Hush Money (10 page)

“No way. See, this is exactly what I’m
saying. Look how cowardly this is. Pictures through a window,
anonymous letter. What if he’s done this before, Joss? If I give in
to him, he’s just going to keep doing it again and again, and who
knows how many people will get hurt. I
have
to stand up to
him. I just have to.”

“But—” Phil Meeks was walking down the hall
on his way out of the building, no doubt. I had this wild urge to
grab him and shake him until he agreed to get out of town. But I
was rooted to the spot. My association with Kat, which seemed by
turns both voluntary and involuntary, was risky enough—too risky
since she was bent on being an idiot. I just couldn’t risk more
than one clueless blockhead at a time. When I’d seen him in Math I
couldn’t believe he was still around. Didn’t he think what he did
would get him reported? Didn’t he think they were coming for him?
Why didn’t he just tie a bow around his neck while he waited?

I half expected NIAC agents—possibly in riot
gear or something—to come storming in after him at any moment.

“Hey.” I just about jumped out of my skin as
someone banged into the lockers behind me. I whirled around and
looked up to find Dylan towering over me. I automatically took a
step back, bumping into Kat. It was like dancing in a crowded club.
I assume. She covered for me by shutting her locker and, you know,
talking.

“Hey, Dylan. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Um, yeah… your note said: Come by my locker
after school—gotta ask you something.”

What the hell, they’re passing notes?
Damn, voice in my head needs to cool it.

“Well, who knew if you actually would?”

“Kat, does anyone ever tell you ‘no’?”

No.

“Actually no,” she grinned, tossing curls
like there was no tomorrow. “So I’ll just tell you: you’re coming
to my party Friday night. My house. Seven o’clock. And tell
your…
posse
or whatever.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah,” she said in the tone of
Duh.
“
Everyone’s
coming.”

“Yeah, all right. Thanks.”

“Oh, hang on, I made maps.” She started
dialing her combo again.

“So, ‘everyone’ mean you’re going too,
Joss?”

But I hadn’t remembered how to talk yet.

“Of course she is,” Kat covered, rummaging. I
had this strange feeling of Kat-love sweep over me just then.

“Do you…need a ride?”

“I, um…I’m actually going home with Kat after
school on Friday. To help her set up and stuff.” Kat elbowed me in
the kidney and I had to not yelp.
She’d best not be
laughing.

“Oh, well, cool. I guess I’ll see you there
then.”

My heart was pounding away this whole time.
The conversation we’d had in the store was longer, more personal
even, kinda. But this was the second time Dylan had talked to me in
the same
month.
And yeah, he was just killing time while Kat
looked for her maps—as if Kat didn’t know exactly where they were.
I felt a lot of my Kat-love evaporate.

“Sure.”

Kat finally found her flyers and handed one
to Dylan. They bantered a little more, and I was stuck standing
between them like an idiot, saying nothing, studying the creases in
the sleeves of Dylan’s leather jacket. He finally said bye, so I
had to look up and say bye, and he was smiling at us, which must
have been for Kat, and I almost stuttered over my whole syllable.
Man, I was in a bad way and needed to stuff this stupid crush thing
before I made a total ass out of myself.

He turned and walked down the hall, which I
was really busy watching until Kat shoved me so hard from behind
that I stumbled forward.

“You big dork!”

“What?”

“My mom will be taking
us
to the store
for last minute snacks and whatever when she picks
us
up on
Friday.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t believe you did that. He was totally
going to take you to the party!”

“He asked if I needed a ride. That is
so
not the same thing.”

“Yes. It is.”

“No, it’s not. Dylan likes my dad’s store.
And he’s probably been in there enough Friday nights—like every
other guy in this town with nothing better to do—to know that it’s
usually both my parents in store on Fridays.”

“That scenario seems to having him paying a
lot of attention to how your family works…”

Yeah, maybe so.
“Then he was being
nice. Which is because he’s a nice guy, not because he’s being nice
to me in particular.”

“Sure…I’ll bet he’s going around making
carpool arrangements for the whole class.”

“Oh shut up.”

