Nineteen
OUTSIDE, MITCHUM LOOKS DOWN.
The phone we’ve dropped is on vibrate, inconspicuous. I watch him pause, making sense of the humming under the napkin. He lifts up the cloth carefully, eyeing what we’ve left.
Heart racing, I can practically feel the seconds pass, each one sliding past like drops of condensation on the champagne outside. I need him to pick up the phone.
Instead, my father’s lawyer looks around. In the meantime, the phone stops ringing.
“Call again,” I say.
McCoy does.
Mitchum looks down. I watch him double-check his memory, realizing what’s happening here. Confirming the phone was not on the table when he got there with Tom nor left behind by Tom himself. Yet there it is.
The theater is getting hot, the unfortunate downside of our row of observation windows. The perfect wedding sunlight is streaming in, warming the room. The house is old enough that the retrofitted air-conditioning doesn’t reach everywhere, including our semiunderground location. Watching Mitchum, I feel sweat forming on my neck, my forehead.
Once more, our mark lets the ringing lapse. I exhale in frustration. I counted on Mitchum Webber’s curiosity and instincts for self-preservation to compel him to pick up the mystery call. Unfortunately, it seems he needs encouragement.
“Text it and say you have Kevin George Washington Webber,” Kevin suggests.
“You’re not serious,” I say. “George Washington?”
He nods solemnly. “Information I would only share if my life were in danger. Or if I joined a sick gang of thieves.”
I roll my eyes but catch myself smiling. Only a little. “Do it,” I say to McCoy.
He sends the text. I watch the moment our planted phone receives the message, catching Mitchum’s interest once more. His mouth flattens, his small features wrought with focus. Finally, he turns his back on the wedding to pick up the phone.
“Now,” I order McCoy. The fresh hit of adrenaline in my veins is fantastic. “Nice work, George Washington,” I concede to Kevin.
“Remember—the labradoodle, no pro bono,” Kevin counsels our ransom caller.
McCoy calls. Mercifully, Mitchum doesn’t hesitate. He answers, looking impatient, as if we were the ones making him wait.
“I want to speak to my son,” he says without introduction or pleasantries. While the phone isn’t on speaker, in the quiet room, I can make out the lawyer’s curt words.
McCoy hands the phone to Kevin. I want to collapse onto the couch out of nerves. This is where Kevin could betray us. This is where I find out whether everything I’ve planned will disappear in disarray because I put my faith in someone who wears Italian-leather loafers to school.
“Dad, I’m scared but I’m okay,” Kevin whimpers.
Promising start. His performance isn’t up to Tom’s—it’s a little overdone. But it’s fine. It’ll work.
“Oh, Kevin,” we hear from the phone. “Not again.”
If Kevin notices my raised eyebrow, he doesn’t respond. He shuffles his feet as if he really is sorry for getting kidnapped so often. When he speaks to his father, he keeps up his fretful delivery. “I know, I know. But these guys are really professional. I think they’re mercenaries. Or the mafia. Or they’re mercenaries working with the mafia.”
I frown, indicating for him to shut up. I’m pretty sure he’s just using Call of Duty storylines.
Getting the message, Kevin nods. “Just give them what they want and they’ll let me go.”
The entire room goes quiet until Mitchum sighs. “Put them back on,” he says reluctantly.
Kevin hands the phone back to McCoy. “We want the combination to Dashiell Owens’s safe,” my co-conspirator says.
While his face has gone paler, his voice is firm. I’m kind of glad he makes no effort to sound mercenary-like or mafia inclined.
“And the keys to his Lamborghini,” Kevin whispers.
McCoy does not pass along this request.
The line stays silent. When the moment stretches, I cross my arms. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. I exhale slowly, the clarity of the sound underscoring Mitchum’s nonexistent response.
“Is he… hesitating?” Kevin asks.
I don’t have the chance to react before our “hostage” grabs the phone.
“Dad, seriously? I’m going to tell Mom you hesitated.” He doesn’t manage to hide the hurt under his indignation, or maybe he doesn’t want to. “Is my life not worth the combination to one safe?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no need to tell your mother about any of this,” Mitchum replies immediately. “Put the… mercenaries back on.”
McCoy pumps his fist. I fight the same frisson of excitement.
When he receives the phone, McCoy flattens his expression. “The combination?” he prompts.
I catch Kevin’s eye, noticing the somber tinge to his features. Quickly, he pulls his gaze from mine. In the span of seconds, he changes. The defeated slump of his shoulders rises. His good-natured half grin re-forms, like a conditioned response to other insulting conversations with his father, albeit probably not ones involving ransom.
While I would never willingly concede a place for Kevin Webber in my crew, I grudgingly recognize this certain commonality he has with my accomplices. We’re each of us dealing in our own ways with hiding hurt or hope or confusion over our place in everything. We’re good pretenders. We have to be.
As Mitchum recites the numbers, McCoy writes them on the notepad he’s produced from his jacket pocket. I wait intently, fidgeting with the ends of my hair.
Finished, McCoy rips out the page and hands it to me. I stare at it, the neat sequence of numbers written in McCoy’s whiteboard-ready handwriting.
It’s… real. Eight numbers. One combination. Millions of dollars.
Holy shit.
We’re halfway there. The realization hits me in a collision of joy and restraint. Halfway is nothing, I remind myself. Close is nothing. It just… doesn’t feel like nothing. Moments like now are the only ones I did not let myself imagine while I worked out every other detail of my designs in my room. Obviously, I intended and expect to succeed, and I visualized the ways in which I would. Even as I did, though, I denied myself their psychological spoils.
Pride. Confidence.
It felt premature to laud myself for victories not yet won. It felt foolish when, these days, I’m really not used to things working out.
Distracting me from the afterglow of the achievement, Mitchum goes on. “Look,” he says. “I really wish you hadn’t threatened my kid, but if you’re going to expose this asshole, do it. If my son is released in the next twenty minutes, I’ll give you three hours before I report the safe has been opened. It should be enough time to find whatever proof you need.” He hangs up.
I blink, not knowing what the fuck he’s referring to.