Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

My brother flashes a toothy grin, scrunching his face up tight. Hank, Nick, and J.D. are all doing the same while Debbie and Kim apply their makeup.

I rub my dark-brown pencil up and down Stevie’s laugh lines, his forehead wrinkles, his crow’s feet—accentuating every nook and cranny as naturally as possible. I add a few liver spots for good measure.

I’m not trying to make my brother look good.

I’m trying to make him look twenty-five years older.

We’re gearing up for our hit on Golden Acres. But this time, we won’t be going in wearing president masks. Just the mugs we were born with.

Completely unarmed, too.

“Good Lord,” Debbie says with a laugh. “Is this what I have to look forward to?”

She’s finishing Hank’s makeup. Her husband actually shaved the top of his head, to make it look like he was balding, and topped it off with a pair of fake Coke-bottle glasses. She holds her compact mirror out so Hank can see for himself.

“Damn…I look just like Pa,” he says, blinking in disbelief.

Our father died of a heart attack a few years back at the age of sixty-seven. Hank’s not even forty. But in this disguise, the resemblance is spooky.

“No wonder Ma always loved you the least,” I joke.

More laughs all around. Then Stevie grabs my hand.

“Come on, Molly. Focus. Clock’s ticking.”

He’s right. I finish darkening his skin and highlighting his wrinkles, making sure all the makeup looks natural and even. Next comes the wig. Over Stevie’s military-style buzz cut I set an unruly tangle of thinning gray hair.

The transformation is complete. And unbelievable.

“Well?” he asks.

“Big improvement,” I say. “Never looked this good in your entire life.”

Stevie checks his watch, then turns to the two women and three other “old men” standing around our kitchen.

“Debbie, Kim, every brush and pencil you used, burn ’em in the fire pit out back. Nick, you go reinspect the truck. Hank, look over the map and driving routes. Molly, soon as you’re finished, join me and J.D. to review the floor plan.”

Everyone has a task. Everyone springs into action. Including me.

I still have one last person’s makeup to do.

Mine.

7 minutes, 15 seconds

We’re in rural northwest Texas. But squint and you’d swear it was Beverly Hills.

A stream of Beamers, Benzes, and Caddies are pulling up to the main entrance of Golden Acres Ranch. Young parking valets politely open the doors. Out step wealthy ranchers, snooty equestrians, and fat-cat racetrack owners, all dressed to the nines.

Meanwhile, us five “senior citizens” are squished inside the cabin of a red, rusted-out ’96 F-150. (It was bought on the whole other side of the state in cash, without a title, then fixed up by my brothers in the woodshed behind our farmhouse, just like Stevie had done for our first getaway car, the one that should have belonged to Alex.)

“Our truck’s older than some of the kids they got working here,” Hank says, steering our vehicle into the valet line.

“Don’t worry,” I reply, readying some cash to slip to whichever valet parks it. “Our money’s not.”

As we near the front gate, each of us subtly peels off the latex gloves we’ve been wearing (so we don’t leave any prints inside the vehicle) and stuffs them into our pockets.

I can feel the valets and other guests giving us side-eye as our truck approaches. To them, we must look like penniless old fogies who clearly don’t belong. We’re an annoyance. An eyesore. But beyond that, we don’t warrant a second thought.

Which is exactly the point.

“Good evening, sir,” says the valet as he opens Hank’s door. He’s wearing a Golden Acres polo shirt and can barely suppress a grimace at having to deal with us.

I slide out after Hank. “Be a dear,” I croak in my best old-lady voice, “and park it somewhere close? My arthritis. I don’t care to stand too long on my feet.”

Before the valet can roll his eyes, I hand him the money I’m holding. He glances down at it—and perks right up. It’s a crisp fifty-dollar bill.

“Yes, ma’am!”

The five of us enter the ranch.

We slip in among the other guests and dodder across the huge lawn toward the giant beige stable where the main event will be taking place. We’re almost inside.…

“Madam, gentlemen, stop right there.”

We’re intercepted by a compact man wearing a black ten-gallon hat and chewing an unlit cigarillo. Who does not look very friendly. Even without the two meatheads by his side—or the Colt Desert Eagle strapped to his hip—I’d know exactly who he was. (Me and Stevie had done buckets of research on this place, after all.)

It’s Billy Reeves, Golden Acres’ cocky, cantankerous head of security.

“Y’all don’t mind if we take a few… precautions? This is a weapons-free facility.”

Yeah, right. I know that’s a bald lie. Just an excuse to frisk us, hoping to find a reason to kick us out.

But before any of us can even answer, Billy flicks his chin, and his goons start searching us for hidden weapons—patting us down and waving metal-detecting wands over each of us for good measure.

But none of us is packing. So they aren’t going to find anything.

“Is there a problem, young man?” Hank asks, making his voice soft and scratchy.

“I’m afraid y’all might be in the wrong place. This ain’t bingo night.” Billy and his boys snicker. The five of us don’t react. “It’s a private auction. With a required reserve of seventy-five thousand dollars, in bonds or currency.”

“My, my!” I exclaim now, acting surprised. “I’m afraid my mind must be going.”

I unsnap the leather briefcase I’ve been carrying.

“I could’ve sworn it was seventy-six. ”

It’s bursting at the seams with stacks of cash.

Billy’s eyes bug out of his head. He grunts and stammers, pissed at being shown up, especially by an old woman. He and his men march away without another word.

All of us exchange relieved glances.

“Young people today,” Hank says, shaking his head, the heavy (fake) wrinkles around the corners of his mouth creasing into a tiny smirk. “No respect for their elders.”

The rest of us chuckle, happy for this brief moment of comic relief. We need it.

Then we finally enter the stable.

As we make our way through, I catch Stevie glancing around at all the other well-heeled auction-goers. For the first time I can ever remember, he looks a little nervous.

I quickly realize why.

Even to the naked eye, it seems like practically every person here has a suspicious concealed bulge under their jacket or vest—except for us.

So much for a “weapons-free facility.”

“Looks like we really are the only folks not carrying,” he whispers to me. “You still think we can pull this off?”

I squeeze his muscular arm reassuringly.

You bet I do.

3 minutes, 40 seconds

Stevie, Hank, J.D., Nick, and I wander around the massive open-air stable.

We try to look like we’re blending in with the crowd, browsing the few dozen exotic horses in their pens before the main auction kicks off.

Of course, we’re actually getting a firsthand lay of the place. Reviewing the exits. Rechecking our escape route.

And looking for the one final component we still need.

We’ll use the first one that any of us finds, but officially this part is my job. And I don’t want to let the others down. I stroll casually through the stable but keep my eyes open wide. I peer into every stall. I look around every corner. But still nothing.

As I continue my search, I hear a horse stomping and braying in a nearby pen. I know I don’t really have the time, but something about the sound just calls to me.