Henry’s voice rattled across her ear in a whisper. He eased out of the battered station wagon, leaving the driver’s-side door cracked.
“Damn, Dad. No need to blow a gasket!” she half-murmured, half-spat back at him. “Can’t abide your temper.”
Despite her soft grumbling, Penelope Harper—Penny in her father’s vernacular—-did as he said. Once he was out of earshot, she jammed her hat down low over her eyes and crouched on the floor under the passenger window.
They’d parked in a poplar grove to the side of the road. And seeing as the moon had thought fit to slam its rays down in full force tonight, there were black leaf patterns sprinkled over the surface of the backseat. Penny thought it was all rather eerie and wondered why Hank didn’t just get on with it.
Henry Harper—-Hank, in his daughter’s vernacular—-glanced keenly over the top of the station wagon’s front hood, cocked rifle in hand. It was all he had left. He was saving the pistol to give to the girl.
They were going to make a run on the farmhouse tonight. It was the first time he’d brought Penny along on a job, a real job. And he had to make sure everything went smooth.
He edged the heel of his boot around in the dirt as each of the rambling house’s little lightbulbs and candles winked out. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the structure’s most vulnerable point. Just a few minutes more, and they’d be ready to move.
Penny knew her dad Hank thought he’d been sly trying to explain their business tonight in veiled terms. But she’d been aware of his practices for years. She’d been with him many times when he’d staked out houses along the back roads on summer evenings. Still, Penny did admit that she’d never before seen the man at work on an actual raid.
Feuding between families was common in those parts, and he’d always told her the places they’d passed in the car were dens full of enemies, those that meant their family harm. As he’d studied the buildings, he’d invented small stories for Penny about captured cousins in need of rescue from these old country houses and the evil clans dwelling inside.
“Come midnight,” he’d said each time before he’d dropped her back off at their cabin at the edge of the district, “I’ll have that cousin ‘a yours back here with us, safe and sound.”
For years, she’d quietly eaten her dinner and done her homework while Hank vanished into the night. His parting words were always something to the tune of, You better make him feel welcome. You better treat her like your own sister. You know your cousin’s been through a lot.
She’d lost track of how many “cousins” Hank had taken in. His design had become all too obvious, and there was no need for him to act like he was putting her wise now.
What Hank didn’t know was that the principle of the thing didn’t bother his only daughter in the least. She was ready to face the quick break-in, the stumbling, the darkness, the yelling, falling glass. It was being cooped up in the car that she couldn’t stomach.
Penny scampered up into the driver’s seat and gave the windshield a sharp rap with her knuckles. It got Hank’s attention and he motioned her outside. Keeping low to the ground, they moved swift through the tall grass, away from the road.
She felt him jab her in the ribs with a cold metal object. Penny gave a nod of understanding, and then swathed the weapon away in a pocket of her overalls. These too were borrowed from her father and the pant legs billowed over her skinny frame. She bit her lip and stopped to roll the denim up tight around her kneecaps. Her chest pounded. Poised just feet from the farmhouse’s cellar door, she waited for Hank’s signal to run.
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