My heart hammers in my ears as Aiden guides the car towards the property on which the warehouse is situated.

It’s hidden away, but it’s big. There’s a high wall of smooth, featureless concrete around its perimeter, topped with curves of barbed wire. The entrance is open, but there’s a checkpoint right at the gate.

I can’t see beyond that, not from where I’m sitting. Thankfully, I don’t really need to. Calla showed us the layout, and I have it in my mind. This is a huge property, mostly landscaped with short-kept grass. There’s a wide stretch of lawn between the first checkpoint and the second. The building itself is just beyond the second checkpoint, on the crest of a gently sloping hill.

Only the checkpoints and the building itself are illuminated. The rest of the property sits in total darkness.

I sense Aiden switching mental gears, plugging into the version of himself that knows how to lie, and do it well. He leans back in his seat, and suddenly he doesn’t seem nervous at all. Based on his expression, he's just tired, and vaguely bored.

Calla, meanwhile, has popped a stick of gum in her mouth. With one hand, she’s doing something on her phone. With the other, she adjusts the neon-orange beanie.

I pull the black beanie down over my hair as we draw closer to the first checkpoint. Spread the blanket out on top of me, then bunch it up, obscuring the shape of my body.

Between the beanie, the blanket, and the darkness of the cloudy night... I should be able to go unnoticed, while sort of being able to watch what’s happening. I sink down nearly flat against the floor of the car, pull the blanket up until it covers everything, but leave myself a tiny opening to see through.

Aiden glances back to check on me, then does a double-take, searching for me in the shadows. Calla takes a look, too, and gives me a singular nod of approval.

A man in a navy blue uniform steps out of the checkpoint booth to watch us approach. Unlike the security guards at the Bratton Collection, this guy has a weapon holstered to his belt, along with a badge. He folds his arms over his chest, standing in our path.

This is already much more serious security than Aiden and I have ever gone up against. After all, this is a law enforcement facility that we're stealing from.

My racing heart picks up further speed. This whole thing is going to be so precisely timed. Aiden and I need to get it right, but Calla does, too.

We’ve done the research, and we know that there are thousands of pieces of evidence stored within the warehouse. From all of that, Calla needs to find one specific box, and very quickly.

The good news is, she can disregard the bigger items. There should be rows of refrigerators and freezers for perishable evidence; no need to check those. In the main room, stored beneath germicidal UV lamps, there will likely be car parts, bicycles, mattresses, furniture, suitcases, and TVs. Calla can skip those and go directly to the shelves.

Towering shelves, ones that you move by spinning a wheel on their sides. All of them probably full to bursting.

This won’t be easy, and we can only hope that they keep things organized in there.

But if Calla is worried, she’s doing an exceptional job of hiding it. As Aiden guides the car up to the checkpoint, she lounges back in her seat, her gaze on her phone.

“Remember, just stay calm,” she murmurs to us, beneath her breath.

“Easy for you to say,” I grumble. “You’re a full-time thief. We're - not that.”

Calla lets out a surprised, rasping laugh.

“A full-time thief?” she repeats, snickering. “Um. I’m a software engineer, Jamie. Freelance. Not currently available for hire, in case you were wondering. Also wildly out of your budget. And shut up, we’re nearly there.”

I slide back down, double-check that the blanket has me fully covered. Make the tiniest possible gap in the fabric, to watch through.

Aiden pulls up right in front of the checkpoint. The man blocking our way strides over to the driver’s side window. Aiden rolls it down, and the guy comes to a stop, peering in at him.

Now that he’s closer, I can see that there’s a patch on the chest of his uniform, identifying him as Police Evidence Sergeant Miles Harris.

“Evening,” he says, in a very unfriendly voice.

Calla doesn’t look up from her phone. She just pops a big bubble with her gum, leaving Aiden to answer.

“Hey.” Aiden nods at the officer, then yawns, rubs his eyes tiredly. “Sorry, we’ve been driving all night.”

“If you’re here to collect your recovered stolen or lost property,” Harris begins, in a monotone that suggests he’s said these exact words hundreds of times, “I’ll need your ID, and you’re gonna have to sign for it.” After a pause, he adds, “Actually, no, you’re too late. The evidence technicians have gone home for the night.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what we’re here for,” Aiden answers, to another pause from Harris.

“Don’t tell me we’re being audited again? We passed the last one not even a month ago.”

“Nope, not that, either.” Aiden reaches for the clipboard on the dash, then flips to the second page. “We’re making a delivery.”

Harris peers at Aiden, his eyes narrowed. His gaze flits briefly to Calla, who still doesn’t look up, only blows another bubble with her gum.

