The Black Coats(33)
“Quiet!” interrupted Casey, her eyes darting to the rearview mirror. “They’re here.”
Thea pressed back against the seat, trying her best to blend in with the gray leather. Bea ducked, and Casey sat still as a stone.
“That was fast,” Thea whispered. Really fast. Through the window she could see Mirabelle making her way to the front of the dorm, her arm linked loosely around Arthur Brewe’s shoulder and her body swaying drunkenly with each step. Louise was standing nonchalantly out of sight on the opposite side of the dorm, sweaty from her run.
“You’re up,” whispered Casey, but Thea was already slipping out the back door. Crouching in the shadows, she gently shut the car door, silently measuring the distance from the car to the front door. Mirabelle’s loud laughter swallowed any sounds. Thea stared intensely at Arthur Brewe as he struggled to get the door open. Mirabelle stumbled against him and his key card slipped from his hand onto the ground. They looked at each other for a minute before dissolving into hysterical giggles.
“You’re so drunk!” slurred Mirabelle. “I got it; I got it.” She bent down, giving Arthur a generous view down her shirt. Thea saw her switch the cards and watched as the real card fluttered to the ground behind Mirabelle’s back. The eye of the motion-sensor camera followed Mirabelle and Arthur as they slipped through the door to Bradford Dorm. Thea burst out from behind the car, quickly closing the distance between the car and the door. The camera was already turning back in her direction, but Thea was fast, scooping the card up in her palm before racing back to the car, just beyond the view of the camera. As soon as she reached the vehicle, she exhaled. “Got it.”
Getting his key card was of utmost importance. The key-card sensors for the dorm were high-tech; visual security was not. Cameras were situated only by the main entrance, leaving the back vulnerable—as long as she could unlock it. She felt the key card, warm in her palm. “Casey, take us around. Let’s not leave Mirabelle with that treasure of a man any longer than we need to.” The car pulled up to the back of the dorm, and Louise poked her head in the window.
“Are we ready?” she asked nervously.
“No,” Bea said flatly.
Casey wiggled her shoulders. “Absolutely.”
Thea pulled her collar up over the sides of her face. “Either way, it’s time.”
Team Banner grabbed their black backpacks from the trunk and, on Thea’s signal, swiftly approached the rear entrance of the dorm. They were covered by a thick canopy of stone, and as she reached the door, Thea grinned at the irony: Coventry’s grandiose architecture had inadvertently given them the perfect cover.
“Allow me.” She ran Arthur Brewe’s card over the lock. It snapped open, and Team Banner made their way into Bradford Dorm. Casey took the lead, and they followed her through a winding set of back staircases and tight hallways of dorms.
Bea reached up and covered her nose. “It smells disgusting in here.”
“It’s definitely making me rethink dorm living,” whispered Louise.
The small unmarked staircase sat at the end of the hallway, jutting out between the laundry room and a wide window that overlooked the campus. Silently, the team slipped up the stairs, the blackness of the hallway swallowing their forms. Mirabelle had left the door unlocked, as promised, and they slipped in easily, Thea closing the door and bolting it behind them.
His room was unsparingly gigantic, with a giant king-size bed in the middle of it. Multicolored Christmas lights blinked in the dark, displaying the bottles of liquor that sat half-empty among piles of unwashed laundry, textbooks, and video-game controllers. The only neat spot in Arthur’s room was his immaculately clean desk, glowing under the reflection of a behemoth monitor and two expensive black server towers. Thea’s eyes found the bed where Mirabelle was dancing on the mattress fully clothed, a bottle of vodka in her hand. Vodka that happened to actually be water. Arthur was lying underneath her legs, a look of predatory delight across his surprisingly boyish face.
“That’s it, girl, let me see . . . such a tease you are.”
The team watched silently, waiting for him to notice them. He gave a hysterical giggle. “Now, hold on, pretty girl, what’s your name? Ash? Aggy?”
“That’s right, Aggy,” purred Mirabelle.
That was when he noticed the four black silhouettes in the shadows.
“What the hell?” Arthur reared back, ready to leap up from the bed, but Mirabelle dropped her knees down onto his arms, pinning him beneath her.
“Sit still, you bastard,” she hissed. “It will all be over soon.”
He bucked his torso once before Mirabelle pulled out a knife and held it to his throat, her ice-blue eyes lighting up with power.
Thea felt her stomach drop and said, “Steady . . .”
Mirabelle nodded and exhaled. “I’m okay.”
Arthur went still, his breathing becoming panicked.
“What do you want? Money? I have it! Tons of it. We can go to the ATM! My father—”
Thea cut him off, stepping boldly into the light. “We know exactly who your father is. In fact, we know everything about you, Arthur.” Her eyes combed over his dorm room. “So no, we don’t care about the mounds of money you’ve made selling pictures of your conquests to porn websites.”
His face paled. “Those are just licentious accusations! I haven’t been charged with anything! I’m innocent.”