Page 44 of Trailer Park Billionaire
“But we’re not killers,” I snap back.
Alexei rolls his eyes and waves me off theatrically. "Who said anything about killing her? I meant we keep her here for a couple of days, take care of her until the job is done, and then release her.”
I look into his smug grin. “Maybe I should take care of you too, old friend.”
"You guys know this trailer isn’t soundproof, right?” Helena calls from inside.
Alexei's jaw tenses. “You’re a terrible kidnapper, you know that?”
“Me? You mean we!”
“Stop it, both of you,” Helena reprimands us, while opening the door. Then she fixes her eyes on me. “Alex is right though—yousuck at this. After all, you’re the one who dragged me into your trailer and then zip-tied an innocent young woman to your kitchen, which is full of knives and scissors.” She holds up one of my knives and tosses the zip-ties against my chest. “Now get in here before someone gets hurt. And pick that up.” Helena points at the zip-ties on the ground. “I hate littering.”
I rub my temples, trying to manage the oncoming headache.
This is definitely karma coming for me.
The two of us step into the trailer, where Helena is already sitting on one side of the kitchen table, knife still in hand with which she gestures for both of us to sit on the bench opposite her. Alex squeezes in first; I follow, though the bench is much too small for two men our size.
“So,” she starts, flips the knife upside down and rams the tip into my wooden cutting board, “what’s our plan then?”
Tension hangs in the air. Alex hesitantly turns his head to me. For a moment, my eyes rest on Helena, processing what she just said, then I look over to my friend.
“Come on, I don’t have all day. Tell me how you two artists were going to con the museum, or do I need to start guessing?” She drums her fingers on the table, utterly unimpressed by the fact that she's supposed to be the one tied up and intimidated right now.
I stare at Helena. Helena stares at me. Alex, who apparently has just capitulated to this whole situation, has moved on to stare longingly at the poffertjes currently on the table, as if he hasn’t eaten all day.
I, on the other hand, am grappling with the very real and deeply inconvenient urge to be utterly charmed by this woman. Charmed by her unapologetic resistance.
Over the years, I’ve learned how to manipulate people to get what I want: you disarm them with your smile, make them feel at ease to let you in, and then you make them feel understood and special. Once you’ve given them that feeling a few times, they crave more of it. Which is when you make your move. Not with Helena, though. She’s impervious. Every time I think I’m getting close to cracking her shell, she reveals an even thicker one underneath. It’s like she only entertains me so she can shut me down a moment later. You never know what to expect with her.
I clear my throat. “The plan was simple. I locate the painting while you show me the archives, Alex creates a distraction, I steal the canvas, stash it in one of the storage rooms, Alex picks it up while I keep you busy, and we make a clean getaway. No one ever notices.” This much is true. Or at least it was, until I found out who was giving me the tour of the museum: Edward Frame’s granddaughter. In my mind, I have since pondered slightly different versions of the plan. Especially after discovering her grandpa’s collection of paintings.
Helena hasn’t stoppedstaringglaring at me the entire time. That stubborn glint in her eyes doing things to me that are profoundly unhelpful—especially when one is attempting to be a serious criminal.
“So what does the expert think?” I ask. “Wouldn’t work?”
“Oh, no, it’d probably work just fine. We’re a museum, we don’t have money, security is shit. You probably could steal the painting that way.” She stops for a second. “But… we would notice eventually. We do inventory regularly, check for decay and all that. At which point, someone would notice, alert the police, and the press—which, I assume, might piss off your buyer, and, more importantly, it would cause a search for the thieves.”
Alexei shrugs and nods at the same time. “Depends on the buyer. Some like the added layer of danger when buying something stolen. Some care more about the art itself. So far, we haven’t been tracked down by any of them, or by the cops for that matter.”
“It helps that we can just move whenever we feel like it,” I add.
Helena lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Ghost-town it? That’s your backup plan? Just… run?”
“It’s an excellent plan,” Alex chimes in. “A true classic. Underappreciated. Unexpected.”
Helena shakes her head, looks around the trailer, and makes me wish I had cleaned today.
“It’s not like you could drive this thing all the way to Laos.” She shakes her head again. “Hate to break it to you, but your plan sucks. We’ll need a better one.”
I arch a brow. “Did you hear that, Alex? This is the second time she’s referred to ‘us’, and ‘we’, and ‘our plan’.”
Alex nods while stuffing himself with poffertjes. Helena grabs a handful as well.
“Well,” she says, “the way I see it, you have three options. One: I tell the police who you are and what you’re planning to do. Two: You keep me here against my will, which—let’s face it—neither of you has the stomach for, since neither of you is proper kidnapper material.”
“I resent that accusation wholeheartedly!” Alex interrupts her loudly, his voice jumping in pitch.
