Brazen Mistakes (Brazen Boys #3)

28. RJ

Chapter 28

RJ

I hadn’t planned on doing surveillance today, but here I am, a dozen miles from the rest of our group, waiting on Jansen to scope out the target’s setup.

Idling in the SUV with the heater cranked high, half a block down from the address Trips sent to us, I think through what we know. Apparently, this mark is a congenital, secretive asshole, a former good friend of Trips’ father, and a collector of illegally seized WWII jewelry. Family heirlooms lost during one of the greatest genocides in history all seem to find their way to this creep.

The things rich people collect shouldn’t bother me anymore, but somehow, they just keep surprising me with how dirty the upstanding gentlemen of our world will get.

Thankfully, Jansen’s going to liberate a few pieces for Clara to wear to the party. The “collector” doesn’t insure the jewels, as he didn’t come by a damn one of them honestly, and once Clara’s done with them, we can work on reuniting the pieces with their family. It’s a win all around.

The security looked tight but not impossible when we first rolled by. If I can tap into the hardline for the security system, I should be able to guide Jansen to the jewels without issue. So Jansen’s doing a run around the block, looking for access so we can get this set up before nightfall.

Once I figure out where the jewels are kept and when a good time to break in might be, we can come back and do our retrieval.

The door to the SUV swings open, and Jansen leaps in, shuddering a bit from the cold. Piecing together a believable running outfit for him from what the rest of us were wearing was a bit of a comedy, but he looks mostly like a runner, albeit one that should probably be out when it’s twenty degrees warmer than it is today. “What’d you find?” I ask as he holds his hands in front of the register.

I crank up the heat for him.

“Holy moly, it’s cold.” He pulls his coat on from where he left it to go run, the knee-length gray puffer that covers him for all his winter wandering not suitable for the guise of a runner. “The usual setup, nothing too crazy. I saw a likely junction box at the back of the house. There are a few cameras, though.”

“Sneakable?”

“Possible. But I think distraction might be better.”

“It’s the back of the house, though.”

“Yeah.”

I watch as a family loads up a minivan in the front yard across from the target’s house, disgruntled teens hauling backpacks and shoving them into the car. What looks to be grandparents hustle after everyone, dragging teens and adults into hugs indiscriminately. “What do we have to work with?” I ask.

Jansen hops into the back of the car, pulling a few bags from the back end. “Well, Walker took his notebook, but I have a few miscellaneous art supplies here. Trips didn’t bring anything, but there’s a road emergency kit in the back and some bungee cords. I have, umm, some granola bars, a set of bump keys, my multi-tool, a stress ball, and a copy of Foucault that I forgot to take out. And I assume you know what you have in your bag.”

“My tablet, a bug detector, and three of my devices, as well as my multi-tool,” I say as I watch one teen loading the car shout something at his brother. That’s all the warning before he chucks a football at the other guy’s head. The victim ducks, and the football whizzes into the street, the assailant laughing hysterically as their parents turn around and start yelling.

“Want to be an extra grandson?” I ask, pointing at the blond teens as the kid who threw the ball gets scolded by his father, leaving the other kid to sprint into the street and retrieve the ball.

“Am I stealing their football?”

“Nah. But you might lose your stress ball in the mark’s backyard. It probably won’t be the first time those kids have caused some chaos across the street.”

Jansen pockets the ball. “It’s as good a plan as any. Wish we had our earpieces, though.”

“Yeah, well, this was a bit impromptu. I guess Trips didn’t want to spend his trust fund on jewels, only on clothes. ”

Jansen huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, and tuition, but not the rental properties. I never know where his line is with his blood money, you know?”

“Cautious with a side of petty. But you’d better get going. They’ll be pulling out soon.”

I hand him the device that lets me cut into a standard home security system when placed on the right line. Jansen doesn’t need any further guidance. As long as it’s a typical system, it’ll be the same as every other time we’ve done this.

“Thank God for a good Midwest goodbye,” he says, before hopping out of the car and walking past the family, still loitering in the front yard.

They’re caught up in their own situation and pay no notice as Jansen pops up his hood before scrambling over the gate across the street with significantly less grace than usual. It’s damn good acting on Jansen’s part, and I’m impressed by his forethought.

Less than a minute later, a silver-haired man in an unbuttoned wool coat and slippers stumbles down the front stairs and trails Jansen around the side of the house. I roll down all the windows, straining to hear anything, but I’m too far away, and the family’s continued bickering blocks anything I could hear, anyway.

Instead, I count seconds, figuring anything past 120 means Jansen’s in trouble. At ninety-eight seconds, while I’m trying to jam my big feet into Jansen’s smaller boots for a rescue, I see the front gate slowly creep open. Jansen strolls through, waving the yellow ball around while the old guy looks ready to prove he conceals and carries. But he’s letting Jansen go, so the simple story must have worked well enough.

Jansen waves bye to the guy, who glares as the gate separates him from my sunshiny roommate. Jansen trots across the street, and I’m barely able to hear him ask the teens if either of them lost the ball. Immediately, the dad chews out the troublemaker, who’s trying to defend himself. The other kid chuckles at his brother’s expense, while the grandparents try to smooth everything over.

Once the old guy across the street goes inside, I text Jansen, and he tosses the ball to the teen in need of revenge, holding up his phone as an excuse to step away—always a good move, as both parties will believe it—and walks back with his phone to his ear.

He slips into the car, and I immediately pull away, rolling up the windows as we go. You can’t catch someone you can’t find.

“How’d it go?” I ask.

“It was close, but I got it.”

“Nice. How are you feeling? Buzzed? Chill?”

I glance over when he doesn’t answer right away. His lips are twisted as he flops down his hood and combs his fingers through his hair. “Nah. I honestly don’t feel much of anything.”

