Page 120 of Brazen Deceits

RJ’s groan fills my ear. “What did you do, Clara? Those bikes are innocent in this.”

I giggle. “Do you think Mountain Dew in the gas tank causes permanent damage?”

Jansen huffs the quietest laugh. “You are brutal, beautiful.”

Trips shakes his head. “Definitely brutal.”

We wait in the half dark, snow falling hard, our breath clouds. I want to say something to Trips, but I’m not sure what you say to the leader of a band of thieves who, against his better judgment, has just offloaded fixing a fucked-up job to a complete newbie who is dating everyone on his team, except him—well, mostly not him. I open my mouth, knowing stress-induced word vomit is going to pour out, but RJ saves me.

“They headed north. Wait, no, they’re going west across Michigan toward downtown.” I take Trips’ hand and start running that way, but he lets go, both arms pumping as he tries to keep up with me. RJ continues to narrate what he’s seeing. “You fucked their bikes completely, sugar. And they look spooked. Two of them have obvious injuries from the fight with the guards. Ah. I just saw you. They’re one block north. Another block and you can probably cut them off.”

“Perfect, RJ. Jansen, I need you to hang the forgery. RJ—find him a way in.”

“On it.”

I dash across the next street, ignoring the traffic lights, cars honking, but I don’t look back. I can hear Trips’ pants behind me. “Let me go ahead. Don’t follow until I say your name, Trips. Three on one aren’t good odds. Surprise, Trips. Let me give you the element of surprise.”

“If anyone touches you, Clara—” he growls, and my insides turn to jelly. But it’s not jelly time. It’s catching the bad guys time.

With the help of my very own bad guys, of course.

Chapter 54

Walker

Aforgery in less than ten minutes. She can’t be serious.

I’ve already cut up one of RJ’s white dress shirts he had in the cabinet to make a fake canvas. It’s not a canvas. It’s fucking polyester.

I need to take him shopping.

Pulling on gloves, I cut lengths of blue ethernet with the wire strippers and clippers that RJ had in his onboard toolbox, trying to build this piece in my head.

A crowd photo background.

Blue ethernet cables locking the crowd in.

Red paint splattered across the whole thing.

This is pure madness.

I trim out the drawing I’ve been working on, a crowd scene done in a photo-realistic style. Is it a public use photo with guys from the twenties wearing newsboy caps? Nope. Is it going to be transferred right onto the canvas? For sure not.

I take a moment, changing a few hats to look vaguely like they’re from the 1920s. That’s going to have to be good enough. I rub the margins with my fingerprint eraser, hoping that it’ll smudge any prints on the thing.

RJ pops back into the van right as I hear Clara’s voice in my ear. I don’t answer. I have my task and it’s going to take all my focus to get it done.

RJ sets down a Walgreens bag next to me. Dragging out the wood picture frame RJ got, I pop off the back and slip out the glass. The stapler he bought is not meant for punching through polyester and wood, so thank God the frame is pine. There’s no way I’d be able to stretch the fabric into something approximating a canvas and pound the staples into the rectangle otherwise. Even with the hammer helping me out.

Using freaking super glue—super glue—I paste my drawing to the shirt. Then, using the same tiny glue brush, I layer the blue ethernet cable, holding the image of Gem Black’s piece in my mind. Am I sure I have the right number of cables? Nope. But thirteen both looks right and feels significant, so all I can do is hope that it’s close enough.

Now paint spatter.

I have one chance to do this right. With freaking tempera paint meant for bored five-year-olds on a rainy day.

I pull out the bottles of red, blue, and brown, finding one of the plates RJ has stowed to mix the colors, using a freaking plastic watercolor brush.

This hurts my goddamn soul.

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