Just inside the glass entrance doors, Janine paused a moment to survey the bank.
Directly ahead of her was the teller line. There appeared to be space for six tellers, but this early Saturday morning there was only one. Or no—there were two, as the second teller was working the drive-thru, which could be seen through a glass partition.
Off to her right was an area with four desks. A woman sat at one, typing at a computer, while the bank manager stood near his desk, his arms crossed, listening to an old man lecture him about some sports team.
Between the teller line and the area with the four desks stood the vault. It was open now, though a glass door barred anyone access to the wall of safe deposit boxes inside.
The only customer the teller line had—an old woman with puffy white hair using a cane—finished her transaction and turned away and started toward the door.
The bank manager paused his conversation with the old man to say, “Have a great day, Audrey.”
Audrey paused long enough to raise a hand of acknowledgement before shuffling past Janine toward the door.
Janine switched the suitcase from her right hand to her left hand as she stepped back to hold open the door for the old woman.
Audrey smiled at her and said thank you before shuffling outside.
Janine let the door close and approached the teller line again.
The teller stationed behind the counter asked, “Can I help you?”
Janine said, “I’d like to access my safe deposit box.”
“Sure,” the teller said. She picked up a phone and dialed a number, and the phone on one of the desks rang. The woman typing at the computer paused, looked up at Janine and the teller, and answered the phone. The teller said, “She’d like to access her box and I can’t leave the front right now.”
The woman at the desk said she’d be there in a minute.
The teller smiled at Janine. “Georgina will be right with you.”
Just then Georgina pushed away from her computer and stood and approached Janine, flattening the creases in her pantsuit.
“Good morning,” she said. “You need to access your box?”
“That’s right,” Janine said. “Box forty-seven.”
Georgina didn’t even blink. She said, “No problem. Marisa, can I have the vault keys?”
Marisa already had a small ring of keys ready.
As Georgina took the keys, the bank manager asked the old man to wait and hurried over. He said to Georgina, “I can take this.”
“It’s okay,” Georgina said. “I’ve got it.”
“Lloyd’s asking about CDs again, and I know you’re more familiar with the current rates than I am.”
Georgina snickered. “Aren’t you supposed to be the manager?”
“Yes, and that’s why I deal with big business loans. Can you help him out?”
“Sure,” she said, handing him the keys. Then said to Janine, smiling, “Don’t ask him about CDs and you’ll be fine,” and left them to head back over to the desks.
“I’m Simon,” the bank manager said. “You said you wanted to access box forty-seven?”
“Yes.”
“Follow me.”
He led her into the vault and set the ring of keys on the counter inside the door as he pulled open a drawer. Inside were several files, all with numbered tabs. He pulled out the file marked 47. The only thing inside was a signature card. At the top was the name ASHLEY GILMORE and below was a grid to mark every time Ashley accessed the box. It had only been accessed once, two years ago.
“You have your ID?” Simon asked.
Janine turned to him, nodding, reaching for the ID in her pocket, but Simon wasn’t watching her, instead the camera up in the corner.
He glanced at the ID when she showed it and said, “Perfect,” and handed her a pen and said, “Please sign on the line.”
Janine set the suitcase aside and signed on the line right beneath where Ashley Gilmore had signed two years ago. The signature didn’t look perfect—Janine had only had an hour to practice it based on the signature from Ashley’s ID—but it would do in a pinch if Simon didn’t scrutinize it too closely.
The bank manager didn’t. As he did with the ID, he glanced at the signature and then added the file back with the others and closed the drawer. “Have your key?”
She slid the key from her pocket, already scanning the wall of boxes. Number 47 was a large box, near the floor.
“May I?” Simon said, holding out his hand.
She gave him the key, and he took it and inserted it into one of the slots, inserted the bank’s master key, turned both, and opened the panel.
Inside was a large metal box, a clasp on the front to work as a handle.
Simon used the clasp to slide the box out from the slot. “Whoa, this is heavy. Would you like me to carry it to the room?”
For a moment Janine said nothing, trying to process the words. Then she nodded, said yes, and Simon set the box on the counter and closed the panel and took back the bank master key and handed her the other key and then hefted the metal box again.
“Would you mind?” he asked, tilting his chin at the door.
She grabbed the suitcase and held the door open for him and then followed another tilt of his chin to another door against the wall. Which, as it turned out, was a private room, a desk built into the wall with a chair in front of it and nothing else. No windows. No cameras. Completely private.
Simon set the box down on the table. “I’ll be waiting outside for when you’re done,” he said, and left her, closing the door behind him.
Janine moved at once. She set the suitcase on the desk beside the metal box and lifted the lid. Despite having already known what would be inside it, she still found herself gasping at the contents.
One and a half million dollars, most of it bundles of hundreds. They weren’t new bills, either, but worn bills, the kind that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows if they were passed around. Were some of the bills marked? Most definitely. They’d have to ask Charles for more information once this was all over, assuming, of course, Charles even had that information.
But the money wasn’t all that was inside the metal box. Tucked in a corner, almost as an afterthought, was a flash drive. A flash drive that supposedly showed what went down between Sean Wescott and Agent Weber two years ago.
The suitcase was just large enough to fit all the money. Janine loaded the suitcase as quickly as she could since Logan and Samuel expected her to return in fifteen minutes. The flash drive she tucked into her jeans pocket, right next to Ashley Gilmore’s ID.
Janine closed the suitcase and kept it on the desk as she opened the door.
Simon stood several yards away. He forced a smile. “Ready?”
She nodded.
When he picked up the metal box, he said, “Wow, as light as a feather.”
He led her back into the vault, setting the box aside and taking her key to open 47 again. Sliding the box inside, closing the door, locking it once again, he turned to her holding out the box key, and there was something different about his eyes, something strange.
Glancing once more at the camera in the corner, he said, “Will there be anything else?”
Janine shook her head. “That’s all for today, thanks.”
His gaze slid down to the suitcase in her hand, the heavy suitcase that she was straining to hold upright. He nodded and said, his voice a whisper, “I see.”
Janine didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing else. She exited the vault and made a beeline toward the exit.
As she reached the glass doors leading outside, Simon shouted, “Ms. Gilmore!”
Janine paused. Glanced back over her shoulder at the bank manager.
He forced another smile, this one all teeth. “Thanks once again for your business. Have a great day.”
Everyone was watching her now—the teller, the two people waiting on line, even Georgina at the desk had paused in her typing to glance over her monitor at Janine.
Janine nodded, said, “Thanks,” and pushed through the door into the stark morning sunlight.