Then I’m out of the van and loping around to the back of the house, my earbud humming faintly in one ear. “Heading up,” I announce as I scramble up the same side of the house I took last time, the ice not as bad with this week’s slight thaw,but still nothing easy. I make it in with minimal twinges in my chest, though, so I’m counting it as a win.
Knowing where I’m headed, I slink into the epic closet and move the mirror hiding the safe full of Nazi jewels, ripe for the taking. As soon as I get it set aside, though, I sigh.
“We’ve got a problem,” I announce.
“What is it?” RJ asks.
“He got a new safe. A fancy one with buttons. I don’t do buttons nearly as well as old-school wheels.”
“Take a picture and send it to me.”
I do, then plop down in front of the metal beast, looking it over. “This one is fancier than any I’ve gotten into before.”
A soft curse makes it over the line. “That’s because it’s top of the line. Walker, can you run to that drugstore two blocks back? We need dark eyeshadow.”
“On it,” Walker says, the bang of the tailgate audible both through the earpiece and the wall.
“Man, I’m getting quite the collection of makeup,” I mutter. “At least I’m pretty.”
RJ chuckles. “We all have our roles to play.”
“And mine’s the pretty one?”
“You’re the heart of this thing, Jansen. Never think anything else.”
I swallow back my emotions at that observation. “Not just an annoyance?”
“Go plant the threat. We only have so long before the owner gets back.”
I chuckle. “One compliment at a time. Got it.”
“Go, you pest.”
“Buzz buzz!” I sing as I walk out to the sitting room, finding a pad of paper on top of the visible safe. I pull the fancy pen from my fanny pack, the weight of it strange in my hand. Even with my gloves on, making my hands look larger, the pen is still huge, obviously expensive. “He’s on the invitation list for the wedding, right?”
“Yeah. He’s sent his regrets, though.”
I chuckle. “You’ll have to tell me if he changes his mind after this.”
I scratch out my message, dropping the pen on top of the pad.
“Got it,” Walker’s voice cuts in. “I’ll meet you at the back.”
He tosses the small case up, and I snag it, then go back to the safe, painting the powder across the keypad. “Okay, it looks like one, three, nine, and zero are in the code.”
The soft clicks of RJ’s keyboard make their way across the quiet mics. “This safe can have codes that are five to eight digits long. You get three chances before it locks you out for thirty minutes. So, at least one of those numbers is in there twice.”
“That’s like a huge number of possibilities, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
The back of the van slams again. “What do we know about this guy? What number matters to him?”
RJ taps on his keyboard. “It’s not his birthday…the date of his marriage…or his divorce.”
“Any kids?” I ask.
“Nope.”
