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The ego stroke, thank fuck, worked. “That’s right.” Thorn nodded, easing against the passenger seat. “I shut that asshole up real good.”
A transgression they were going to pay for, and not a little. But he couldn’t work around Thorn’s fuck uporwhat the Intelligence Unit knew if they were all in jail cells. They needed cover and time, in that order. “Do me a favor, both of you, and just keep your heads on a swivel so I can get us back to home base.”
The task kept them from trying to take each other’s heads off, and—more importantly—it gave Archer room to think. He considered the facts, parsing through every detail before turning to what the guard had said and dissecting that, too. Options and alternate plans formed, fell apart, then formed again in his head, and by the time they’d reached the rental house and pulled into the garage, then shut the door nice and tight, Archer knew what needed to be done.
Shedding their tactical gear and storing their weapons, he and Thorn and Portia made their way into the kitchen. Thorn’s scowl told Archer that despite his best efforts, the guy was still dialed up to at least seven, and he didn’t waste any time jumping in with both boots first.
“I told you. Itoldyou we shouldn’t leave any witnesses,” Thorn said, stabbing a hand through his greasy hair as he paced the well-worn kitchen linoleum.
Archer stood his ground, albeit with care. “The whole point was to stay under the radar, not blow it up. If we’d shot everyone in all these banks instead of just robbing them, the cops would’ve launched a national manhunt. We’d have never made it past the fourth job.”
But Thorn wasn’t having it. “We’re not under the radar anymore, though, now are we? That whore from the vault saw Portia’s eyes, andsomeonefigured out that she’s a woman. That bitch is a witness. Now we have to find her and shut her up.”
“No.” Archer loaded the word with enough steel to make it clear this wasn’t up for debate. “Killing the guard in the bank today was bad enough. It’s going to take us weeks to shake off the heat from that.”
“It needed to be done, just like Camila needs to be dealt with.” Thorn turned toward Archer, his eyes flashing. “You said that if she became a problem, I could deal with her.”
“That was before you shot a goddamn cop in the face, Thorn. We’d never get away with hurting her now.”
“Nah.” Thorn shook his head and sneered. “You’re just too much of a pussy to pull the trigger.”
It took all of Archer’s willpower to stay the course he’d set when he’d first come up with this plan. “No, I’m just not going to do something that’ll get us caught. How long do you think it will take the cops to find out that guard ran his mouth?”
“Who cares?” Thorn asked.
“You do,” Archer told him. “Because I’m willing to bet the first thing the cops do after making sure no one else is hurt and pulling the video feed from today’s cluster fuck is conduct some very detailed interviews. And every last person who was in that bank is going to tell them what that guard said just before you killed him.”
For all his reckless cruelty, Thorn wasn’t stupid. “They’ll knowweknow that Camila saw Portia’s eyes.”
“Exactly. Which also means they’ll be keeping close watch on Camila to be safe. And with the FBI involved, now, on top of it? Going after her would be suicide.”
Portia chose that moment to stop chewing her bottom lip and say, “Okay, but she saw me. Thorn’s right. She’s a witness, Arch. That’s dangerous.”
Here, Archer paused. “She is a witness,” he said slowly, because Portia wasn’t stupid, either. He had to play this just right. “She obviously saw your eyes, and she told the cops about it. But it’s not going to get them anywhere.”
Thorn grunted his disagreement. “It might. Half the time they do witness IDs from photo arrays now. All they’d need is a picture of Portia’s eyes, from a DMV photo, or whatever, and if Camila gives up a positive ID, that’s it.”
“What?” Portia asked, her gaze moving wildly from Thorn to Archer. “Can they seriously do that?”
“You need to stop watching so much fucking TV,” Archer told Thorn, partly because it was true, and partly because what Thorn had said wasalsotechnically true. Not that he could tell Portia that without freaking her out further. “Are the cops going to look for people with heterochromia? Yes. But they’re looking in police databases, and you don’t have a record. A DMV photo wouldn’t show enough detail for anyone to ID you on your eyes alone, and—I’ll play Devil’s Advocate, here—evenifthe cops somehow managed to come up with your name, they can’t connect you, or any of us, to these robberies. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a perfectly respectable resident of the great state of Arkansas who just happens to have one blue eye and one brown. There’s no proof you’re anywhere near Remington. Why do you think I gave you the best fake ID money could buy when we started this whole thing?”
“To keep me under the radar,” Portia said quietly.
“Exactly.” And as long as they stayed there, he could figure out their next move.
Portia whispered, “Do you really think I’ll be safe?”
Archer nodded, still very aware of Thorn taking in every word from beside him. “I don’t think the cops have a chance in hell of connecting you to these robberies based on what they’ve got. But I also think we need to be careful. And we obviously need a new plan to get the last of the money we need to disappear.”
“A new plan. How the hell do we do that?” Thorn’s voice was laced with doubt, but Archer was taking back control, once and for all.
“Research, for starters. We need to find out what the cops really know.Andif the FBI is really involved.” He couldn’t make a solid plan without knowing exactly what he was up against—and who.
“How are we supposed to do that?” Portia asked. “It’s not like you can just call them up and ask them to tell you.”
An idea formed in the back hallways of his mind, and oh, that wasn’t half bad. He put a pin in it, then said, “That security guard knew things he shouldn’t have, and I guarantee he wasn’t in Intelligence.” With the way the chucklehead had run his mouth, Archer would be surprised if he’d graduated from the academy more than six months ago. “If he had access to that information, that means it’s not as secure as they think. And that means I can get to it. I just have to figure out how.”
“We only have one more bank to hit,” Thorn said, knotting his arms over the thick wall of his chest. “Why fuck around with all this cloak and dagger shit? Let’s just do the last job and get the hell out of here.”
