Entry Seventeen
Uncle Scotty was right about one thing. I did have homework to do, and if I didn’t want to keep wearing my uncle’s clothes, I needed to unpack all my stuff.
And that literally took up the rest of my night after Uncle Scotty and I got home from pizza.
Learning was fun with Dad. He was always clear on how I’d be using the information out in the real world, and that made sense to me. It never seemed like a waste of time, because there was a reason for everything he taught me.
I doubt anyone at my new school could tell me when and how I will ever need to do long division. Hello? I have a cell phone and a calculator. And don’t give me the lame excuse of “But what if all the power goes out in the world and you don’t have the use of electronics anymore?”
Come on, people, if that happens, we’ve got more important problems than me not knowing how to do long division. And if that’s a serious concern anyway, then why aren’t schools teaching us how to create those electronics in the first place, so we can fix them when the whole world blacks out?
Just saying.
Anyway, after doing my stupid long division assignment and a few others I could’ve argued the validity of for hours, I dove into unpacking.
And despite the fact that I probably have fewer clothes than your average girl my age on account of Dad and me living a bit of a nomadic life, it still took me hours to get everything out of boxes and hanging or stored in the right place.
When I’d finished, it was nearly midnight and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open.
Needless to say, I hadn’t had any time to start researching my next target:
Mr. Miles.
And yes, Miles is going to be my next mark.
I suppose it’s probably strange to normal people that I’d decide to do another job so soon after what happened with my dad. Especially considering it left my dad in prison. And the whole promising my uncle that I-wouldn’t-do-anything-illegal-while-living-with-him stuff. But for someone like me, giving up the life completely is not an option.
Sure, I’ve learned from the mistakes Dad and I made. And I certainly understand the stakes now, much more than I did before. But take a break?
No way.
The truth is, stealing is in my blood. It’s life. Without it, I have no idea who I am.
But I am willing to grow as a thief. Maybe change up a few things for the sake of all my new circumstances.
And that’s where Miles comes in. Because his case is different.
Or at least it will be once I get started.
So as soon as I got to school, I raced to the library and commandeered a computer in one of the back corners. Sure, I could’ve looked everything up on my phone, but that’s like Thieving 101.
You never leave electronic evidence of any job if it can be traced back to you.
Because as I learned through Dad’s trial, and years of him drilling it into my head, the government will get records of every site you’ve ever visited on your personal devices and every Google search you’ve ever done.
And once they have that, you might as well just confess to everything.
So using the school’s computers to do my research was pretty much a no-brainer. Nobody would ever be able to trace any of it back to me. That’s if anyone found out there was something to trace in the first place. But better to be safe than sorry.
With a quick glance around to make sure nobody was within peeking distance, I Googled Mr. Miles.
And got more than 100,000 results.
Here’s something you should know about most rich and famous people. They can be incredibly stupid. For instance, a lot of them like to brag about how much money they have or the dumb things they buy with said money. They do this in the media. They open up their doors to magazines, television, newspapers—pretty much anyone who will listen to them talk about themselves.
And the problem with this is that it’s basically inviting us thieves to come and rob them blind. Actually, if I’m being honest, it comes across more like they’re challenging us. And a challenge to a thief is what we live for.
Hey, it’s not like I’m complaining. When rich people do these interviews and profiles, it just makes it easier for us to do our jobs. Sort of like they’re doing all the prep for us. I just sit back and let them tell me everything I need to know.
And it’s for this exact reason that I don’t feel bad about stealing from them. After all, they’ve pretty much handed me the blueprints to their estates. I mean, what do they expect?
And to my delight, Mr. Miles was no exception.
Here’s what I found out with just a touch of a button:
— Mr. Miles, AKA Christian Miles, is a fifty-seven-year-old real estate baron who was born in Nashville, Tennessee.
— He moved to Queens with his parents when he was seven years old, and this is where he developed the unique Southern/New Yorker accent that people associate with him.
— Christian Miles attended New York University, where he graduated with a degree in business and was a member of Alpha Omega Delta fraternity.
— After college, Miles took over his father’s property management company, growing it from three apartment buildings in Queens to more than forty apartments, hotels, and businesses across New York City.
— He’s been married twice but never had kids. His second divorce was especially messy, and his former Miss Delaware ex-wife settled for a cool $20 million, plus one of their vacation homes in the Hamptons.
— While he does own a penthouse overlooking Central Park, he spends most of his time on his lavish estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, which he bought for $30 million when he was just thirty-two years old.
— Though he’s never come out and said how much he’s actually worth, Forbes placed him at number 52 of the world’s richest men.
— Christian Miles has a collection of expensive cars and stores them in a custom-built hangar with a revolving showroom floor and temperature-controlled environment. Allegedly, he’s been known to race them down his half-mile-long private driveway during parties.
— Besides his car collection, he’s also a collector of fine art, rare animals, and watches.
— The last big purchase he made was commissioning a personalized cell phone cover of his face.
— Rumor has it that Miles has a hidden vault somewhere on his 20,000-square-foot property where he keeps his rarest items as well as more than $1 million in cash.
And that was just what I was able to find out in the first ten minutes of my search. I would’ve gotten a lot more if I hadn’t been interrupted.
“Fancy meeting you here,” a voice said from behind me, jarring me out of research mode. I closed out of the search window as quickly as I could and swung around in my seat to see who it was.
“Ollie,” I said, letting out a breath.
I silently cursed myself. I should’ve heard him coming up behind me. It’s not like Ollie was exactly quiet. At the very least, I should’ve picked a computer station that allowed me to see people before they approached me. Who knows how many other kids had seen what I’d been doing?
Come on, Frankie! Rookie mistake.
“Doing some research?” Ollie asked, leaning against a nearby table and crossing his legs at the ankles. Today he was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and a red-and-black-checkered jacket.
A big red bull’s-eye would’ve made him stand out less.
“Nah,” I said, trying to act as nonchalant as I could and hoping he hadn’t seen what I’d been looking at before I’d shut it down. “Just killing time before class.”
“Really?” Ollie asked, cocking his head to the side curiously. “ ’Cuz I thought maybe you were doing some recon work on your next mark.”