Smash & Grab by Amy Christine Parker

Author:Amy Christine Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2016-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

Rosie drops me off at the Madison Street house after work. She keeps trying to lure me into a conversation—has been all afternoon. I’m not biting. I haven’t been able to focus since my meeting with Lexi.

I keep going over it in my head, looking for some way to make sense of how she acted—that and replaying the moment when she dropped out of the sky and onto the car that first night. More and more she fits the Bond girl profile: mysterious, bold, and up to something. She’s one very sexy puzzle, and all I want to do is put the pieces together. Except I can’t. Not yet. Soldado’s called a meeting. He’s never done this before. Usually all his communication is done through Gabriel. The less we’re all together in one place before a job, the better. I don’t like it. Everything feels out of my control and risky as hell.

The house is dark, the windows papered over so you can’t see inside, but there is a weak arc of light bleeding into the backyard, barely visible from the food truck. There are a handful of cars scattered along the street. I spot Soldado’s and Gabriel’s right off. And then there’s the one that Twitch was driving the other day. I don’t recognize the fourth car.

“I’m not going in,” Rosie says as she idles at the curb. “Gabriel’s driving Benny home. You can hitch a ride with him.”

“You don’t want to say hi to your boyfriend?”

She shakes her head. “Not here.” Her face tightens as she gazes up at the house, but she doesn’t say anything else. Lips pursed, she taps the steering wheel impatiently.

I slip out of the car. The minute my door’s shut, she pulls out onto the road again. Breathe and focus, bro, I tell myself as I walk up the driveway with a confidence I don’t feel, and knock on the front door. Twitch opens it almost immediately, a forty in his hand. He tips it to his mouth and drinks deep. “S’up, vato?” He motions me in and saunters to the back of the house. It’s quiet. No music. No talking. Unsettling as all get-out.

I round the corner into the main living space, where Soldado, Gabriel, Carlos, Eddie, and Benny are all sitting on camping chairs. Everybody but Benny’s got a forty, too. Benny’s like me. Neither of us drinks much. At all, really. Alcohol withdrawal is no joke. I have memories of my dad going through it that I can’t ever get rid of. I can barely smell the stuff without my stomach turning. Benny doesn’t drink because he says he hates being out of control.

I take a seat on the low wall that separates the kitchen from the living room.

“Christian.” Soldado tips his beer in my direction. “Okay, now that we’re all here, let’s get to it.”

Twitch disappears into the other room and brings out a stack of maps and blueprints that he spreads across the floor. No telling who Soldado had to bribe to get them.

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