Page 71 of The Deeper Game
“It’s not that,” Odin said. “It’s simply…we’ve got Matteo inside, so why not be safe? There’s the fact that Sleazy Travis didn’t confess, and I can’t stop thinking about that feather,” he admitted. “So dirty and dusty. And the pig’s blood…”
“Wait, are you worried it isn’t him?” I asked. “That it isn’t Travis? Like the feather guy is still out there? Because if he’s still out there—”We shouldn’t do the Prime,I was thinking.
Odin touched my hair. “It’s this bad feeling, that’s all,” he said. “I’m looking for every hole and patching it.”
“If he’s still out there,” I said, “it means he’s way smarter than we ever could’ve imagined.” I looked back and forth between him and Thor. “He’d know everything about us. He’d be a threat in every way—to all of us.”
“So we put Thor out here. Both of you alert and armed. Anyway, I’m quite sure it’s Travis.”
“But not certain,” I said.
“Nothing’s ever certain,” Thor said. “If feather guy’s out there, let him come at us. I’d like to see it. I’ll make him sorry.”
Matteo was back. Odin floated the idea of Thor staying out. Matteo liked the idea. “We’re lighter inside that way, but it’s extra muscle outside if we need an assist.”
Yeah, he’d never fully trusted me alone on the outside.
The three of them felt it was a good way to adjust the team. I wasn’t so sure.
I wondered if the call of it was getting too strong. The riches of it. The beautiful vengeance.
Odin met Zeus in the park over lunch and cleared the new configuration with him. They had to re-jigger the plans. In one way, it was harder, but they were used to going in with three guys.
Matteo, Thor, Odin, and I waited in the Navigator.
Five o’clock. Almost go time. Zeus was inside the bank, of course, working on the HVAC repairs like a good technician…a good technician about to go bad.
With a deep breath, I climbed out of the car and went to the nearby Starbucks where I purchased a coffee and did a preemptive pee. I’d be stuck in that SUV for at least three hours, likely more, and there’d be no leaving. Thor, being a guy, could rely on Snapple bottles.
For this phase, I wore my long blonde wig as well as a Christian Dior gown, as if I were on my way to some party. If the shit hit the fan, nobody would expect a woman dressed like that to have firearms strapped to her legs.
We watched the HVAC crew leave—in a hurry. Their hurried exit meant that the “emergency call” Odin had arranged for them to receive had worked.
It meant Zeus had been left behind to secure things with one other guy.
Over the next half hour, the bank employees drifted out, too.
The call came. Thor grabbed it. After a terse exchange, he clicked off.
“Go time.”
It meant that Zeus had done his part of the job—he’d forced the man left behind with him to leave a message with his familytelling them he was hitting a bar after work. The guy would be out cold now, and unlike when I was out cold, he wouldn’t be waking up with hunky woodland guys in tights chasing him.
Probably for the best.
Matteo and Odin had keys to the building next door. They were going to zipline across. The only sightline to the angle of entry was from the east, and at 5:45 precisely, the blinding sun would obscure them via window glare.
“Wait.” I kissed Odin like I’d kissed Zeus this morning—with all the passion I had. “Set that fucker on fire,” I said.
“You be safe, goddess,” he said.
“Always,” I said, trying not to cry. “You, too.”
“Always,” he whispered.
I let him go, feeling like my heart might break. I wanted, suddenly, to tell him how much I loved him, to tell them all. But we never talked like that, and it seemed a bad time to start. I wouldn’t jinx the job with teary ‘I love you’proclamations.
I shook hands with Matteo, who grumbled jokingly about not getting a kiss.
