Three
IGET A TEXT AT 3:28.
Early. Early is good. Exact is better, but early is good.
With one parting glance in the mirror, I return my makeup to my locker, knowing I’ll never see it again. I leave the dismal employees’ room of my job for what will be the final time, one way or another. In nine hours, I’ll either be very rich or I’ll be in deep, deep trouble.
In the parking lot outside the unassuming employees’ entrance, I like how I look in my high heels, my pumped-up makeup. I stand out in the drab neighborhood I’ve called home for two years. Coventry is picturesque, kind of—not in the usual ways, the gorgeous homes or endless lawns of Rhode Island’s expensive neighborhoods. But there’s quiet endurance in this dull landscape. Concrete isn’t charming, either, but it’s strong. Impenetrable. Coventry looks like the town knows things—like the woods of exhaust-dusted trees hold secrets they’ll never reveal.
Picturesque or not, however, this is not where one would expect to find the girl I’m pretending to be. The girl who could never mastermind today.
I lift my chin, drawing the crisp afternoon air into my lungs. There’s no hint of rain. Good. I had contingencies for rain, but they were more complicated. I don’t like complicated unless I’m in charge of the complications.
Everything is under control.
I walk to the white cargo van waiting on the pavement. The driver’s mirrored sunglasses stay facing forward when the vehicle’s sliding door rolls open to let me inside. Pulling the hem of my dress into place, I sit in the seat nearest the door, which I drag closed, sealing myself inside. There’s no going back now.
Wow, you’re being incredibly dramatic, I chastise myself. Did you ever wonder if you might be less high-strung if you, I don’t know, didn’t think uberserious movie-voice-over things like “THERE’S NO GOING BACK NOW”?
I put on my seat belt, my shoulders shivering involuntarily. It’s not nerves this time. The van is freezing—exactly how I specified.
In my lap, my clutch clatters with the plastic sound of my lipstick, its own reminder of what I have planned. I stole the makeup on one of the essentials-only convenience store trips my mom sent me on. It’s not the only time I’ve lifted something small in the years since my parents’ divorce. The paperweight from my dad’s attorney’s office, crystal figurines from classmates’ parties… I consider it “recreational petty larceny.”
While my little habit might’ve offered me inspiration, however, it’s nothing compared to the magnitude of today. Not even close.
The only other item in my clutch is my phone. They’re my final props designed to turn myself into a character, the stepdaughter acting out because her daddy is getting married.
Shit, I mean, maybe it’s the truth.
Steeling my nerves, I focus on my lock screen. The photo is of my parents and me from one of my dad’s companies’ fancy holiday parties. I’m fourteen, no idea what is coming for my polished life. My dress is expensive. My mom’s earrings glitter.
It’s a nice photo. Unsuspicious. Everyone, including my mom, would just assume I’m remembering my family in happier times.
No one except me knows what the photo really captures. The look in my father’s eyes, the same way he regarded me in the limo on the way to the event. His favorite glare.
I learned to recognize the prelude to his vicious impatience from exhaustingly frequent instances, whenever I dropped something or had my iPad too loud or left the house late. I’d caught it then for FaceTiming my friends from the limo. I guess I was noisy or annoying or just young and a girl or who knows.
Do everyone a favor, he snapped when I’d hung up. Keep your mouth shut tonight. While indignation flashed on my mom’s face, she knew not to provoke him further.
His glare in the photo is the perfect reminder of who he is. The careless cruelty—his unkind words were only a precursor to what would come next. Every way he would leave me needing to do what I’m planning. Every reason for ruthlessness.
The goal itself is simple. The passcodes to my dad’s online offshore accounts—handwritten, to be unhackable—are in the safe in his office, just feet from where he will be getting married in a few hours. We get into the wedding, get the combination to the safe, then get the passcodes. Steal his money.
And, more important, get revenge.
While the driver wordlessly pulls out onto the highway, I face the other passengers, projecting calm. In the back seat, laptop open, scrolling silently, with the white light of the screen highlighting the dark circles under her eyes, is Cassidy Cross. It’s the first glimpse I’ve gotten of the girl who will handle our technological requirements. Dressed entirely in black—which I did not require but very much respect—she’s frowning as if the expression is her default. Wire-cutter-sharp eyes stand out from her cream-pale skin, her curly hair pulled back from her face.
I leave her be. Despite going to the same school, we’ve only ever met over months of emails, which I’ve decided speaks well of her, given the unique circumstances of our new friendship. She looks like how she writes—efficient.
Next to her, Deonte Jones is dressed in the uniform of kitchen staff, carefully modeled on the online photos I found of the wedding’s caterers. The white coat with a precise black bow tie barely fits the present wearer’s frame. Deonte is Black, six feet tall, probably well over two hundred pounds. He’s built like a football player, which is convenient because he is a running back for East Coventry High, where I’ve gone since my dad punted me and my mom to Coventry—no football pun intended.
While we’re not friends friends, Deonte spending time with the football crowd and me falling in with my revolving door of popular-ish girls, we chat whenever we wind up in the same class or party.
I clear my throat before I speak, not wanting to have phlegm from hours of not talking to anyone during my shift in my first remark to my crew. Heist leaders do not have after-work phlegm. “Do you have the asset?”
In response, Deonte just nods his chin toward the back.
I follow the gesture to a tall cardboard box tied down with bungee cords. Bungee cords weren’t in The Plan, but they were the right move, I note. The box doesn’t budge when our driver rounds the corner onto one of the several truss bridges crossing rivers through Coventry. I’m grateful for Deonte’s improvisation.
“It doesn’t look big enough,” I say.
“That’s because it’s in pieces,” he replies. “It wasn’t safe to transport fully assembled.”
I nod silently. Once more, his logic checks out.
“Drive very carefully,” I tell the driver. Those bungee cords look sturdy, but one bump in the road and we’re screwed before we even get to the wedding.
I’m pleased when we take the next turn even slower. Glancing out the window, I determine we’re probably ten minutes from our next destination. Chitchat doesn’t feel like the vibe while we drive. Everybody’s probably hiding their nerves the same way I am, envisioning every moment, every step of the day.
I catch myself smiling from the dark humor of how jittery this wedding has us. I wonder if Maureen, my soon-to-be stepmom, is this nervous, or if self-involvement has entirely swallowed self-consciousness in the bride.
I know my dad isn’t nervous. For months, he’s been raring to convert this glaring evidence of his inability to maintain loving connections with women into his greatest success—a walk of shame spun into a victory lap. It’s classic Dad, like when he got a comedy cable channel—I forget which—to foot the bill for his “Un-Grammys” when the Grammys ruled his collection of famous episodes ineligible for various categories. His capacity for manipulating failings into marks of pride is rivaled only by his fear of looking like the loser-jerk he is.
Yeah, Dashiell Owens is not nervous.
In fact, I’m counting on it.