Kate planned everything out, much to his surprise. She found the bank. She found them jobs so that they could get the layout of the bank easily than what they would have if they were clients at the bank.
James was actually glad that they were going to rob the banks because that meant that they would have to have jobs there before robbing it. They were slowly making money, which James decided to save it. He told Kate of his plans to save the money that they made from actually working and she thought it was a good idea as well. That way they could have somewhat of a backup plan if things didn't happen the way they were planning.
They worked on their first job for a good month. Slowly figuring out the layout of the bank, slowly saving the money for the Tennessee house so that they could settle down after making enough money from the stints. James let Kate do all of the work so that he could focus on other things. He focused on saving money and every once in awhile, when Kate was asleep, he drove to the nearby jewelry store to look at a new ring for Kate.
A month and a half after starting their plan, they were ready to put it to action. The night before robbing the bank, Kate sat on the dirty motel bed, polishing their guns. "Okay, you know the plan, right?" she asked James, looking up at him.
James was standing, pacing around the room. His hands ran through his hair and he looked down at her. "Yeah. I drive to the bank. You get out of the car and go into the bank. Walk right into the back. You shut the door and corner the manager. Get the keys for the safe deposit boxes and then get the money. You come outside and I will be right by the door waiting to go. Hope in the car and we are off," James explained, sitting on the bed next to her.
"Right," Kate said, nodding. "And this should only take us seven minutes at the most. We will be in and out in no time and the cops won't come until an hour after we leave. I'll make sure to threaten the manager to come back and kill him if he calls the cops before then," she said, matter-of-factly.
James hated threatening to kill the people that they were stealing from, but this first stint was Kate's plans. They were going to play by her rules this time; then they would play by his rules during the next stint. They had agreed to take turns planning the stints; it was only fair after all. And hell, they had a friendly competition going on. Whoever could steal the most money during a stint would be the winner and would choose where they get to go next. It was just a friendly game James knew that he was going to have fun trying to beat his wife.
"Then we will head upstate and get another shitty motel and sleep," James said, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.
Kate looked at him and smiled. "Yes. Then the next day you can go and scope out the businesses and plan the next stint."
James smiled. "We're gonna be rich, Freckles," he said, kissing her lips.
She kissed him back, the smile permanently plastered on her face.
Their plan went exactly as planned. James drove Kate to the bank and then sat outside in the car, with the car still running, and waited for his wife. Five minutes later, two minutes earlier than he expected, she was calmly walking out of the bank. She glanced around the street once before hopping in the car, throwing the bag of money in the backseat.
James sped up, grinning over at his wife. "Everything went according to plan, I'm assuming," he said, turning back to focus on the road.
Kate glanced over at her husband and nodded. "Uh-huh. They didn't want to get hurt so they just quietly handed me the keys an sat there shocked while I took all the money," she replied with a smile.
"How much?" he asked, turning onto the highway so that they could go north to San Francisco.
"Just a couple thousand dollars. Nothing too extravagant. Maybe $5,000 at the most. I picked a small bank to start at since it was our first stint. I didn't want to get in over our heads," she explained, looking out the window.
James smiled to himself. $5,000, even though it wasn't as much as he thought, was still a lot of money. He could definitely put $1,000 away and use the other $4,000 for them to live off of until the next stint. He would just have to plan the next stint faster so that they could get more money. They couldn't take a month to plan. Maybe three weeks at most.
"$5,000 will be good for now. So, up to San Fran, Freckles?" he asked, looking back over at her and smiling still.
"San Fran it is, James," she replied.
With that he put his foot on the gas and sped off towards their next destination.