We drive a little longer before I figure out what I’m trying to say. “That’s not normal for you, is it?”

He pulls out his phone and grins, showing me a picture Walker just sent of him and Clara at some cafe, her smile so welcome my heart skips a beat.

I’m pretty sure Jansen’s not going to answer my question, but after pointing at a parking lot for me to pull into, yanking off my tennis shoes, handing them over, and pulling on his leather boots, he flops back into his seat. “No. It’s not normal.”

I push the seat back to yank on my sneakers, my toes numb from sitting in the car without them. “Should we worry? I think we all remember freshman year clearly, Jay.”

He grimaces out the windshield. “I don’t know. I’m not close to the edge or anything, man. But, I don’t know, the big stuff we’ve been doing makes the little stuff less fun, you know?”

I nod, knowing this was always the risk with Jansen. “You know, if it gets weird up there in your head, I’m here, right? We all are.”

He throws a grin at me, his eyes almost too bright. “Got it. Also, I’m not scaling anything in your shoes again, RJ. It was like trying to climb a wall in flippers. I was worried I’d fall for most of that scramble.”

Laughing like I know he expects me to, I let it slide for now. If he says he’s holding it together, I’m not going to doubt him. If he’s coming undone, we’ll all see it. Secrets have never been Jansen’s strong suit. “And here I thought you were pretending to be an uncoordinated kid.”

Snatching a mitten from the dash, he chucks it at me. “I still made it just fine.”

“Doesn’t mean it was graceful.”

Once my shoes are back on, we head back to join this shopping trip. Walker’s made a list of things he’s getting for me, too, so at least Clara won’t be alone in the torture. I guess if I ever need to go inside the place we’re robbing, I’ll be able to blend now. I hate the time suck of it, though. There are so many more important things for me to do than pop from boutique to boutique. Every moment not spent trying to track down all the dangers and issues I’m responsible for, or spending time with Clara, makes my anger lick at my toes.

I’ve been cutting into my sleep to keep up, but I know that isn’t sustainable. If only my dad weren’t making such a mess of an already impossible workload, I’d feel better. Just sharing with Clara that he has a gambling problem earlier today had me ready to drop into my obsessive control mindset again. But her hand in mine kept me present. I don’t want to hurt her again, not like the other night.

“Speaking of how we’re doing, how are you?”

I start out of my mind and glance at Jansen, wondering if he can read my thoughts on my face. “How so?”

“You’ve been working almost non-stop since September. And it sounds like there might be stuff up with your dad?”

I’m apparently transparent. “My dad isn’t doing well, but my mom and I have a plan set up where I can hopefully keep him in line while she tries to get him help. They both insist that our pastor can handle it, but, I don’t know. At this point, I think it’s more of a PTSD thing than a spiritual failure, but neither of them will make an appointment with the VA.”

“And this plan? How much work is it on top of everything else you’ve got going?”

“I’m adding my dad to the blacklist at all the casinos in Minnesota and Wisconsin.”

Jansen huffs out a breath. “Man. That’s a lot of work. They’re not all on the same system, are they?”

“Nope.”

“Any future back doors for us?”

“Probably not.”

“That blows. ”

A real laugh burbles out of me, and I can’t help but be grateful Jansen is, well, Jansen.

He drops the seat back, so he’s staring out the sunroof of Walker’s SUV. “And all the other work?”

“There are just so many threads to pull, so many kids stuck in shitty situations. I don’t feel like I’m making any progress.”

“The numbers would say otherwise.”

“Numbers aren’t everything.”

“No. I guess they aren’t.”

The car grows silent as I try not to remember all the shit I’ve seen since I started this quest to clean Clara off the internet, to rob blind all the sickos that bought videos of her, of the women, girls, and boys, who got caught up in the fucked-up world we live in. And the fact that there are so many that I’ve found here, local? It makes me want to take my sisters and lock away their technology, ban them from dating, or at least screen any boyfriends they might have.

They’d hate me for it.

Doesn’t mean I haven’t scoped out every guy they’ve talked about over the last few months.

“How worried are we about Trips’ dad?” Jansen asks as we get closer to the ritzy shops.

“Very.”

His sigh is all I get in response.

As I pull into a parking garage, I ask a question that’s been on my mind. “Should we trust Summer with getting Clara ready for this?”

“Dude. I have no idea. That woman is nothing like the girl I knew.”

“How so? ”

“She’s just so cold and calculating. Summer before was, I don’t know, fun. Playful and vibrant and up for getting into trouble. She and Austin, they were a perfect set.”

“She dated your cousin?”

“Nah. They were doing the whole, ‘best friends who wish they were more but are too afraid to make the first move,’ thing. It was only a matter of time, but then…” Jansen zips up his coat and steps out once we park.

When he doesn’t continue after I lock up, I fill in, making sure I understand. “Jail ruined it, right?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Do they still talk?”

“I don’t think so. Austin got transferred so many times, we struggled to find him for a couple of years. I only got in contact with him because you found him for me last spring.”

“That had to be lonely for him.” Guilt clouds Jansen’s face, and I remember he blames himself for Austin getting caught. “They should have made it easier for you guys to keep track of him,” I say, trying to fix the darkness that I just put on his face.

“Why would they make it easy for a felon to maintain connections with people outside of prison? How else are they going to build super criminals unless they isolate them from normal people?”

“Jay, I wouldn’t call you or Summer ‘normal people.’“

A chuckle takes a touch of the shadows from his face, and I hope Clara can cure the rest.

“Nah, I guess you’re right about that.”

The cafe comes into view, and Jansen jogs ahead, taking a few backwards steps to shout, “First one there gets lap cuddles!”

I might roll my eyes, but I also sprint after him. Because Clara on my lap sounds like the best kind of torture.