Coin Heist (9 page)

The door to Rankin's office was closed, of course, but my master fit that lock too. With a slight click, the handle released.

Not wanting to turn the light on just in case, I inched tentatively forward until my eyes got used to the darkness and I could make out the shape of his desk, chair, and computer.

On the computer was a screensaver—a photo of Rankin with his wife, a pretty brunette with a pixie haircut, and his little baby daughter in a striped dress. They were all grinning at the camera looking happy and carefree. I moused the computer out of its sleep, and it opened right up to his desktop. Hadn't the guy ever heard of a security code?

He'd left his internet browser open to a job search site. So he'd been looking for a new teaching position. I felt guilt twist in my gut like a knife blade.

I did a search for Brad Garcia on his desktop finder until I came up with a bunch of emails. I thought maybe Garcia would've emailed Rankin the temp pass, but no luck. I wrote down Garcia's email address and phone number from his email signature just in case. I could always send him an email from Rankin, requesting a visitor pass—I could make up some bullshit about wanting to take a friend back for another visit. But it would have been better to come away with the real pass Rankin had around his neck the other day.

One thing was certain: The guy was a slob. I'd never really noticed the complete avalanche of papers and crap on his desk until I started rummaging through them now, feeling around for anything that felt like a plastic-covered ID card. Where would you even keep something like that? The normal rules wouldn't apply to Rankin, who clearly just threw everything onto the pile and hoped it wouldn't slide off.

Elbow deep in art projects, sketchbooks, grade reports, and school policy books, I could only hear the sound of paper rustling all around me. Which is why I didn't notice someone entering the studio until the light turned on.

I whipped my hands away from the desk, backing away as quickly as I could. There was the sound of the studio door being shut, and then the key in the office lock.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
It was Rankin. In the flesh.

My brain raced as I quickly ran through my options. If I ducked and hid, then I would be stuck hiding until the next time he left. That could be hours. I'd made an entire school career out of BS-ing teachers; now I had to make it count. A lifetime achievement award, if you will.

I had to face it.

Act cool
, I told myself as I moved to the other side of his desk, as if I had just been waiting for him. In the dark.

“Hodges?” He flipped on the light and his face looked as startled as mine felt. He was still in his ski parka and wool cap, carrying his laptop backpack. “What the hell are you doing in my office?”

Showtime. I took in a deep breath, but I was as surprised as he was when I started to cry like a two-year-old.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice softening slightly, setting down his computer bag. “What's up?”

He was in front of me then, leaning back against his desk. I was so tempted to just tell him everything. Confess and let him know how badly I felt. But I couldn't. There were other people counting on me. And no way Rankin would let us go through with what we were planning.

“I'm sorry,” I sobbed. It was the fear, I told myself. That's what was making me cry like this.

Another part of me wondered, though.

“What can I do for you?” His brow was furrowed in concern. There was something about his face, so genuine and surprised, that got to me.

“It's just been hard,” I said, and that at least was true.

“I know it has. I've wondered how you've been handling all of this.”

“My dad's in jail. My mom's a wreck. Things here are a mess.”

He nodded. “It seems bad now, but you'll get through this. If anyone can find their way out, you can. I have a lot of faith in you, Hodges. You've got a strong spirit.”

He thought so? Huh. He reached out his arms to give me a fatherly bear hug. And somehow, it wasn't corny at all. It was solid and warm, and for a tiny second, I did feel better. And then I felt like a total asshole for giving him such a hard time all year. He was a good guy. Yeah, he pushed me, but it wasn't just to push me, not like my dad. It was because he seemed to really think that maybe, just maybe, I was worth the effort.

“Look, I don't like the idea of you coming into my office when I'm not here. I'm assuming you have some kind of key?”

I nodded, reluctantly.

“Hand it over.”

I did, letting it drop in his palm.

“But you can talk to me any time you need to, Jason. I'm here.”

“Thanks, Mr. Rankin. I appreciate it.”

I wiped my face and stepped out of his office, and then out of the classroom.

