Smash & Grab (3 page)

Simple enough. But I'm always surprised at how hard it actually is to follow them in the heat of the moment. We've managed so far—longer than any crew I know about, but that doesn't mean we aren't on borrowed time. We can't afford to screw up. I can't even begin to think about what it would do to my mom and Maria if we got caught. What it would do to all the people we love. I couldn't keep doing this if I thought about that too much, so no slipups.

The traffic light in front of us goes red, and I slow to a stop. We're at the heart of the financial district, near our next target. The bank's blinds are drawn this time of night, the windows dark. I stare anyway, waiting to see if the same rightness fizzes across my skin, like it did with the car. Nothing. I can't tell if this is a bad sign or nerves. I'm banking on nerves. Ha!
Banking.
I laugh even though it isn't all that funny.

Thonk!

Something's landed on the car.

I startle so bad that I accidentally step on the gas and the car jerks forward. A pair of boots attached to a long, thin pair of legs appear as a person scrambles across the front hood, tries to keep his balance, fails, then goes down to one knee, his hands darting out to steady him.

“What the—?” I manage to sputter before those boots are launching themselves off the edge of the hood. The dude's pant leg rides up on one side, and I get an up-close look at the tattoo on his moon-pale calf—a goldfish that looks as if it's preparing to dive straight into one boot. There's a little thud as first that boot and then the other connect with the blacktop. The person is smaller than I thought he was. Wait. Not a he.
A girl?
She has a black helmet on—is dressed head to toe in black, the outfit so tight that there's no question anymore that she's definitely female. There are cords attached to a pack on her back and a length of fabric trailing after her, blown sideways so that it landed on the road and not the car. It takes me a second to realize that it's a parachute.

“Ho-ly crap!” Benny laughs out loud, and the girl must hear him, because she half turns. I get a flash of pale white skin; full, slightly parted lips; and wisps of blond hair escaping the front of her helmet, glinting gold under the streetlights. She blinks, black lashes against a flushed cheek, before she's off and running, the chute swishing over the ground behind her like some kind of wedding dress train. I can't stop staring. My heart thuds hard in my chest. It's like watching some black-ops Cinderella make her getaway. She leaps onto the sidewalk across the street without looking back once. I watch the chute trail after, lifting into the wind a bit almost like it's waving at us, and then the girl and the chute disappear behind a building.

We're the only car at the intersection, so I put it in park and get out. Benny follows, both of us looking first at the building she went around and then up at the sky. I want to run after her, to catch her and turn her around so I can see her face. I need to know who she is. But I can't seem to make myself move.

“That was insane, bro!” Benny shakes his head and trots a little ways past the intersection, obviously trying to see where she went, and when he can't find her, he looks back up at the sky. “You see anyone else up there?” he calls.

I look up at the skyscrapers surrounding us, looming large and seeming to sway. There's no sign of anyone else, no shadowy silhouettes of other jumpers or whatever. It's like she just appeared 007-style. I half expect a guy with a scar running down one cheek and an Uzi in his hand to show up next, but instead there is the unmistakable whine of a police siren, faint, but getting louder quickly.

“Time to go,” I say. Benny's already slipping back into the car. We might not be the only ones breaking the law tonight, but if we stick around, we'll be the only ones who get caught.

I pull out into the intersection and head south, toward home, the girl still imprinted on my brain. I'm not superstitious, but I can't help thinking that her landing on the car just as we were by our target bank is some kind of omen. Of what? I'm not sure yet.

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.

I count down the seconds, wind rushing at me from all directions and a blur of lights and buildings speeding past, my whole body sinking like a lead weight, my stomach clenched tight against the pull of gravity, my eyes tearing up because I've forgotten to blink.

I deploy my parachute when I run out of seconds to spare, and the canopy spreads out behind me like a giant shadow, lifting me before I begin to float balloon-like toward the ground. I work my lines, maneuvering myself between the buildings to my right and left, trying to keep my wits about me. There's a car on the road, coming up fast. It's a minivan, idling at the traffic light. My last thought as I try to avoid it is
I hope this van doesn't contain sleeping babies.

My legs buckle a bit when I hit the hood, and I go down hard on one knee. I put my hands out in front of me to keep from catapulting off the van and onto the asphalt headfirst. Picturing what I must look like and the shock on the face of whoever is driving is enough to get me laughing hysterically, especially when the guy in the passenger seat starts hollering.

I turn enough to peer into the car. Two guys around my age are in the front seat, staring openmouthed at me. The driver leans forward like he wants to get a better look at me, his scruffy jawline getting closer to the steering wheel, his dark eyes coming into view.

Time to bolt.

I leap off the car and literally hit the ground running, my chute trailing behind me across the street, swishing on the asphalt. I can hear the van's car doors open and I turn. Yep, both guys are standing beside the car. I pick up speed and duck out of sight. I don't think they'll follow me, but you never know.

