Free Hardcore: Volume 2 by Staci Hart Page A

said.
    The whole thing was ridiculous, and I looked them over, incredulous. “Guys, I wouldn’t let you help steal it from Van. Why do you think I’d put you in this kind of danger?”
    Morgan shook her head. “This is so fucked up on so many levels, and you’ve carried the weight of all of it. We wanted to help you from the start. We haven’t stopped trying to find a way out of this for you, for Jill and Van. We only stepped back because you asked us to.”
    “Well, I’m asking you again. This isn’t worth you getting caught.”
    “Look, Cor, we know where the painting is, at least for a few days. We can get it back. Fuck Jade, and fuck those cocksuckers who screwed you over.” Morgan dug in her heels. “We’ve been doing this for years. Breaking in is second nature, and if things get hot, we know how to get the fuck out.”
    “No. We’re not doing this. It’s too dangerous.”
    Erin squared her shoulders. “If it were easy, if we could get in and get out low impact, would you consider it?”  
    Cher abandoned half-made sandwiches to sit down next to Erin, and the three of them leaned toward me, boxing me in. I pressed my damp palms against my thighs.
    “There is no ‘easy’ here, Erin. There’s no simple way to go about any of it. We steal the painting back, they’re coming after Jade, and by proxy, me. And for what? For me to take this back to Van so he can call the cops and send me to jail?”
    “Do you really think he’ll do that?”
    “I have to assume he would.”
    “What if we set the warehouse up? Call the cops?”
    “No way will that work. The cops show up, they guys smile and act like it’s no big deal. A crank call.”
    “But what if we forced their hand?”
    “How?”
    Erin folded her arms. “Pull the fire alarm in the warehouse.”
    I shook my head. “That isn’t enough. No one takes pull boxes seriously. How many kids pull those hoping to see a fire truck?”
    “Well, what do they take seriously?”
    I couldn’t even believe I was entertaining the idea. “Sprinklers. Even if there’s no fire, the sprinklers dump twenty-five gallons a minute or something crazy like that, and they won’t stop until someone shuts off the water main. Each sprinkler is connected to an alarm. All it would take is to break one and the fire department won’t give up until they confirm it’s off. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll think twice about anything stored there. They won’t necessarily call the cops.” I sighed. “There’s no way this can work, and if we try to ruin a couple of fence’s setup, everything gets exponentially worse for us. They’re not going to let this go.”
    Erin touched her lips. “There has to be a way.”
    Morgan chimed in. “What if we left a message? Something that would make them look twice?”
    “That could work,” Cher said, lighting up. “We could spray paint a message on the door or wall.”
    Erin nodded. “Cops bust the warehouse, bad guys go to jail.”
    “Yeah, but I can’t count on that. What if they know who I am? And how hard would it be to figure it out?”
    “Do you think they know?”
    “I don’t know. I never took off my buff around them, but I can’t be sure Jade didn’t tell them about me.”
    “They can’t come after you if they’re in jail. How will they even know it was you or what was taken? The cops are going to confiscate everything.”
    The ground slipped out from under me as I looked around the table at three determined faces. “I can’t even believe you’re suggesting this.”
    “I think it will work. We can go to the warehouse tonight and case it. Let’s just see. If it’s not realistic, we’ll forget it. We’ll come back and move past all of this. But if it’s easy enough, we can get in, get the painting, and get out of there before they even know. You can take the painting back to Van and tell him the truth. See what he says.”
    “Right, like, ‘Hang on while I call the cops.’”
    Erin nodded, her