Chapter 6 Jett
The three of us sat in the car, watching the house, waiting for the last light to go out. The light above the porch finally vanished, signaling that the occupants were in bed. Finally.
Gray’s knee had been jittering for the last half hour, and even if he was my twin, I was close to amputating the fucking thing before I lost my mind. Ash sat in the back, relaxed and easy, as always.
“Time?” Gray asked for what felt like the millionth time.
“Ten minutes since you last asked,” Ash drawled from the back. His head was resting against the seat, and his eyes were half closed.
Gray twisted in his seat to glare at him, which gave me time to hide my grin at my cousin’s snark.
“Thirty more minutes,” I told them both quietly. “You remember your positions?”
“We’re not stupid,” Gray mumbled as his leg took up its rhythmic tapping again. After another twenty minutes, my hand shot out and I placed it firmly on his knee, pressing his leg down to the floor of the car.
“I will cut it off,” I warned with a hard glare at my brother. His answering scowl made me grin, but I didn’t remove my hand until he nodded.
“Are you sure they’ll sleep through this?” Ash asked me as he leaned forward, alert for the first time since we had parked halfway down the road.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, I’ll check the back now then.” He opened the car door and, pulling his hoodie low, he took off over the grass. Blending into the night, he was hard to spot, and I smiled with grim satisfaction at how well he had adjusted to our nighttime “escapades.”
“He’s gotten good at this.” Gray echoed my thoughts as he, too, watched Ash disappear into the night.
“Like a duck to water,” I murmured as I checked my watch. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” Gray pulled his own hoodie down low over his face before he adjusted his black bandana over his mouth. “You have the codes?”
“I do.” I checked my watch again. “Three more minutes.”
Gray nodded and opened the car door. Following, I locked the car and then, ensuring there were no casual observers in the street, I placed the car key on top of the tire out of sight.
My phone lit up with a message from Ash telling us the back was clear, so we both jogged across the street and slipped undetected into the yard surrounding the house.
Stealthily, we made our way around to the back and joined Ash, who was already at the back door, a small black folded-over case in his hand.
“You have five minutes,” I whispered to him.
Gray stood sentry at the bottom of the steps, pressed against the wall to keep out of sight but still able to watch.
As Ash started to pick the lock of the back door, I watched for any movement from inside the house. We had been watching the house for over a week. The routine was the same, the inhabitants very much keepers to the same schedule.
“I’m in,” Ash said as he stood and tested the handle. A low whistle to Gray, and my brother was coming up the steps.
“The study is the only thing we want,” I reminded them as Ash slowly pushed the door open.
When no answering alarm sounded, I felt a smug thrill of victory. I knew the people who lived here had an alarm system, and I had been fairly confident that they didn’t set it at nighttime.
Swiftly, the three of us crossed the kitchen, into the hall, and taking the second door on the left, we entered the study.
Pulling out my phone, I opened the note I had with the safe code. It was one of three, and my research told me that for the make of the safe these people had, you had three attempts before you were locked out.
Ash uncovered the safe, which was hidden behind a painting, and Gray snorted. “One time, I’d just like to come in and the fucking thing be on display.”
Three-five-one-seven-two, I punched the code in and waited. The safe beeped loudly in denial, and all three of us froze, waiting for the sound of movement to tell us that the occupant had been woken.
Seven-four-eight-nine-zero. The safe beeped as the lock clicked open, and I pushed the handle down.
“Bullseye,” I told the others. The safe had the normal stack of cash, some boxes that would contain jewelry no doubt, and a few folders with paperwork.
“Gray,” I instructed as Ash stayed by the door, watching.
Gray snapped a picture of the layout of the safe, and then we quickly took the contents out.
“Hurry,” I urged him as we divided the folders between us. We started searching. When I was almost through my search, I looked at my brother. His face was twisted in a scowl, and I knew he hadn’t found anything either.
“Anything?” Ash asked from the doorway.
“No,” Gray said as he stepped back and let out a long sigh. “Another fucking dead end.”
“Let’s put it back,” I said as I held back on my own sigh.
Quickly, I checked the boxes and, with no interest in the contents, moved the diamonds, emeralds, and other precious stones aside as I checked for hidden compartments.
Gray was doing the same to the inside of the safe, and I could almost feel his irritation before he stilled.
“What is it?” I asked, closing the boxes and stepping up beside him.
