Tommy couldn’t pull herself away from the barred window. She could only think of her freedom as she peered
into the early evening sky. They had been friends for so long, is all Tammy could think about as she looked
over at her friend wishing she could change what happened.

Tommy never questioned their decisions… up until now. Sitting in a cell with her best friend waiting for the
guard to call either one of their names was agonizing.

“Hey,” Tammy called to her friend, “At least it’s just us in here.”

Tommy could only sniffle and begun to cry again.

“I don’t belong in here,” Tommy whimpered, “I need to get out. I NEED TO GET OUT!” She grabbed the bars and tried to shake them as she screamed.

Tammy walked over to her lifelong friend, rubbed both her shoulders, leaned in close to her ear, “You know Greg is going to get us out of here right?”

Tommy sniffed her tears into her nose and looked at Tammy full of confusion. “What makes you think he’s coming for us? He got away with the money,” she turned her gaze back to the window, “He’s not coming for us.”

For a minute, Tammy began to consider friend’s thought when the guard stopped in front of their cell.

“Tamarind Ophelia Montague,” the female guard called without a hint of emotion in her voice. “Your lawyer is here!”
Tammy watched her sobbing friend exit the cell and as the guard secured Tommy in cuffs.

“Is all of this really necessary,” Tommy quietly asked the guard.

“Standard procedure ma’am. Walk forward,” the guard nudged her down the corridor away from the holding cell. The guard led her into a windowless room and sat Tommy down at the table.

“Palms flat,” the guard instructed her. Tommy did as she was told. The guard unlocked her cuffs, leaving one around her wrist and the other secured to a metal handle on the table.

Tommy had no idea what was going on. She hadn’t stuck to the plan. She was supposed to remain hidden until night fell and the family went to sleep, but she poked her head out of her hiding place too soon. She was held until the authorities arrived. The cops had taken her to the only police station in this tiny town. There were only three holding cells and she was the only occupant.

Tommy sat in silence waiting for her attorney to enter the room. She tugged at her restraints. The clang of the metal on metal did nothing to calm her nerves. She felt herself getting worked up again but was interrupted by the sound of the guard letting someone into the room. She didn’t recognize the man who stepped inside.

“Just wave up to the camera and knock on the door when you’re finished,” the guard spoke to him as he sat his briefcase on the table.

“Yeah okay,” the man agreed with a nod.


Tommy looked at the man standing in front of her. He wasn’t very tall and he didn’t look very clean. In fact, he was the worst looking lawyer she had ever seen. He stood at an unappealing 5’5 feet tall, his hairline was receding, and his beady brown eyes made her uncomfortable. He looked her up and down without saying a word to her. When his glare reached her face again he stared into her puffy blue eyes. Her blonde hair struggled in the humidity, leaving her curls fluffy and unruly. Finally getting his fill off of her subtle beauty, he popped open his briefcase and began shuffling through the contents.

“Are you okay Tammy?”

“I’m Tommy,” she corrected him.

He looked at her perplexed, “But you’re Tamarind right?”

“Yes, Tamarind Ophelia Montague, T-O-M… people call me Tommy.”

He rolled his eyes, “That’s irrelevant… are you okay?”

“Yeah but I don’t belong in here,” she could feel herself getting worked up again.

“I know Greg sent me to get you out,” he started taking a pen apart.

“Who are you? And what about Tammy?”

“Listen, we don’t have that much time. There’s only two guards on duty right now. I was told to come get the girl out of lock up. That’s what I’m here to
do… So here,” he tossed her a crooked pin that was hidden in the barrel of the pen. “Do what you do… we got about two minutes before they realize what I just handed you and what’s about to happen next is about to happen real fast.”

Tommy gathered her thoughts and got to work maneuvering the pin around the keyhole to her cuffs. By the time the tumbler dropped and the cuff released her wrist she could hear the guards running down the hall. She got up from the table looking toward the man for him to tell her what to do next.

“Okay when the guard opens the door, most likely they’re gonna spray us first then try to cuff us. Take this!” He tosses her a pair of swimming goggles, “Don’t look at me like that! Just put them on! It’s all I could ge-" Before he could finish the door burst open.

