Cops & Robbers

Chapter Nineteen

Dedicated to catbat, for the mayhem you caused in the comments below! lmao. Thank you for always reading my stories!

The parking lot was empty and the courthouse loomed before us shrouded in darkness. I glanced back to assure myself that Alex’s car wasn’t too far away if the need to flee arose. Though it was parked just across the street, it felt as though it were parked miles away. If we got caught, we were royally screwed, but we had to park far enough away to avoid suspicion if anyone of significance drove by.

Alex took my hand and led me to a side entrance meant for the discreet admittance of the more high profile figures. After putting on his gloves he opened the security panel to type in the code Vitor gave us. We held our breath as he pressed the final button and let out a sigh of relief when the panel turned green.

“Success,” he breathed.

“Let’s hope our success continues,” I mumbled while I put on gloves of my own.

He opened the door and slipped into the darkness beyond. Breathing out one last breath of apprehension, I followed suit. Strangely enough, I think I may have been more comfortable with the idea of robbing a station crawling with cops than the obviously empty courthouse. At least at the station, I knew my enemy was constantly there, a whisper away. The courthouse was empty and silent… too silent.

It was so silent that I could hear the soft tapping of my worn in tennis shoes on the marble floors. Alex was already moving down the hallway away from the foyer and I jogged as silently as I could to catch up with him.

“Wait for me,” I whisper yelled.

He paused where he stood with his hand on the door knob. The glint of his smile was barely visible in the moonlight that filtered in through the narrow windows that lined the hall.

“Stop grinning, you jerk.”

He grinned even wider. “I’ll stop grinning when you stop acting like I plan to leave you behind. Even if I did plan to ditch you, I was only 12 feet away from you, opening a door clearly marked, ‘Archives’. My destination wasn’t exactly rocket science.”

I gave him a dirty look before reaching around him to swat his hand away from the door knob.

“Ladies first,” I gritted out.

Jerking open the door to archives, I barreled in without a care… until an automated voice insisted that I enter a security code.

“Did Vitor give us a second code?”

When Alex dropped the F bomb, I had my answer.

“I’ll try the entrance code.”

He hurriedly handed me the jump drive and I took off at a sprint toward the computer in the corner while the alarm continued to beep. The sound no robber would want to hear had me jamming it into the port.

“We have to go,” Alex commanded as he tugged on my arm.

“Hold on,” I argued, jerking my arm from his grasp.

Logging in as a guest, I frantically clicked on ‘My Computer’ so I could at least run the hack.

“Adrienne there’s no time. We have to go… now.”

The alarm panel turned red and the seriousness of our situation kicked in.

“Just go,” I pushed him away from me and toward the door. “The program is-”

“Not even halfway finished loading,” he interjected, “Forget it Adrienne, let’s go.”

He reached for the jump drive and I pushed him away. “Go. Get your car out of here, there’s no onsite security. No one will be here for at least five more minutes and this will be done in about…” I glanced at the loading bar. It was already halfway done. “Two minutes, maybe three. Plenty of time for me to get out of here on foot, but not enough time for us to leave in a car without the risk of being spotted. Go… I’ve got this.”