Page 132 of Switch!
She stands and beckons for me to follow. We go upstairs, where I expect her to show me the Rolex or some other valuable item we could pawn. Instead she guides me to the home office. The room’s main feature is a large desk, but she walks around this to a wall of matching bookshelves and cabinets. She opens one of the cabinet’s wooden doors, revealing a safe.
“Unless you know how to crack those things—” I begin.
Trixie tugs on the handle. The safe swings open.
I don’t hide my surprise. “What are you, some sort of super criminal?”
Trixie snorts. “I found the combination in one of the desk drawers. First place anyone would look. He kept the spare key to his car in the safe. That’s where I found it and the credit card. There are lots of boring papers in here too, and then there’s this.” She pulls out a thick stack of cash.
“Holy… How much is that?”
“Two thousand. A little less, actually. Remember that pizza we ordered the other night?”
“Trixie!” I move closer so I can watch as she fans out the bills. “How much have you spent?”
“Not a lot. There’s enough left for both trips. Don’t forget we’ll also need money to get to Cheyenne. Even if we sleep in the car and eat cheap, I’m not sure if what we have will be enough. I guess we can stop to busk along the way, but that’s not always legal, or easy if you don’t know the area.” She shuffles the cash back into a tidy stack and holds it out to me. “This would solve all of our problems.”
I’m tempted. Of course I am. But… “If we steal this, the maid might get blamed.”
“I’ve thought of that too,” Trixie says.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“I have multiple plans, in fact.” She puts the cash back in the safe. “For now, we know this is here. We can use the money we already have to buy plane tickets to Connecticut, and once we’re back, if we still need to pay rent and bills and all that boring stuff, we have options. Deal?”
I gnaw on my bottom lip. Then I break out into a smile. “Itwouldbe cool to fly from coast to coast.”
Trixie nods happily. “And the best part is, we have no idea what to do once we get there. It’ll be the perfect adventure!”
I laugh and, abandoning reason momentarily, agree to her plan.
Thirty ↔ Chapter
I’ve never flown before. Trixie has. Patrick and Jesse too, but there’s a big difference between accessing someone’s memories and actually living through an event. The human brain retains only so many details of the past. To actually feel the rumbling of the plane as the turbines build up speed—the exhilarating freedom that comes when lifting off the ground, to see the world in miniature before soaring up into the clouds… How can anyone take such a miracle for granted? I’m glad we have a return flight in a few days so I can experience it all again.
I’m less enthusiastic once we begin our descent nearly eight hours later. Mostly because the seats are cramped and the quickly approaching ground makes me feel like a nosediving bird. I’m relieved when the wheels touch down and we’re still alive. Half an hour later, we’re standing at the baggage claim with the single piece of luggage we packed.
“Now what?” I ask.
“We should probably get a rental car,” Trixie says.
I’ve never rented a vehicle before, but Patrick has. “We’ll need a credit card.”
“Tah-dah!” Trixie says, pulling one out of her pocket like a magic trick. I can tell from the platinum sheen that it belongs to Gary.
“Hey! I put that in the safe before we left.”
“And I took it out again,” Trixie says. “Just in case of an emergency. I know, I know, you said we can’t use it anymore, but what if we were starving?”
“You’re hopeless,” I say, shaking my head ruefully. “We can’t use that on a rental though. There would be a record of who was driving, including—” I doublecheck my host’s memory to be sure, “—a copy of Patrick’s driver license.”
“Oh. Let’s take a taxi instead. They won’t be able to track that. We’ll give them the address of the house next door.”
“This isn’t an emergency,” I counter. “We’ll take a bus or something.”
By the time we figure out how to get there the honest way, I’m wishing she had talked me into the taxi. Running to catch a bus while pulling a suitcase behind us—and rolling it over the feet of our fellow passengers once we’re on board—isn’t fun. But it is the safest option and gets us there eventually. Part of me wonders if I wasn’t delaying our arrival on purpose, because now that we’re standing in front of Patrick’s childhood home, I’m nervous and unsure what to do. All around us is an established neighborhood of two-story homes and tree-lined streets. The vibe is tranquil and welcoming, but it’s also seven at night, which feels too late to drop in unannounced.
“Let’s ring the bell,” Trixie says, marching forward without inhibition.
