Riding The Line

Chapter Two-Playing Detective

I find myself pacing across the living room once again with the difference being I was doing it in another house. He should be here any minute now, and I'm not in the mood to wait. 

And as off on cue, the doorbell rang. I looked through the window to confirm he was alone, and then I unlocked the door and let him. I let him walk a couple of feet before I spun him around and grabbed him by the collar to lift the small man to my level. He was shaking before he even walked through the door and now it was magnified. 

"What. Happened." I gritted through my teeth. 

He shrunk away from me, waving his hands in the air. 

"I swear Cass, I have no idea. There was so much commotion I thought it might be you, but I knew as soon as I heard gunshots it wasn't." 

"You have to know something. Nothing ever catches you off guard, surely you heard something," I pleaded. He knew as well as I did the threat of violence against him was a facade. That didn't stop me from terrifying him, though.

"Alright you got me. I heard something along the grapevine that something was in the works, but I thought they meant you. I had no idea someone else was planning to do it first."

I hesitated. If Diego was telling the truth, then I was in big trouble. There's no way a group completely off the map did this. 

"Diego, what exactly happened?" I whispered. 

"Oh boy, okay so I was just in the back on one of the computers, and all of a sudden there's screaming in the lobby. Then there were gunshots and everyone dropped to the floor. Next thing I know, they're gone and so is the money," he says quickly, running out of breath  he looks nervous, as if there is more, but I dont know if I should bother trying to get it out of him  

"I'm telling you Cass I don't know who did it, but if you want me to get looking I can. Even better, I can probably get you in touch with people who can find them faster." The second the words left his mouth, my eyes lit up. 

"That would be amazing! I need to get after them as fast as possible." He backed away slowly, like he was afraid of what I was considering. "Do you know any names? Any clues, descriptions, anything?"

"Alright, I think there were four of them. They might've gone by initials or something, I heard them yelling letters or something. I don't remember which letters though? Maybe a G and a T or something? I was under pressure. I never saw them though." 

"Diego, say no more. Just get me in touch with your contacts and we'll be good to go."

-- --

Today was Lester's lucky day. His wealth had just significantly increased thanks to his new heist crew, and now some girl wanted to pay him to feed her information about his own heist crew! Normally, he would never take such a risk against his own team, but she had indicated that she works alone, and if it all went wrong, what's stopping him from finding another crew? 

The phone call with her made him positively giddy, and that was a rare occurrence. Lester had a good feeling about this. He had already told her that he was pretty sure he'd heard something about the crew, and that he could find out even more. Now came the next decision, whether he should warn his crew or not. He almost wanted to stir up a bit of trouble and tell them that someone was looking for them, but he kind of wanted to see what the girl was capable of on her own. Maybe one day she could come in handy. Now all that was left was to plan the next heist. 

He had a few ideas, but he wasn't sure what he wanted the guys to do next. Mostly, he didn't want to interfere with this new scheme, but he also wanted them to do something good so they wouldn't bitch about it again. 

He needed something that would get them out and about a lot, so it had to have multiple facets. But he also needed those pieces to be far enough away so they'd be gone for a long enough time.

He had the perfect thing in mind. 

-- --

Surveillance is the absolute worst part of my job. There is nothing that kills me like sitting in a vehicle for hours on end doing nothing but watching for details. I'm not good with details, but in my line of work you had to be or you wind up dead. 

It feels like hours since I parked across the street from the bank to investigate the crime scene. There was still crime scene tape wrapped around the building, blocking anyone from entrance as police carried out their investigation. Dark splotches of blood painted the sidewalk, staining the places where bodies had laid. The bank sat on a street corner with a parking lot that started in front and wrapped around to the side. It was likely that they left from side and ran down the alley to avoid the cops. But how could they have gotten through the security system? They had to have someone hacking for them, just like I had Diego. If I could figure out how they hacked into the system, maybe I could trace their signature back to them. 

~ring~

I picked up my phone, and though the number wasnt saved, I knew that this was the call I'd been waiting for. 

"Cass! I've got some intel for you!" I heard him shout on the other end.

"Perfect, Lester."

"Alright, you were right. There are four of them, though they could be working with others. I got initials too: G, J, M, and the best bet for leader, R."

"Awesome! That's a great start," I assured. 

"You think that's good? I've got a bunch of possible addresses too. I'll send them all to you, but there's one in particular I want you to check out." I could almost hear him smiling. He sure was proud of himself for that one. 

"Will do. Let me know if you find anything else." I hung up and waited for the list to come in. 

As I scanned the bank one last time, I saw an abandoned jacket on the ground across the street. It was dark blue with a white stripe on it. My mouth twitched a little, like I was trying to smile but I knew I couldn't. My brother used to have one like that. 

It wasn't so painful anymore, not seeing him. Besides, it was hard to be upset when it was my decision. He's better off without me anyways. 

-- --

Ryan woke up surprisingly late compared to his usual routine, but he probably would've stayed asleep longer if it wasn't for the sound of glass shattering. He raced downstairs to make sure someone hadn't broken a window or a table, and when he arrived, he saw the three men staring down at the ground. Gavin's hand was still outstretched like he was still holding the cup, which was now on pieces on the floor. Gavin stared incredulously, and Ryan guessed that he was so hungover he didn't even really register that the glass had slipped from his hand. The four of them soon cleaned up the mess and got Gavin some more water, but not before Ryan warned him that if he broke another glass he'd throw him through the window. 

"So," Micheal whispered, "what's the next plan?"

Jeremy groaned from the other side of the couch. "Can't you wait like, a day before we start planning something new? My heart can't take this."

Ryan nodded. "We can afford to wait until tomorrow to start thinking of something new. Lester hasn't even gotten back to me about future heists yet anyways." 

The other three agreed. They'd just had a pretty good score, so they could take the time to have a bit of a break. Ryan for one wanted to take the time to think of something new. They'd done a few bank heists and related setups but unless you were hitting some pretty big banks, it got a little monotonous after a few. Maybe next time they could take off with some government vehicles, or facility codes they could sell. Even shipping manifests could be fun. But Ryan wasn't worried about finding something new and exciting to work on, because he had a feeling something was coming. Something big.