Free The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman

seethes.
    â€œCredit card fraud, man! He won’t have to pay! And we need the dollars to get out of town!”
    â€œWho said anything about leaving?” Arjay puts in.
    â€œThink I’m thrilled about it?” Terence retorts sourly. “I’m the only one who appreciates this place! But it’s nuts to hang around the jurisdiction now.”
    â€œWe’re federal prisoners,” Arjay reminds him. “The whole country is our jurisdiction. If we try to run, they’ll find us. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but sooner or later.”
    â€œYou talk like we’ve got a choice,” Terence says bitterly.
    â€œHealy was trying to help us,” Arjay points out. “Maybe he still will.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter!” Terence explodes. “Whatever Healy was doing, it’s busted. What’s the first thing he’s going to say when he wakes up? ‘Where are the guys?’And then a whole lot of men in blue will come knocking on our door.”
    â€œYeah, but Healy knows that too,” Arjay reasons. “Sure he’s mad, but if he spills the beans, everything he worked for is gone. So he phones the apartment. We answer. We apologize like crazy and promise not to move a muscle until he gets home. Tomorrow morning, he gets released, and life goes on.”
    Gecko stops the car in a yowl of burning rubber. The three of them stare at one another for a long moment.
    Terence is the first to find his voice. “You’re no murderer,” he tells Arjay. “Only an innocent man could dream up a plan like that.”
    â€œDo you think it could work?” Gecko asks anxiously.
    â€œOnly if we all stick together,” Arjay tells him. “If one of us disappears, there’ll be an investigation. Then we’ll never keep tonight a secret.” He looks pointedly at the backseat passenger.
    Terence sighs. “I’m in. God, I’ll try anything once.”
    The Camry’s original parking space has already been taken, so they ditch the car in the nearest open spot. Gecko works at some of the bloodstains using a package of Wet Ones from the glove compartment, with limited success. The wreckage of the Infiniti is on his mind as he scrubs. Caught in the firestorm unleashed by that accident, there was never time to apologize for messing up a really nice car.
    There’s always so much to be sorry for…
    â€œWe should go,” Arjay urges. “Healy could be calling any minute.”
    Their building is blessedly quiet. No squad cars cordon off the block. No police line tape surrounds the upended trash cans where Healy fell. They go in the same way they went out—via the fire escape. Arjay hauls the heavy access ladder back into place. They are covering their tracks, setting everything right again. Yet one of their number is missing in action.
    The apartment is just as they’ve left it, yet it feels as alien as a biosphere on Mars. In their New York life, Healy was everything. Nothing can be the same without him.
    The phone sits silent atop the TV cabinet next to the repaired bowling trophy. The message light is not flashing.
    The waiting begins. An hour. Two hours. Three.
    Arjay gets up to go to the bathroom, and his heavy footsteps jar loose the glued-on figure of the bowler, which clatters to the floor. In the four a.m. quiet, the noise is a bomb blast.
    Terence jumps to his feet. “That pizza place on Third is twenty-four hours. Who’s hungry?” He plucks a few bills out of Healy’s wallet on the table.
    â€œThat’s not your money!” Gecko tells him.
    â€œWhy do you think Healy gets those government checks?” Terence argues. “To feed us.”
    The front-door alarm is the next hurdle. Arjay punches the code into the keypad. There’s a beep, and the system disarms. Finally, something has gone right. It’s hard to remember the last time.
    â€œI’ll be back,” Terence