Two officers rushed into the room yelling, “On the floor! Get on the floor!” They didn’t wait for Tommy or her lawyer to comply. One guard immediately removed his pepper spray and began to unleash the foul liquid on them. The man, claiming to be her lawyer, ducked down and rushed him. Tommy tossed the silly goggles to the side as the other guard charged her. She used the woman’s size against her, rolling around her body wrapping one arm around the guard’s neck and bringing her other underneath the guard’s armpit. She kneed the guard in her tail bone causing her knees to buckle and then give out. The guard fell and before she could do anything about it, Tommy had the cuffs off the table neatly secured on her wrists.
Tommy looked up at the lawyer struggling to get the guard to go down. He had managed to knock the pepper spray to the floor but now they were wrestling. The guard got one arm free in time to pound his fist into the lawyer’s ribs. He screamed out in agony trying to draw his ribs in closer to his body in order to avoid being struck again. Tommy scrambled to her feet, ran up behind the guard, and removed his gun from its holster.
She cocked the gun and placed the barrel to the back of his head which made him stop trying to fight her lawyer. She put her lips so close to his ear he could feel every breath as she whispered, “Down boy.”

The guard did as she commanded and knelt down to the floor.

“Belly to the ground asshole!” The lawyer demanded. The guard grimaced as he forced his body down until the side of his face was pressed firmly against the cold tile.

“Okay cuff him,” Tommy motioned to the guard’s handcuffs. The lawyer secured him and looked up at the woman who, moments ago, seemed so frail and timid. This person standing before him now, waving a gun around and shouting orders, she was not the woman he met when he entered the room.

“Grab his keys and let’s go!”

The lawyer grabbed the guard’s keys while Tommy scooted past him out of the room. He took off after her but as he started running toward the door, he noticed she wasn’t anywhere in front of him. He turned around and ran back to the holding cells.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” the lawyer yelled at her.

“Tammy! She’s not here!”

“I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about but we gotta get the fuck outta here NOW!!”

He grabbed her by the elbow and pushed her toward the door. Tommy stopped at one of the desks to get her belongings that were confiscated from her. She grabbed her things and bolted out of the police station. She was only a few steps behind the lawyer as they ran down the empty street.
The lawyer searched around for his keys, unlocked the car and hopped into the driver’s seat. Tommy finally caught up and got into the car. She strapped on her seat belt, and then looked over to the lawyer.

“What the hell is your name?”

“Honestly I think it would be better if I didn’t tell you… just in case this bird brained plan of Greg’s doesn’t work.”

Tommy nodded in agreement, “Okay so where are we supposed to go?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I held up my end of the deal. I got you out and you’re supposed to pay me.”

“Just drive, get the hell out of here! ...Wait but Greg is the one with the money! I cracked the safe, and he grabbed the money!”

“That’s not the message I got,” the lawyer said pulling out his phone. He clicked a few buttons and swiped across his screen a few times before stopping. “Yeah, I got this message from him: Hey I’m on your farm and I’m in trouble. I got a Kennedy for you if you grab the chicken out the barn.”

“Chicken out the barn? Kennedy? What the fuck is all that supposed to mean?”

“Well you can’t exactly say hey spring my girl out of jail I’ll pay you fifty thousand via text message. You’re the chicken in the barn and JFK is on the half dollar… you know fifty cents. But springing somebody from a cell adds a couple of zeroes to that.”

Tommy ran her fingers through her hair not knowing why Greg allowed this guy to even help. “Fifty is a lot! I coulda made bail with that money in this tiny ass town.”

“Not if nobody knows where the stash is to bail you out!”

“Greg should know!”

“NO! Greg said: Take the chicken back to the hen house so she can give you the egg. I’m assuming you guys had some sort of meet up for after this job was done. I guess take me there and hopefully Greg will be there too waiting for you.”

“I wonder if Tammy will be there too, she must have picked the lock and gotten out before we did.”

“Listen nothing was ever mentioned to me about two chickens. I got you out, that’s what I was supposed to do! Now I wanna get fuckin paid! So please tell me where to go.”

“There’s an abandoned farmhouse a few miles outside of town. We were supposed to meet there,” Tommy told him. She didn’t want to pay him fifty thousand dollars out the money she was supposed to split with Tammy and Greg. It was unacceptable! She never agreed to this deal, but then again she was never supposed to get caught either.

“Well did you see Greg? And do you actually live in that little town?”

“I was doing a job. That’s what he meant when he said he was on my farm. I actually told Greg about the job you guys pulled out here. And no I didn’t see Greg.”

Tommy just sighed to herself and started rummaging through her belongings looking for her cell phone. After locating it deep at the bottom of the bag, it refused to power on. It needed to be charged. The lawyer glanced at her knowing exactly what she needed and pulled his car charger out of the center console. She thanked him while plugging her phone up hoping she could get enough juice before they reached their destination.

