Free Money Run by Jack Heath

blackmail me?” Walker said coldly.
    â€œI’ll complete my assignment. You will abide by the terms of the agreement as they stood yesterday. Deal?”
    There was a pause. Peachey glanced at his pocket watch. It was quarter past five.
    â€œDon’t break any more rules, Peachey,” Walker said finally. “You’re in deeper water than you realize. Find Buckland.”
    â€œCan you hack into the CCTV on floor 24?” asked Peachey.
    He assumed that the HBS security cameras were not linked to any sort of modem anywhere, because that would compromise their security. However, he also assumed that the government had at least one agent on the inside. This person would probably be capable of accessing the security footage – but Walker probably didn’t want Peachey to know too much.
    â€œYes,” she said finally. “I can get it.”
    â€œBuckland was in the room directly below his office five minutes ago,” Peachey said. “When you find him, send his location to my phone. I’ll take care of the rest.” He hung up.
    The lift was on the other side of the roof – a block of concrete with several sets of gleaming chrome doors embedded in the side. Peachey slid his knuckles across the yellow cube as he walked past. The colour was strangely hypnotic up close.
    He pushed the button to call a lift, tugged his jacket straight, and smoothed his ruffled hair. He took a cigarette out of his pocket, neatly chomped off half of it, and spat it out onto the ground. Then he lit what was left, but didn’t put it between his lips. If someone was in the lift when the doors opened, Peachey could pretend he’d just gone up to smoke – he wouldn’t be given a second glance.
    Ping . A minute later, the doors slid aside. There was someone in the lift; a man in his forties, with a cigarette already in his hand.
    The man walked out and Peachey walked in, dropping his apparently finished cigarette on the threshold and grinding it into the concrete with his shoe. He pushed the button for floor 24.
    â€œThose things will kill you,” the man mumbled around his own cigarette, pointing down at the butt Peachey had dropped.
    Peachey smiled, but said nothing. The doors slid closed.

Complications
    Ash opened another drawer. No sign of the money. The tray was stuffed with documents about a jewellery company that HBS had bought a few years back. She slammed it shut. The next drawer was full of permits and ownership statements related to the HBS building. Another held shares in a South American mining corporation. Another was for tax documentation.
    Ash shut the last drawer. That was every filing cabinet in the room thoroughly searched. No sign of anything worth $200 million. She allowed her mind to rest momentarily on the figure. Enough to pay off her dad’s mortgage and keep the phone connected and pay for school fees and buy petrol for the car and even retire on, someday – if only she could find it!
    She wasn’t giving up yet. She still hadn’t searched the room itself – the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Anything that might have a hidden compartment.
    â€œAny luck?” Benjamin asked.
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œDamn. So you got cold and wet for nothing, huh?”
    Ash glared at the wall. “And how’s all that staying home and pretending to be sick going?”
    â€œOuch.”
    I shouldn’t be mean to him, Ash thought. He’s always been there when I needed him. Two years ago, before she had ever stolen, before her life included something beyond homework and visits to the movies, before she realized she was any good at anything, she’d come home to find her bed missing. And Benjamin had been the one who helped her get it back.
    She remembered staring at her bedroom floor, baffled. At first she couldn’t work out what was wrong. The dimensions of her room had looked incorrect, somehow. It was like looking in a funhouse