One Wild Night by Jessie Evans Read Free Book Online

get my hands on more if I wanted to—my grandmother
removed the age restrictions on my inheritance a few months ago, so
the sky is pretty much the limit. I could have given Caitlin the
cash as an anonymous gift, but I’d already planned to hit Mr.
Purdue’s place sometime this week and couldn’t resist the urge to
kill two birds with one stone.
    Besides, a shared secret brings people
together, and eliminating Caitlin’s money troubles will free her up
to get into other kinds of trouble.
    Trouble with me.
    I hear the final pin click and my mouth
fills with a sweet, electric taste. It’s the taste of victory and
forbidden things, two of the best tastes in the world.
    I turn the tension wrench to the right and
the door swings open.
    “We’re in?” Caitlin grabs my arm, her
fingernails digging into my skin.
    “We’re in,” I say, marveling that even that
simple touch is enough to make me thicker.
    This girl does something to me, something I
can’t wait to explore further…as soon as we get what we’ve come
for.
    “Let me check for an alarm.” I move inside,
scanning the walls on either side of the long, dark hallway. I
don’t see any control panels or flashing lights, and no cameras
visible near the ceiling—not that anyone watching security footage
would be able to make out our faces in the near-darkness,
anyway.
    I motion for Caitlin to follow, and we move
down the hall, through a pair of swinging wooden doors, and into
the main portion of the pawnshop without making a sound. Her steps
are even softer than mine and I’ve had enough practice that I move
like a ghost, barely touching the floor beneath me.
    “Are you going to try the register?” she
whispers as we stop behind the display cases.
    I shake my head. “I doubt there will be any
money in it. I’m going straight for the safe, see if I can get
lucky.”
    “I’ll find the keys to the display case and
clean out the jewelry,” she says, grabbing several tissues from a
box on the back counter, taking my warning not to touch anything
with bare hands to heart. “That’s the most valuable small stuff. I
can put it in my pockets, and I won’t have to try to carry anything
while I’m climbing back over the fence.”
    “Brilliant,” I say, with a wink. “You’re a
natural.”
    “Say that after we get out of here without
getting caught.” She takes a deep breath in and out. “Because right
now I feel like I’m about to throw up.”
    “Don’t throw up.” I squat beside the safe.
“They might decide to test it for DNA.”
    “Is there DNA in vomit?”
    I give the lock an experimental turn,
pleased when it sticks in one place. “Yes. In the cells from your
stomach lining and your saliva.”
    She hums thoughtfully, the keys to the
display case tinkling as she pulls them from a hook near the
register. “But they’d have to have something to match the sample
with, right? And I’m not in the police database.”
    “Let’s keep it that way.” I grab my own
fistful of tissues. “In and out in ten minutes or less. That’s my
rule. Fill your pockets. I’ll give the safe five minutes and if I
can’t get it open we’ll get out of here.”
    “All right,” she agrees.
    I hear her moving around behind me and glass
doors sliding open, but after only a few moments I lose awareness
of anything but the subtle gumminess of the safe’s dial near
numbers sixty-three and the soft hitch in the rhythm near numbers
fourteen and seven. I spin the digits from lowest to highest and
back again. I try two more combinations with no luck, but on the
third the safe pops open with a satisfying thu-gunk.
    “Thank you, Mr. Purdue,” I whisper, grinning
as I pull stacks of rubber-band-wrapped bills from the safe and
shove them into my back pockets.
    “You did it?” Caitlin asks in an awed voice
as she crouches down next to me. “Jesus Christ, you’re a
full-fledged criminal, aren’t you?”
    “Sometimes.” I lean my face closer to hers,
unable to resist the