But even this is wrong. There are no teams of three in the power company. Not all in the same truck. It’s a sloppy cover that I didn’t think about until we got in the truck an hour ago. But now that it’s popped into my mind, I can’t stop thinking about it.
This is not what we normally do. We do not break into homes to rob people. We access bank accounts. We steal our money virtually. We cut our teeth on the stupid kiddie con scams we pulled out on the 16th Street Mall back in high school. And we knew that first drug dealer we took out over Mardee. But other than that, we’ve never even seen any of the marks in person.
“I want to abort,” I say. But no one even hears me as the alarm beeps again when Ford disengages it.
A few seconds the door clicks open. Ford ushers us through, then closes it behind him.
Too late to go back now. At the very least we have to find the security room and get rid of the footage. That’s about the only thing Ford could do virtually. Troll security company databases trying to find out which one monitors this house.
But it turns out none of them do. Sure, there’s three signs in the front yard declaring they have a service with each one. But Ford looked good and hard until he finally concluded they have a private system. Which means all the footage is on site.
The house is impressive. Ford’s loaded, so I’m used to old money. And Ronin’s family owns Chaput Studios, a massive industrial building, so I know big time. But this house in the Boulder hills is something else altogether.
Old money says refined taste. Working money says nothing but the best as long as it’s practical. New money says opulence.
This place screams extravagance.
“Jennifer mentioned once that his office was near the billiard room.”
“Where the f**k is the billiard room?” I ask. “Next to the candlestick in the library? Do they have a Mrs. Plum here too?”
“Shut up, it’s probably in the basement. That’s where we have our game room,” Ford snaps.
“And it’s Professor Plum,” Ronin adds, as he warily looks around for the basement entrance.
Ford finds it first. It’s not behind a door like most normal houses would have it. No. It’s a full-on grand staircase that has a slight spiral to it. The banisters are highly polished wood, and the stairs are soft carpet.
At least that muffles the sound of our boots as we descend.
“Ah,” Ford says as we turn left at the bottom. “I knew this bastard would have on-site security.” He points to a room that has a plethora of flatscreen monitors. We pass by those. “I’ll come back on the way out and f**k it all up.”
Yeah, I feel so much better now, knowing we’re definitely on camera as we approached the house.
Ford finds the office and he and Ronin get to work on the accounts. I watch the hallway and try to shake off my unease. Ronin usually doesn’t do this stuff, but he’s the one who knows the girl who lives here. She’s the reason we’re doing this. We pick and choose our victims carefully. Only scumbags get the Team treatment. And according to his daughter, this guy has been molesting her since she was a little girl. Ronin said the girl, Jennifer, didn’t share explicit details, but he got the impression it was graphic. She was drunk one night, Ronin was working his player magic, just trying to get laid, I’m sure. And this chick started spouting off some serious shit about her daddy.
Ronin let her talk until she passed out and then left. He said she pretended nothing happened that night, just passed it off as being out of her mind drunk—
The cocking of a shotgun blows my thoughts out of my mind and the stench of whiskey permeates the room.
All three of us whirl around and come face to face with the pedophile.
“In the corner,” he spits, saliva dripping out of his mouth, his feet shuffling along the carpet as he approaches me.
He’s wasted.
I put up my hands and back away, moving closer to Ford and Ronin. “We’re from the power company—”
The thundering boom of the shotgun makes all three of us react. My hand goes to my gun, Ford and Ronin duck as part of the ceiling comes down on top of them, and then in the next moment, the drunk and I are face to face. His shotgun pointed at my chest, my 9mm pointed right at his head.
We squeeze at the same time. He flies backward from the kick, and I duck as the plaster crumbles off the wall behind me. This shit happens so fast I can’t even register that I just blew the guy’s brains out.
I slump against the wall, then slide down. The next thing I know, Ronin and Ford are standing next to me. “Ronin, you wipe everything down. Spencer, you go to the security room and locate anything that looks like a hard drive. I’ve got the money transferring now, I’ll be in in two minutes. We’re out in five.”
Ronin and I just look at Ford, struck dumb.
“I’m not talking to myself, move your f**king asses.”
Ronin goes into the adjoined office bathroom and grabs a towel, then starts wiping things down. We all have gloves on, but we came in here to get codes to steal money. We did not come prepared to clean up after a murder.
Murder.
“Move!” Ford yells in my face. “You can think about how bad you f**ked up later. But right now we need to complete the job.”
I walk out without looking at the dead guy on the floor. But I don’t need to. Because the hole in his head and his brains splattered all over the beige carpet are etched in my memory forever.
I’m not even sure what happens after that. We do get the footage, and the money transfers all complete. We get back into the car and we’re back at Chaput Studios before I snap back out of it. I don’t even know how we got here.