Vin points to a drainpipe at the corner of the building. ‘See that window? Bathroom. It’s the only one without a locked screen and it’ll push out. I’ve checked.’
‘You want me to climb a drainpipe?’
‘Don’t pretend you can’t. Avery tells me everything, remember?’
About the days they spent as kids, scaling the walls of their aunt’s house, using drainpipes and cracks in the bricks to get on to the roof so they could vault on to the trampoline? So they could fly. Avery shouldn’t tell stuff like that. It belongs to him and Sam.
‘I can.’ Sam’s mouth is dry.
Vin tells him which halls to take, which staircase, which door leads to the back entrance and the alarm. She gives him a pair of thin gloves.
While she talks, she pulls a knife sheath from her duffle and straps it on to her thigh.
Shivers arch up and down Sam’s spine and he has to grit his jaw to stop his teeth chattering.
It’s not cold.
He’s scared.
‘You just flip the off switch,’ she says. ‘It’ll turn off the light and camera and the alarm too. Then unlock the back door. Use your phone for light. Easy, kid, so easy. I’ll be waiting there, and you head to the car afterwards.’ She frowns and reaches for her vibrating pocket. She tugs out her phone and frowns at the screen. ‘I’ll take this. You got it?’
Sam nods.
He tugs on the gloves while Vin leans against the fence and swears quietly but viciously into the phone. Even Sam winces. He doesn’t catch the name, but part of him wonders if it might be Avery. Don’t think about it now, Sammy.
Take a breath. Focus. The building is tall and the window looks impossibly tiny.
He glances back.
Vin makes an angry flicking motion.
Sam runs.
He keeps away from the light, from the cameras, and reaches the drainpipe. His fingers crawl across bricks.
He climbs.
The tips of his shoes dig into the space between bricks and he scrambles for the pipe. It shudders under his weight, but he just moves faster.
Fast, boy, go fast.
He gets to the top and wedges his knees against the pipe and the wall. One foot snakes out to rest on the tiny window ledge. His heart crashes hard in his chest.
Don’t look down. Don’t look for Vin.
His gloved fingers find the screen edge and pry it back.
After this, he gets Avery. He gets to hide. He gets to—
never see the De Lainey family again
The screen pops free and falls. It crashes to the floor inside. The sound is an explosion over the empty car park.
Sam risks a glance over his shoulder, his body trembling with the effort to cling up here. He can’t see Vin.
He grabs the window ledge, sucks in his breath, and pulls himself in.
It’s tight.
His shoulders only just wedge through. The buttons on his waistcoat catch and then one rips off, falling soundlessly to the cement below.
Don’t think about falling.
Sam wriggles in, his hands reaching out for the toilet and then resting flat on it. His legs slide the rest of the way and then he’s doing a handstand on the lid.
He flips down, silent as death.
Silent except for the pulse under his collar bones saying don’t do this don’t do this don’t you dare do this.
He walks the halls. Avoids the cameras. Gets to the back door. His shoes give soft pats on the tiles and he breathes too loudly. He finds the small white box and uses the light of his phone to flip the lid and stare at the switches.
Off.
He shuts down the light, the camera, the alarms.
Once he unlocks that door, this place is Vin’s. This isn’t spare change from a wallet and fistfuls of silver pieces. This is real and it’s big.
Sam looks down at his shaking hands and slowly, carefully, he peels off the gloves. His fingers are red, a poisoned stain.
Moxie screams ‘Sam’ in his ears. Not angry – frightened, desperate. A scream like someone holding on to a cliff that crumbles beneath their fingertips.
He feels hot. Sick. He’s going to throw up.
He slides down the wall, holding his face. Tears spill between his fingers.
If he does this, it’s the beginning, not the end. Vin will find a way to trap him, because that’s the kind of person she is – and if she threatens Avery, Sam will be a broken puppet in her fist and she knows it.
And he will never see Moxie again.
No. He did that himself.
Sam isn’t sure how long he sits like this, knees up to his chin, face buried, waiting for the silent sobs to stop racking his shoulders. The doorknob jiggles and then there’s an urgent hiss.
‘Sammy.’
Sam hugs his legs tighter.
‘Sammy. Open it. Are you there? Did something go wrong?’
Sam picks up his phone with trembling fingers.
‘Sammy.’
He turns it on, his brain frozen over because if he stops to think, if he hesitates, he can’t do it. Won’t do it. Can’t can’t can’t—
The doorknob rattles again and Vin swears. Feet scuffle and then Vin’s voice comes under the door, low and venomous. ‘Sammy, if you are in there and doing this on purpose, you can’t even imagine what I will do to you. Open – this – door.’
Sam hits dial.
Emergency picks up.
‘Please,’ Sam whispers, giving the address of the art gallery. ‘It’s being robbed. The thief is armed.’ He’s hit with a flurry of questions, but his eyes slither back to the door and the scratching of lock picks. He’s out of time. ‘She’s going to kill me.’ He ends the call.
The lock picks break off their careful scratching and then feet scuffle. More than one set. Sam’s heart skips a beat.
Voices sift under the door, low and then rising with agony.
Vin’s is acid. ‘I told you to go back to the car.’
‘You told me where you were. I had to come! You have my little brother in there!’
The voice is knives and panic.
Avery.
No. Avery can’t be here. Sam just called the goddamn police. He crawls forward, his mind blank on what to do next. He isn’t thinking. He’s just trying to stay upright when what he most wants is to curl into a ball and stop. Cease. Just let there have never been a Sammy Lou.