CHAPTER 31
The square was eerily silent as I took the roundabout and drove toward the credit union. They’d reopened most of the businesses after the buildings were swept for active devices. The Peach sat empty this morning, even though it had been cleared. I parked in a space close to the financial establishment where all this would be going down and took a second to exercise a little deep breathing.
“It’s going to be okay,” Javier said, and I picked it up crystal clear in my earpiece. “You’re going to walk across the street and into the credit union like you would any other time. I’m here watching your every move, and there are several plainclothes officers inside the building.” He reminded me of everything we’d previously discussed.
My hands were shaking in my lap. Being consumed with the fear that I’d somehow screw this up and Paul would suffer or someone else might die made it impossible to reduce the tremors.
I adjusted my rearview mirror, giving me a view of the Peach’s catering van, where I knew the crew had set up shop. Javier and his team were inside and could be at the scene in under a minute. That gave me some comfort. Still, it was me going into the red zone. They were counting on me. Me.
When Mama appeared in the passenger’s seat, I nearly leaped with joy.
“I don’t like this.” Mama shook her head, and the joy faded. “I don’t like this one bit. Why in the world do they need you to do their jobs for them? My thinking on Deputy Reyes has changed with this asinine plan. He and that detective have everything they need to apprehend those two morons. It’s right under their noses.”
My eyes went wide. Mama knew who was behind this! How could I communicate with her without sounding completely insane? She vanished and I sucked in a breath.
I bolted from the car, glancing around frantically. Oh, come on! The energy around me lasted for a few long seconds before I spotted her several feet ahead of me. As I caught up to her, I gave her a look she’d understand. The one kids gave their parents when they felt like shouting what the hell but refrained because it was disrespectful.
“Slow down,” Javier said, calmly.
“Marygene, my word, wipe that ugly look off your face. Your eyes are bugging out like a Pekinese. It’s mighty unbecoming.” Mama strolled across the parking lot with her shoulders back and her head high, carrying herself like the lovely Southern woman she was.
I followed behind her, feeling like a scolded misbehaving child.
Mama paused in front of the large white columns framing the Peach Cove Credit Union. “Come on now, let’s get this over with.”
I let out a derisive snort.
“Marygene. Everything okay?” Javier broke into my reality, reminding me that to others, I appeared like a mental patient, therefore adding validity to old rumors.
“All good.” I kept my tone low and my cheeks burned as I caught up with my mother. “Just wish I had someone on the inside who could shed some light on who was really behind this. That would make my life easier.” I glared at her.
“I’m here. We’re going to get the guy.” Javy’s words did nothing to calm me. And when I overheard a deep voice saying, “She’s losing it. I knew she couldn’t pull this off,” I nearly turned and ran back to my car.
Then Mama ignored me completely, and I wanted to scream. Really? Wasn’t this the reason she was here? To help? I gave myself a mental shake. She was helping. I knew that. She’d been there with Eddie in his time of need. And for that, I could never repay her. Anxiety stirred deep within my gut and began to spread like tentacles throughout my entire body. My chest and face were on fire. Not now. I had to pull myself together.
“Now look at her, she’s frozen.” The voice came over loud and clear. Followed by Javier sending a harsh and not polite warning for the jerk to shut his mouth and hold his position.
I glanced around, with no luck, for a visual of where the jerk was positioned. “Everyone’s a freakin’ critic. I said I was good.” I yanked the door open and stepped into the coolness of the bank and stopped, surveying the area. I forced my feet to move toward to the small area where people filled out bank slips and deposited their checks old-school. I couldn’t spot the officers among the handful of people in the building. Mama stood next to me, cautiously glancing around. I couldn’t speak verbally to her, but there were other means of communication. I took a pen connected to the table and scribbled on the slip. Nothing happened. I picked up another and again, out of ink. Seriously! For heaven’s sake!
“I’ll be back.” I actually reached out for Mama before she disappeared and forced my hand to drop by my side. That was when I spotted Trixie. She was filing her nails at her station. I moved through the little roped-off line, even though there wasn’t anyone in line. When I reached her desk, she appeared annoyed.
“Hey, Trixie.”
“Hey. What can I do for you?” She put her file down and smacked her gum.
“I need to get a safety deposit box, please.” I smiled.
“Alrighty,” she said unenthusiastically. “Did you fill out a form? I don’t see one.”
“Oh, yes.” I dug through my bag and pulled out the prefilled form I’d been given by the detective and presented it to her.
Trixie slid it over to herself with her super-long acrylic nails painted a mirrored blue color. “You didn’t sign it.”
“Well, the pens back there are out of ink, and I don’t have one with me. Can I use yours?” I held out my hand for the pen next to her.
“They’re so cheap.” She handed me her pen with a pink pom-pom on the tip. “We shouldn’t even be open today. Y’all closed, right? I mean that bomb could’ve taken all of us out.”
“Change the topic of discussion,” Javy said.
I quickly scribbled my name on the bottom of the slip and slid it back and nodded. “We’re closed. We were asked to as a precaution.”
“Well, we should’ve taken the same precaution. Our lives matter just as much, right, Jodie?” Trixie rocked back in her chair to speak to her older coworker. “We should walk out.”
“Shut that down,” Javy barked, and I jumped.
“How?” I squeaked.
Trixie made a face at me. “We just walk out. God, Marygene. If we all did it, they’d have to listen to us, like a union.”
The older woman grunted and grabbed her mug. She took her time rising. She placed a closed sign in front of her window. “I’m taking my break.”
“That Jodie, she’s such an old hag. Her life is already over anyway. Mine’s not! I’d just walk out myself if I didn’t need this stupid job.” She shook her head. “I miss Lucy.”
I nodded sympathetically. “She was a good coworker, I bet.”
