Clyde

It was cool inside. Whoever this guy was, he had money to spare. Of course, besides the temperature, all the crap inside the mansion pretty much gave that fact away.

The television in the living room was huge. It took up nearly one-third of the wall, flat black and almost mirror-like with its new shine. I wondered how long the guy had even lived in the place. Everything seemed immaculate; as if it had been brought in hours before and unboxed right there.

Aside from the things I couldn’t carry, there was more I definitely could. It was a thief’s dream—there were stupid devices and knickknacks everywhere. The type of shit someone wouldn’t notice was gone at first. I spotted at least three different little tablets in the kitchen and living room. Several chargers in nearly every outlet I spotted. Even the wine bottle opener on the kitchen counter was a device—some tube surrounded the corkscrew and the top had a button on it.

I could have stuffed my pockets with the little shit. Maybe I should have, but none of it seemed worth it. I could make a couple hundred bucks, but then what had I risked everything for? Not a damn wine bottle gadget, that’s for sure.

There had to be something better. Something bigger. This guy, whoever he was, clearly didn’t hold back. His car and house were expensive; I was willing to bet that he had something else in his house that was equally exorbitant.

Instead of staying in the open spaces where I could see the windows and reach the door, I ventured deeper into the house. I’d been lucky that the guy had left right when I arrived—I’d been able to sneak in through a window he must have forgotten to close. No need to trip any alarms or break anything. I had some time.

There was a door open down the hallway. I peered into others as I went—one door led into a giant bathroom with a jacuzzi, another led into a spare bedroom the size of the basement in the hideout. There was a closet that looked more like an office space.

Everything was so neat and rich, but I was still looking for the perfect steal. Something that would bring in all the money I needed and probably then some. I kept walking and cautiously nudged the already-open door to peer inside the room beyond.

It looked like another office. This one was better—it had a computer and laptop, printer, a few other things. I figured it was worth checking out. Maybe there was something expensive I could take. I walked into the room, careful to keep an ear out for the garage. I hoped I would be able to hear it.

The bookcase was what got me. It was tilted so that from the doorway, it looked like the wall met behind it. As I drew closer, I realized the bookcase was several feet away from the wall. There was a five-foot gap behind it—a gap large enough to allow the door of the enormous vault there to stand open.

It was an actual vault. An honest-to-god, walk-in vault. My heart kicked into high gear at the same time my feet did, taking me right up to the doorway.

It must have been some kind of luck that kept me from just running right in. That luck kept me from walking straight into the web of lasers that crisscrossed the cool interior of the vault. The shining platinum walls seemed to radiate with the red light, even though the millions of dollars that sat within it absorbed most of the color.

I had seen this kind of crap before in movies. I knew what the laser meant—that if you even let a hair cross them, every alarm known to man would go off and you’d be done for. There might have even been other security features in the mansion that would go off, too.

I spun away from the vault and pressed my back to the corner of the wall. For a second, I just closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

This is a lot. I knew I was in deep. I was physically far in the house, of course, but I was even deeper in the shit with the Rapps. With Link. With Mark.

There were millions of dollars in the vault. Enough to do more than just buy an attorney. Enough to buy a judge, and then some. But all the money didn’t mean it was just worth it. If anything went wrong—if I set off the alarms and the house locked down, or if I set off the alarms and security appeared—I would go to prison. I would go to prison just like my mom, and then there would be no one to help her, or me.

It was too much. It had been too much when I’d climbed through the window and then when I’d left the relative safety of the living room and the front of the house. I was in deep shit now, with nothing to show for it yet as the clock ticked away.

I didn’t even know when the man was going to be back. For all I knew, he could have been driving back right then, preparing to come through a garage I couldn’t hear through the thick walls.

All this risk on my part, and I might not even make it out in one piece. I definitely wouldn’t make it out the same as I’d made it back in. There was only one thing I was sure of, in the end.

I’m an idiot.