Smash & Grab (16 page)

“Yeah, okay. She was hot,” I say.
More like drop-dead gorgeous.
They would lose it if they actually saw her.

“Knew it.” Benny laughs. “You ask her out for real after the doughnuts?”

I hesitate.

“Ah, she turned him down!” Carlos punches my arm—lightly for him, but it still stings.

It's nearly eleven when
the guys take off. We decimated last night's leftovers and then watched the game, and they just lingered, especially Gabriel. He hates going home. His mom has a new boyfriend, and he and Gabriel don't exactly get along. Old as he is, I think sometimes Gabriel's still hoping his parents will get back together once his dad gets out of jail, like deep inside he's still a little boy or something. He tries to drive away any guy his mother hooks up with…only this time, it hasn't worked.

I turn off all the lights except the one over the kitchen table, and then I pull out my laptop and open a browser window. I start out simple and just Google Lexi's full name. I find her Instagram account, which is full of pictures of her friends doing everything from water-skiing to drag racing.
This girl just gets cooler and cooler,
I think. An hour goes by before I finally abandon the stacks of vacation photos (all in crazy exotic locations) and the more surprising pictures of abandoned buildings and long steel bridges—these lonely-looking places that she always tags the same way:
#inspiration.
They fascinate me. I don't get it, but I want to.

I check her Twitter and then her Facebook, which is old and hasn't been updated all that much since last year, but it does give me her parents' names. I decide to do an address search. If I can't find out anything that tells me why she's hanging around LL National in disguise, I can follow her and eventually figure it out.

Instead of an address, I find news articles and videos, all of them about her dad. I read each one, then watch the videos. It's basically the same footage over and over: Lexi's father being yanked toward a police car in handcuffs, Lexi and her mom and brother trailing after as a reporter does a voice-over about the charges her dad is facing. And that's when things start to make sense. Her dad worked for LL National. Our target bank. Supposedly, he committed some kind of fraud involving risky mortgages. I read the articles, making notes to myself. Is she trying to clear his name? Get revenge?

I lean back in my chair, balance on the back two legs. Whatever it is, she's in disguise because she doesn't want employees at the bank to recognize her. Now the only questions I have are, how badly does she want to keep her secret, and can I put aside my feelings for her to exploit it?

“Delivery for Angela Dunbar,”
I tell the security guard. I shake the paper bag with the
COCINA DE MI CORAZÓN
logo on it in front of his face. He sizes me up. I open the bag so he can see that the only things inside are two foil-wrapped tacos. With a sigh, he picks up the phone.

“You can leave it here. I'll make sure she gets it,” he says, dismissing me while he waits for whoever's on the other end of the phone to answer.

“She still has to pay for it, though,” I say.

“Have Angela Dunbar come to reception, please. Delivery from, uh, co-keen-a dee me core-aye-zonn.” His pronunciation makes me wince.

I put some distance between me and the security desk and lean against the wall to wait. Elevator music is playing, some instrumental version of a Pitbull song, which is so messed up that I want to crack up. I stare at the floor, keeping my face down so it isn't turned toward the security camera near the ceiling. I adjust my
COCINA DE MI CORAZÓN
baseball cap lower on my head. I should've waited to catch her outside somewhere, but showing up at the bank felt more effective. It's a jerk move, but I don't get to be a gentleman right now. Not after what happened with Maria. Still, I'm having trouble being chill. I just want this over with.

Play the part, pendejo. She has to think I'll really do it,
I tell myself.

“Christian?” She doesn't look surprised to see me, even though she didn't order lunch from the taco truck. Actually, she looks almost pleased.
Huh?
It doesn't make sense, but I don't have time to puzzle it out. I just need to get through this quickly.

“Got your lunch delivery here…
Angela,
” I say with a smirk, really emphasizing her fake name, once again holding up the paper bag.