He said nothing, but his look of determination made me wait patiently. A creak sounded above us, and all three of us stilled. Ash had his finger to his lips as he slowly opened the door a fraction more.
The creak sounded again, and Gray looked at me. “Bathroom?”
I nodded, but we made no move as we heard a door close, and then a few moments later, a steady stream as someone relieved their bladder.
“They sleep with the bedroom door open,” Ash whispered. “We need to be extra quiet.”
Gray started pressing again, and then I heard the soft click. With a triumphant smirk, he pulled out two items. A USB stick and an envelope.
“Harry? Are you okay?”
The three of us stood still at the sound of the voice.
As quickly as we could, Gray and I put the contents of the safe back together, even as we heard the answering murmur from the bathroom.
“I can get you some painkillers?” Harry’s wife called, and we all looked up as we heard her feet hit the floor.
“Hurry,” Ash urged, and I snatched Gray’s phone off of him to check the layout before we hastily closed the safe. We replaced the painting, and then the three of us were at the study door, waiting.
The bathroom door opened as the toilet flushed.
“Dude didn’t even wash his hands,” Gray muttered in disgust.
“That’s the least of our problems if they come downstairs,” Ash warned.
“They won’t,” I whispered as I tucked the USB into my jeans and the envelope into my back pocket. “Let’s move. One at a time, like always.”
Ash was the first out of the study, and for a guy of six-four, he was almost dainty as he crossed the hall and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Are you sure, dear? It won’t take a minute.”
“No, honey, let’s just go back to sleep.”
I grinned at Gray, who rolled his eyes at me for being right, before he left the study and crossed the hall and entered the kitchen.
Casting a quick look around to make sure the room was as we found it, I followed them out.
When I got to the kitchen, they were already outside, and I left quickly, Ash closing the door behind me.
We waited on the back porch for a few minutes before, one by one, we ran from the house back to the car.
Within ten minutes of being in the house, we were driving away with a USB stick and an envelope, hopefully telling us what we needed to know.
No one spoke during the trip back, not even as I parked the car outside the house, and as quietly as we had left it this evening, we made our way to the top floor.
In my room, Gray and Ash disrobed of their black clothing and pulled on their pajama shorts. While they got ready to look like they had been in bed in case anyone came looking for us, I fired up the spare laptop I kept in the back of my closet.
“Was easier than I thought,” Gray said as he pulled a chair up beside me. It was the first any of us had spoken since we left the targeted house.
“Too easy?” Ash asked as he sat on the bed, his eyes on the screen. “What’s in the envelope?”
“A code,” I told him as I tossed it over to him. “I would guess it’s the passcode.”
“Yeah,” he nodded and then looked at the screen. “Swap seats. If it’s encrypted, I’ll get in quicker than you.”
Not a lie. Ash studied computer science, and I did economics. Both of us were shit-hot on computers; he was just better at coding and, in this case, decoding.
As we waited for the USB to come to life, I peeled my own clothes off.
Unlike my brother and cousin, I slept naked, so I had no sleepwear to change into.
However, they were used to seeing me in my underwear, and it was too humid tonight to keep my jeans on.
Ash was grumbling about idiots and easy codes as I tossed my stuff in the hamper.
“It’s so hot,” I grumbled as I took Ash’s vacant spot on the bed.
“I’m in,” Ash said. “Looks like a video, we watching?”
“Fuck yes, we are,” Gray said as he leaned closer.
Twenty minutes later, not one of us had spoken a word.
“Fuck,” I finally murmured.
Ash huffed in agreement, his eyes on the now black screen.
“I . . .” Gray trailed off before his hand ran over his hair. “I will never unsee that.”
“What a sick bastard.” Ash shook his head as he stood up. “What a sick, twisted fuck.”
“We need to identify her,” I spoke softly as I looked at the two of them. “She probably has family who have no idea where she is or what happened to her.”
“We need to identify the four bastards in the video also.” Gray’s voice was hoarse.
“Well, Harry wasn’t one of them,” Ash spat. “But I bet he knows who they are.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I told them. “Jesus, I don’t think I can sleep after that.”
“We have to.” Gray stood too. “Who’s keeping it?”
All three of us stared at the USB stick like it was a deadly snake. “I will.” I picked up the innocent-looking USB.
“Will the laptop show that we watched it?” Gray asked Ash.