The key to any good maneuver is a quick getaway, so I run onto the sidewalk and immediately cross another street and then another, hoping like mad that my chute doesn't catch on something and tangle, effectively tethering me to one spot. I can hear police sirens now, faint but getting louder every second. I run down a side street to a line of bushes and a patch of shadows where a streetlight's gone out. I crouch in those shadows, safely tucked behind the bushes, and begin reeling in my chute, stuffing it into my pack as fast as I can, my breath loud in my ears, my hands shaking from the jump. I get the chute put away in seconds and rip the helmet from my head, stuffing it into the pack as well, and then start walking again, away from the sirens and toward the spot where Whitney's supposed to pick me up.

I shake out my hair, so blond that it's almost white under the streetlights, and wrap the elastic around my wrist. My long-sleeved black shirt comes off next so that I'm in a sparkly gray tank top and jeans. I slip the necklaces I had stowed in my front pocket around my neck and then put on some bright red lipstick, dotting the color onto my lips with one finger so that it goes on right even though I can't look in a mirror.

My pack is a little too sporty to pass for a going-out-type bag, but that can't be helped. I'm relying instead on the fact that I'm blond and a willowy five eight—about as dangerous-looking as a bunny rabbit—as reason enough for any passing police to rule me out as one of the jumpers. Quinn and the others will have more trouble being inconspicuous. It's good they jumped first.

Two blocks of brisk walking and I can see Whitney's Escalade parked along the side of the road.

“Lex.” Oliver pops up from somewhere behind me, bumps my shoulder with his own, and then drapes an arm around me. He has his lighter out—an old Sarome Japanese cigarette lighter that his mom gave him. It used to belong to his grandfather. He flicks the lighter on and off, on and off. I think it's comforting to him, like a security blanket.

“Oliver, carry this for me?” I push my pack into his chest and he grunts.

Quinn is already in the car with Whitney and Elena. “Hurry up, you two. Time to go.”

“Leo?” I ask.

“Right here.” He runs up behind us, his face flushed pink from the wind, the jump, and the run. The police sirens are louder now.

Oliver throws my pack into the trunk with the others before crawling into the backseat. I go after him and then Leo squeezes in.

Whitney looks back at me, frowning, the mirror image of her twin sister, Elena—if you reverse their style sense. Her hair is smooth rather than curly, a dark black curtain falling against her neck. Her shirt is almost always unbuttoned low enough to give everyone a good glimpse of her lacy bra. Tonight she's dusted glittery powder all along her neck and cleavage, and it flashes every time it catches the light.

“You broke up with Derek?” She holds up her phone.
He told her? Ugh.
“With a text? Hon, that's so not cool.”

Everyone looks at me and I shrug. “I just beat him to the punch. Who wants to date the daughter of an infamous criminal, anyway?”

“
Alleged
criminal,” Quinn says quietly, hurt clear in his eyes. I immediately feel bad and mouth “Sorry” at him.

“You don't know that. Derek's a sweet guy.” Whitney shakes her head as she pulls out and starts speeding down the road. “He deserved better.” There is disappointment in her voice, not reproach. Even if I'm in the wrong, she supports me.

Derek did deserve better. He did. I know this. Breaking up with him by text was impulsive. I'm sorry about that, but not about the breakup itself. Even if this thing with my dad hadn't happened today, my days with Derek as a couple were numbered. We'd been together three months. Long for me. Too long. He was starting to think we had a future.

“You okay?” Leo asks, the only person in the car who can figure me out just by looking at my face.

“Yeah, of course,” I lie. “Why wouldn't I be?”

We look at each other, and it dawns on me how ridiculous this statement is, and we both crack up.

“He wasn't the right guy,” Leo says.

“I don't think there is a right guy,” I say.

Leo grins. “There is. You just haven't found him yet. God help him when you do, though.” He thinks a minute. “Actually, God help
you.
Because you are going to fall
hard,
my friend.”

“Never gonna happen,” I tell him. “I'm not interested in becoming my mother.”

“Apples and oranges,” he says.

In the front seat Elena's fussing at Whitney to slow down. “Who are you, Danica Patrick all of a sudden?”

Whitney rolls her eyes. “I didn't get to jump. Let me speed,” she says. “And relax. I've got skills.”

The skills she's talking about developed after a few dates with a stunt-car driver her dad hired for one of the movies he coproduced last year. If he hadn't found out about those dates and told the guy just how young she really was, there probably would've been a few more. It shocks me that the guy didn't know she was seventeen. Of the twins, Elena is the one who looks much older than she is—which is weird because she and Whitney are identical. They have the same green eyes, dark brown skin, and delicate frames, but everything about Whitney screams high school, from her sense of humor to her habit of crinkling up her nose when she flirts, whereas Elena radiates sophistication, from her dry way of talking to the gliding, confident way she walks. Maybe it's all on purpose, their way of distinguishing themselves from each other. It works. I never confuse them. No one does.

Elena and Whitney continue to bicker back and forth about what speed we should be going and whether Whitney does in fact have skills. I can imagine them having this very conversation when they are old and gray and rooming together in a posh nursing home somewhere—Whitney will be full throttle on an electric scooter. I half laugh at the thought and put my head on Leo's shoulder.

This is good. This is where I need to be.

I try to savor the moment. I don't need some boy to love. Or a normal family. All I need are the people in this car. They are enough.