Page 113 of Brazen Deceits

Placing the only piece of 17th century paper that RJ could source for me on the prepared surface, I breathe deep once, playing out the drawing in my head one last time.

Picking up the first color, I start, not pausing, riding the flow from start to finish, each color adding, building, translating a perfectly formed image from my mind onto the paper.

By the time I set down the white chalk, the sun has set, and mytrois crayonsis complete.

Vicious cats with teeth glinting prowl the paper, muscles bunched and ready to leap out. Each snarl is unique, each tiger stripe and leopard spot adding to the feeling that the cats are fighting for the chance to be free, but will be forever caught on paper.

It’s done.

I tuck it between protective sheets, rubbing down the edges with a special eraser to blur my fingerprints. Staring at the image I made, pride wells as I zip it into my portfolio, ready for next week.

I did it.

And it’s perfect.

Chapter 49

Clara

Saturday morning, I wake to find the results of Jansen’s secret mission scattered across the foot of my bed. My old coat and boots from my parents’ house sit on one side, while a new, full-length purple down puffer jacket with matching high-end black and purple snow boots, tags attached, sits on the other. I don’t know how he got them, but at least Trips’ feverish ramblings about girls’ boots make more sense.

The week passes in a blur with prep work on so many fronts, the house quiet with focused studying and planning.

By chance, only two of our cumulative twenty finals fall on the Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in Chicago. Trips talked his finance professor into letting him take his exam early, claiming a family obligation, and RJ turned in his final project for one of his high-level computer science coursesearly, and got such a good grade that his professor is letting him take the final exam at his leisure.

I’ve never been more relieved to live in a house of overachievers.

Monday after class, Professor Gleim asks me, Trips, and some other girl to stay after class. Once the room clears, she tells us we can use her as a reference should any of us apply to law school. In a school of over fifty thousand students, that’s a rave review.

Unfortunately, Trips couldn’t help but badmouth the whole profession after we left the room, which soured my excitement. Despite his whining, the fact that someone I respect thinks I could be a lawyer? That’s pretty cool.

It’s not the FBI, but I have a feeling the guys might need help on the legal front someday. I hope they don’t, but I’m nothing if not a planner.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized the FBI seemed like a good fit for the same reasons I’ve joined the guys: it required me to think like a criminal, had an element of adventure, and called to a base urge of mine to be powerful. It was also the antithesis of the anxious creature Bryce was grooming me to be.

Now I can’t work for law enforcement, not without going against my own guys.

The rush I felt running in to help Jansen was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

The terror afterwards? Yeah, that was bad.

But still. I can’t wait to do it again.

I’m slated for van time for this trip, which is fine by me, at least for now. When I think about guns, I still get shaky. Guns are not my jam. More time to recover sounds like perfection.

Tuesday night, we pack everything, splitting between the van and yet another car the guys bought with cash. This time they found a tiny green Dodge Neon that’s on its very last leg. Driving across Wisconsin, the poor thing shudders anytime we go faster than fifty miles per hour.

Trips rode with RJ in the van, leaving Walker, Jansen, and me to maneuver the sad little junker to Chicago. Lucky for us, we put all that extra time to good use giggling and flirting.

We stumble into our suite—some high-rise off the Miracle Mile—and I’m greeted by a two-story lofted space that makes me forget the joke I was going to make the instant I step into the living room. “Wow.”

The Chicago skyline glints through the two-story windows, the pure dark of Lake Michigan taking up the left-hand side of the view. The snow that started as we pulled into the underground parking garage sparkles out the window, the effect like stepping into an enchanted snow globe.

Trips looks up from where he’s sitting in an armchair, a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips as he watches me taking in the room.

The carpeting is plush, the furniture leather and soft wool, the kitchen soapstone with white cabinets. I’m salivating, thinking about my bed. It’s going to be like sleeping on a cloud. Jansen slips his arms around my waist, nipping my ear. “I think your secret materialism might be showing.”

I grin, leaning into him. “It was never a secret. It was just masked by a severe lack of cash.”

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