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  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I agree, even though I hope there will never be another robbery, at least not one by Hendrix.

  “Great work on this, Libby,” Carter says to me with a smile and a supportive squeeze of my shoulder. “Soon this case will be closed, and you’ll be an agent.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I mutter, even though my stomach feels sour at the thought of deceiving him and the government agencies who have spent so much time and money on trying to catch Hendrix and his friends. I just have to make sure Hendrix changes his mind. No robbery, no arrests, no life prison sentences.

  “Just play things like usual,” Carter says as he types on the phone, then lifts his eyes to mine, concern filling them. “How far have you gone with him? Did something happen that you didn’t tell me about?”

  “No. We’ve kissed, ah, three times,” I respond. And technically, oral sex involves kissing…

  “Is that all?” Carter asks with one of his eyebrows arched.

  “Of course,” I huff as I head over and open the refrigerator to root around for a drink to avoid his knowing look for a few seconds, afraid he’ll read the lie on my face. “I gave him the whole spiel about not wanting to end up pregnant and raising a kid on my own.” All of which is the truth. “Hendrix has respected my decision and has been fine with waiting.”

  “Or so he says,” Carter mutters.

  “What does that mean?” I ask as I pull a soda free and turn back around to face him.

  “He could just be telling you that bullshit and then when he leaves you, he goes to see some other chick. He is a womanizer, right?” Carter asks, causing a tiny fraction of a doubt to form in my mind.

  “He wants in my panties too badly to chance me catching him with someone else and ruining weeks of his hard work,” I reply, unable to forget the way his fingers and tongue worked miracles inside me yesterday.

  “Maybe he’s getting tired of waiting.”

  “Nah, he thinks he’s about to close the deal,” I tell him, swallowing around the knot in my throat as I remember the taste of his long, thick cock filling my mouth and the way he begged me to fuck him before he came down my throat. “Besides, you have trackers on his truck, so you would know everywhere he’s been.”

  “I don’t have trackers on his other vehicles, including a motorcycle and an old Ford truck. He’s never driven them to the bar, so I haven’t had the chance to tag them.”

  “Oh.”

  Has Hendrix been with anyone else since we started seeing each other? I don’t think so, but the man is a bank robber. Would he actually have any qualms about sleeping with another woman while waiting for me to come around? No, probably not.

  “Is that your phone ringing?” Carter asks while I’m lost in my thoughts. He nods toward my purse and the vibrating sound coming from it.

  “Shit,” I say as I try to dig the device out in time to answer but fall short.

  It was Hendrix.

  And before I call him back, I get a new notification that I have a voicemail.

  “Hey, sweetheart. I won’t be able to get by the bar tonight, but I’ll call you later. Have a good night.”

  “What is it?” Carter asks. “Was it Blake?”

  Rather than suspect that Hendrix is going off with another woman, I feel pretty confident tonight is the night they’re planning to hit the bank.

  But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to tell Carter. Maybe there’s still time for me to convince Hendrix not to do it. So, I lie.

  “He was just calling on his break to see what I was doing,” I tell Carter.

  When I try to call Hendrix back, it goes straight to his voicemail. Great, he turned his damn phone off!

  “Mind if I borrow your car to run some errands before going to work tonight?” I ask, because now I’ll have to call in sick so that I can go and track Hendrix down before it’s too late.

  “Sure, it’s not like I have anywhere to be.” Carter pulls out his car keys from his pocket and hands them over, trusting me completely.

  “Thanks. I owe you one,” I tell him.

  Chapter 15

  Hendrix

  I wish I could’ve talked to Libby before shit goes down tonight, but it’s probably best that I had to leave her a message. If I had heard her voice, I may have even changed my mind and that’s not something I can afford to do. My head has to be in this completely or I’ll fuck up.

  Sawyer and Van are ready to go, so there’s no backing out now. One last robbery and then we’ll be on a plane and set for life. No more heists or plans, just vacationing and living the good life.

  I hate that I won’t be able to see my father one last time, but he knows how important this is. He would want me to stick to the plan and leave the country right away, achieving what he was never able to accomplish himself.

  Sawyer, Van, and I are sitting in a black van we stole from a used car lot with fake plates, waiting for darkness to fall over downtown before we make our move. We’re also listening to the police scanner, hoping some event will require extensive law enforcement assistance to take some of the heat off of us.

  If only there was something to take my mind off of Libby and this nagging doubt that, despite all of our planning, everything is about to blow up in our faces if we rob this last bank.

  “Are you sure the night surveillances have been clear?” I ask Sawyer yet again, looking for any reason to bail. I’m usually the one who does the last weeks of surveillance, but my nights have been spent at the bar with Libby.

  “Nothing but the cameras,” Sawyer replies with a yawn from where his back is propped up against the van wall across from me.

  “You’re absolutely certain of that?” I ask him.

  “Yes! If you don’t believe me, we can wait another week so you can camp your ass out and see for yourself! I was there for five nights in a row, wide awake the entire time, and there wasn’t so much as a police cruiser driving by.”

