next getaway car—which is “about ninety seconds out!” Stevie informs us.
I try to work faster. But I do ask: “What are the cops saying?”
A police scanner is resting on the dash, just like during our bank robbery. But I still haven’t learned to decipher all its static and garbled chatter.
Stevie’s sitting shotgun, keeping an eye on the road and an ear on the transmission. “They’re looking for us, all right. But in all the wrong places. For now.”
Ninety seconds later, right on schedule, Hank slows the van as we near our third and final vehicle, a silver ’99 Chevy Impala parked just off the highway shoulder.
We all leap out, toss six overstuffed duffel bags into the trunk, then pile in ourselves.
We’re soon cruising down an empty back road, speeding past miles and endless miles of Texas farmland in every direction. Once we hit State Highway 70, it will be less than four hours till we’re back in Scurry County.
Less than four hours till we’re home.
My adrenaline rush is finally starting to fade. I yank off my itchy gray wig and close my eyes.
I can make out every bump and crack in the asphalt. I can hear every tick and purr of the engine. I start to feel calm. Almost peaceful.
Until an image of Alex pops into my head.
For a split second—maybe it’s because I have my messy wig in my lap—I glimpse his unruly mop of brown curls. His peach-fuzzy cheeks. His megawatt smile—which I’d give away every penny we just got to see again, for just one second.
A single tear runs down my cheek. I wipe it away, smearing my old-lady makeup, remembering why I really started doing all this in the first place.
The biggest and hardest part of my plan is complete.
Now we’ll just have to see if it worked.
5 minutes, 30 seconds
Special Agent Mason Randolph had just stepped in one heaping pile of shit.
No, not the actual kind. He’d spent enough time on farms and ranches in his forty-one years to know never to take a single step without looking down.
But it had been over two months since the Key Bank stickup in Plainview, and he and his team were still at square one.
Until now.
With no real leads, but no repeat robberies, either, many in his department had started hoping it was a one-off thing. A single crime committed by a couple of ballsy amateurs who just happened to get real lucky.
But as Mason had argued in staff meeting after staff meeting, he never bought that for a second. He firmly believed the Bureau was chasing some exceptionally smart and special bad guys…who were only getting started.
He begged and pleaded to keep the case active, and to put more bodies on it. But around week six, his supervisor pulled the plug.
So Mason kept working the investigation on his own time. Coming in early and staying late to follow up leads all by himself. Calling in every favor he had to interview more witnesses and canvass party-supply stores to find who bought those masks.
The fact was, when Mason Randolph sunk his teeth into a juicy case like this one, he was like a pit bull with a raw steak: he was never going to let go.
Until justice was served.
He was convinced the suspects were going to strike again. The moment he heard about Golden Acres, he knew they had.
With a sense of déjà vu on the Gulfstream plane ride to the nearest airstrip, Mason explained to his team his rationale for linking the two cases. Similar M.O. Similar five-person squad. Similar language (“Hands up and keep ’em high!”) said with a similar west Texas twang.
The bank and horse ranch were hundreds of miles apart. But with a new crime scene and new witnesses, there was hope the case might finally take a real step forward. They just might catch these guys—and recover the $1.2 million that had literally been wheeled away.
Mason, his colleagues, and the entire Bureau let these sons of bitches slip away once already. He was not going to let that happen a second time.
No matter what it took.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Reeves,” Mason says, flashing a cheeky smile as he approaches the ranch’s crusty, cigarillo-chomping security head. “Feels like it was just last week.”
Billy is being fingerprinted by an FBI tech at a mobile crime-scene lab in order to exclude his prints from the investigation. He growls, angry and humiliated.
In fact, Mason had seen him just last week. Near this very spot, too.
The