Page 90 of Out for the Night

Tom kneeled at Kelvin’s door, pulled a tension wrench from his front shirt pocket, and went to work. Apparently, he’d had such a bad addiction to soda as a kid, caffeine-free or otherwise, his parents used to lock it in a cabinet. (It seemed to Coop that the parents also were addicted if they still kept it in the house.) It gave birth to his interest in picking locks. The things you learned about a person when you were engaged in illegal activity together. Tom twisted the knob, and the door creaked open.

“Bad bishop,” Coop teased.

“I haven’t been ordained yet.”

The five of them scurried inside and shut the door.

They split up in search of Kelvin’s laptop.

“Found it!” Tim yelled from the bedroom.

Rafe shushed him.

Tim brought it over. Kelvin had a Burberry sticker over the Apple of his computer, which took away any shred of guilt Coop had about this plan.

“We need a lookout downstairs,” Tim said. He explained that he’d once been part of a team that broke into a cosmetics company doing animal testing. He’d been lookout for them and distracted an extra security guard they hadn’t accounted for.

Coop showed Tim a picture of Kelvin. Tim went down the stairwell back outside to keep watch over a possible Kelvin sighting. The rest of them sat around the kitchen table, and Coop pointed to Akash.

Akash had been playing with computers since preschool. By freshman year of high school, he was designing apps for smartphones. He created an app that plays fart versions of famous symphonies from the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. Users could adjust the level of fart they wanted according to wetness, loudness, and duration. It was a number one seller on iTunes and paid for his tuition to Browerton. Even business school if he wanted.

Coop checked his phone. Nothing yet from Tim.

“I’m in,” Akash whispered. Kelvin’s home screen greeted them. Akash searched through folders on his desktop, Tom searched for an external hard drive, and Rafe went through Kelvin’s wardrobe.

“What are you doing?” Coop asked him. Rafe was wearing Kelvin’s blazer and eyeing himself in the mirror.

“He has so many things!” Rafe pointed to an overflowing closet, where the clothes on the floor were nicer than anything Coop owned. “Do you think he’ll miss one itty bitty blazer?”

“Put. It. Back.”

“Fine.” Rafe slipped his hand in the front pocket for one last pose in the mirror. He pulled out a flash drive. “What’s this?”

Coop examined it closely and saw the familiar “Don’t Mess with Texas” logo. “You fucker,” he whispered to the flash drive.

He returned to the kitchen table and handed the flash drive to Akash. “Check this.”

“‘Don’t Mess with Texas.’ I’ve never been a fan of that slogan,” Akash said.

“Not the slogan. This is Matty’s flash drive. How did Kelvin get a hold of it?”

Akash plugged it into the computer and read through code that was plain gibberish to Coop.

“Guys.” Tom came over with an empty bubble envelope he had pulled from the trash. It was sent from an employee at Google, according to the return address.

“So he was working with a professional.” Coop wasn’t the only person on his payroll, which didn’t surprise him. A smart businessman always had a backup.

Coop’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

Text from Tim:I see him crossing the street. He’s coming.

Text from Coop:Stall.

Coop held the phone to his chest and took a deep breath. They could do this. They could do this.

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked.

“Looks like the chicken is coming home to roost.”