Page 3 of The Wrong Idea (The Kinky Bank Robbers #2)

Chapter Three

Just after ten that night, we were lurking in the entryway of the bland brick apartment building where Tabby’s security camera contact, a man named Trevor Olson, lived.

Thor and I were lurking at any rate, pretending to study the mailboxes. Odin was picking the entry door lock. There was a snick sound, and the door swung open. We walked in like we owned the place and headed up the stairwell to the fifth floor.

“I hope he’s still awake,” I said.

“I have a feeling that he’ll talk to us either way,” Thor said.

“Yes, I have that same feeling,” Odin said.

“Now I have that same feeling,” I said.

We found the door. Odin knocked.

“Who is it?” somebody—presumably Trevor—yelled from inside.

“We’re here on some SunCity business,” Odin said.

After a long silence, Trevor said, “Then call the office in the morning.”

“It’s an urgent piece of business,” Odin said.

“So call the 24-hour service line,” Trevor said.

“We were referred by Tabby,” Odin added.

This got the door open. Trevor was a lanky goth guy wearing sweatpants, a Raiders T-shirt, and a sour-as-lemons scowl. “I don’t know any Tabby,” he said

Odin lowered his voice. “Tabby certainly knows you.”

“You have the wrong person,” he said.

“You really want to discuss this out here?” Thor asked in a whisper.

“Go through Tabby. I only talk to Tabby,” he said. “This conversation is over.”

“You’d rather have it out here in the hall?” Odin asked. “We can have it here in the hall.”

Trevor swore and pulled the door open, ushering us in, deciding he’d prefer to have this conversation in a private area. He shut the door and stayed standing. “Out with it, whatever you want. I’m just gonna tell you no.”

“The fairgrounds. You have footage that you handed over to a group. We need to see it.”

“Definite no on that,” Trevor said. “No way.”

“We’ll pay you well,” Odin said.

“I can’t,” Trevor said. “You’re out of luck. Sorry.”

Odin strolled over to Trevor’s kitchen island and started laying down hundreds.

“I’m gonna fucking strangle Tabby,” Trevor added. “You can tell her that. I’m not even supposed to talk about it, and neither is she.”

Odin kept going.

“It was really hard to get them a copy,” Trevor said. “I can’t just get into the hard drive and make another copy without people noticing. There’s a whole process to it, and I have to be on site.”

Odin turned to him. “But you can give us a look at the footage, can’t you?”

Trevor hesitated just enough that even I knew he could let us look if he wanted to. “This conversation is over,” he said.

Odin continued to lay down hundreds. So many hundreds.

“I can’t,” Trevor said, but his eyes were on the money.

“Five thousand,” Odin said.

Trevor shook his head. “Even if I wanted to—”

“Just a peek,” Thor said. “We don’t need copies of the files. Just a peek.”

“These people aren’t playing,” Trevor said.

Odin set down a few more hundreds. “Six large. That’s what’s behind door number one.”

“Door number one,” Trevor said.

“That’s right,” Odin said mysteriously.

Trevor frowned. Was he thinking about door number two? Wondering about it? I sure was.

“Hint,” Odin added. “Door number one is the better of the two doors. Vastly preferable.”

Trevor frowned at the money.

“I promise you that this group that you fear didn’t see us come in here, I promise you that—we pay attention to those sorts of things. But let’s pretend they did see us. What difference does it make if you show us at this point? Either way, they’ll assume you showed us.”

Trevor scowled. “I’ll explain that I didn’t.”

“But you’re gonna show us.” Odin pushed the money toward him. “You may as well take this.”

Trevor turned his lemony scowl to Thor, and finally to me.

He scowled at me for an extra-long time.

Did he think my status at the lone woman in the group might give me some moderating influence on badass Odin?

Not likely!

If anything, Odin was a bad influence on me. A terrible influence, in fact, leading me down a dark path of crime, overindulgence, and scathingly dirty sex acts.

Best.

Path.

Ever.

Trevor snatched up the money and shoved it into a cigar box.

“Stay there.” He left the room and came back with a laptop.

He sat down and started tapping. “They grabbed a ninety-second clip of an incident—a medical situation at a car show. Some guy collapsed and they carted him off.” He cued it up and turned the laptop around to face us.

There he was—Zeus on the floor. The men from ZOX were standing around him, arguing with the paramedics, who quickly backed off. They started loading Zeus onto a stretcher.

Moments later, there I was, pushing my way in, pretending to be a nurse. Odin slowed the playback, isolating the different frames that showed my face. He handed his phone to me. “Take pictures,” he said.