  “Okay, good,” I say, trusting he’s done his due diligence and didn’t miss any guards. I staked out the bank a few weeks ago and didn’t see any guards either.

  Needing something to do to pass the time, I unroll the blueprints with the bank’s layout on the floor in front of me to make sure we’ve thought of everything at each entrance, including the one we’ll take.

  “The vents looked great and I loosened the screws to help speed things along tonight,” I tell the guys since I went and did our “routine one-year maintenance check” for the bank today. We’ve been waiting almost two years for this hit and the first step was getting their contract for Blake’s Heating and Air.

  “Van will wait in the van,” I say, cracking a grin because that never gets old. Since he’s our getaway driver, he’s already in the front driver seat wearing a hat and a ski mask to cover his face. “Sawyer and I will head inside. I’ll watch the main floor while Sawyer drills through the vault door. We’ll be in it within ten minutes, maybe less. Add another five at most to get back through the air ducts with the full bags. If anything goes down, Van will buzz our phones and then Sawyer and I will hide out up in the vents until everyone clears out. Sound good? Did I miss anything?”

  “Should be the easiest one yet,” Van replies.

  “Yeah, it should,” I agree, even though I couldn’t shake the feeling earlier this morning that I was being watched or followed. But that’s insane. I was in the company van and at the bank for a legitimate appointment. There’s nothing suspicious about that at all.

  “Something’s off with you,” Sawyer says, with a tip of his chin in my direction.

  “Me?” I ask. “Why the fuck would you say that?”

  “Because you’ve been MIA for weeks now. Your head isn’t in this like it normally is. All the other times, you ate, slept, and breathed the plan, going over it a million times during the two-year breaks. And now, we’re about to hit the place and it’s been weeks since you talked to us about the details.”

  “Like Van said, it’s the easiest one yet
,” I respond through clenched teeth. “We’re pros with four hits under our belts. It’s been almost ten years since our first heist and no one’s the wiser that it was the good old, blue collar HVAC guys.”

  “Four was suspicious, five will make a helluva trend, so we need to be ready to get the hell out of dodge as soon as it’s done,” Van tells us.

  “Yeah,” I agree, withholding the fact that I’ve asked Libby to come with us. They don’t need to know that now. It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that, especially since I’m not one hundred percent convinced she won’t change her mind. If I bring it up now, they’ll get pissed and not have their heads on straight during the heist. After we add another two million to our stash, they’ll be more likely to agree to anything, even having Libby joining us after I grab her tomorrow morning on the way to the airport.

  “Everything is ready at the rental house for us to hide out while Van schedules us a flight,” I tell the guys, referring to the suburban house I rented out with a fake ID a few weeks ago. It’s too risky to go back home before we leave. Over the last few years, most of our cash has been laundered and deposited into offshore bank accounts in our soon-to-be-alias that the feds won’t be able to find. The rest I’ve packed in the back linings of our luggage that’s waiting at the rental house. Blake Heating & Air will continue to be run by the employees we’re leaving behind until they either quit or take over management in our absence. We’ve left enough money in the company account to handle the payroll for a year unless someone steals it.

  I started thinking about this moment ten years out, our escape plan, and every loose end that would need to be tied up before we leave town. I just never imagined the final loose end would be a woman who I can’t imagine living without.

  Libby

  Where the hell is he?

  I’ve gone by Hendrix’s business and house, not that he knows I know where he lives, but he wasn’t there! Now I’m starting to panic.

  Tonight is the night. They’re going to rob another First National Bank and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Why I’m sitting across the street to bear witness to the event, I’m not sure.

  Damn him! Why is Hendrix the perfect man in every way, except for this one little thing? Okay, it’s a big thing, but even knowing the idiotic thing he’s about to do doesn’t change how I feel about him. I wish I knew why Hendrix and his buddies went into the bank robbing business when he has his own legitimately successful one, but I don’t. And if they get busted tonight, I’ll never get the chance.

  The last thing I want to see is Hendrix in handcuffs, going off to prison.

  Then I remember something he said to me at the lake, about how he would rather die first before ending up behind bars for twenty years like his father. And that’s the least amount of time he’ll get if they catch them tonight and connect Hendrix to the other robberies. Just imagining him getting shot and killed by law enforcement rather than surrendering makes my heart ache.

  Just then, I spot a police officer on a motorcycle pull up in the bank’s parking lot and climb off.

  Shit! Carter must have put out the warning for the bank to up the security after I left the apartment this afternoon. Well, I won’t let Hendrix get caught, no matter what.

  Without a second thought, I jump out of the car and run across the road toward the bank while yelling, “Excuse me, officer!”

  The late thirty or early forty-something man turns toward me, putting his back to the building. I don’t miss the way his hand lowers to his gun holster as if it’s a natural instinct when he’s approached by someone screaming at him.

  He must not deem me a threat because his hand just as quickly moves away.

  “What can I do for you tonight?” he asks kindly, once I come to a stop about five feet from him.

  Dammit! I need to think of something fast to distract him from the bank!