“Evidence drop off?" he asks.

Aiden nods. “Mhm.”

Harris stares at him, unconvinced. “You aren’t our usual guys.”

“No, we’re with a courier service,” Aiden explains. “Apparently the box we’re dropping off had to get here fast.”

Harris frowns deeply, straightening up.

“Fucking great,” he growls. “That bright idea come from the DA? An outside courier service? They better hope no one asks about the chain of custody when this evidence goes to court.”

“Hey, man, the CoC is your business,” Aiden rumbles, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “We just make the deliveries.”

Harris hesitates, glancing between Aiden and Calla, suspicion written all over his face.

“Funny,” he says slowly, thumbing his radio. “No one said anything to me about a late-night delivery.”

“I’ve got the paperwork right here.” Aiden taps his clipboard, squints down at it through the dim light. “Evidence report says… case type: driving under the influence, minor in possession, reckless endangerment-”

“So you’ve got a box full of empty bottles, pretty much?” Harris sighs.

“Ah, yeah. Pretty much.” Aiden reads off the list. “A few crushed beer cans, a watch, car keys, a jacket, some cash, and a phone.” He furrows his eyebrows at Harris. “You... don’t seem impressed.”

“Boring type of evidence,” Harris informs him. “Once we had a piece of cake with a razor blade in it. Now, that was fun.”

Harris, it seems, has an interesting idea of what makes something fun.

“Oh.” Aiden quirks an eyebrow, clearly thinking along the same lines. “Um. Sorry to disappoint?”

“Doesn’t matter, anyways,” Harris says firmly. “We don’t have any deliveries scheduled. You must be in the wrong place.”

Aiden looks down at the clipboard, reads for a second, then says: “Is this Evidence Unit AF402?”

"Yeah?"

“Then we’re in the right place.” Aiden puts the clipboard back on the dash. “I’ve got the box in the trunk.”

Calla blows and pops another bubble. Harris just looks at Aiden, his frown deepening.

“Maybe double-check the schedule?” Aiden suggests. “It might have been added on at the last minute.”

Harris doesn’t answer, nor does his stony expression change. Aiden waits a moment, then tries one more time.

“I would really appreciate it if you could, man. We're gonna catch a lot of shit if this box doesn’t get to where it needs to be.”

Another silence passes, but this one turns out to be short. Harris sighs deeply, then turns and heads back into the nearby checkpoint booth. He clicks the mouse of the computer in there, and the screen lights up. He starts to put in a password.

Calla watches him, then does something on her phone.

The computer screen instantly goes black. Harris blinks in surprise as two words pop up:

SYSTEM FAILURE

“Oh, what the fuck now?” he mutters, palm-slapping the side of the computer.

He fusses around with the keyboard and the mouse, holds down the power button. Nothing he tries does anything.

Calla smirks to herself, then bows her head over her phone again. Keeps her face turned away from Harris, as it has been this whole time.

Harris comes back to the car, clearly irritated.

“I need to use the computer at the other checkpoint,” he says, turning to point it out to Aiden.

The other checkpoint booth is much closer to the warehouse. The road that leads to it goes in a wide curve up the slope of the hill.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Harris tells Aiden. “Stop at the checkpoint, wait for me.”

Aiden nods. “Got it.”

There’s a pause before Aiden puts his hands on the wheel again. I know that his heart is racing. Mine is, too.

As soon as Aiden hits the gas, the clock starts ticking. It’s a forty-five-second drive from this checkpoint to the next. There are no trees, no cover whatsoever between the two checkpoint booths. There’s only the grass-covered hill, and the road.

And while the back window of the SUV is tinted, we didn’t expect Harris to be right behind us in his own car.

Aiden swallows, then starts to drive.

As soon as we leave the first checkpoint behind, Calla and I spring into action.

Calla drops her phone into the cupholder. I throw the blanket off of me, pull the black beanie off of my head. Calla catches the beanie when I toss it to her, throws me back the bright orange one. She unzips her shapeless jacket, shrugs it off, and flings it to me.

She was wearing her black hoodie beneath the jacket. She pulls the beanie down onto her head, and the hood up over that.

“Getting close to the curve,” Aiden warns us.

Harris is behind us, and not too far back, but between the tinted window and the pitch-black night, he shouldn’t be able to see what we’re doing. Hopefully.

I pull the orange beanie on, right as we come to the curve in the road.

This is the only part of the road where the passenger’s side of the car is hidden, facing away from both the checkpoint before us, and the checkpoint behind us.

Everything that happens next occurs in the span of about ten seconds.