“It’s too bad he’s got such lousy taste in
friends though.”

Yeah. Really.

Dylan

The whole thing with Joss and Kat was weird.
In a good way, though. I’d been in school with Joss since
kindergarten and while I don’t really remember back that far, I
don’t ever remember her being buddy-buddy with anyone. I never
really thought anything bad about her for being a loner. It’s a
valid lifestyle choice, I guess. But it was cool to see Kat kind
of—I don’t know—taking her under her wing or whatever.

If she started talking to Kat, maybe she’d
start talking to me sometime.

Hey, it could happen.

If I thought I was thinking about her a lot
before, man, since Marco and his damn threats at the store, Joss
was pretty much all I was thinking about. I thought maybe she kind
of liked me too. Especially talking to her and Kat about the party.
Joss is quiet, but usually when she has to talk to people, she’s
pretty direct, looks them in the eye, says what she has to say, and
walks away. Not rude, just—that’s how she is. But just now she
seemed kind of shy. Yeah, she didn’t take me up on my lame offer to
take her to the party, but I hadn’t really expected her to.

Maybe it was kind of stupid of me to be
wandering around thinking about whether or not Joss was interested
in me, or to be having all kinds of fantasies about how she would
react when she somehow found out about my pact with Marco, and what
I had been willing to do to protect her. This big
my hero
moment was building up in my head. Not like that’s why I was doing
it. I just felt this need to look out for her, whether she ever
knew it or not. But if she ever found out and felt the need to
throw herself at me, I figured I’d catch her.

But yeah, kind of dumb to be thinking about
stuff like that when I was on my way to Crime Practice. I had
gotten in way over my head, and I had to find some way to get out
of this dumbass plan of Marco’s without giving him a reason to ruin
Joss, and without landing my ass in jail or State School.

Down along the river, there are a number of
abandoned old buildings. Crumbling brick, some with whole walls
missing, a lot of them completely obscured from view by trees and
stuff, and some could only be reached on foot. There was some
reason for it, something to do with the changing economy, the
railroad, I don’t know, but it had left all these early 1900s
factories—whatever they’d been—still standing, forgotten, along the
river.

One of these was our hangout, even though it
was across town from school and a hike to get there. I’d missed my
chance to get a ride with Eric, so I was stuck walking. Like I
said, it should have been strategizing time, but…

When I walked in, Jeff was smoking and
kicking a wall that still had some plaster, watching it crumble.
Eric was reading a car magazine, and it looked like Rob was doing
his homework.

“Hey, guys. Where’s Marco?”

“Detention,” Jeff answered, looking at his
watch. “Shouldn’t be much longer, though.”

“You guys hear about Kat’s party?”
Way to
prioritize.
And once I got that topic started, it went along on
its own for a few minutes, while Marco’s arrival got closer.
Finally I just broke in with, “What do you guys think about this
plan?”

“I think Eric ought to pick me up first
instead of you,” Jeff said.

“Not that,”
you moron.
“The beer
thing.”

I had everyone’s attention, though only Rob
was openly showing it. They all knew I was against this, and Rob
would be smart enough to really want me to get us out of it. If I
could just convince Eric and Jeff to back out, Marco would have to
recruit them all over again. Maybe that would be too much effort
for beer.

“What about it?” Eric asked, flipping a
page.

“Doesn’t it seem kind of…complicated to you?
I mean, why are we doing this? The whole thing with Rob and me
sneaking around cameras and disabling alarm systems—it’s total
overkill. What if we miss something? Something that gets us all
caught? What if we end up in jail over this—or worse.”

“Hey, you freaks worry about going to State
School. Not me! Just plain ol’ Jeff here. Sucks to be you.”

“Shut the hell up,” Eric drawled, pitching a
piece of crumbled brick that intentionally missed Jeff’s head and
bounced off the wall.

“But you’re fine with a criminal record,” I
said.

“We’re still minors.”

“Oh, great attitude. Come on guys, if this is
just about beer, it’s just not worth it.”