Tommy and the lawyer drove for another twenty minutes before coming to a fork in the road. He looked at her waiting for her to give him the proper direction. She pointed to the left and so he followed. The car left the smooth pavement as it turned onto a dirt road. All they could hear was the sound of rocks being kicked up by the tires hitting the undercarriage of the car and being spit back out onto the ground.

The lawyer sees the old abandoned house and pulls his car under the big oak tree in the yard. They both get out of the car and just stand there looking around and then at each other. Tommy shrugs her shoulders and kicks the dirt at her feet.

“So where the hell is he?” the lawyer asks.

Tommy looks around again and starts to walk away from the car. “I don’t see anyone else here. Doesn’t look like anyone has been here either.” She looks down at her phone to power it on.

“Well maybe you should call him,” the lawyer looks at her as the light from her phone turning on lights up her face in the starlit night.

“I will, just don’t wanna waste my battery. I’m sure he’s here. Let’s just go take a look.”

The lawyer looks at Tommy walking away towards the house. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t have a grasp of everything that’s going on, but he can feel it in his gut that something is off about this jailhouse beauty. He shakes the feeling of paranoia away deciding to follow Tommy across the barren lawn. The broken down rotting stairs, leading up to the front door, creak under their footsteps.

Tommy looks into the house through a broken window. She listens out to see if she hears anyone inside. But the only thing in that house is silence.

“So are we going inside or do we wait for him out here?” The lawyer asks growing increasingly impatient with every minute that passes. He wants to get paid and get the hell out of there.

“I think we should go inside, maybe he already stashed the money and had to leave before we got here or something.”

“That’s a pretty stupid thing to do. Why would he leave the money and his girl?”

“I’m not his girl; we’ve just been friend s for a really long time.”

“Well the way he talks about his Tamarind gave me the impression that you two were an item. I mean why else would he risk busting you out of jail?”

“Well because it wasn’t a part of the plan!”

“What was the plan anyway?”

“Greg, Tammy, and I are renting a tiny crap studio near Miami Beach. And Greg gets these bright ideas every month so we can pay our bills. We usually boost shit here and there; do some ATM scanning, or whatever just to get by. We pick one day a month, decide how much we need, and then Greg finds us the jobs. So about a week or so ago he says, there’s a job in Noma. I looked at him like he was fucking crazy because I had no idea where or what he was talking about. But he says there’s a guy in Noma with enough cash in a safe to pay our bills for a year. So Greg sets up the plan. Tammy distracts the guard, I crack the safe and hide, and Greg grabs the money and books it. Tammy was supposed to get arrested, NOT ME. But I blew my hiding spot and they held us until the police came.”

“Greg never mentioned a Tammy to me… ever.”

“That’s cuz they fight like cats and dogs. They probably like each other or something. So when was the last time you saw Greg? And why are you here?”

“I told you I came here on a job. I run insurance scams, pyramid interest and dividend type thing. That’s how I found out about the guy you idiots hit. And as far as Greg… well I haven’t seen him. I’ve never seen him in person actually now that I think about it.”

“So let me get this straight… You’re willingly giving information to a person who you’ve never seen or met in person.”

“Well we met online and he started messaging me. We got to talking and did a couple hack jobs online, so I figured he was cool. I never got arrested so he seemed like a legit criminal to me.”

“And you call us idiots?”

“Whatever. Did you call him?”

“Yeah it keeps going to his voicemail. But let’s go inside and look around,” Tommy moves toward the door and nudges it open with her foot. She pulls her phone out using it as a flashlight. Everything inside the house had about an inch of dirt settled on top of it. There was only a small end table left inside along with two flimsy chairs.

The lawyer’s gut was tingling again. Something wasn’t right.

“Man fuck this,” he said to Tommy, “I’ll call him.” He pulls out his phone to dial Greg’s number. He realizes that he’s never seen nor spoken to Greg.

All of their communications have been through messenger or text. He finds the number and hits the send button.
He hears the ringtone but doesn’t see where it’s coming from. He looks around for Tommy. She must have walked ahead while he was looking for and dialing Greg’s number.

“Hey Tommy! Greg is is here! Did you hear it? I think that was his phone that went off. GREG! GREG! Where the fuck are you man? I’m trying to get the hell out of this place. Come on out it’s just us. Tommy! Tommy?”

He starts walking further into the house looking for Tommy. He enters a dining room area but there isn’t anything in the space. He walks over to the window and looks out into the empty wasteland. He didn’t know what he was expecting to but dry dead grass is all that was out there. He shook his head and looked at his phone dialing Greg’s number again, but when he turned around a figure stepped out from the shadows. The barrel of the gun was all he could focus on. The phone rang and the familiar sound bellowed through the space.

