Chapter 13
Blow It Up, Up, and Away
FIONA
At exactly seven-thirty, there’s a bang on the outside of the storage unit’s roll-up door, and I lift it enough for Tre to slip under.
When he stands, he’s suddenly way too close, and I have to stop myself from hurriedly stepping back to put some distance between us.
He already called me jumpy once, and I don’t want to give him another excuse to mock me.
So what if I’m ‘jumpy’? I’m only jumpy around him.
This close though, I can’t help but notice that we’re almost the same height.
He’s only a few inches taller than me. Not that he’s short. He’s not. I’m just tall.
Tre surveys the space. “So, this is your… secret lair?” he asks finally.
I shrug. “It’s not like I’m going to build a bomb in my dad’s basement.”
“Why are you living there anyway? You must make more than enough money, being a doctor and all. Why not get your own place?”
“Not all of us hate our families, Tre. Anyway, I didn’t invite you here to talk about my life,” I tell him shortly.
“Why am I here?”
“We need to go over the plan. We both need to be able to trust that the other is doing what they’re supposed to be doing for this to work, and I have a hard time trusting you.
Especially when you keep doing stupid shit like getting yourself thrown out of every town hall,” I chide, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t mention it.
He sighs as if he was just waiting for me to say something about his latest confrontation with Jacob, which annoys me. “It’d be stupider if I started behaving differently now.”
He has a point, and I know he has a point. I already thought of it, which is why I told myself I wouldn’t say anything. Old habits die hard, though.
“Fine. Sit down.” I gesture to the stools in front of the workbench where a large copy of the development’s blueprints is sitting.
He takes the stool closest to the door, so I sit to his left, between him and the rear wall of the storage unit.
I wish this space were bigger and he wasn’t so close.
“These columns,” I begin, pointing to each in turn, “are the ones we have to cut. You know how they have to be cut?”
“Yes,” Tre murmurs, glancing up to meet my gaze.
“Draw it for me,” I order, extending a pencil toward him.
“Fiona, I know how they need to be cut.”
“Then draw it for me. For this to work, I have to be able to trust you. So prove that I can trust you, Tre.”
He takes the pencil from my fingers, carefully avoiding touching them, with a muttered, “Fine,” sketches the shape of an I-beam, and then draws the cuts that need to be made in it. “Satisfied?” he asks, looking back at my face when he’s finished.
“Yes.” I swallow. “Okay. So you’ll cut those. The guard isn’t checking inside the buildings at all, right?”
“No. Just the exteriors, and still only a quick drive-by. Like before. Or maybe… shit. I don’t know. It’s supposed to be a quick drive-by. But Eddie…”
I nod, trying not to think about Eddie squeezing chocolate syrup onto that woman’s tits—or the inevitable memory of Tre’s hips grinding into mine that goes hand in hand with it.
“Alright. Anyway.” I clear my throat. “I’ll keep watch while you’re cutting the beams. If each one takes thirty minutes, that’s three and a half hours.
Security will come by at least a few times, and we need to make sure everything is dark and quiet when they do.
After you’re done, we’ll switch. You’ll keep watch, and I’ll set the charges.
That’ll take around an hour. When I’m done, we’ll switch again.
I’ll keep watch, and you’ll drive the construction vehicles into the building.
Then we’ll blow it all up and get the hell away before anyone has a clue what’s happened. ”
Tre nods in agreement.
“Okay. Tell me what the plan is,” I order.
“We just went over the plan, Fiona.”
“Tre. If you want me to trust you, tell me what the plan is.”
He sighs, but repeats everything I said.
I make him do it three more times, then ask, “Do you have a bike?”
“A bike?”
“Yeah. A bike with pedals. Typically, people ride them to get to and from places.”
“Yes. I have a bike. Why?”
“Ride it tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Is this how you got up Bridal Mountain?” Tre asks, huffing behind me.
“Yes.” It’s right after nine-thirty on Friday.
I could be hanging out in a bar, looking for someone to get lucky with.
Instead, I’m pushing my bike up a particularly steep hill on one of the trails that leads out to Hay Creek.
To make matters worse, I’m wearing a ski mask—because you can’t be too careful with people having trail cams everywhere these days—sweating my ass off, with a backpack full of explosives strapped to my back.
