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Unease whispers up my spine as we drive down a street with a lot of industrial buildings.
“What are we doing tonight?”
Luna pulls up to a curb next to an old, abandoned building and throws the car in park.
“You’re watching the car. I’m getting some insurance.”
LUNA
“Insurance?” Charlie stares at me. Into me. As if he can coax my entire plan out with enough prolonged eye contact.
He might be the only one who could.
“That’s what I said.” I turn off the car engine and the lights, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness outside my windshield. My nerves tingle with anticipation. This task calls for skills I haven’t used in a very long time.
As I set my hand on the handle, there’s a pressure on my shoulder. When I glance back at Charlie, I find his frown in the dark.
I wish I’d gotten out of the house without him noticing.
“Please explain to me what you’re about to do.” His voice goes deep with a raspy plea. “I’m kinda freaking out over here.”
An explanation requires precious minutes, but if I’m right, I have a good bit of time to pull this off.
And I can’t risk Charlie trying to follow me.
Like most successful marriages require, I err on the side of honesty.
“On the other side of this—” I gesture to the dark warehouse. “—is the building my uncle’s chop shop is in. One of them at least. He may have expanded in the last decade.”
If anything, the worried wrinkles around Charlie’s frown deepen. “Why are we here? What exactly are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sneak in, get pictures of the VIN numbers of his latest haul, look around for any other incriminating information I can find, then get the hell out before anyone realizes I paid a visit.”
Charlie gapes at me, and I try not to sigh in impatience.
“Look. It’s not a walk in the park, but I’ve got this.”
“Guards,” he croaks out. “There’s got to be guards.”
“No doubt,” I agree. “But they’ll be guarding the ground floor. The entrances. No one should be on the roof.”
“I don’t get it.”
Maybe I should’ve typed this all out in an agenda. Probably would have helped calm my panicked salesman down. “Here’s the deal. I’m going up that fire escape.” I point out the rusty set of stairs I spotted on my last drive-by of the area. “I’ll get to the top of this building, cross over to my uncle’s, go in the roof access, and work my way down from the top.”
Charlie stares out the windshield as if in a daze, but his mind must still be processing information because he’s asking the questions I worked through days ago when I came up with this plan.
“Roof doors lock. You can’t just walk in.”
“I know how to pick a lock. Unless he’s installed some high-tech fingerprint scanner, I won’t have a problem.” Needing to be done with this conversation, I grab Charlie’s wrist, capturing his eyes with mine. My sight has adjusted enough that I can make out his dilated pupils.
“This isn’t something I came up with an hour ago. I’ve thought this through. If there are any unexpected risks that come up, I’ll abort. But I need to do this, and I need to go now.” I tighten my hold. “Trust me, Charlie. Stay here, and trust that I know what I’m doing.”
He swallows hard. Then nods. “How long?”
“What?”
“How long will this take you? If you don’t come back when you say you will, I’m calling 9-1-1.”