I was shaking all over, still totally freaked out. Had he seen what I was doing? If so, I'd be in some major shit. I liked to think Rankin was the type of guy who would've confronted me if he had, though maybe he just didn't give a crap anymore, now that school was closing.

The sun was really pouring through the skylights now, super bright, white and pure. The bottom line was that I'd gotten out of there. I was free. I brushed off the feelings of guilt. We had a bigger goal in mind, and ultimately it would help Rankin as much as the rest of us.

It was only later that I realized that I'd handed over the last and best perk from my dad's headmaster career—my special access to the school. It was like a superhero losing his powers, and I'd done it without even thinking.

Another snag for Operation EagleFly to overcome, but I had a feeling we could handle it. With this much at stake, we had no choice.

Eleven

DAKOTA

“Hold on,” Alice
said, running her finger down the trackpad of her laptop. We were all sitting in an empty classroom on Wednesday afternoon, watching as she did her hacker thing. “I just need to . . . huh. Where did you come from, little unexpected network? We don't want you—go away.”

She held up her free hand, as if to shoo the digital intruder away, and fiddled some more. Benny, Jason, and I paused, not daring to breathe. This bizarre crew, the four of us, were starting to get to know each other pretty well, so we knew enough to be silent while Alice figured this kind of stuff out. Getting together like this on a regular basis after school felt like its own kind of club—if only you could put “felony grand theft” on a college app.

I still made it to my student council meetings, but Junibel had noticed that I wasn't around as much when she wanted to go shopping or get her nails done after school like we used to.

“What have you been doing?” she asked me. “You're, like, a nonentity.”

“Just studying extra hard,” I said, and that was true, in a way. At one time I might have been annoyed at being called a “nonentity,” but for some reason I found it kind of refreshing. Not being seen was easier than being watched all the time, you know?

And then there was Dylan. I still saw him on the weekends, and of course we were going to prom together. But he wanted to know why he couldn't drive me home from school like he used to, i.e., why wasn't he getting makeout time. Makeout time: Yet another thing on my “schedule” that I realized I didn't miss much. Honestly? He really wasn't the greatest kisser. There was no nuance, no subtlety, just mouth and tongue and heavy breathing, and then he'd always say, “You like that, baby?” like I should be grateful or something.

Alice turned around to make sure we were still watching. She seemed to enjoy the drama—maybe a little too much, as she sang out in a falsetto, “Production system . . . Production system . . . Wherefore art thou, production system?”

“Wait. That's
the
production system?” I asked. I seriously could not believe I was seeing what I was seeing, that she'd gotten in there so quickly.

Behind her glasses, her eyes were mocking. “Um, yeah. Did you think I hacked into your locker or something? I have enough tampons, thanks.”

Jason and Benny snickered.

Burn.

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said nastily. “I just wasn't expecting it to happen right away.”

“No time like the present, right?”

That girl had a way of making me feel so dumb. I knew when I was in the company of a hater, and when to hit back to hold my ground, but I still didn't get it. I really didn't run into this problem very often. I mean, even the girls in school who didn't like me usually kissed my ass, and then it sort of didn't matter what they really thought. But mostly everyone liked me, because even though I was popular, I wasn't actually a bitch. I wasn't a doormat or anything, but I was a decent person.

Alice was super smart, and she had already won all sorts of awards. I saw it in our AP Calculus class (that was the only one we had together—no amount of tutoring could get me into AP Physics, much to my parents' chagrin). When it came to math, she was clearly a million miles ahead of the rest of us. So there was no need to throw shade on me. Even if she was kind of prepubescent looking.

And I'd done nothing to her. Never. I'd barely even said two words to her before all this heist stuff started. And it wasn't that I was being rude—it was just practical. We didn't have much in common.

Guess she thought I was really stupid. Maybe I didn't have a genius IQ, but I did just fine, thank you very much. There were different kinds of intelligence, and you didn't need all of them to succeed in the world. So maybe I wouldn't be an astrophysicist like her. I would still do something important.

In our little meetings, she was always buddying up to Jason, which didn't help, because he wasn't exactly my biggest fan, either. It was safe to say that out of all of them, I got along best with Benny. But that's not saying much because he was mostly silent, so it didn't really count. Like getting along with the bio-room skeleton—he had that much personality.

