THREE
“It’s game time,” Shane said.
Staring at the bank entrance from half a block away, Amber watched as a skinny old man in a gray security guard uniform appeared behind the bank’s glass entrance doors. Even with the Yoda mask partially obstructing her vision, she could see him pull a set of keys from his pocket, fit one into the door’s keyhole, and unlock the door. He walked back to the bank floor.
“Open for business,” Shane said. “Let’s go.”
Amber floored the accelerator for the half block to the bank and haphazardly pulled into one of the vacant stalls by the entrance. They barged out of the car and stormed inside—clad in black, their guns drawn—Darth leading, Chewbacca right behind him, Yoda bringing up the rear.
Inside, the bank layout was exactly like the photos Shane had taken earlier in the week, the photos he’d had them study constantly over the past few days. An open, spacious lobby with marble floors. A small standing desk for a security guard right inside the entrance. A waiting area and a counter with three teller windows off to the side. In the far back were a few doors leading to offices and the safe.
Per the plan, Ross went straight to the counter and Shane ran to the rear, their guns in the air. Amber went to the security guard standing by the entrance, the old-timer they’d seen unlock the door moments ago. He was a frail old guy in a gray uniform, a badge that didn’t mean shit pinned to his chest.
“On the ground,” she yelled, pointing her gun. “Down! Now!”
She lowered her voice to sound hard and edgy, like a seasoned pro, but it sounded ridiculous to her. Almost comical.
The security guard stared at her, unmoving. She wondered if he could tell, just from the sound of her voice and the way she held the gun, that he was dealing with a rank amateur who was probably more terrified than he was.
“I said down, Pops! Don’t make me have to use this.”
The security guard remained frozen. Just as Amber started to worry seriously—God, am I actually going to have to shoot him?—the security guard hit the ground as if his legs had stopped working.
Amber focused on the back of his head, her breath hot and heavy in the mask, that same musty scent every time she inhaled. Behind her, she could hear pure chaos.
A scream.
A yell.
Ross’s voice: “Hands in the air!”
Someone crying.
Commotion.
Shane’s voice: “Nobody fucking move.”
He barked the words, commanding and authoritative. Just from the sound of his voice, anyone could’ve determined that the brutish man in the Darth Vader mask was the one in charge. The ringleader.
Amber kept the gun pointed at the motionless geezer on the ground and snuck a quick glance behind her. Saw Ross in his Yoda mask, standing in front of the counter, moving his gun between three tellers. Two women, one man—wearing nice button-up shirts and dress pants, all with their hands in the air, looks of openmouthed astonishment on their faces.
Ross threw a backpack on the counter, directly in front of one of the clerks. “Empty the drawers,” he said. “No dye packs, no tracers.”
The clerk lowered his hands and began shoveling stacks and assorted bills from his money drawer into the backpack.
In the rear of the bank, Shane walked a few feet behind two men in suits, his gun pointed at their backs. They disappeared through a thick black door.
Amber’s eyes went back to the guard. He was still on the ground, facedown, hands splayed out from his body.
“Please, p-please don’t hurt me,” the guard said in a low voice. “I have a wife. And grandchildren.”
“Shut up and you’ll see them again,” she said. Again, her lowered, toughened voice sounded absurd to her. An empty threat.
Seconds that felt like hours passed. She focused on the guard, her heartbeat rocking against her chest. Her face was drenched under the musty mask, sweat dripping into her eyes.
Ross’s voice yelled out: “Coming your way!”
A backpack slid over on the ground and stopped a few feet from her. A moment later, Shane appeared from the back, holding another backpack in one hand, still pointing his gun at the two suited men in front of him. Shane slid it over to Amber and it came to a stop near the one Ross had sent over.
Two backpacks now.
Shane led the men in suits behind the counter, next to the clerks. He looked at his wristwatch, then pointed at Amber. He made a circular motion with his index finger.
It was time. She leaned down so her face was only inches from the back of the security guard’s head. “Count to one hundred; then you can move,” she said. “Don’t try to be a hero.”
She stuck her gun in the waistband of her pants and hurried over to the two bags on the ground. She grabbed one in each hand and ran past the entrance, back outside. On the town square, there was still no sign of activity; nothing had changed in the minutes they’d been inside.
