Sawyer #3
He shrugs, a big shit-eating grin stretching his lips. “Okay then.” He pulls out his phone to bring up his bank information. I wonder if he’d do this sober.
“Here.” Drunk thumbs jab at the screen before he shoves the phone in my face.
He looks at an older couple—happily married for seventeen years, I like to imagine—sitting at a table a few feet away.
“I wouldn’t get too excited,” the kid tells them.
“The dude can’t even pay his own tab, let alone yours. ”
I snatch his phone while he’s busy gloating and hunch over while gluing my narrowed eyes to the screen. “What the fuck?”
I shake my head while clicking to find his account number. Thirteen digits. It’ll only take twenty seconds to memorize them.
“You spoiled little shit,” I mutter. “What are you, twelve? How did you get half a mill?”
He tries to take the phone, but I simply twist away. “You don’t need to announce it to the room,” he grinds. Finally, his brain twitches to life.
Once the numbers are firmly in my mind, I click back to the account balance. I slide from the stool and toss him his cell. “I stand corrected.”
Turning to Sherry, I push the book across the bar to her and frown. “I’m gonna run out to my car real quick. Will you watch this for me?”
Her glossy lips part, then freeze. She lifts her shoulders almost imperceptively and flips her hands in a noncommittal, shrug-like gesture. She’d have to be out of her mind to believe I’m coming back—and as we’ve already established, she’s smart.
I snatch the rejected, stolen credit cards off the table and leave.
On my way out, I lower my head in mock embarrassment. Toss my hand in a little wave. “Sorry about the language.”
Outside, I dump the credit cards in a bin, along with the glasses.
Yanking my shirt from my pants, I lock eyes with a mom carrying a screeching toddler from the hotel.
She dips her head immediately, her face bright red.
She’s so worked up, she doesn’t notice when the little guy snatches sunglasses from her open purse and chucks them to the ground.
Her wallet is next, flopping onto the pavement as she hurries away.
I jog to the wallet and pick it up, but the woman is already at her car. Which is just as well because we’re cutting it close. I check the time just as Wilcox, my ‘business’ partner for the last year, pulls up to the curb. If I’d taken one more minute, we’d be late.
After climbing into his black Impala, I open up the wallet.
Iris Parkins. My eyes scan the address while Wilcox pulls away.
“What the fuck, Sawyer?” he growls. “We could’ve been late.”
“Could’ve been.”
“Do you have any idea how important this is?” he asks, so worked up you’d think his life was at risk instead of his wallet’s waistline. “The Shadow Sanctum isn’t your dentist. They don’t reschedule appointments.”
He fidgets beside me, his body leaned toward the wheel as he eagerly winds out of the parking lot onto the road that’ll lead us to the compound of the richest cult in North America. Maybe even the world.
Their compound sits on a rhodium mine—the world's most precious metal—and Wilcox’s cousin who works at the town’s bank claims they take nothing but cash. Which checks out considering they’re a cult. They’re not known to believe in banks. Or taxes.
They’ve got piles of cash so high, the biggest concern is figuring out how to get it all out on one trip. It’s a big job. Huge.
And he’s right. I know he’s right, and I do care. I’ve only known him for six months, and I’m not interested enough to pry, but I can guess I need this money more than he does.
Right now, though, I have shit to get out of my brain.
I bring up my notes app to type in Duncan Thomas’s account number.
“What were you doing in there anyway?” Wilcox throws me an annoyed scowl.
“I need you to get an account number to Vera.”
Vera is his… girlfriend. Sort of.
“What?” He slams the center console shut when I open it to look for a pen. “We’re about to pull off the heist of the century, and you’re still snatching pocket change?”
I move the wallet to the cup holder and pat it. “When she’s done with the account number, have Vera mail this to the address on the license.”
“Sawyer.”
“Relax. I’m just warming up.”
“Warming up…” His grip on the wheel pales as he stops at a light.
A minute passes before I realize he isn’t going to say anything else.
It isn’t difficult for me to figure people out, but I still haven’t decided if Wilcox is a delusional coward or if he’s smart.
Delusional because he thinks he’s the one person in the world I haven’t deemed a mark or smart because he knows he needs me to get what he really wants. Which is rich.
Either way, he bites his tongue. I don’t know what I would say if he didn’t. The truth is, I have a compulsion. I can’t stop.
The other truth is, I need him too… For now. He’s my ticket inside The Shadow Sanctum. The contact inside is his, the meeting was set up by him.
But honestly, our partnership expires as soon as I’m a member.