Alice rolled her chair away from the desk. “Well, that's it. The design is in the system. MississippiState50. I just need to activate it when the time comes. I suggest we don't wait too long, though. I hid it in a little tiny corner of the database, so I don't think anyone will stumble on it, and I named the file incorrectly, so it wouldn't be discernible to the naked eye. But still, we don't want to take any chances.”

“That's it then?” I asked.

“That's it.” She grinned. “Done-zo.”

Wow. Everyone high-fived her. She'd done it. And once again, she'd blown me away with her ability to think it all through, all the what-ifs, both technical and human.

If this thing worked, it would totally be because Alice and I rocked it, and not because of Jason's supposed leadership or whatever it was he thought he was contributing. The guy barely knew what day it was. I mean, right now, he was slumping so far down in the chair, it looked like it was going to topple over. He was busy picking at something on his jeans—I didn't even want to know what. Pot seeds?

“And then?” I asked.

“And then we pick up our stash.”

“So it's do-or-die, then. We have to go through with it, because you can't cancel the order once you put it in.”

Every now and then, the reality of what we were doing hit me in a nervous surge. How on earth did we get here? Were we making the biggest mistake of our lives? I barely knew these people, and I was trusting them not to land me in juvie—or worse. That's why I had to manage things, to make sure we were doing it right. I'd given the operation a name to create some sense of collective responsibility—that was something I'd learned from the management books my dad gave me when I joined student council. You had to get
buy-in
, make people feel like
stakeholders
.

But why did I care? Why was I doing this? I guess, out of all of us, maybe I cared the most about keeping HF open? And I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy doing something
wrong
for once, just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

“Of course I can,” she scoffed, and just like that our moment of shared awesome was gone. I was sent back to Idiotville. “Computers can move stuff around. Like email for instance. Hey, why don't you just focus on your side of things, like trying to figure out when we can pull the rest of this job off? Weren't you supposed to have that part of the plan executed by now?”

She had to go and point that out, didn't she? “I'm trying to work around everyone's schedules,” I said. I'd been thinking some time in mid-June, giving us enough time to complete our preparations. We'd all be around over the summer—Benny was going to be working at the garage, and I would be taking a Mandarin immersion class. Alice was going to science camp and Jason would be doing whatever it was that Jason did. “I originally thought it would be a weeknight, but it seems like most of us, including me, can't get out that late during the week. So it has to be a weekend. Also, I want to make sure there's no special maintenance or other events going on at the Mint, and that will take some surveillance.”

Alice rolled her eyes under their giant lenses. “That's what's holding us up? I just hacked into a federal website, and you're telling me we don't have our calendars synched?”

“Hey, give her a break,” Benny said, his deep voice silencing Alice's tirade. “She just said she's working on it.”

I looked at him, surprised. Silent Boy in his oversize lumberjack shirt and hip-hop jeans was defending me? Weird. But nice.

“Look, I'll send you guys three dates and times tonight, and we'll pick one of them.” I stared Alice down, so she'd get off my back. “In the meantime, we'll get our surveillance operation up and running.”

Alice tugged on her earlobe. “Like I said, the sooner the better.”

Now she was just bugging me. “And like
I
said, I've got this. What about you, Jason? Do you have the fence worked out?”

He looked startled. “I have some calls out. Should be hearing soon. I'll let you know when I do.”

The meeting was over. We erased our browsing history, and Alice ran some other computer witchcraft to make sure no one could follow our tracks before we powered down her computer. By then Jason was long gone, so the three of us all made our way out to the parking lot. In the hallway, I took out my phone to text my mom to come get me.

She texted back:
Sorry. In with a client. Can't get there before six. Can you do your homework or something?

“That's great,” I said to the screen. The perfect end to a perfectly terrible day. “Just abandon your daughter, why don't you.”

Benny, who had been walking a few paces ahead of me, turned around. “Something wrong?”

“It's nothing,” I said. “My mom can't pick me up, so I'm stuck here for awhile.”