“That’s a long bike ride.”
“Yes. I know. I did it,” I reply shortly.
“Just making conversation.”
“What is it with you needing everyone to be your friend?” I resist asking if it’s because mommy and daddy didn’t love him enough. I’m trying not to be a total ass. It’s not Tre’s fault I’m frustrated. Sexually or otherwise.
“Who doesn’t want people to be their friends? Besides you, of course. Even your brother wants people to be his friends.”
“Yeah, but Ewan doesn’t really care. It’s pathological with you. Well. Except with Jacob Nammier.” I smirk.
“That guy’s a douchebag,” Tre mutters.
“No argument here.”
“You’re really good at making him think the sun shines out of his ass,” Tre says with what seems to be forced neutrality.
“Mhmm.”
“You guys dated in high school, right?”
“Me and Jacob?” I ask as I finally crest the hill and sling a leg over my bike.
“Who else?” he says flatly.
“We went on a couple of dates. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Tre says, falling silent.
Thirty-five minutes go by before we make it to the Hay Creek site, ski masks on the entire time.
We leave the bikes in the tree line and make our way across the site to the condo building, which is framed but not walled in.
Exactly like Tre said it would be. Hopefully that means the rest of his intel is good.
“Okay. Start cutting, and I’ll watch the road.”
“Alright,” he agrees. “It’s going to be noisy, though. I might not hear you if you’re talking to me.”
“I’ll make sure you know when the security guards are checking things out,” I promise as I glance at my watch. It’s a bit after ten. “You should have around forty minutes before the next security check.”
“Want to help me find an outlet?” Tre asks, pulling a saw from his own very full, very bulky backpack. “I can use the cordless saw if I need to, but it’ll go faster if I can use the corded one.”
“Fine.”
It takes almost ten minutes of searching before we find what appears to be a temporary electrical box for the builders to use during construction. Then I return to an opening in the framing to watch the road leading to the site.
The night is dark, and the moon is obscured behind a thick cloud layer.
The noise from Tre’s saw cutting through the I-beam behind me is unbelievably loud, and I wonder how far the sound carries.
I’m trying to reassure myself with the fact that light travels faster than sound, which should mean Eddie won’t be able to hear us before I can see the lights on his truck, but I’m not so sure that will hold true given the craggy mountain terrain and the twisting roads that lead here.
I’m shifting my weight back and forth when I see the faintest glow in the distance. It’s almost eleven. I run across the floor to Tre, grabbing his shoulder. “Stop,” I hiss when he looks at me.
He nods and shuts the saw off as I study his work.
He’s almost done with the first one. It’s going slower than he anticipated, and I adjust my expectations about how long this will take, beginning to calculate a new timeline.
Call it another four hours to get through the beams. So, probably around three in the morning.
Then say, forty-five minutes for me to set up the explosives.
That brings us to four in the morning with having to pause for the security sweeps.
Then another thirty minutes to get the construction vehicles into the building…
Most likely it’ll be around five-thirty in the morning when we blow it up.
Just as the sun is rising. There’ll be no cover of darkness to escape under.
And it’ll be Saturday morning. It’s likely there will be some hikers and joggers out on the trails.
Shit. My dad was right. There’s not enough time.
“Hey,” I whisper to Tre. “It’s taking too long to cut through the beams. At this rate, it’ll be light when we blow up the building.”
Tre looks from me to the I-beam and back to me. “I’m going as fast as I can, but we can’t leave it like this! They don’t do a ton of work on the weekends, but someone is bound to come out to the site. They’ll definitely notice the giant cuts!”
Shit. He’s right too.
“What if we only cut four of them instead of seven?” Tre asks.
I shake my head. “No. It has to be seven. Seven is the minimum number.” My dad was emphatic about that. It has to be seven, and it has to be these seven.
“Well then, what do you want to do?”
The security truck’s headlights sweep across the building as it drives past, and I jump.
“Fiona,” Tre says, reaching out to grab my elbow, bringing my attention back to him. “What do you want to do?”
“I…” If we leave without having completed the plan, this will all have been for nothing.
Someone will show up to the building during the day and notice the sabotage.