“Why do you have Greg’s phone Tommy?”

“I’m not Tooooommmmmyyyyyy,” the figure sang.

As the lawyer looked closer, and his eyes began to fully adjust to the dark
he noticed the woman standing in front of him was indeed Tommy, but just
in a humongous black wig.

“Listen I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but fuck the money! You keep it! Just let me leave Tommy!”

“I just told you! I’m…Not…Tommy!” she screamed.

“Well whoever the fuck you are, just put the gun down and let me go. I won’t say anything to anyone just let me out of here!” the lawyer began to plead for his life.

“No no no, I gotta set the scene. And you’re going to help me.”

“Listen I ain’t doing shit else for you or Greg. You’re just gonna have to shoot me.”

“Alright,” Tommy fired two shots from the guard’s gun. One bullet hit the lawyer in the shoulder while the other nicked the corner of his head causing him to stumble backward. He couldn’t believe this crazy bitch just shot him. He fell backward and hit the floor. The already dark room faded to black…

When the lawyer awoke he was tied to one of the flimsy chairs. But now, there was a body on the floor in front of him. A blonde haired, blue eyed woman lie dead with her cold stare fixated on the lawyer. The blood was leaking from his wound. He was afraid but he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome back to the party sunshine,” Tommy greeted him as she came in the room. She had a sack full of money with her. She began tossing bills all over the place.

“What the hell is going on here? Where’s Greg you psychotic bitch? What the fuck did you do to him?”

“Tssk, tssk, tssk… poor boy. You haven’t figured it out yet… I’m not psychotic by the way. I’m schizophrenic… oh wait let me correct that; my doctors call it dissociative identity disorder now. Fucking quacks,” she began mumbling to herself as she continued to stage the room to look like a fight had taken place.

“So this Tammy you kept speaking about… You are her?”

“I’m Tammy! Tommy is a part of me! She always gets the fucking shine. This is such bullshit! Our name is Tamarind! See Tammy! Me! I’m here! I’m her!”

“Okay okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. So what happened to Greg?”

“Silly man, Greg is locked up in here too!” she said pointing to her head. “He and Tommy are having a moment right now so they sent me to finish up here. Fucking lazy ass motherfucking friends I got right?” Tammy chuckled maniacally.

The lawyer started breathing heavy, almost hyperventilating. He couldn’t stop the tears that started falling down his face.

“Oh no, oh no, please don’t do that! Men look so ugly when they cry!”

“PLEEEAAASSSSSE! LET ME GO!” the lawyer screamed through his plea.

“Oh I’m sorry I can’t do that because the proper authorities will be looking for the con man that broke the blonde haired thief out of the local jail. They’ll be looking for these two criminals who killed a family and two deputies.”

“Wait we didn’t kill anybody!”

“Of course not silly, I did. You see while I was stashing the money, the lady of the house spotted me and got all riled up. Had her husband hold me til they came and took me in. But I knew you were here in town because you told me to come so I had Greg solicit your services. While you were sleeping I had to go get the money. And I needed more time before those guards got themselves free. So I took care of them. A lovely bullet for all of them, the guards, the man, and that bitch he called a wife. Fuckin tattle tale is what I call her.”

Tammy moved toward the woman lying on the floor. She ran her fingers through her hair right before grabbing a handful of it and yanking her head up off the floor. “You see, she would be alive right now if she didn’t have such a big fucking mouth! Just had to tell her god damn husband I was in the house. Fucking bitch shoulda just minded her business! But I’m gonna take care of all of this. By the time they sort through the bodies, I’ll be long gone.” She dropped the woman’s head letting it hit the floor with a thud.

Tammy took the gun and placed it in the dead woman’s hand. She wrapped her fingers
around the handle and moved her finger over the trigger. She raised the woman’s arm
pointing it directly at the lawyer’s head.

He began begging, “Wait wait wait Waaaaaaaaiiiii-“

POW!

Tammy made the dead woman pull the trigger sending a bullet into the lawyer’s head. His words were quiet and Tammy was at peace. At least for now she was. She finished staging the room. Even though she knew it would only be a matter of days for the cops to see through it but still it would be a decent head start for her and her friends.

Her friends… Tommy and Greg…lifelong friends. They leave the house, hop into the lawyer’s car, and drive off to their next city. Off into the rising sun of the morning.