Gemma drove out of the city with a careful watch on her speed. Her heart was pounding out a frantic beat and it took all her might not to put the accelerator pedal to the floor. It wasn’t until she hit the freeway that she removed her wig and tossed it onto the passenger seat. It landed on one of the duffle bags and she laughed aloud.
“Holy shit.” Her fingernails dug into her palms as she strangled the steering wheel. Ever since she’d planted the idea of catching the robbers at the boatshed, she’d been praying the police wouldn’t work out which bank was going to be robbed. Leaving them with a short amount of time to process the information was deliberate. As was doctoring the tapes. Although it was time-consuming, re-recording the conversations from one tape to another so they only had selected audio looked like it had paid off.
“Holy shit.” She could barely keep still on her seat.
Even with all her planning, all her inside knowledge and her determination, she’d had continual niggling doubts that she wouldn’t be able to pull it off. The whole plan hinged on her ability to hold the chloroform over that guy’s mouth for three seconds. That’s what she’d read at the library. It only required three seconds for a victim to become limp after inhaling chloroform. Her only worry had been her strength to keep it there. But by the time she’d walked up to that driver’s side window, she’d had so much adrenaline pumping through her veins she probably could’ve won a boxing match.
“Holy shit.” She repeated it over and over as she made her way to Murray’s place.
She parked out the front, then raced around to the passenger side and removed the duffle bags and her wig. Nobody would be home just yet, but she couldn’t help the urgency of her pace. Gemma ran up the stairs, dropped the bags long enough to key the lock and push the door open. Then she raced upstairs to the bedroom without bothering to close the front door behind her.
It was nearly two hours before Murray was due home and the wait would be excruciating. Barely two streets away, six bank robbers were probably being arrested right now. Oh, how she wished she were back in that tree to watch. Gemma felt like a master puppeteer. Not only had she manipulated the police into doing what she wanted, the robbers were guaranteed to be arrested too—and that meant nobody would come looking for the money. With a bit of luck, Jack and his gang would be blaming each other right up to the day they were put into jail. And every day after that, too.
The plan was brilliant. Simply brilliant.
It took all her self-restraint not to rip open the bags right now and see the money. But she wanted to share that moment with Murray. She wanted to see his reaction to what she’d done for him. For all of them. From this moment on, their lives would be magically different. They could go out to dinner at fancy restaurants, wear lovely clothes, and for the first time in her life she could afford expensive perfume.
Her eyes lit up. Maybe Murray would propose to her. She glanced at her unadorned fingers. I need to paint my nails.
Gemma dashed to the bathroom and the reflection in the mirror caught her by surprise. Her freckles no longer seemed cute. They appeared to have darkened, making her look older than her twenty-nine years. But now she’d be able to afford good makeup. Cheap cosmetics were going to be a thing of the past. She removed the contact lenses from her eyes and set the blue discs on the sink. Her hair was all over the place from the wig and as she ran a brush through it, she decided one of the first things she was going to do with her money was get her hair cut just like Kirstie Alley in Cheers. Before now, the $80 the hairdresser wanted to charge her for the fancy foils, haircut and blow dry had seemed absurd. But now…
She began to laugh. A good, deep, hearty laugh.