“You’re right, Dylan.” It happened really
fast. I had seen the warning look flash across Rob’s face before he
ducked his head, but I processed it about the same time I heard
Marco’s voice and felt his hand clamp, kind of painfully, on my
shoulder. “It’s not worth it,
just for beer.
It’s good that
you’re here, looking out for the team’s interests. And your concern
has showed me that it’s time to let you all in on the rest of the
plan.”

He shook me by the shoulder before he walked
away, and I was trying to find my balance in every sense as he
strode into the room and climbed up to his usual perch on the deep,
concrete sill of a glassless window.

“You got me. I lied. I’m not
really
after beer, although, I’m sure we’ll still lift a few cases. But
there’s not much difference between the plan I laid out for you the
other day and what I’ve been working on. When Dylan and I were in
the store yesterday, I got the information I needed to figure out
the rest of it.”

“Spit it out already,” Eric drawled, bored.
“What are you after?”

“The bank vault.”

I leaned back against the wall, letting it
hold me up. All I could think was
Felony
. I glanced at Rob
who looked like he might vomit.

Jeff made a show of dropping his cigarette
and stomping it out, the action looking a lot like a toddler
stamping his foot. “Why didn’t I know about this?” Figures Jeff’s
main problem with the plan would be that Marco didn’t let him in on
it before everyone else.

Marco ignored him and looked to Eric, whose
face was unreadable. Eric just said, “Go on.”

“The plan is pretty much the same, as far as
Rob and Dylan getting in and staying hidden until after closing.
They take care of the alarms and the cameras. All of them. After
Dylan and I finished up yesterday, I waited behind and chatted up
one of the bank chicks. I got all the information we need about the
bank procedures, security, and how the lock on the vault works.
Rob, you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.”

Rob opened his mouth to say something but
choked on it.

“You’re basing a fucking bank robbery on
information you got flirting with a grocery store bank teller? Are
you out of your fucking mind??” I never knew plain stupidity could
piss me off that much.

“No. This is the plan, Dylan,” he said calmly
and like he was talking to a moron, which I was starting to realize
he actually was. “It’s my plan, and you’re all in it with me. I
don’t want to hear any more complaining or second-guessing. You’re
the one who’s putting us all at risk by trying to divide us,
undermine everyone’s confidence. This is going to be fucking great
for all of us—as long as nobody fucks it up. And if they do, it’s
because you’re worrying them like a fucking grandmother. So cut it
out. You and I just talked about this
yesterday
, and
yesterday
you were on board. Do you remember that?”

I gritted my teeth, knowing his emphasis on
“yesterday” referred to threats against Joss.

“Yes.”

“And…has anything changed since
yesterday?”

“No.”

“Then you’re still with us. Come on. I want
to hear you say it.”

“Yeah. I’m in.” Rob was looking at me like I
was a total traitor.

“Good, then before we start working with you
and Rob, let’s go over the details I got from
Mon-i-ca
.”

But I couldn’t really pay attention. Rob
would. He’d remember it all. He was too scared not to, and I was
too busy thinking about what an idiot I was.

If I’d realized—no, that’s not even right. If
I’d accepted what was right in front of my face for the last few
years, if I’d just parted ways with Marco when he started acting
like a total ass…I had been in total denial, thinking that he’d get
over it and go back to being my cool friend I used to have fun
with. I kept thinking I had to cut him some slack because his mom
took off and it was just him and his dad, and his dad wasn’t so
great and whatever. And that if I just stood by him and kept being
his friend, he’d snap out of it. How do you snap out of being an
asshole? I had been making excuses for him—for years! And that’s
why I was in over my head right now.

Yeah, some hero I was, waiting around while
Marco droned on with details so I could practice for my new career
as a felon. And the thing was, it never crossed my mind to walk
away knowing that Joss would be hurt. Because that was my fault
too. I never should have forgotten what Marco knew about her dad,
and I never should have let him know that I was interested in her.
The thing with her dad—that was probably why she tried so hard not
to let anyone notice her. And after all those years of her walking
on eggshells, I decide I just
have
to start talking to her,
and manage to shove her right in front of the wolf.