  “There…there’s a bad wreck over on the embankment off of Maple Avenue,” I say off the top of my head, thinking of a large dark, wooded area that could take him a while to search. “My cell phone is dead, so I was trying to find a, ah, a payphone or something, but you’re even better!”

  “An MVA?” he says in cop speak, reaching for the radio attached to the shoulder of his uniform. “How many vehicles are involved?”

  “Oh, well, I, ah, think it’s just one but it flipped several times when it ran off the road. I would’ve stopped to help but I thought finding someone who knows first aid would be better than me just screaming and freaking out!”

  Speaking into his radio, the officer says, “All available units needed on Maple Avenue. Be on the lookout for a ten-fifty. Dispatch ten-fifty-two.” After another voice gives the 10-4 response, the officer jogs past me and mounts his motorcycle.

  “You may have just saved someone’s life tonight, ma’am,” he says to me before he cranks the engine and takes off.

  God, I hope he’s right.

  Chapter 16

  Hendrix

  Sawyer has just gotten into the safe when my burner phone buzzes in my pocket.

  Fuck.

  Van wouldn’t call unless it was urgent. I reach in my black pants pocket and put it to my ear.

  “Cop in the lot,” it sounds like he says, but his words are muffled by the ski mask. I lift up the material on one side of my head to put the phone directly to my ear.

  “What did you say?” I ask.

  “Cop in the lot,” he repeats the same words I was afraid he said the first time. No, this doesn’t happen to me. We planned. We watched. There aren’t supposed to be any goddamn cops!

  “Shit! Move your ass,” I walk over and tell Sawyer without using his name since the bank cameras are rolling, recording every word, even if we’re nothing more than dark shapes. The alarm didn’t go off because we didn’t use any of the doors or windows to break inside. Banks forget about monitoring the heating and air vents. Then, as Van’s warning sinks in, I ask him, “Wait, did you say just one, singular?”

  “Yes. Now he’s talking to someone. A woman. Is that…?” He trails off.

  “What’s going on?” I snap, wanting him to hurry the fuck up and spit it out.

  “Hendrix, man, I think it’s the waitress.” Before I can even ask what waitress, he yells, “Did you fucking tell her we were doing this tonight?”

  “It’s her?” I ask, catching myself before I say Libby’s name aloud. “You’re sure? Because she doesn’t know shit.”

  What in the fuck is Libby doing here?

  “Oh, it’s definitely her, you stupid son of a bitch!” Van shouts into my ear. “Hold up. Holy shit, he’s leaving. The cop’s leaving! Holy shit! She got rid of him!”

  Jesus Christ.

  I want to get closer to the windows to look out and see for myself if it’s really Libby, but I can’t risk getting too close to the alarms or letting the cop see me inside the bank.

  “Time to go,” I tell both Sawyer and Van. Inside the vault, I throw one of the backpacks over my shoulder and stand facing Sawyer so my headlamp shines on him. “Can you get the last two bags?”

  “Ah, yeah. Why?” He looks up, blinding me with his own headlamp from where he’s kneeling on the floor, sorting through stacks of cash and tossing out any dye packs.

  “I need to leave. I’ll meet you at the pickup spot.”

  “You’re leaving?” Van asks through the phone still at my ear as I turn and start toward the escape route. “Where the hell are you going?”

  “To find out what the fuck she’s doing here. I’ll see you at the spot,” I mutter before I end the call and slip the phone back into my pants’ zipper pocket. Pulling up a stool, I use it to help me reach the vent and haul myself up into it again. We always make sure the heights match up before we rob a place, needing to come down from them and get back through. It’s why we only hit the banks where we do the routine maintenance.

  I withhold from telling the guys the other major part of my plan—now that Libby is involved in the
heist, she has to come with us as a way for us to cover our asses, and hers. Still, I have no fucking idea how she knew where to find me, and when.

  In ten years, I don’t think I’ve ever wiggled through a vent as fast as I do tonight. It’s not easy, since my shoulders are almost too wide to fit through. I make it out with the rope on my ankle pulling along the backpack behind me, and then jump down onto the street.

  Now it’s only a matter of finding her, which proves easier than I thought since the idiot woman is standing at the damn ATM machine, showing her face clear as day on the camera.

  To try and protect her in all of this, I sneak up behind her, slap one leather-gloved hand over her mouth and wrap an arm around her waist to haul her away to the dark alley where there are no cameras. To the police watching the video, she’ll hopefully look like an innocent victim. Libby fights me, trying to pull my hand away, until I whisper in her ear, “It’s me. Shut up and quit squirming.”

  Once my back is against a brick wall in the dark shadows, I remove my hand that’s covering her mouth but not the one around her midsection, keeping her back flush to the front of my body. It feels better than it should there since this woman could’ve single-handedly ruined my life, along with Sawyer and Van’s.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I hiss.

  “Were you…were you in there robbing the bank?” she asks. Before I can overcome my shock that she fucking knows and respond with some excuse to throw her off, Libby continues. “If so, you better get out of here, Hendrix! A cop showed up and I sent him on a wild goose chase. He’ll realize it soon enough and come back!”