She sprinted to the car and sat down in the front seat. Ripped off the Yoda mask and tossed it and the backpacks of money into the backseat. Fired up the engine.
Panting like she’d just run a marathon, she focused on the bank entrance. She brushed some strands of blond hair from her eyes.
She waited.
Waited some more.
And then the bank door flew open. Chewbacca stormed out, sprinting toward the car with Ross’s long, lean movements. A few steps behind him, Darth Vader followed, Shane rumbling along.
Amber tensed up. Almost time.
Ross reached the car first. He threw open the passenger door and jumped inside, slamming the door shut behind him. A moment later, Darth reached the rear door. He pulled on the handle. The door didn’t open. He started frantically yanking on the handle, but the door stayed shut.
“It’s locked!” Shane screamed, pounding his fist on the window. “Unlock the fucking door!”
“Go,” Ross said to Amber. “Floor it!”
Amber slammed her foot on the accelerator and the car sped out of the parking stall, leaving Shane behind. Looking in the rearview mirror, Amber watched Shane chase them for half a block, then give up. He stood in the middle of the road, staring at them from behind the Darth Vader mask, watching the car disappear. Perhaps he was just now realizing what had happened: he’d been double-crossed. Screwed out of the money.
Amber whipped the wheel to the left and the Camry took a turn without slowing. The tires screeched, cutting through the tranquil morning. She flew through an intersection. They sped past silent homes and empty streets.
Next to her, Ross tore off his Chewbacca mask. The ponytail he’d tied his hair in before the robbery had come undone and his long hair flowed like the mane of a wild animal.
“We did it!” he yelled. “Can’t believe it. We did it!”
“Not over yet,” Amber said. “We need to get out of here first.”
“Then, book it, babe. Let’s roll.”
Amber sped through the sleepy town and took a left turn. Straight for a few blocks. After a minute, she passed a sign that read: THANKS FOR VISITING HASTINGS, NEBRASKA. Modest houses with small front yards immediately gave way to flat, frozen farmland.
They motored down a two-lane highway, Hastings disappearing behind them.
After dropping off Joshua, Karen drove back across the city. Took Eighth Avenue SW over the Cedar River and arrived at Mercy Hospital, the biggest hospital in Cedar Rapids. After changing into scrubs, the day-shift nurses met the night shift for handoff. Then Karen’s day began.
Fifty million places to be. Always on her feet. Medication to administer. Reports to write. Check-ins to update physicians. As a nurse in the intensive care unit, she spent her entire morning jumping between the patients under her care, making assessments of and adjustments to their treatment to keep them stable and hopefully move them closer to recovering from major surgery. One heart attack patient was diabetic, and she stopped by his room consistently to monitor his insulin levels. Another patient had spiked a fever—could mean a new infection—so she took a few samples to send to the lab.
When her break came in the midmorning, she went to the small room that served as the floor’s kitchen/break room. A few of her coworkers sat at the table in the middle of the room. She poured a cup of coffee and sat down next to Carmella, a cute Hispanic girl with smooth olive skin and curly brown hair. She was in her mid-twenties, the youngest nurse on their floor, though she looked barely older than a teenager. Her green scrubs hung off her petite body like a tent.
“Just the person we wanted to see,” Carmella said to her. “Tell us all about it. Right now.”
“Tell you about what?” Karen said.
“Your date. We want to hear all about last night’s date.”
“That’s right, your date,” Peg said. She was a rail-thin nurse, a lifer who’d been a nurse for decades. “Was he cute?”
“In good shape?”
“What kind of car did he drive?”
“What about his butt? Nice butt?”
“Tell us all about the dinner, the conversation—”
“And don’t leave out the part about the hot, steamy lovemaking,” Carmella said.
“Oh, we definitely want to hear about that.”
The ladies at the table began laughing. Karen couldn’t hold back a smile. “There was nothing of the sort,” she said.
“Details, baby—give us the details,” Carmella said.
Her date. The reason she hadn’t been home last night. Joshua hadn’t asked her about the date this morning, and she’d held on to a glimmer of hope that her coworkers would forget to ask about it, too.
No such luck.
