Lies I Told(63)

We stuck to the walls until we reached the living room window. We’d left it open, and I kept watch while Parker climbed in to reset the alarm. He reappeared a minute later, hurrying out the window and shutting it while counting, careful not to exceed the two-minute delay.

Window securely closed, we timed the cameras and raced across the lawn. My heart pounded in my ears as I scrabbled over the fence and waited for Parker to land behind me. When he did, we hurried into the trees, anxious to be away from the Fairchilds’ cameras.

I took one look back at the house and grounds. The next time I was here this time of night, it would be to steal the gold. And it would be the last night I’d be in Playa Hermosa.





Forty-Nine


“Are you going to eat that or play with it?”

I looked up at Selena, sitting next to me in the cafeteria as the rest of the group talked and goofed off around us. “Both?”

She looked at me questioningly, and I realized that there were downsides to having friends. To having someone know you.

I took a halfhearted bite of my salad, hyperaware of everything going on around me. Logan’s hand on my knee under the table. The holiday lights winking around the cafeteria in celebration of the upcoming winter break. Harper and Olivia bickering over some kind of archaic fashion rule.

It had been two weeks since our recon mission at the Fairchilds’ house. I’d spent most of my free time with Logan, trying to act normal. But inside, I was screaming against the ticking clock of my time in Playa Hermosa. My time with Logan and Selena.

Plans for the night of the theft were under way, and my mom was working to verify the Fairchilds’ schedule with Leslie, hoping for a two-day period when the whole family would be gone. Anything less and it would be tough to make a clean getaway before it was discovered that the gold was missing.

I glanced over at Logan, and he leaned down, leaving a gentle kiss on my cheek. Something painful tugged at my heart as I looked into his eyes, saw the light there that was meant for me. I wondered if he saw the same thing in my eyes. If later he would think everything I said was a lie, or if he would remember the way I looked at him and know some part of it had been true.

I glanced away as he went back to his conversation with Raj across the table. I couldn’t help smiling as my gaze fell on the others. Olivia and Harper, engaged in their heated debate about clothes while Rachel rolled her eyes next to them. Raj, leaning over the table, talking to Logan with intensity about a new video game. David, on the other side of Selena, holding her hand under the table.

I would miss them. Even Rachel, in some strange way. She was a pain in the ass, a royal bitch sometimes. But she cared about her friends, was even willing to look crazy for them. She had gone to bat for Logan when it counted, even if he didn’t realize it yet. That made her a better person than me.

They weren’t perfect. They had problems. Made mistakes. But they were real, and the authenticity of their lives suddenly stood in stark contrast to the shiny facade of my own.

I’d created a facsimile of a life. It had seemed real when I hadn’t looked too hard, like one of those books with two images—one on top that seemed complete until you lifted it to reveal the detail underneath.

I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe Parker had been right. Maybe I had been too young. Too grateful to have a chance at a real family. Too afraid of what I would find—and what I’d have to do about it—if I looked too hard.

Now I had, and nothing seemed any clearer for the revelation.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, surprised to see a text from my dad.

Meeting 3:00pm

I looked at Parker, holding his phone. He met my eyes, the wordless communication we’d developed on the job moving between us.

It could only mean one thing: it was time to make our move.





Fifty


I knew the plan was in motion the minute I got home. The atmosphere was charged, full of expectation, like the air in the moment before a thunderstorm.

“Are we all set?” Parker asked, the moment the door to the War Room was closed.

“As set as we can be.” My dad gestured to the table. “Sit, and we’ll go over everything.”

Parker sat down, nervously tapping his foot. “Do we know when the Fairchilds will be gone?”

I swallowed my annoyance. He was too eager to see the job come to a close, totally insensitive to my inner conflict. He had nothing to lose. No good-byes to say. His friendship with the guys was a surface one, and Parker had never been interested in Rachel beyond the job.

“In a manner of speaking,” my dad said.

I looked from him to my mother.

“Warren and Leslie are staying in Burbank for a charity gala and golf tournament this weekend,” she said.

“What about Logan?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “He isn’t going.”

“Then it will have to be another weekend,” I said.

My dad shook his head. “Impossible. They don’t have another event scheduled for the next two months. We can’t afford to wait. Besides, everything is in place. We need to move.”

“We can’t just take the gold with Logan home,” I said. “And I doubt I can keep him out of the house long enough for you guys to do it.”

“You don’t have to,” my mom said.