst that I don't know what to do or say. So I stand, my feet swallowed up in wet sand, hands fisted at my sides, and watch him go.