Page 41 of The Company We Keep

“They’re leaving,” he said, letting the anger and accent fall from his voice, 100% justhimagain. “You might as well just come in through the front fucking door at this point.”

“Well that was bloody brilliant,” Wayles said, joining him at the back door. He’d dropped the boxes the minute the students were out of earshot.

“Leta’s coming in,” Carrow said through the comms. “Dust, head back out here.”

It was tempting to walk around the museum now as if he owned the place, but Dust forced himself back into the mindset of a criminal. They were on a job, after all, and just because he’d fooled a group of grad students didn’t mean he’d be able to fool a cop.

It had been almost too easy to slip into another character. Had the talent for lying — for assuming and adeptly working a fake identity — been something latent and existing in Dust all along, or a new skill he had acquired only recently?

Lies stacked on top of lies in his head as he prepared to face Carrow and Herron again.

Herron may not have been impressedthat Dust had found a non-violent compromise with the unwelcomed students, but Carrow couldn’t have been more pleased.

Something had told him that the kid would be more than a demo guy — and whatever quick thinking he’d just executed only strengthened that assumption.

He wanted to slap Dust on the back as he walked up, pulling his black jacket back on and smoothing his hair into place — but instead he remained neutral. No need to piss Herron off further by celebrating Dust’s success.

“Nice work,” he said once Dust was within earshot.

“All I did was buy us time.”

Carrow nodded.

“Time’s all we need.”

All that was left for the three of them to do at the moment was wait and keep an eye on their surroundings. Dust had already planted his explosives. Wayles and Leta had plotted the course to retrieve the items so carefully that it should be quick work now that they were actually inside.

As they stood in the shadows, Dust fidgeted.

“We gotta cut down this timeline,” he hissed to Carrow, impatient. “I don’t trust those kids to actually go home.”

“Herron, go around back and make sure they’re gone,” Carrow said, nodding. “Dust, you check the front.”

Both of them followed his order quickly and silently. He stood alone in the garden.

Sirens were wailing by the time Leta announced that she was emerging from a side door.

Truly, it didn’t faze him. These things happened.

“I fucking knew it,” Dust said into the comms through clenched teeth, sounding distinctlyfazed. (Ah, well, Carrowthought. He would learn with time.) “One of those grad school assholes called their professor.Fuck.”

“Herron, can you draw them off?” Carrow asked.

“It’s my pleasure, boss,” Herron said. The smile in their voice was plain. “Vi, I’m gonna borrow your bike for a bit, OK?”

“Sure thing,” Vashvi said. It sounded like she was smiling too. “Leta can give me a ride, right?”

“Right,” Leta said, sounding breathless through the comms. “Carrow, I need you in the garden for the hand off.”

“Right behind you,” he said, striding up.

Dust was stuckon the other side of the museum building, not sure where he should be going, not wanting to ask and sound like a moron.

“We’ve got heat less than two blocks away,” Vashvi reported. The sirens were closing in.

Dust drew his pistol, holding it close to his body as he moved slowly around the corner. Goddamnit, he didnotwant to trade fire with LAPD tonight.

He heard Vashvi’s motorcycle before he saw it — and then there was Herron, half a block down from the museum, at the base of the building where Vashvi had set up. At some point between the garden and grabbing the bike, Herron had pulled the signature specter’s mask down over their head. They looked like the grim reaper come to life and moved like a spider. The sight still unsettled Dust.

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