“Not really. She was a real witch, but she hated this place as much as me. We went out for drinks and talked trash about this place. Security here is a joke. I mean, if we wanted to, we could walk out of here with every dime.”
I kept shaking my head.
“Seriously. Our dumb bank manager is hardly ever here. And he cheaps out on everything. Not just the pens. The bill for security software went unpaid for nearly three months, leaving the customers vulnerable. He finally got that straightened out a few weeks ago. It was only by luck he managed to halt the robbery. And with the amount I heard they attempted to steal, this place would have gone belly-up.” She leaned closer, placing both arms on the counter and whispered, “I don’t even bank here. What’s that tell ya?”
A throat cleared in the line behind me. She looked in their direction. Two men dressed in casual Hawaiian wear sold at the new souvenir shop that opened last spring—it was unmistakable. Now I knew who the officers were. Though the criminals probably wouldn’t.
Trixie made a face in his direction as a couple of others joined the line. “Rude tourists.” She slid the chair back and stood. “Can I just hand you the keys? There’s nothing to it. You just go around the corner there, use this key to unlock the gate, and then this one will be for your box. The number on the key will match the box.”
I nodded and took the keys. “Are you sure this is okay?” I’d been prepped on the box procedure, and Trixie was going off-book. If I went on my own, that would seem way more suspicious, I thought.
“Go with it. This works out to our advantage,” Javy said. “The officers will add more pressure.”
Trixie glanced back at the line and hesitated.
Another throat clearing. “Excuse me. I’ve been waiting here.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll go and handle that jerk and be right back. Just don’t tell anyone or I’ll lose my job.”
“I won’t.”
“Keep your shirt on,” Trixie yelled to one of the undercover officers at the front of the line. She rolled her eyes and shooed me in the right direction. “I’ll be right back.”
My head bobbed up and down before I disappeared around the corner. Trixie wouldn’t need to walk out; I had a feeling she’d be escorted out soon enough. The gate securing the room that held all the safety deposit boxes had a unique style lock on it. My heart pounded within my chest being so close to phase two of the plan. Get in and retrieve the contents of the box and somehow get out of the bank without seeming suspicious. The key didn’t work. I tried again with the others on the ring. I even forced a few keys in that hardly fit, shaking the little gated door. “None of these stupid keys work. Now what?”
“Are you sure you tried them all?”
“Yes! I tried them all. I guess I’ll have to—” A hand covered my mouth. I squeaked in protest as my back hit against a hard chest.
“You okay?” Javier’s voice still sounded calm, and I wanted to say, yes, everything was perfectly fine and mean it. But as I glanced up at the ski-mask-covered man, it wasn’t. Everything from there happened like a blur. The earpiece was dislodged from my ear and stomped under a large weighted black boot. He reached under my shirt, unhooking the wire and ripping the tape.
“Move.” He hustled me toward the back of the building and out the back door into the alley. The alarm sounded. I fought like an alley cat when I saw the sliding door of a van open. The man grunted when I landed a shot between his legs, but he kept hold of me and flung us both into the van, pulling the door shut behind him.
The van swerved as it took curves on two wheels, and I was flung into the masked man. We both went down, hard. My head bashed into floor, but I didn’t care. When his hand landed on my upper arm, I kicked out with all my might, landing a solid strike to his ribs.
“Dammit! Stop that!”
I didn’t. I’d seen plenty of movies and knew darn good and well what would happen if he managed to take me out to some secluded spot. I wouldn’t submit to that sort of treatment. I’d rather die right here in this van, fighting. I launched myself atop him, ready to gouge his eyes out through the mask.
The man grabbed both my hands and held firm. “It’s me! Stop it! I’m going to let go. Don’t go all cat woman on me.”
Wait. I recognized that voice. Slowly, he pulled the mask off his face.
All the breath left my body in a whoosh. “Alex?” I choked out and slid off him.
“I think you neutered me back there.” He rolled to his knees, taking deep panting breaths.
“Hey, check me out! I’m driving like a bat out of hell! Ain’t nobody gonna catch me.”
I slid up to the cage separating the van. The driver was a wearing a black leotard with a cat tail, black tights, gloves, and a Michael Myers Halloween mask I knew belonged to Alex. He’d been Michael Myers for Halloween every year in high school.
“Betsy!”
“Hey, girl! Hang on!” She squealed tires and my fingers burned as they held on through the metal holes. “You were dead-on. Alex did drop his money clip while snooping on ya. He’s so careless. I told him he gave himself away. He’s lucky we found it and not the evil detective.”
My vision went blurry, and suddenly everything went dark.
“Alex, Marygene, move!” Betsy shouted and the next thing I knew the sliding door opened and Betsy removed her mask, her face sweaty and her hair stuck to her forehead. She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the van. We were in a dark, damp, parking garage. “Come on! We’ve got to hightail it out of here. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Numbly, I followed her deeper into the garage. A still-puffing Alex stumbled behind us.
Betsy hurried around to the driver’s side of an old yellow Pontiac. I stood there staring, as if shot with a tranquilizer, unable to move. She fired up the engine and smoke billowed from the tailpipe. I coughed and she leaned out the door. “Come on!”
Alex put his hand on my lower back now that he was able to stand upright. “I’ll explain. But you need to get in. Okay?”
I blinked several times, looking from Alex to Betsy. I couldn’t make sense of this. As much as I tried, I just couldn’t. My best friend and ex-boyfriend, two people I would trust with my life, abducted me while I was working with the Peach Cove Sheriff’s Department. Neither one of them had known about the arrangement, yet they were right on time.
“Marygene. We don’t have time for this.” Alex nudged me forward, and I slid into the back seat. “Scooch.” I moved farther down the vinyl bench seat, and he got in beside me. Betsy smoothed out her hair, slammed the heavy metal door, and backed out of the space.