So she rehashed everything about the date. She’d been exchanging messages with him on one of the dating sites she was a member of, and they’d decided to finally meet up at a bar last night. Her date had arrived ten minutes late; while waiting for him, she’d sat at a table alone, surrounded by young, beautiful drunk people who all looked like high school students to her, like they should be classmates of Joshua’s, not out drinking at a bar. Once her date finally showed up, he spent more time watching the basketball game on the TV than talking with her. The few times they did talk, it was clear from the look on his face that he was having difficulty hearing what she was saying. An unremarkable evening, just like every other date she’d been on recently.
It had been scarcely a month since she’d decided to start dating again. For years, she’d simply had no time to date. Between raising Joshua by herself, going back to college for her nursing degree once he got older, and attending his golf meets and other functions when he reached high school, she hardly had a moment to breathe, let alone start a relationship. Joshua’s life was her life; there wasn’t time for anything else.
But she knew that there’d soon be a huge void when Joshua left for college. It was something she could still hardly fathom, that in roughly six months she’d be in the house by herself, without him. And so came her New Year’s resolution, made barely more than a month ago: start dating. Really try to find someone.
When she’d told her coworkers about her plans, the news had gone off like a bomb. All of them except for Carmella were married, and they’d thrown themselves into the task of finding her a man. Scouring online dating sites. E-mailing choices to her. Telling her about someone from church or a former coworker who’d be perfect for her.
“Long story short,” Karen said, finishing up her recap, “I don’t think there’ll be a second date.”
Carmella started talking about a doctor down on the third floor she wanted to set her up with. Karen politely nodded but barely paid attention. She’d heard it all before.
“What about this weekend, lovergirl?” Peg asked. “How many hot dates do you have lined up for this weekend?”
“None,” Karen said. “I have the weekend off and I’ll be relaxing. A nice, quiet weekend with nothing going on. Exactly what I need.”
A bell rang, classroom doors flew open, and students swarmed into the hallways. Joshua worked his way through the mob. The day was just half over and, already, it had been grueling. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through a few more hours.
When he got to his locker, it took three tries to enter his combination correctly. He grabbed his phone off a shelf and quickly checked the same local news sites he’d checked after every class so far.
No report of a body being found out by Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area.
Nothing about a missing person.
Joshua set his phone back in his locker. He closed his eyes, clenched and unclenched his hands. He’d hoped that the school day would provide a distraction, but it hadn’t. That same nervous, uneasy feeling had eaten away at him all day, just as it had every moment since last night.
Right as he was about to close his locker, his phone chimed with a new message. He tensed up and grabbed it. The message onscreen was from the number he’d texted earlier:
You there?
Joshua typed out: Yeah. Here.
How you doing?
Not good.
Me, either. Just know, we’re in this together. You and me. You’re not alone.
I know. It’s still tough. Can’t stop thinking about everything that happened.
A bell rang, signaling one minute until next period began.
Gotta go, Joshua typed.
Me, too. I love you. Never forget that. I love you more than anything in the world.
K. Love you, too.
Stay strong. Talk soon.
Joshua set his phone in his locker and shut the door.
The rest of the school day was just as difficult as the morning. Every class dragged by. Every hour was a struggle. After school, Joshua went to an indoor driving range across town with a few golf teammates. Around twenty golfers were lined up, spaced out a few feet apart, swinging mechanically, the boys’ team in a row on one half, the girls on the other. At the far end of the row his ex-girlfriend, Ashley, swung away, wearing a polo and a pair of khakis, her brunette hair pulled into a tight ponytail.
The only sound in the cavernous room was the smack of golf clubs and the occasional mumbled chatter.
Joshua set a ball down, adjusted his grip on the club, and swung. The ball soared for a bit and sharply sliced to the right before it was caught in the netting set up at the edge of the room. He set another ball down and hit it. Another slice.
“Gotta stop thinking about Ashley, man,” Aaron said from the tee box next to him.
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are. Better not get back with her. I’ll be pissed if you cost me twenty bucks.”
Aaron laughed. Joshua didn’t react. He continued to hit drive after drive, most of them shanks. Twenty minutes in, the feeling suddenly hit him: a discomfort in his stomach, a feeling like he was totally overwhelmed. He ran to the bathroom. Once he was alone in a stall, he was certain he’d start vomiting. Or crying. But nothing happened. He stood in the bathroom, alone, staring down at the toilet.
He returned to the driving range and continued hitting golf balls, his swing steady as a pendulum. The entire time, all he could think of was the body out in Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area. The body that was slowly rotting away.
The body that was out there because of him.