Bee donned another pair of someone else’s yoga pants, someone else’s tank top and the same hoodie she’d been in all morning. She twisted her wet hair into a topknot and left the bathroom she shared with Oliver and Malika.
‘Hey, buddy,’ she greeted. He was in his bed, a Nintendo 3DS in his hands, Hogarth on his feet. ‘Oh, that’s new!’
‘Yeah, Cassie got it for me.’ He didn’t look up. ‘It’s super awesome.’
‘Nice.’ Bee smiled. The video game system would keep him occupied and happy in his bedroom. ‘She’s a thoughtful one, that’s for sure.’
Oliver kept pressing buttons.
She shook her head and walked out of the room. ‘Love you, buddy.’
‘Yeah, love you too.’
The door to the spare room was cracked open, light pouring into the hallway, and two hushed voices were speaking.
She came to a stop outside it, careful of her shadow, and tried to discern what the voices were saying, and who they belonged to.
‘I don’t know, man. I don’t like this. The two of you, rolling around, getting all sweaty on each other. It’s bound to lead to other things.’
‘What?’ Adam’s disembodied voice replied. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t know what I’m talking about?’ the other man said. ‘I know you. You took a bullet for this girl. I know you think your relationship gives you an advantage here, but maybe she’s the one with the advantage. Maybe you forget what you’re doing because all those old bullet-taking feelings come back.’
They were talking about her. Bee held her throat. She needed to hear what they were going to say. She needed every last bit of information she could get. But that didn’t make listening any less miserable.
‘You really gonna bust my balls about this?’ Adam replied, exasperated. ‘There’s no feelings. This is business. Bee’s gonna find where the money is. That’s the kinda thing she’s good for. All we gotta do is keep her and her son alive.’
Her brain grew twice its size, filled up her skull then collapsed in on itself. She held her breath, scared if she exhaled it would come out in a cry.
‘Then she’ll lead you to the money.’ The other man’s voice she recognized as belonging to the pilot, Mr White.
‘Yeah. Eighteen million apiece.’
He’d been lying the whole time. Adam had sought her out, plied her with alcohol, preyed on her desperation – all in an attempt to get the money Charlie had stolen. He’d lied. To her! And she’d believed him. Believed him, hook, line and sinker. Adam had been running an angle the whole time. She should have listened to Malika.
Mr White chuckled. ‘I’m gonna buy an island, man.’
‘I think islands cost more than that.’
‘A small island. A small one. I can get a small one for that. With just the one house.’
Her shaking hand covered her mouth. She snuck inside the hall closet without making a sound. The fur coat was still a heap on the floor. She collapsed to her butt, pulled the soft fur to her mouth and smothered her cry.
She needed him. She needed him! Oliver was still in danger. Even though they were currently safe, hidden away in Charlie’s beach house, Alvarez wasn’t going to forget about them.
She couldn’t hide in her ex-husband’s fortress. She could pretend like they were safe, but the illusion wouldn’t last forever. She had to get out before somebody slipped up, or switched sides, or worse.
And she needed Adam. For Oliver’s sake, she needed Adam.
Adam had always kept her safe. Adam had always protected her, even when other men in his position had left her to fend for herself. That’s the way jobs worked. Os assembled a crew, and everyone worked towards a common goal. But if somebody went down, they were cut loose, not reeled in.
Her job was to put on a dress, speak in an accent. Sometimes she’d get called in for forgery. But those guys, those professionals, never took grifting seriously. She was expendable. There was always someone to be a pretty face around to distract a mark.
But Adam had cared about her. Or at least, she’d thought he did. He’d risked himself for her. That wasn’t something she’d ever had before.
Bee closed her eyes, and she could remember seeing him, victorious in his violence, and yet still trying to shield her from the gore.
The elevator doors had slid closed. Another job well done.
Bee caught Pinkerton’s grin.
‘That was great, Shelby,’ he said. ‘You totally owned that place.’
‘I fired that guy. Did you see?’ she asked Adam on her other side.
He had one hand in his pocket, the other holding a briefcase, and was watching the floor numbers click down. He smiled at her.
‘He just walked out.’ Bee rested against the handrail. ‘He didn’t even question it.’
‘He packed a box and everything!’ Pinky dug his index finger in his ear. ‘How long until he realizes you don’t have that authority?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve never fake fired anyone before.’
‘Forty-eight hours,’ Adam said. At their combined looks, he continued, ‘From my experience.’
