Team True Grit #5: VANISHED, YA Thriller

Genre: YA Thriller

Title: VANISHED

Word Count: 78, 000

Movie Genre: Romance! Sasha has spent her entire life circling the globe with her dad and brother, always in search of the next big heist. Secretly, all she really wants is a place to belong and some swoony kisses. She loves a movie with a happy-ever-after ending like the original Sabrina. 

PITCH: 

When Sasha’s partner-in-crime talks her into one last heist before college, disaster strikes. They’ve been set up. She must steal a priceless sapphire back again, or her bewildered identical twin will take the fall.

FIRST 250:

If my entire life hadn’t been the exact opposite of ordinary, I might have been at home in Paris, clicking through university websites and daydreaming about ivy-covered lecture halls. Instead, I hid in a grove of trees on the muddy Italian coast, watching the dusky night close in around Signora D’Agnelli’s limousine. When the taillights disappeared, my brother tugged on my arm. Raj had unburied the ladder we’d stashed beneath a carpet of damp leaves the night before. 

“Grab the other end, Sasha.” He shot me his sly grin.

I refused to return his smile, but I did snag the ladder. A chill from the cold aluminum seeped into my gloves, and a musty autumn breeze fluttered my ponytail. Pulling me along, Raj crept from the shadows. We ran uphill toward Signora D’Agnelli’s majestic villa, and circled around back to the patio. Plants surrounded a tropical paradise of a swimming pool. While Raj took his laptop from his backpack, I propped the ladder against a stucco column. 

My pulse raced as I gazed up at the dark windows. Could we really pull off this heist on our own, without Dad? “You’re sure about this?” I whispered.

“Of course.” With practiced ease, Raj had already hacked into Tele-Italia’s website. The villa’s alarm system ran on a landline instead of a cellular network. “The alarm’s a joke. It’s like she’s inviting us inside.”

Typical. Raj had the Chinese characters for genius tattooed on his bicep. I’d call him cocky but he’d take it as a compliment.