“I can give you a lift,” he said.

“No, no,” I said. “That's okay. I wouldn't want to trouble you.” The truth was I couldn't imagine riding in a car with Benny. Because that would require
conversation
, which wasn't exactly his strong suit.

He parted his lips and gave me a laser stare. “Come on, I don't have ghetto cooties or something.”

Crap
. Was he saying I was immature? Or, worse than that: racist? I could feel my cheeks start to burn. “Oh, it's not that—”

He laughed, breaking the tension. “Dakota. I can drive you. It's cool.”

He seemed harmless enough. He had a nice face, with heavy-lidded dark eyes, extra-long eyelashes that no mascara could replicate, and milky-tea-colored skin that was surprisingly stubbly, at least for guys our age. Plus a jaw that you could chip ice on. I shrugged. “As long as it's on your way.”

Before I knew it, I was sinking into the passenger seat of his immaculate black Mustang. He turned on the engine, and a Rick Ross track came blasting out, so loud I thought my eardrums might explode.

He quickly reached over to adjust the volume. “Sorry. When I'm on the highway, I can't hear that well.”

“Highway? Where do you live?” I knew he wasn't from the Main Line.

“North Philly, actually.”

The complete opposite direction. “Then my house is way too far out of your way.”

He gave me what looked like an accidental smile, like the smile just snuck away from him and he couldn't snatch it back up. “Nah. S'cool though. You live in Bryn Mawr, right?”

Um, how did he know where I lived? Should I be creeped out by that? As if reading my mind, he said, “Sorry. I just heard you talking about it one day. Not like I followed you home or whatever.”

I laughed, but it came out a little too loud. Why couldn't I act normally? At this rate, he was surely regretting offering a ride to this idiot white girl. So I reached over and turned up the stereo volume again, vowing to keep my mouth shut.

It didn't last long. “Alice was giving you a rough time today, huh?” he asked as we turned out of the school parking lot.

“That would be every day. I don't know what her problem is.”

“Probably not you,” he said. “It's more like what you represent.”

“Which is what exactly?” I snapped. I couldn't help myself. Was he going to get on my case today, too? Benny, of all people? I mean, I had to wonder what he'd observed in his few months at a school where the rest of us had been sent since what felt like birth. What could he possibly know about me?

“The easy life,” he said, pushing his palm against the steering wheel. He was a one-handed driver, as though he'd been doing this his whole life. Everyone I knew drove with their hands at the 10 and 2 o'clock spots. “You have it all together.”

“If only,” I blurted.

“What. That's not true?” he asked, with a sideways look and a questioning half-smile.

Well, that was what I wanted people to think. I'd worked very hard to make it seem that way, obviously, and I wasn't exactly ready to reveal my hand to this near-stranger. So I took a different tack. “She's brilliant. I have to work three times as hard as she does.”

“Yeah, but it's not about school, I don't think. She's real cocky about that,” he said.

“You think?” I said, and we both laughed.

“It's the other stuff. The social stuff. She's more of a loner type, like me.”

Huh. Maybe he was on to something. It hadn't occurred to me that Alice would ever
want
more of a social life. She seemed perfectly content with her Math Team buddies and her
Star Trek
GIFs. “She doesn't have to be a loner. And you don't either, you know.”

Now he laughed. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why? You play football. You're a nice guy, and people here are cool if you give them a chance.”

“Look, Dakota. I think it's pretty obvious why I don't fit in.”

He didn't need to say it. I knew what he meant: Race. Class. All that fun stuff we talked about in assemblies. “Is that why you never speak in school? I mean, clearly you can talk. What you're saying right now—it's the most I've ever heard from you.”

“I'm not mute, if that's what you mean. I just don't have anything to say to most of these people. And even if I did, they're not really listening. I'm just trying to graduate, go to college, get a good job. I don't have time for the other stuff.”

“But if they got to know you, I'm sure . . . ”

“I'm sure they'd take in a few little details to make themselves feel better.
See? He can't be too bad because he plays Xbox like me
. But it's not like they'd ever really want to get deeper than that.”