He didn’t say anything else, instead focusing on the floor numbers again, and the elevator descended in silence.
‘Just gonna let that one sit there, I guess,’ Pinky mumbled. ‘Hey, what are we doing tonight?’
Bee couldn’t resist. ‘Same thing we do every night, Pinky,’ she said in the most Wellesian voice she could muster.
Pinky squinted his eyes. ‘What?’
‘You know. From the cartoon.’
His eyes stayed squinted.
‘With the rats,’ Adam offered. ‘The rats who try to take over the world.’
‘We’re gonna find some rats and take over the world?’ Pinkerton shook his head. ‘That seems like a really weird plan, dude.’
Bee clicked her tongue. ‘That’s not—’
‘How would rats be of any use? You know?’ Pinkerton leaned a palm against the wall. ‘Seems like you’d need some sort of massive weapon. I can’t think of any offhand that’s rat powered.’
‘No, it’s from a show,’ Adam said. ‘From a kids show.’
Pinkerton opened his mouth, but Bee held up a finger.
‘Let’s drop it. This was my fault. I apologize.’
The elevator came to a halt. The doors slid open, and Bee went to step through them but froze in place instead. With wide, unblinking eyes, she stared at the dozen or so masked men holding automatic weapons and the business-casual-dressed hostages tied up on the floor, her brain unable to process what it was she was seeing.
Adam cleared his throat. ‘Just trying to go to the lobby.’
He pressed the lobby button, and the doors slid closed.
‘Two robberies in the same building?’ Pinkerton asked. ‘What are the odds?’
Adam dropped the briefcase and spun Bee around, pushing her against the wall. His yell of, ‘Go flat!’ to Pinkerton was lost in the sound of bullets piercing the metal doors. He covered her with the full weight of his body, arms around her head, forcing her face into his throat. The spray moved upwards as the elevators descended.
‘Are you OK?’ Adam whispered in her ear. He moved back far enough to run his hands through her hair, over her neck, down her arms, checking her for injuries.
‘Yeah,’ she panted. She darted out her tongue to lick her suddenly dry lips. ‘Yeah, I’m OK.’
‘I’m fine!’ Pinky said, climbing to his feet. ‘Jeez, how did they miss all of us?’
The elevator stopped at the lobby in time for the three of them to witness a man dressed as a security guard dragging the obviously dead body of another man dressed as a security guard by the ankles.
Adam reached around her to press the door-close button.
‘What,’ Bee said, ‘the hell.’
Adam pulled off his jacket and handed it to her, eyes trained on the ceiling.
‘I know! Right? Crazy.’ Pinky pulled out a flip phone. ‘Imma call Os and see what we should do next.’
Adam pushed the emergency stop on the elevator. ‘Pinkerton,’ he said and rolled up his shirt sleeves.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Still on the phone, Pinky got on all fours. Adam used him like a step and slid the emergency hatch aside. He hauled himself up into the elevator shaft. ‘Your turn, Bee.’
She kicked off her heels and stepped on Pinky’s back. ‘Sorry about this,’ she said, but he was too busy talking to Os.
Adam grabbed her arms and pulled her out. She could see the building’s second elevator ascending next to them. Thick black cables held what she stood on in place, and she refused to look around. Bee didn’t need to know how far she’d fall to her death, thank you very much.
Pinkerton hung up the call and Adam helped him out.
‘Os says we’re a go.’
The elevator doors for the floor above them were at chest height for Adam. He wedged his fingers between them and yanked, veins bulging in his forearms, in his neck, his face red. When he parted the doors, Bee shoved the briefcase in to keep them propped open.
Adam shook out his hands and smiled at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m gonna need lights out.’
Pinkerton nodded. ‘I can do that.’
‘What do you need me to do?’ asked Bee.
‘Wait here,’ Adam said. ‘This is too dangerous.’
‘I can help.’ Bee rolled back her shoulders, rose to her full height. ‘I can.’
But Adam shook his head. ‘No, I can’t risk it. If you’re out there, I’m gonna worry about you the whole time. Stay here. Stay where it’s safe. OK? Let me do my job now.’
There were an awful lot of men with guns down there. ‘Can you do this, Adam?’ She touched his hand.
He glanced down at her fingers on his knuckles, looked her in the eyes.
‘You aren’t armed,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you should do this? It’s dangerous for you too.’