“Hey,” Trevor said. He wasn’t happy about the pictures.

Odin gave him a hard look. “This is happening.”

I got shots of each still that showed my face. There were no real high-quality images, but they weren’t as shitty and blurry as I’d hoped.

We finished up and headed out and down the stairwell, leaving Trevor and his lemony scowl several thousand bucks richer.

“What do you think?” I asked as we rushed down flight after flight.

“We’ll see. I’ll run it through my own software. It’s not a clear picture, but there are a few good shots. My guess is a forty-percent accuracy.”

“Meaning a forty-percent chance they can find me from it?” I asked.

“Yeah, that would be my guess,” Odin said. “If they keep hammering at it.”

We pushed out the doors into the cool, balmy night and hopped into our car.

“Forty percent doesn’t seem like a good thing,” I said as Odin navigated the car out into the stream of traffic.

“It’s not,” he said morosely. “But luckily, my IT skills are a thing of blazing awesomeness, shining like a thousand suns, stupefying my enemies and leaving them gasping in the wind.”

“Stupefying them and leaving them gasping in the wind?” I teased.

“Both,” Odin said resolutely.

I smiled. I loved when he was dramatic like that. Yet another one of the zillion things I’d miss about him.

Thor called Zeus and put him on speaker, updating him on the situation.

“At least we know what we’re dealing with,” Zeus said. “And I haven’t seen anything unusual here.”

“How are my sisters?” I asked.

“They’re not twirling around in the pastures singing show tunes or anything, but they’re getting on with their lives. Vanessa delivered a load of cheese to the Piggly Wiggly today.”

“Was it gouda?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Zeus said.

“Probably gouda. That batch was going to be ready first.” I sat back, watching the streetlights and neon signs whiz by in the darkness.

For some reason, I desperately wanted to know what the cheese was.

So stupid. I really did miss my sisters.

And I missed our dog, Petey. I missed him racing around the pastures.

I even missed the sheep, all with their different personalities.

I took solace in the fact that Vanessa, at least, knew I was safe, thanks to the sly message I’d sent her when I ordered one of our very expensive wool comforters. But I knew she’d feel better if I were home.

Not like I’d have a choice.

“It would be either gouda or blue cheese,” I said. “Those are our specialties right now. We were thinking about getting into brie, though. Sheep’s milk brie.”

Thor leaned up from the back seat. “I bet the people of Baylortown love having fresh artisanal cheese in their local grocer,” he said.

“Yes, the blazing deliciousness of our cheese shines like a thousand suns, stupefying all rival cheese producers and leaving them gasping in the wind,” I said wistfully.

Odin snorted.

Back at the hotel, Odin worked into the night, with breaks now and then to curse the hotel Wi-Fi. I tried to stay up with him, playing soft music and bringing him fizzy waters, but eventually I crashed on the couch.

When I woke up, my guys were at the little breakfast table, feasting on pastries from a cart that had somehow appeared while I was sleeping. Odin still had his nose in his laptop, naturally.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I asked.

“Seemed like you needed your sleep,” Thor said.

“How’s it going? Do you feel like you erased me from the internet enough?”

Odin grunted at his screen, deep in do-not-disturb mode.

“Not yet,” Thor said, gazing out at the sunrise.

Not yet. No news. Was that good news?

I took a quick shower and pulled myself together as best I could—I didn’t want my guys to remember me with bedhead and a face full of smeared makeup. When I came out, Thor had fixed me a coffee.

“So, still working on it?” I asked, taking the small porcelain cup.

They gave each other strange looks.

“What?” I demanded. “Not sure yet?”

Thor’s tone was ominous. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

My pulse pounded. “What does that mean?”

“You might want to have a few sips of coffee first,” he said.

“What does that mean? Because you think I need to be awake for whatever news you have?”

“Yeah,” Odin grumbled.

I took a sip. “Am I to assume that the news isn’t about your decision to wear kilts for the rest of our time together?”

Neither of them so much as quirked a lip. Seriously not a good sign.

Odin hit a few keys and turned the laptop screen to me. Zeus’s face filled the screen. “Good morning,” he said.

Chills ran down my spine. “What’s going on? Are my sisters okay?”

“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Zeus said.

“Sit,” Thor said.

“Okay.” I sat down on the couch. “Just tell me!”

Thor sucked in a deep breath.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “What?”

Odin came over and sat down next to me. “I’m reasonably sure I got all of the recent pictures,” he said. “But there are still some out there, of that I have no doubt. Pictures of you through the years.”

My pulse began to race. “Which means we can’t stop them from identifying me,” I said.