She narrows her eyes at me and then walks over and takes the bag from my hands, her fingers deliberately brushing mine. She gives me this sexy little smile.

“I forgot to bring cash. I'll walk you out and get some from the ATM,” she says loudly enough for the security creep to overhear. She seems utterly chill, and it's freaking me out.

As soon as we're outside, she leads me to a quiet little courtyard between LL National and another building and leans against the wall. Lexi considers me the same way she looked at her chess pieces that day we played. “So? Are you going to tell me why you're here, or do I have to guess?” She folds her arms across her chest so that the side of her bra is visible through the silky fabric of her blouse, and of course I look, because how could I not? Now it's her turn to raise an eyebrow, and I'm so taken off guard that I start to laugh. I pictured her getting all scared and upset. But this? I have no idea how to react.

“I need your help with something,” I say once I've gotten hold of myself, cutting to the chase.

“Yeah? With what exactly?”

“You're not going to like what I'm about to say.” I try to think about how to word this. “So…sorry.”
What am I doing?
Rule number one of blackmailing someone has got to be not apologizing for the blackmail. I shake my head and try again. “Here's the thing: I need some information about the bank. Security information. And you're going to get it for me.”

“Why? Why do you need information about the bank?” she asks, but she doesn't seem shocked or even all that curious. It's unsettling how calm she is.

I stare at her a second. Has she already put two and two together and realized I'm the one who ran into her at the Bank of America robbery? “I just need it.” There. That's better. Tougher. Even if she has figured it out, what does it matter? I still have the upper hand either way.

“You ‘just need it.' ” She walks around me, arms folded, head down, thinking. Her heels click on the concrete, and I can't help looking down at the curve of her bare calf. There's something on it. I lean over and suck in a breath. She has a tattoo on her ankle. A goldfish. That night we stole the car. She's the one who dropped onto the hood. She's the BASE jumper. I blink, staring at it in disbelief.

“What?” she asks, looking down at her leg. “I like goldfish.” She makes a face and walks a circle around me. “And what happens if I say no? What if I don't want to help you?”

“I think you know what happens,” I say, my voice coming out all wrong—not forceful enough, like a deflating balloon. I'm not dealing with some regular girl here. Pulling off a BASE jump from the top of one of LA's most well-known buildings without getting caught means this girl is no run-of-the-mill high school kid. I can feel my advantage slipping away.

“I want you to spell it out,” she says, calmly watching me puzzle out what's happening, why she isn't rattled. “Go on. Say it.” She closes her mouth, and I find myself staring at her lips, at the little dip at the center of the bottom one.

I shake my head and take a breath. “Or I'll have to tell them who you really are,
Lexi.
I know you're Alexandra Scott, Warren Scott's daughter. He's the guy who's been in the paper for mortgage fraud, right? You're up to something at the bank, and obviously you don't want to be exposed.”

She gives me an amused smile. “So what kind of security information could you possibly need, exactly?” She's not upset; if anything, she's enjoying this. I have the checkmate right now—all the leverage—and yet she seems to be the one setting me up for something. It's both terrifying and fascinating.

“Building plans, standard positions of every security officer, and who works what shift. That would be a good start.”

“Planning on robbing the place?”

It makes sense that she'd come to this conclusion after hearing what I want, so I'm not surprised. “What I plan to do isn't really your concern,” I say, grinning. I can't help it. She is freaking impressive.

“And what if I go upstairs and quit right now? Then what?” She bites her lip and gazes up at me with a look that makes me want to pull her into my arms and kiss her.

I shrug and lean against the wall, throw her some badass attitude of my own. I don't want her to see how much she's messing me up. “I don't think you'll do that.”

“No?” She stares at me, her eyes twinkling.

I stare right back. “No.”