‘You worried about me, Shelby Lynn?’ He caught her fingers, gave a squeeze. ‘My job is to clear the way.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine.’ Bee snatched her hand back. ‘I’ll be here. Alone. In a creepy elevator shaft. Awaiting my knight in shining armor to rescue me.’
‘Cool,’ Pinkerton said. ‘Can you be the table this time? ’Cause I gotta get out of here.’
Bee glared at him. ‘No.’
He shrugged and struggled to get out of the shaft. Adam cast her one last lingering look before he followed.
Bee curled up in the corner, tucked out of sight of the emergency hatch, and pulled Adam’s jacket over her like a blanket. It smelled like him. Like dandruff shampoo and his musky, citrus cologne.
The lights went out, casting the elevator shaft into complete darkness. What if the elevator plunged to the ground? Should she try to get out or at least get closer to the propped-open doors?
But if the elevator suddenly crashed to the ground, she doubted her abilities to jump to safety, no matter how close she was to the exit.
Gunshots sounded, dozens of them. Screams of terrified people echoed from beneath where she hid, bouncing up the shaft.
Bee pulled his jacket over her head, clutched her hands over her ears. A child again, hiding under the covers of her bed, while her drunk mother and even drunker father shouted at each other, broke anything they touched.
It felt like hours before she heard footsteps. Bee kept herself under the protection of his jacket. She was safe from reality under there. Adam was neither dead nor alive. Pinkerton was neither missing nor found. Everything was just as it had been before she hid herself away.
But it was Adam who cleared his throat, Adam who croaked out, ‘Bee.’
And it took all of her nerve to climb out of her hiding spot.
He was filthy. Covered in blood. Bright scratches on his head, over his ear, running over his neck and down his right shoulder, which was out of socket, hanging too far down his side.
Adam eased himself on to the roof of the elevator, wincing all the while, and crouched down next to her. His voice was a whisper when he said, ‘It’s over.’
She wiped the tears off her face. ‘You’re hurt.’
He glanced at his arm. ‘Yeah.’
‘Pinkerton?’ She sniffed. ‘The hostages?’
‘Everybody’s out,’ he said. ‘The police are on their way so we gotta get going.’
Bee tried to huff derisively. ‘Some response time, huh?’
He smiled, and this time it lit up his eyes, made his dimples pop. ‘They didn’t know until we let them know.’
He was so close she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, how they ran down his skin and over his wounds and polluted his blood. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel him, to make sure he was really there, that he was alive. That she wasn’t dreaming. That this was real. He was real.
She offered him his jacket, her hands trembling around the fabric. ‘I kept it safe for you.’
‘I knew you would.’ He stood and didn’t take it back. ‘Listen, Bee … the only way out is through.’
Bee nodded, shrugged on his jacket and stood up. Her legs were shaking.
He helped her out of the elevator shaft, and then she dropped to her knees and helped him.
Adam yanked the briefcase out, and the doors slid shut.
He offered her his hand. There was blood on it.
‘Don’t look,’ said Adam. ‘Please.’
She clutched the jacket to her chest. After all that, and he didn’t want her to see the carnage he’d left behind? Well. She supposed she could do that for him.
Bee took his hand, and his palm was wet and warm. ‘OK. You lead; I’ll follow.’
She opened her watery eyes. There she was, hiding under yet another coat. How long could she hide for? Charlie wanted her to clean up his mess so he could keep the money he’d stolen. And Adam wanted her to clean up Charlie’s mess so she could lead him to the money Charlie had stolen. She wanted to burrow under the coat and never leave the closet again. She wanted to transport herself back in time, home in Biscayne Bay, watching the sunrise over the open ocean. She wanted her biggest problem to be Rosalie Waters refusing to even listen to her business proposal.
The front door slammed, and a deep male voice yelled something unintelligible.
Bee startled in the darkness.
Someone screamed in sheer terror.
She ran, out of the closet, down the hallway to the stairs.
Adam and Mr White caught up to her before she could get to the bottom.
‘Bee! Wait!’ Adam grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t go out there alone.’
‘Oliver!’ She wrung her arm out of his hold. ‘Oliver’s in his room.’
Adam pointed at Mr White. ‘Guard his door. No one in. No one out.’
He crept up the stairs and down the hallway without making a noise.
Adam took her elbow. ‘Come on,’ he said, sounding like he would much rather not go anywhere at all. ‘Stay behind me.’