The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

bad idea. You got anything better?”

“Yes,” Bruder said. “They’re distracted by the woman—they think they found something useful, a tool they can pry with. We have about two hours until the crew from Chicago gets here, probably less. Maybe it’s two guys, maybe it’s twenty. We pack the money into Nora’s car and take our chances with whoever they have between us and the highway.”

“Are you kidding me?” Connelly said.

Bruder ignored him.

“I figure it’s two guys, three at the most if they dropped one off on the way out.”

“What if it’s the machine gunner?” Kershaw said.

“Like I said. We take our chances. It’s only going to get worse, and we have a short window to jump through.”

Kershaw nodded.

“Let’s get a look at that trunk.”

Connelly took a step backward, putting himself between them and the shed’s opening and spreading his arms.

“No.”

Bruder checked his watch again, then kept it brief.

“You want to go after her, that’s your call. We’ll hold your share until you reach out or we hear you’re dead.”

“Hold up,” Rison said. “What if they get a hold of him and start asking questions about us?”

“Oh, fuck you very much,” Connelly said.

“Hey, I’m just being realistic.”

They both looked at Bruder, who shrugged.

“You know names. Or think you do. You don’t know how to get in touch with any of us except Rison, so that’s his problem.”

Rison blinked.

“Yeah, then they come after me.”

“So, don’t get found,” Bruder said.

Rison’s brow furrowed while he tried to make sense of it.

“See how it feels?” Connelly asked him.

Then, to Bruder: “What if they had one of us right now? Not a week from now, or a month. Right now, driving us away.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Bruder didn’t know why he had to explain this.

“We’re all still on the job.”

“Exactly,” Connelly said. “And part of the job is we look out for each other. Right? There’s a principle involved. A code. Am I right or not?”

Bruder shook his head.

“There’s money involved. You helped us get the money. You earned a chance to spend your cut.”

“Fine, that’s fucked up, but I’ll take it.”

“But,” Bruder cut him off, “when the job’s done, it’s done. You go off trying to rescue your woman, you’re on your own.”

“Yes, of course,” Connelly said. “But they have Nora, and the job’s not done. She helped us get the money. She earned a chance to spend her cut.”

Everyone paused to dwell on that.

“She’s not on the roster,” Bruder said.

“Yes she is. As soon as we started using her, she was part of it.”

“You mean as soon as you fell for her,” Kershaw said.

“Doesn’t matter. She’s part of it. I made her part of it.”

“You did,” Bruder agreed. “It’s called the chump. Chumps don’t get shares.”

“Don’t call her that.”

“We’re wasting time,” Bruder said. “Let’s get moving.”

He stepped toward Connelly, who didn’t budge.

Instead, he said, “You know what? You’re so damn busy looking for a way out of this you haven’t thought about what you’re leaving behind.”

“I already told you, she’s your problem.”

“Not her,” Connelly said. “The Romanians. Razvan. The crew from Chicago.”

“They won’t matter once they’re in the rear view mirror.”

“But you’ll matter to them. We just talked about it. They go to work on Nora, then me, then Rison. You want to walk around the rest of your life double-checking every guy with a beard?”

Bruder shook his head again.

He thought about some of the people who’d like to find him, lay hands on him if they could.

Too many to remember, let alone count.

The most recent were Howell and McIntyre in New York, men he maybe should have killed, but they’d never find him unless they passed each other on the street.

And he hated New York, so the chances were slim.

He told Connelly, “This loose end doesn’t lead to me. Or Kershaw. Or Rison, if you stay careful and keep your mouth shut. But if you’re saying you won’t do that, you might even help them find us…”

“I never said that,” Connelly told him.

“…Then the safest thing would be to kill you right here. That cuts the loose end off before it starts.”

“I never said that,” Connelly repeated.

They stared at each other.

Before Bruder could decide what to do, Rison said, “Ah, shit. Hold on, hold on. I been thinking about it while you two hens clucked at each other, and I think he’s right.”

Connelly looked at him.

“Who?”

“You, dummy. I mean, she helped with the setup, yeah, but she didn’t know what she was doing. Doesn’t count in my book. But after we got here, she found us a place to stash the money, she told us how deep the pond was—she could have lied about that and said it wouldn’t hide the truck—she covered our tracks with the mower…so, yeah. I flip it around, if I was on a job and reached out to someone I knew, and they did all that for me, I’d cut them in.”

Bruder studied him for a moment, then looked at Kershaw, who said, “Makes sense to me. Plus the fact she could have told Razvan where we were hiding, and didn’t.”

“Good one,” Rison said.

They all looked at Bruder, Connelly with that hopeful face again.

Bruder wasn’t happy about it, but they were right.

He hadn’t taken the time to consider what Nora had done for them.

And it didn’t matter if he was happy or not, things needed to get done.

“Her share comes out of yours,” Bruder said.

“Of course, fine.”

Connelly’s head dipped forward, waiting for more stipulations he’d agree to.

“We have two hours to get her,” Bruder said. “Two hours. After that, the Chicago crew gets here, and it’s every man and woman for themselves.”

Connelly backed Nora’s Lexus out of the garage and up to the shed door, and they made another fire brigade line, with Kershaw tossing the duffels of cash down from the hopper to Rison, and eventually into the trunk and back seat of the car.

Rison kept shucking bags when he asked, “Should we do the split now? Before shit gets hairy?”

“No time,” Bruder said.

“Besides,” Kershaw added, “what’s the