Shimmy Bang Sparkle(82)

“OK,” Stella reported. “Shower is running. Good to go.”

She and Priscilla stood with their backs to me on lookout while I jimmied the lock using the credit card. It was an old trick, but it never failed, not if you knew how to do it. When I got the lock open, I found the chain waiting, just as I’d expected. I made a slipknot with the rubber band around the chain, then affixed the rubber band to the inside of the door using a strip of tape. As I pulled the door closed—disabling the door lock with my finger—I felt the rubber band catch on the knob-end of the lock, and the tension pulled it out of the slot. The chain lock slid open, and we were in.

Everything went exactly as planned, and we were as calm and collected as we would have been if we’d done this job a hundred times. Stella stood guard by the bathroom, holding Priscilla and listening. I went for the briefcase, affixed by the metal loop to the leg of the bed, which was bolted to the floor. I sat on the edge of the bed and took the case in my hands. I slowly scrambled the numbers, aligning them to zero.

And then I got down and dirty with thumb wheels. One at a time.

The first wheel was a breeze, four. The second took a little more time, and I had to make two full rotations before I pinned it down to nine. The third wheel was the easiest—a process of elimination starting at zero. It wasn’t one. It wasn’t two. And it wasn’t three.

But just as I was about to move the wheel to four, the gentle hush of the water from the shower went silent, and the sound of the shower door sliding open cut the air.

Fuck.





39

STELLA

In my head I was saying, “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” over and over again, while also listening for what the guard was doing in the bathroom. His feet squeaked on the marble tile, and I heard the towel rack rattle.

I turned to Nick, wide-eyed. Just at that instant, the case popped open, with a very distinctive and cringe-worthy snap. The guard apparently had an ear for that sound, because just as Nick laid his hand on the North Star . . .

The bathroom door began to open.

My heart plummeted down through my body. Automatically, I seized the doorknob and pulled it shut.

Which was when the guard realized he wasn’t alone in the room . . . and he started to fight back.

It was unbelievable. It was terrifying. It was like we’d caged a rabid animal. He began banging and hollering and yanking so hard on the door that I thought my wrist would break. I couldn’t hold him—I absolutely could not hold him. My hands weren’t big enough, the knob was too slippery, and the guard was much too strong.

Like time slowed down, like everything stood still, I became aware only of Nick standing next to me, gripping the doorknob over my hand with his, using so much force and taking up so much area that he crowded me out completely. I clutched Priscilla to me to keep her quiet and focused on Nick’s hand—his knuckles white, his fingers red at the tips from straining and pulling to keep the guard from getting out.

We had to get out of there. Except that was when the reality caught up to my thoughts.

We couldn’t get out of there. Not together.

One of us had to hold the door. Only one of us was going to be able to get out of there.

It was either going to be Nick or me that got out. But not both.

As the guard raised a whole new kind of hell from the bathroom, yanking on the doorknob with a two-handed grip that made me wonder how long the knob could stay in one piece, Nick mouthed, Shhhhhh, and looked me hard in the eye. As though the guard wasn’t bellowing at the top of his lungs, it became just me and Nick there together, alone. “Listen to me.” His whispers weren’t whispers at all. Each word was crystal clear. “Get the fuck out of here.”





40

NICK

I would never have made her happy. I think I’d known that all along. But one thing I could do, right then and right there, was make sure she got a square fucking shot at her dreams. I was going to fall on my sword for her, for the one I loved. Because that was the only way this could end.

I kept hold of the knob with only one hand. The guard was giving the fight his all—he pounded the door with the flat of his hand, and it shivered on the hinges. With my free hand, I reached into my pocket, gave her the diamond, and repeated, “Get. The. Fuck. Out of here.”

She was like a deer in the goddamned headlights. Her eyes were wide, frozen and unblinking. I pushed the diamond into her palm until her fingers contracted around it. She shook her head to say she wasn’t leaving, and her lips began to tremble. “Not without you,” she whispered.

A scene from an old movie I used to love flashed into my head. White Fang. That lone wolf, by himself in the forest, and the guy who’d loved him screaming at him to go. For his own good. For his own fucking safety.

She was smart and she was sensible, but at that moment I knew better. I took the knob with both hands and held tight. “Run,” I growled into her ear. “Run.”

She looked desperate, horrified. Her eyes had become damp with tears. There was panic and pain and all the shit I never wanted to see on her face, never for as long as I fucking lived. But I was digging in my heels. It was either me or her who got out of that fucking room. She was the light, she was the freedom. Everything was out in front of her. I was just an ex-con and always would be. “Never look back. Live your dreams. Forget about me.”