We won’t get a second chance. “I think we’re going to have to risk it.
We can split up when we leave the site. If we’re lucky, we won’t run into anyone.
It’ll still be early. Maybe no one will be out… ?”
Tre nods. “Okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. After we detonate the bombs, we’ll split up. You go one way, I’ll go another. If we’re careful, we might be able to hear anyone coming and hide before they see us. Otherwise, just act like you’re out on a ride before the day gets too warm and muggy.”
“Alright,” I agree. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but I’m not about to let the opportunity to destroy Henley and Montank’s site pass me by.
The security truck disappears, and the glow of its lights steadily fades away. Once they’re no longer visible, Tre returns to cutting the beams, and I take up watch again.
It’s one in the morning when the security truck comes and goes for the third time.
I break our plan and begin rigging the explosives on the four I-beams Tre has managed to cut through so far.
He definitely notices when I do, and I can tell he wants to say something about it.
He doesn’t, though. The truck won’t return for another fifty minutes, and I can get these four set up in twenty or thirty minutes and then go back to playing lookout.
Plus, it’ll save us a bit of time. We might be able to leave during the dawn instead of at sunrise this way, and I feel like we’ll need every single minute we can get.
The next time I stop Tre, it’s just before two. The security truck is back again, and he’s halfway through the sixth column. We take a seat on the concrete floor, and Tre offers me a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” I take a sip and then pass it back to him.
He’s long since removed his ski mask, and his face is smudged with dirt and flecks of steel dust. There’s a sharp contrast of clean skin around his eyes, nose, and mouth from the safety goggles and mask he’s been wearing.
“You’ll probably be finished cutting the beams before three, right? ”
Tre nods.
“Okay, once you finish, you can keep an eye on the road, and I’ll rig up the last of the explosives.
By the time I’m done, it should be close to three.
As soon as the truck is gone, start bringing the vehicles in, and I’ll get the detonation cord set up outside.
Bring in as many vehicles as you can before three-forty.
After that, we’ll bring the building down on whatever is inside.
Everything else, we’ll just have to leave. ”
“Alright,” Tre agrees.
Not having someone watching the road constantly is risky, but not as risky as waiting until five-thirty in the morning to blow up the building.
When the truck leaves, Tre immediately returns to sawing through the I-beams, and I impatiently shift my weight from foot to foot. I want to tell him to hurry, but I know he’s going as fast as he can.
It’s two-forty-five when he finishes, and I begin putting the remaining charges in place, running at a forty-five degree angle through the squares Tre cut in the center crosspiece of the beams, abutting the outside crosspieces.
When the charges blow, they’ll cut the beams at an angle that should lead to the second floor falling directly on top of the first and bringing the others with it.
It’s not how actual building demolition would be performed—a fact my dad mentioned no less than a dozen times as we were working through the plan—but it’ll be so damaged they’ll have no choice but to clear the site and start over.
It should delay them by almost a year.
Tre grabs my arm, startling me from my thoughts, and I don’t jump, but I definitely flinch. He notices and quickly lets go, saying, “He’s back,” with a pained expression marring his face.
We stand in the deepest shadows of the building, waiting for Eddie to drive past on his security sweep, and Tre continues darting glances at me throughout the process.
He looks like he wants to say something, but there’s no time, and I don’t want to hear it.
As soon as the truck is out of sight, I return to setting up the last of the charges, and Tre leaves the building.
A few minutes later, an engine rumbles to life, and then a minute after that, a little tractor—a skid steer, Tre said it was called—comes in.
By the time I’m standing in the tree line with the detonating cord in my hands, Tre has moved over a dozen small construction vehicles into the building. The cloud cover dissipated during the time we spent inside, and moonlight is bouncing off his hair as he walks across the site to join me.
“Are you ready?” I ask when he reaches me.
He grins. “Hell yes. Let’s do it.”
I set the cord down, pull a lighter from my pocket as I kneel, and hold the flame to it. We’re over a thousand feet away from the site, and we both track the flame as it races up the cord.
“Hell yes,” I whisper—echoing Tre’s words—when the charges go off and the center of the building sinks in on itself in a groaning cacophony. The smile on Tre’s face matches mine. “Let’s get out of here.”