Lies I Told(72)

“Not enough,” my mom said, still panting. “Only seven. They’re heavier than they look.”

I was trying to think of a way I could help, if only to get us out of there faster, to get to Parker faster, when sirens wailed in the distance. We froze, looking at one another with wide eyes as we listened.

They weren’t close. Not at first. But a few seconds later I couldn’t deny it. They were getting closer. Louder.

“What do we do?” I hissed.

“Shhh,” my dad said, holding up a finger. “Wait.”

We stood perfectly still, like that would somehow stop the cops from finding us, when the truth is, if they were on their way to the Fairchild estate, we were done. My heart was pounding, a roar in my ears, as I listened.

The sirens got louder, then louder still. Just when I was sure the police were going to come barreling down the driveway, lights blazing, guns drawn, they seemed to get a little farther away.

“Are they—”

“Quiet!” my dad ordered.

I swallowed hard, tuning back into the sound. But I was right: they were getting farther away now, fading into the distance. I only had a second to be relieved before I realized why they were there to begin with.

“Parker . . . ,” I said softly. “They’re still after Parker.”

Cormac’s eyes turned flinty. “It doesn’t matter, Grace. Not right now. We proceed as planned and go back for Parker later.”

I swallowed my dread and turned my attention back to the gold, still bundled in the tarp on the floor. If loading the gold was the only way to Parker, I wanted it done as soon as possible. “What can we do to move it up faster?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. They’re heavy. We’ll have to do the best we can with what we have.”

My mom threw a bunch of canvas bags my way. “Why don’t you unload them into the bags and put them in the truck while we bring them up?”

I nodded. Whatever it took.

My dad untied the rope on the tarp and hurriedly unloaded the bars. Then he and my mom disappeared into the bunker to get the next load.

I set the gun aside and went over to the gold, loading all seven bars in one bag. I couldn’t lift it. My mom was right; they were heavier than they looked. I took two of the bars out and tried again. Still heavy, but at least now I could half drag, half carry it to the truck.

I took a quick look around outside to make sure we were in the clear, then returned to the carriage house. I’d just put the last two bars into a new bag when I heard the thud of footsteps on the stairs in the bunker. They were coming up with the next load.

It took me two hours to realize we wouldn’t make it by sunrise. We had averaged six trips in that hour, with seven bars in each trip. That was only forty-two gold bars. With over seven hundred to load, it would take us fifteen more hours to get it all up the stairs.

And that was time we just didn’t have.

After a quick conference and a few different ideas, we decided we’d each have to carry our own load. My mom and I wouldn’t be able to carry as much as my dad, but we’d still average more bars per trip, which would translate into less time.

“Whatever’s left at sunrise, we leave behind,” I said, when we’d finally agreed on the strategy.

My mom shook her head. “We can’t do that. The buyers are expecting seven hundred bars.”

“They’ll get zero bars if we get caught,” I snapped.

She looked surprised, but my dad nodded. I thought I saw admiration in his eyes. “She’s right, Renee. Let’s get what we can and get out of here.”

I followed them down the stairs. We were leaving ourselves unguarded up top, but it couldn’t be helped. I grabbed a tarp and made my way to the metal cabinet, loading what I could carry. Then I started back up the stairs behind my dad.

Time seemed both to stand still and speed up. I lost count of the trips we made up and down the stairs, afraid if I kept track I’d just sit down and cry. It was the last place I wanted to be, the last thing I wanted to be doing. Parker was alone and in trouble, but this was my only way back to him. I kept moving.

There were fourteen bars left in the cabinet when I noticed the blue-gray light seeping into the carriage house. The sun was coming up.

“Two more trips,” my dad said. “We can do it.”

We made the last two trips and hurried to the truck, my mom organizing the bags in the back while my dad and I hurried down to the bunker. We closed the cabinet and replaced the broken padlock, leaving everything as close as possible to the way it was when we found it. If anyone really came searching, they’d see that the lock had been cut, but we might buy some time if everything looked the same from a distance.

We closed the big double doors at the top of the stairs and replaced the padlocks there, too. Then we dragged the mat over the top of the bunker and put our masks back on, just in case the camera outside the carriage house was back in operation.

I was heading for the truck when I noticed the gun, still on the floor where I’d left it. I picked it up and slipped it in my pocket. It gave me the creeps, but leaving it on the floor of the carriage house would be like handing evidence to the people who would eventually investigate our crime.

My mom, back in her mask, was lowering the rear door of the truck when I got outside. My dad got into the driver’s seat and we slid in next to him. I took the passenger side door so I could get out, open the gate, and reset the Fairchilds’ alarm on our way off the property.