The Pineville Heist Read Free

looked tiny and lost inside the large hole.
    “Should I put a stick in to flag it, Gordie? He won't be able to find it without a bloody tour guide.”
    Gordie reached into his jeans' pocket and retrieved a black GPS unit. “That's why he gave me one of these, genius.” Gordie recorded the coordinates as he moved deeper into the woods. “Come on–we still need to stash the other backpack and dump the van.”
    Jake groaned and watched Gordie walking away as he wiped the perspiration from his neck with a handkerchief. “Lazy bastard,” he murmured. “Wouldn't take so long if you picked up a shovel.”
    With a second thought, Jake reached down and unzipped the backpack, carefully, easing through each tooth of the zipper to ensure an almost silent opening. He touched the canvas bag within the backpack–stenciled with the words: PINEVILLE SAVINGS AND LOAN.
    “Don't take all day,” Gordie called out.
    Nervously, Jake retracted his hand and turned his coveting eyes away. Zipping the backpack closed, he proceeded to bury it in a pile of dirt. “Goodbye–for now.”
    Leaving the hole mostly unfilled, he dragged a wooden board over and placed it on top. Then he kicked some soil and leaves over the plank of wood, disguising it, blending it with the rest of the forest groundcover.
    “About time, genius,” Gordie coughed as Jake joined him.
    “No need to be a jerk,” Jake said. Finally he'd had enough.
    Gordie turned to face Jake, examining him with his steely unblinking eyes. He recognized he was pushing boundaries. “Okay, Jake. Relax. Stash this second backpack and be quick about it. Unless I've hurt your feelings?”
    Jake shook his head. That was good enough, he supposed. “Give it to me.” Jake snatched the backpack and ventured off into the woods.
    Gordie scanned the trees and breathed a sigh of relief. A smile crept across his face. He called out to Jake. “C'mon! Hurry up.”
    Soon both men were returning to the white van. “That was just too frigging easy,” Jake laughed, suddenly feeling free of the burden of what was safely stowed in the backpacks, deep in the woods.
    “Don't count your chickens just yet,” said Gordie.
    Jake opened the passenger's side door and turned around, holding the gloves, two security uniforms and two Halloween masks, what appeared to be a zombie and a Frankenstein's monster. “Why do you always have to be so serious? Come on, relax. We did it. We're on easy street now, man,” Jake said, oblivious to the teenaged-sized footprints in the mud, which he was obliterating with his every step.

four
    The Pineville High School was imposing as approached from the expanse of the athletic field. An older three-level brick and mortar monstrosity, the school housed 235 young minds week on week. One of the oldest buildings in Pineville, the school stood strong on the horizon. Built in the late 1800's as part of the railway expansion, the building converted to a school in 1935 when the commuter trains stopped slipping past the town.
    Aaron looked up from his mud-caked shoes and picked up the pace. He was really going to be late at this rate.
    With a squeak, Aaron entered the polished locker-lined corridors, and didn't pay much attention to the boiler-suited janitor with a mop in his hand, who was aghast that Aaron had left footprints marking his freshly clean floors.
    Aaron made a beeline for the nearest classroom on the left – he passed by the walls, covered with famous literary quotations and paper flyers touting various school productions of plays by Steinbeck, Miller, Mamet, and Shakespeare. He knew by the noises inside the room that he was indeed late for English, with Miss Becker.
    Miss Amanda Becker. She wasn't like the other teachers. In her mid-20s, in a skirt, heels and a blouse, she was the thing of teenaged fantasies. A teacher in the ballpark age of her students – and in the tight clothes that challenged every boy's mind to focus on Shakespeare. She tossed her straight sandy