Sarah felt the vibration on her watch as the alarm went off. She slowly stretched out her contorted body and slipped the lid off the trashcan. After spending three hours in the trash can, the bright light blinded her. She blinked rapidly and climbed out into a sterile room. Sarah went to work on the keycard reader that kept the large industrial laundry room locked up. Sarah felt vulnerable as she focused on the reader with her tools, not helping but looking behind her every few seconds. She felt stupid standing under the camera that she would normally avoid at all costs, but Jasmine had been able to set it on a loop for 45 seconds. The old electronic lock opened with seconds to spare.
Sarah put a strip of high-strength tape to hold the door's lock and moved deeper into the service area of the casino. She was dressed in the same outfit as the other cleaning staff members. She was nervous when she passed the first pair of workers, but they didn't even look at her or the fake employee badge they had made. Sarah made it to a service elevator. This one had a much more secure lock and two cameras overlooking it. Sarah hung back around the corner of the hallway.
"I'm in position," Sarah said into the small burner communicator she wore around her wrist.
"Just a moment, Go!" Anna said. Sarah knew that the cameras were now on a loop, but this time she had even less time to hack into the keycard reader. Sarah took a deep breath. She had practiced this hundreds of times. With seconds to spare, the doors slid open, and she jumped inside. "I'm in," Sarah said as the elevator doors opened. Her accomplices, Mariah and Jasmine, rushed down the hallway to catch up with Sarah before the cameras could resume their live feed.
When they got to the sub-level where the casino's money was stored before being put into the vault, Anna hit the system that turned off all of the power. It had cost them a lot of money, but their night vision contacts worked perfectly in the dark. They could see the guards stumbling around in the dark. They made quick work of them using the electroguns they bought off the black market. This was the most violent that they ever got on a job. Sarah's heart was beating franticly as they dropped guard after guard. Sarah knew that they could lose more than just their freedom if they were not careful.
They made it to the money counting room and filled their duffle bags. They had a tiny window of time to load up the money. Sarah wanted to grab all the money, but she knew they would get caught if they took their time. Once their bags were full, they retreated to the elevator. Anna turned back on the power to the elevator, and they went back up to the ground floor. They made their way through the service hallways on constant guard for anyone to try and stop them.
They escaped down the narrow alley between the casino and one of its nearby restaurants. Mariah pulled ahead of Sarah and Jasmine. She ran as if she wasn't weighed down by all the money they were all carrying. Mariah made it past a 'T' junction, but a squad car blocked their way before Sarah and Jasmine could make it. Sarah and Jasmine backed into the restaurant as the police officers drew their guns and yelled at them to stop. When they pushed through the kitchen door, they could see the red and blue lights reflecting off the kitchen's metallic surfaces.
The kitchen was massive and crowded with staff. They had to shove their way through the workers. Sounds of workers protesting and metal pots clanging on the ground echoed in the kitchen. They were halfway to the double doors that exited into the dining area when Sarah heard the alley door thrown open as the cops followed them. The cops shouted at them to stop.
Like that was going to happen
, Sarah thought.
They burst through the kitchen doors and collided with a busboy carrying a huge stack of dirty dishes. They fell to the ground in a jumble of limbs and shattering plates. Sarah was able to free herself first. As she stood, she could see through the windows in the double doors that the cops were almost to them. Jasmine was still jumbled up with the busboy. Sarah had a split second to think. The cops were almost on them. She didn't think she and Jasmine would have enough time to get away if she took the time to help Jasmine out. She thought of just running, but she couldn't do that to Jasmine, her best friend for the last five years.
Sarah roughly pulled the busboy away from Jasmine and helped her to her feet. It took an extra moment because Jasmine was weighed down by her bag, and Sarah's fell over her shoulder, making her lose her balance.
Sarah looked through the window again and saw that the cops were about to make it to the doors.
We are not going to make it
. Sarah pulled her bag off, thrust it into Jasmine's arms, and braced herself against the doors. "Go meet up with the others!" Sarah yelled. Jasmine's eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to protest, but then she saw through the window and came to the same realization as Sarah. Jasmine nodded as she turned and took off into the dining area, her long legs pumping as she escaped.
A few seconds later, the first officer slammed into the door. Sarah was almost knocked to the ground, but she managed to dig in her feet to the nonslip floor. The first cop slammed against the door repeatedly, but he was kept at bay. The second cop arrived, this one was heavyset, and together, they were able to slam through the door. Sarah was thrown back. As she fell, she got a glance at Jasmine as she ran out the front door. Sarah smiled as she hit the ground. The cops were on top of her before she could even get up.
*****
Sarah was fuming in her holding cell; she couldn't believe that she had let herself get caught. She wondered if the other girls had gotten away, especially Jasmine. She had promised herself in juvie for shoplifting that she wouldn't get caught again. She had close calls after that, but she always prioritized her self-preservation. If Jasmine got caught after Sarah got arrested, she would be here for nothing.
Sarah sat in an interrogation room for twenty minutes. They were trying to make her nervous by leaving her alone. She used that time to rehearse what she was going to make sure she didn't say.
The detectives came in hot. There was no good cop bad cop routine. They told Sarah how they got them on camera outside of the casino, how they had all their faces, and that it was only a matter of time before they found her accomplices. If she wanted to reduce her sentence, she better say where the others were now. Sarah knew this was a bluff; they had cased the area for over a month, marking down all the cameras in the area, knowing which ones Anna had to hack into and which ones they could leave alone. Over the last couple of months, they had knocked out the cameras for every business one by one around the casino. As a bonus, they positioned themselves as the repair company to fix the cameras, getting paid to fix what they had broken while also setting up for the heist. Sarah smiled; that had been a great idea that had kept them living comfortably while nearly all their time was spent planning and executing their plan.
They interrogated her for hours, but Sarah didn't crack. Compared to the monsters of the underworld, these two detectives were amateurs in intimidation. Sarah stayed quiet, despite how much the detectives tried to put pressure on her. When she could tell they were getting frustrated with her after hours, she finally said what she could have the whole time. Still, she had to admit that it was fun getting them riled up and wasting their time while her friends went into hiding.
"I want my lawyer," Sarah said smugly. The detectives got pissed at that, but if they didn't give in, Sarah knew it could help her in court.
Sarah called her lawyer, a sleazy man who was a frequent customer of the hidden brothels throughout the city. The man was a mess, but when he was in the courtroom, he seemed to revert to his former self before whatever happened to drive him to booze and hookers.
