Page 27 of The Hard Way (The Kinky Bank Robbers #5)

Chapter Twenty-One

By lunchtime the next day, things were seriously on track. Zeus got one of our shady friends from Guvvey’s to pay a dirty cop to request the fingerprints.

But best of all, Vanessa came through with a name: Jeremy Zern.

Jeremy was a guy in Dieter’s Corners who was apparently a total scumbag and stole a lot of electronics, according to Vanessa’s friend Lexy. When we did a police records search, we discovered he’d never been arrested.

He wouldn’t be in the system. Excellent.

We had two suspects! All we needed now were Jeremy’s and Chas’s fingerprints to compare with the ones taken from the scene of the break-in.

It was decided that Zeus and Odin would find Jeremy Zern and get his prints. They were better at looking disreputable than Thor and I were, and I think Zeus wanted to keep an eye on Odin.

Thor and I would hunt down Chas and get his prints. They weren’t sure about letting Chas see me, but I promised them that Chas and I had hardly known each other at all. The disguise would work on Chas .

Zeus and Odin headed out to Dieter’s Corners. There was a bar that did a 10 a.m. happy hour that Jeremy Zern talked up on his Facebook page. He took pictures there a lot.

Meanwhile, Thor and I headed out to the local coffee shop, me in my horrible but very convincing stick-on nose and unflattering glasses.

The coffee shop had a bulletin board that was flyer central for everyone who offered services in town.

There were massage therapists, arborists, computer repair guys.

Sure enough, Chas the handyman had a flyer there. I ripped off one of the little rectangle ruffles, and Thor gave him a call to talk over a job.

Chas agreed to meet us on his lunch break.

Thor and I settled into the back booth at the Morningside Diner. He was the mysteriously hot millennial, and I was his dorky bride.

I scanned the room, relieved I didn’t know anybody too well, though it was really only my sisters I had to worry about.

Strange how things look when you’ve been away two years.

I vividly remembered the stencils of chickens all along the top of the wall, and the blue checked tablecloths.

But there were other aspects of the Morningside I didn’t remember, like the chrome everywhere looking just a little bit fake, and the shabby bathrooms.

Everything had seemed nicer back when I lived there.

I grabbed a menu. “You have to try the banana walnut peanut butter pancakes.”

“Not sure about that.” Thor tended to go for the healthier options. I pointed out the nuts and fruit aspect of the pancakes, and he ended up ordering them. The place might be shabby, but I’d put those pancakes up against any breakfast food on the planet.

Chas showed up soon after.

“It’s your lunch break; grab a lunch,” Thor said to him. “On us. ”

“It’s cool,” Chas said.

“I insist. It’s on us.”

Chas eyed Thor. “Where’d you say you’re from?”

“We travel a lot,” Thor said. “But we’re looking at property near here.

We’re thinking about gutting this kitchen…

” Thor showed him pictures of our fictional kitchen.

Chas wasn’t entirely comfortable quoting a job he couldn’t visit, but he gave us examples of costs.

He had pictures, too. It was a completely useless meeting, really, until the waitress delivered a water glass to Chas, and he took a nice big gulp of it.

Chas ordered a ham and Swiss and quizzed us a bit. How did we use a kitchen? Did we cook together? Did we like to spread out, or were we mostly heating restaurant leftovers?

Thor smiled over at me. “We like to cook big dinners. Big projects,” he said. “Sometimes we have a drink and cook for hours, making everything perfect. Sometimes we cook with other people.”

“Social cooks,” I said wistfully, remembering those brief, shining few months we spent at the Los Angeles safehouse in the hills where we really did live like that. That beautiful mod hideout with the outdoor tub and the big kitchen.

It had been like a real home. We were happy there.

“A lot of counter space,” Chas said. “I’d probably hire out the actual design. I have a few names.”

“But you could do the work?”

“After the design, I’d quote it and do the work.” He sucked down some more water and set down the glass. Both Thor and I gazed at the place where he’d grasped it. He’d left big juicy prints. His meal came, and he got oily cheese prints on the glass. And Thor went crazy for the pancakes.

Myself, I had the sweet roll.

The plan was to get Chas to leave first, and then we’d empty his glass and slip it into a baggie Thor had brought.

The Morningside Diner was a nice family place, and I hated the idea of stealing its glassware, but partway through the demo, Thor got a text.

“Ah. Interesting.” He passed the phone over to me, and I read the words from Zeus: JZ our guy. In the trunk. Heading up to ski slope.

So Jeremy Zern was our guy. “Huh,” I said.

“We’re going to have to cut this short,” Thor explained, passing across a fifty and two twenties. “Buy yourself dessert. Whatever you’d like.”

“I’m not going to eat fifty desserts,” Chas said.

“Leave a nice tip and keep the change. We’ll be in touch when and if.”

“Wow, thanks,” Chas said.

Well, he was innocent. We’d wasted his time, but at least he’d gotten a nice lunch out of it. And a little extra cash.

We got out of there and headed to Ski Slope Road.

“When and if,” I sighed. That was our life— when and if .

Thor looked over at me—sadly. He missed having a permanent home, too.

“I’m guessing JZ in the trunk isn’t a euphemism,” I added.

“I'm thinking no,” Thor said. “They probably dusted his glass and did a visual comparison. And lured him out.”

“Why the ski slope?”

“They’ll probably hang him over,” Thor said. “As a threat. More organic than a gun to the head.”

“Organic? Important to be organic with those threats.” I was mocking that comment, which I didn’t entirely understand, but there was a little bit of admiration in there. My guys were like master-level artisans of crime.

I stared out the window at the passing scenery.

“I wish we were designing a kitchen like we told Chas we were. I wish the four of us were moving to our own place where nobody could get to us, and that we really were going to have a large entertainment kitchen. Isn’t there some place we can be safe like that?

A place without an extradition treaty or something? ”

Thor regarded me sadly. “Not for us.”