CHAPTER THREE

When Mathilda arrived back at her house, the first thing she did was have a shower. She scrubbed ruthlessly at her hands and arms, trying to rid the scent, smell, and feeling of gaol off her skin. She stood under the water until it went cold, at which stage she reluctantly stepped out and began scrubbing at her body with a towel, she stopped when her skin was red from irritation and changed into a pair of jeans and a navy singlet. Mathilda then heated up left over spaghetti and took out her laptop and the books she had hired out about the gaol that Ian was in and set up her workstation, this was not going to be a hard job, it would be the first job she had ever done without Ian by her side helping her. She shook the negative thoughts out of her head, sat cross-legged on the chair, and began researching for blue prints of the gaol, electrical, pluming, air ducts, anything, and everything. Unfortunately, she would need it all to get Ian, and herself, out alive.

Mathilda was woken at one the next day by the phone ringing; she sat up and swiped at her bleary eyes. She had fallen asleep at the computer, the masses of paperwork and blueprints around her spilt to the floor as she stumbled up and fell over as her numb leg gave way. She scrambled forward and grabbed the phone,

"Hello Mathilda Aaron speaking," she answered, and then turned her mouth away from the receiver as she yawned,

"Hey Mathilda, its Ian here, how are you honey?" Mathilda pulled a face and mouth obscenities into the phone,

"I'm fine sweetie, look how are you going in there? Is something wrong? Is that why you've rung me?" she attempted to be subtly about how enthusiastic she was to be talking to him; she was worried that too much communication with Ian would make his escape seem highly suspicious.

"I just wanted to hear your voice actually, I have three hours of calls that I haven't used so I decided to use it to you now. So how is the pooch?" Mathilda pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the earpiece, then it clicked,

"Pooch, he's great actually, he is really coming along with all of his obedience work, when you are released you shall see how well he's doing, he's out chasing birds at the moment."

She could not believe that he was using the code from one of their earliest jobs; Pooch was the code name for plan, so she had just told him that the plan to free him was going really well and that she was nearly finished, it would be carried out in a few days.

"Look honey, I need to go, be careful in there, I'll try and visit you again next week sometime, alright? Whenever I get time off from work, okay?"

"Okay then, well have a good time, I miss you, and I hope to see you soon babe. Bye I love you." Ian said before hanging up. He removed his ear from the phone before he could hear her response to the heart felt 'I love you.'

Mathilda stared at the phone in shock, then she shook her head and hung up, Ian had always been a brilliant liar and actor, that sometimes when he was going along with a job, she almost was carried away in his persona and believed what he said. She looked at her watch and thought for a moment, as she glanced at the huge pile of papers she made up her mind. Mathilda pulled off her jeans, flopped onto the bed, and fell fast asleep. Whenever there was something to do with Ian, she became exhausted from lack of sleep and too much thinking.

She slept for two hours, and when she woke she went straight back to working on the plan to free Ian. He always seemed to consume so much of her time when he was around. Yet, as frustrating and annoying as she found him, she couldn't refuse him, and not having him around made life much more dull. Macgregor had once stated to Mathilda that Ian was obsessed and addicted to her, and that she was just as obsessed and addicted to him. Without each other, they seemed to think that there was no point to working or living, unless it somehow benefited the other. That statement alone had made her uncomfortable but the other statement of Macgregor's had been even worse. During their second last job Mathilda had been badly injured, she still had two hideous scars; she had ended up in hospital in ICU, unconscious and close to slipping into a coma. Ian had been on the verge of completing one of the largest bank heists in history, but he had stopped, and instead spent his time by Mathilda's bed, holding her hand and making sure that she didn't die. According to the boys, Mathilda was Ian Howe's one weakness, therefore she would one day be his downfall, she would be the cause of his demise and possible even his death.

That thought scared her to the core, yet Macgregor was not one to tell stories about anyone, least of all about Ian. So unfortunately, Mathilda knew there had to be some truth in the statement.