ERICA #3
The security guard lets out a sigh, like he’s not paid enough for this. “Okay, sir. Five minutes.”
“Oh, thank you. Wanna see a magic trick?”
“I’m good. Gotta go take my break anyway…” he trails off.
“You’re too friendly, Booboo Bear,” Tanya mutters.
“You love me.”
"Yes, I do, my Poochie Woochie.”
“And I love you, my Squishy.”
“Guys.” Suri’s voice is flat. “Trying to concentrate here.”
I take another turn. Then another. Now I’m wondering if I’ve lost the poor dolt.
“Forty-five seconds,” Suri says.
“I’m in, booting the tower.” A frantic clatter on the keyboard. “Come on, you piece of garbage, wake up.”
“Oh, there you are,” Dale says. “Security says we gotta move it out soon.”
“Thirty seconds.”
At the end of a hallway, I go through glass doors and find myself in a garden courtyard.
It’s quite nice out here, actually. Quiet.
And the muggy heat is starting to let off to make it a serene space away from the city noise.
There are string lights strung across the courtyard, a grid of plants growing directly out of the stone and red brick accents, and stone benches placed throughout.
I sit. I smooth my skirt over my boots. I make myself breathe like a woman who has all the time in the world.
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Talk to me,” I say.
“System’s air-gapped. I have to forge the handshake manually.” A frantic clatter of keys, audible even through the earpiece. “It’s asking for a system sync. Rejecting my signature.”
That’s when I see Hobbs.
He’s coming down the hallway fast, eyes locked on me, shoulders already squared for a fight. He bursts through the double glass doors like a Bond villain. I guess he kind of is.
His chest is heaving, tie crooked, and he finds me sitting there, cool as anything, like I’ve been waiting on him for an hour.
“So we meet again,” I say.
He straightens his jacket, buying himself a beat he doesn’t need.
“Such an elaborate ruse to get me alone. You shouldn’t have.”
“Oh you know me,” I say. “I’m nothing if not impractical.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. Erica. Just give me half the plunder that’s all I’m asking.”
“If you’re trying to entrap me, it’s not going to work.”
“I’m not trying to do anything of a sort. I know you want that necklace and I want for you to ditch the hockey player.”
Just the mention of Jeremiah out of his mouth gives me rage. “Leave him out out of this.”
Somehow, Zoe’s voice brings me back to my senses before I whack Hobbs with my super cool combat boots.
“I’m overriding the environmental control module! I’m telling the computer the weight change is just a pressure drop from the ventilation system… come on… accept the packet…”
“Five. Four. Three.” Suri’s voice trembles.
Then static.
Then a sharp digital chirp, and Zoe’s voice, ragged with something that isn’t quite a laugh. “Scale’s zeroed. Computer thinks you weigh nothing, Suri. You’re a ghost.”
“Tanya standing by for the load,” Tanya says, already moving toward the vault corridor.
I let my shoulders drop for the first time all night.
“You know you’re not gonna get close to that necklace without my help,” Hobbs says.
“I don’t want the necklace, and you know this.”
“Then what do you want?”
“You know exactly what I want.” I fold my arms. “Must we go over this again? It’s getting a little redundant, to be honest.”
“Oh, come on.” He throws up a hand. “Again with those stupid letters. I told you, Erica, they don’t exist.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Hobbs. It’s all over your face.”
He circles, doesn’t sit. “It would be so easy, you know. Things go missing when they’re transported from one place to another. I can help you. I’m the only one who can help you.”
“Just like you helped my dad?” I shake my head. “No thanks.”
His eyes narrow. “Your father didn’t have the vision I have. He's small-time.”
“Careful,” I say, and I don’t even have to fake the edge in it.
“Or what?” He almost laughs. “You'll set your hockey player on me?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Cart’s loaded,” Tanya murmurs, so soft I nearly miss it. “On my way to rendezvous.”
Hobbs tilts his head, studying me the way he probably studies old statues, looking for the crack. “I gotta hand it to you, though. Catching his eye was clever. But you'll break his heart the same way you break everything you touch.”
“The same way I’ll break you,” I say with a saccharine smile.
“Cart’s clear,” Zoe says. “Dale, get the van ready to roll.”
“Born ready,” Dale says.
“Splitting off now,” Tanya says. “Catch you on the flip side.”
“Me too,” says Ivy. “I’m getting out of here before Hobbs comes back.”
“You’re playing with fire, Armitage.” Hobbs gets in close now. “I don’t care who you are or who your great-great-grandparents were. You have no proof and no right. And the Friendship Jewel is under my protection. Mine!”
I let the silence sit long enough that he thinks he’s won it.
“And yet.” I take my time, looking at my fingernails. “Here you are. With me. Out here in this beautiful courtyard. I really love the twinkly lights, don’t you?”
Something flickers across his face before he catches it. His director candidacy. The board. Six years of climbing a ladder he built on my father’s back, and none of it worth anything if the one thing he’s supposed to be protecting walks out of that ballroom on his watch.
He doesn’t say another word. He turns and bolts back toward the ballroom.
“Whew!” says Ginger. “That was a tough crowd. But I made out with ten K in hotel vouchers anywhere in the world, so I call that a win.”
“Good job, Ginger,” Zoe says. “We’re clear and heading to headquarters.”
“Copy that,” Ginger says. “There’s a bottle of chardonnay with my name on it.”
“Dibs!” Ivy says.
“You can’t call dibs. I literally just said my name’s on it.”
“Wait. You actually wrote your name on it? Like with a Sharpie?”
“Shutting you guys off now, are we clear?”
Everyone but Rue, because Rue is long gone, echoes back. “Clear.”
I press a hand flat against my chest and let myself have exactly one full breath. We did it. We actually pulled this off.
That’s when Jeremiah comes through the same door Hobbs just vanished through, breathing hard. His tie is loose around his neck and he’s wearing a face I have never seen there before.