“So how is it that you think I'm going to be able to get you this stuff? You know I'm only interning here, right? I'm not, like, head of security or something. The building plans aren't exactly lying around, readily available to anyone who wants them. I can't just walk up to security and say ‘Hey, by the way, you guys mind giving me the location and codes for all of your alarms?' ”

Lexi gets closer, invading my space, mocking me with her eyes. I don't get it. If she knows I'm planning to rob the bank, why isn't she freaked out? I would've expected her to be trembling in her heels and crying. I was feeling guilty about blackmailing her, scaring her, but here we are, and the only one trembling seems to be me.

“Draw me the areas you do have access to. Create a map of the bank's layout. Give me the basics—where the cameras are in the bank downstairs, when the money deliveries come in and how they get processed. How much is in them on average. Where the vault is located exactly. The safe combinations at the tellers' desks for their individual safes. That'll be a good start. It's not my problem how you get the information. I'm not the one being blackmailed here.” I lay on my best boy-from-the-hood, East LA accent, narrowing my eyes and folding my arms across my chest.

“And when you rob the place and the police realize that you know too much and they start looking for insider accomplices, then what? Huh? You don't think they'll figure out that I had something to do with it? Eventually?” she says, pacing.

“Like I said, not my problem. If you weren't looking for trouble, you wouldn't be wearing a wig and carrying a false ID around.”

She stops pacing and looks at me, one eyebrow quirking up. “Touché.”

“Just get me the info. By the end of the week.” I am Soldado in this moment, or at least doing a pretty good impersonation of him. It is both awful and somehow thrilling. “I'm gonna make this crystal clear. I can take this info up to that guy's office—the one you were with when I saw you. Harrison? That's his name, right?” For the first time she looks surprised and maybe even a little impressed by me, too. She probably assumed I wouldn't be smart enough to check out the LL National website's employee directory. A guy like me can't be all that clever, right? I'm used to being underestimated, but it ticks me off anyway. I get right up close to her and hold up her student ID. “Won't look good. Warren Scott's daughter sneaking around the bank building. What do you think that'll do to his case?” I pull out my phone and flip through the pictures I took of her leaving her house this morning. She's in her Angela disguise already, but the house address is clear in the background as she gets on her motorcycle. There's no denying she's at the Scott residence.

I felt like a total creeper taking the photos, but having insurance in this case is essential. It was fascinating to see where she lives. The house is huge—but based on what's happened to her dad and the haunted air the house gives off, she probably won't be living there much longer. Makes me feel sort of sorry for her. I've never had money, not like that, but it has to be pretty damn traumatizing to be used to having it and then lose it overnight.

She stares at me, lips parted, stunned silent. She hesitates for half a minute and then she agrees. “Fine.”

“Good,” I fire back, trying to keep my head. Being this close to her is a recipe for disaster, because some part of me is still maddeningly desperate to not have her hate me. “Bring me what you got Saturday. Five o'clock. Griffith Park. Meet me by the abandoned zoo. Do you know it?” It's a dramatic choice for this meeting because the place can be downright eerie. But I want her unsettled and uncomfortable. It'll be easier to get her to do what I need her to. It's messed up, and I'm not pumped about having to play the jerk, but I need to pull this job off perfectly, and the only way to do that is to get her to cooperate. Besides, it's far from the bank and Soldado's prying eyes and anyone else who might be watching in the hood. I know I have to use Lexi to get what I need, but I don't want the Eme to find out about her. I'm only pretending to be threatening—I wouldn't actually hurt her to get what I need, but they would.

Lexi nods. “I can figure out how to get there. Are we done here?” She glances at her phone, probably checking the time.

I nod. “For now.”

She turns to walk off, then stops and swings around. Her eyes glitter, and once again I get the distinct impression that I'm missing something. “You sure you want to go through with this?” It's a surprising question, one that almost sounds like a dare or a threat. Truth is, I'm sure I
don't
want to go through with it. I just don't have any other choice, but I can't admit that. She needs to think I don't care about her, about anything but the job. Otherwise she won't take me seriously.

“Absolutely,” I say.