Page 9 of Brazen Criminals

Jansen comes back and plops down on the couch. He suddenly seems a lot less chipper than he was when he followed that tight ass out of the room. “What’s the problem?” I ask.

Jansen clears his throat. “Funny you should ask. I think we have a medium-to-large-sized problem.”

Walker looks up from his sketchbook. “How so? What changed between the couch and the door?”

Jansen picks up his water but doesn’t drink it. “I asked Clara what her major is.”

I grimace. “It’s something like voice performance or some shit? Interpretive dance?”

RJ swipes through a few things on his phone. “Worse,” he says, before Jansen can answer.

That backdoor he built into the student portal always has answers. “What could be worse? Spit it out,” I say.

RJ looks me in the eye. “She declared criminology last spring with a minor in accounting. She also seems to be stocking up on pre-law coursework.”

“Shit.” Walker tosses the sketchbook down on the coffee table, his current Rubens obsession all over the page.

We all sit for a second. “Can we break the contract?” Jansen asks.

I shake my head. “We can, but we don’t have legal grounds to do so. If she were some elementary ed major, maybe we could try, but with all the pre-law coursework…”

Walker unscrews the lid on his stupid kombucha. Such a prick. “Maybe she won’t notice.”

RJ and I both burst out laughing. “Dude, I have a game here tonight,” I say. “Do you really think she won’t notice twenty people sneaking into the attic for high-stakes illegal poker?”

Jansen suddenly sits up. “Shoot.”

“What did you forget, Jansen?” I ask.

“Don’t worry. The beer will be here,” he says. Damn guy has daily alarms to get to his classes. I don’t doubt the beer will be here now that he’s remembered, but it’s also too late to order a keg for the night. I don’t want to know where he’s going to find one.

Walker sets his kombucha back down with a shrug. “I mean, as long as she isn’t in my room, I’m in the clear.”

“Same here,” RJ says.

“Dude, even in your room, you’d be in the clear. It’s not like she’s some white hat hacker on the side. You look like the typical computer nerd. No worries there,” Walker snipes.

I glance at Jansen. “Can you keep your sticky fingers to yourself? I don’t want her bitching about a missing computer or some shit.”

Jansen looks around at us all. “I don’t steal from friends! I only steal from…not friends…”

“Then I would love my new drone back,” RJ says.

Walker kicks back on the couch. “I was wondering where my last shipment of DMV-grade laminate went.”

“And I need my black book returned before five,” I add.

Jansen sighs. “That’s not stealing. That’s just testing to see if you guys are paying attention.”

I glare at him. He flaps a hand like it’s settled. “So what do we do about Clara?”

We all look around at each other. RJ shrugs. “We wanted credible security. A girl going into law enforcement is about the best cover we could have gotten.”

Walker grabs the sketchbook and heads for the stairs. “So basically, we’re fucked.”

Yup. We are so fucked.

Chapter 4

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