Thick as Thieves(98)

Then he’d turned away and sauntered off down the sidewalk.

The inflection in his voice when he’d referred to Arden had turned Lisa’s stomach. For the rest of that afternoon, she’d tried to dismiss the comment and chided herself for paying any heed to it. Like father, like son, Rusty was reputed to be crafty and manipulative. He knew which buttons to push. She wasn’t about to let him bend her to his will.

Nevertheless, at nine o’clock sharp, she had joined him on the bleachers.

He’d begun with irrelevant chitchat. “When Joe worked at Welch’s, you were in and out of there quite a lot, right? You must’ve learned your way around, saw the operation of the store from behind the scenes.”

“What is this about, Rusty?”

“It’s about a lot of coin.” He winked.

Then he’d told her his plan.

“I know what you’re going to ask. Why enlist me? Well, see, Lisa, I need you to verify information provided by Foster. You know Brian Foster? The schmuck your dad tangled with the day he got fired? Him. The pussy.

“Don’t get me wrong. Foster’s smart with numbers, and he’s sincere enough, but I need a guarantee that he’s not feeding me faulty information. It would be awkward if alarm bells went off while we were hauling bales of cash out of there.”

She had listened in disbelief. In spite of herself, she was amazed by his audacity and amused by his conceit. “You’re talking madness. It’s cold out here. I’m leaving. Don’t ever bother me again.”

When she stood up to leave, despite her earlier warning about him touching her, he grabbed her hand and yanked her back down onto the bleacher.

“You’ll go along, Lisa. Want to know why you will?”

With that, he had produced copies of overdue invoices owed by her father. She’d sorted through them with mounting dismay, and with another emotion that was foreign to her: humiliation. Her spring semester tuition was two months in arrears.

“One of these days your daddy is going to fall down in a gutter and not get up again,” Rusty had said. “Where’s that going to leave you?”

Whether knowingly or not, he had stoked her worst fear. Unless Joe had a miraculous turnaround, which there had been no signs of his doing or even attempting to do, she soon would have to support herself and assume sole responsibility for Arden.

That would mean sacrificing any hope of completing her education and fulfilling the ambition she’d had to leave this nowhere town and make something noteworthy of her life.

But burglary? “If I commit a crime, where will that leave me, Rusty? In prison.”

“We won’t get caught.”

“You’re delusional. Your scheme is preposterous. As desperate as my situation is, I want no part of it, and no part of you or those other two creeps. I’ll figure out another way, an honest way, to pay our bills.”

“Not so fast, whistle britches. You’re in now, whether you want to be or not. You know the plan, you gotta do the deed.” Then he’d given her a beatific smile and said, “Don’t just think about yourself. Think about sweet little Arden.”

Again, his tone, with its undercurrent of pedophilia, had sickened her. It also had frightened her. Obviously, he had been keeping track of her schedule. He’d followed them today to the library. Otherwise he wouldn’t have known they were there and for how long.

She’d told him that she would think it over. But as she’d driven away from the football field, she knew her destiny had taken a steep, downward turn. She had made an irreversible pact with the devil.

Now here she was, in the parking lot of Burnet’s pool hall, no less, the rubber soles of her blue sneakers crunching gravel and collecting mud as she left behind her three accomplices. As well as the money.

If Rusty thought she was going to sit by quietly for six months while he played watchdog over it, he had another think coming. Foster and that sullen Burnet boy might be gullible enough to believe in Rusty’s integrity, but she sure as hell wasn’t.

She didn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that she was now a felon. Even her righteous mother would have sanctioned the drastic action she’d taken. She had done what she’d had to in order to make a better life for herself and Arden.

In any case, it was done. Now, she must somehow figure out a way to best the psychopathic Rusty Dyle without tripping herself up. Having just left him, she was already trying to devise a way to beat him at his own game and reclaim her share of the take.

When her house came into view, she could tell even from a distance that it was dark inside, just as she’d left it. No cop cars in sight. When she got closer, she turned off her headlights, steered carefully into the driveway, and made the incline at a snail’s pace.

The door on the detached garage was up. With relief, she saw that her father’s car was still there. She’d had to wait until he returned from the cemetery before she could leave and keep her date with the other three crooks. She’d made it with little time to spare.

As she’d sneaked out of the house, it had occurred to her that her dad might run out of liquor and leave the house in search of a bottle, in which case Arden would have been left alone. That had been a risk she’d had to take, but she’d banked on the cemetery visit leaving her dad depressed enough to drink himself into a stupor before passing out.