First, Calla opens the passenger’s side door. She turns her head, winks at us, and leaps out of the car. She hits the ground and rolls away onto the grass. I have just enough time to see her vanish completely into the inky darkness of the night before we’ve left her behind.

Next, I scramble over the console and into the front seat. I seize the open door and yank it shut; Aiden accelerates at the exact same moment. The SUV’s unhappy engine lets out a loud groan. The sound covers the thunk of the door closing.

I grab Calla’s jacket, put it on, and zip it up. Put the hood up over the bright orange beanie. Grab a stick of gum from the pack she left, and cram it into my mouth. With shaking hands, I snatch her phone from the cupholder.

At the very last minute, I remember to strap myself in.

I lounge back in the seat and look down at the phone, just as Aiden brings the car to a stop at the second checkpoint.

Harris parks right behind us, gets out, and strides over to Aiden's window.

“Did I see your front passenger’s door open back there?" he asks sharply.

“Um - no?” Aiden looks up at Harris, apparently baffled. “I mean, why would-? We’re both right here.”

Harris leans into the window to peer at me across the car. I look up at him, blow a bubble with the gum, and let it pop.

He narrows his eyes, then straightens up.

“Sorry,” he says. “For a second, I thought I saw…”

Aiden waves a hand at him. “It's no problem.”

“Alright, out of the car, please,” Harris instructs us. “Both of you. We search any vehicle that comes this far onto the property.”

Aiden and I hop out of the car, open all of the doors, pop the trunk. Another officer steps out of the checkpoint booth to help Harris go through the ancient SUV.

They find the blanket in the backseat, pick it up and shake it out.

Harris opens up the cardboard box in the trunk and takes a look at the bagged items inside. It was incredibly easy to find some crushed beer cans, although I don’t know where Calla got the other stuff.

“Big box for not a lot of evidence,” Harris observes, and Aiden shrugs.

“Like I said, we just make the deliveries.”

Harris closes the box, then moves to the front of the car, where he opens the glove compartment, and pulls out Calla’s laptop.

An icy chill rolls down my spine as he opens the laptop, and I fight the urge to look at Aiden. We didn't expect this.

But I find myself staring in surprise.

The only thing on the screen is the neon-orange logo of a courier delivery service, bouncing around like a screensaver. Harris glances at it, then closes the laptop and puts it back.

We are seriously lucky that Calla is so thorough.

I take a second to look at the building while our car is being searched. It’s square and stocky, painted an awful shade of brown. There are very few windows, and most of them are dark.

The other officer finishes up with our car while Harris steps into the checkpoint booth.

He returns to us shortly after, frowning again. “You’re not on the schedule.”

“What?” Aiden groans, his shoulders slumping. He looks at Harris, a miserable expression on his face. “You think we could talk to whoever’s in charge? Maybe they’ll know what’s going on?”

“That would be the Senior Property and Evidence Officer,” Harris says, “And he’s in a meeting.”

We know that he’s in a meeting. The guy keeps his work schedule on his phone, which is in no way secure from someone as capable as Calla.

“Well - can we wait for him?” I ask. “We drove all night to get here.”

Harris lets out a heavy sigh. I think he just wants to be done with this.

“Fine.” He points through the darkness. “You see that parking lot?”

It’s around the side of the building. Well within view of the checkpoint booth, but that’s fine.

“Park there,” Harris says. “I’ll radio this in. He'll be out soon. Schedule says there’s still twenty minutes left in that meeting.”

Aiden shuts the trunk of the car, flashes a grateful smile at Harris. “Thanks so much, man.”

Harris gives us an I’ll be watching you kind of look. He says something quietly to the other officer. Then he gets back in his car and heads down the road, towards his checkpoint at the gate.

Aiden and I drive in silence to the lot. There are only a few other cars there, all of them empty. Aiden parks the SUV, kills the engine.

The officer is clearly keeping an eye on us, but he’s not close enough to see Aiden reach for my hand. I wrap my fingers around his, then take a deep breath.

“That went - better than I expected,” I stammer, and Aiden huffs out a low, shaky laugh.

“I know. You okay, Keane?”

“As much as I can be. Are you?”

Aiden nods, his fingers tightening around mine.

Together, we turn our gazes on the warehouse, where nothing seems to be amiss. But we know that Calla is out there, somewhere in the darkness, about to make her way inside.

I glance down at my watch.

“Twenty minutes,” I repeat, nervous sweat cooling on the back of my neck.

“Come on, Calla,” Aiden murmurs, his blue eyes glued to the building.

All we can do now is sit, and wait.