Exposure (3 page)

Kaycee pictured her mother, always looking over her shoulder. Always afraid. Driven to uproot Kaycee and move every few years. The irrational paranoia in Monica Raye had been so great it had oozed its way into her daughter’s soul by the time Kaycee was nine. But never had Monica Raye faced any proof that her fears were based in reality.

That picture! The man’s bloodied face. It wailed a siren song of violence and utter terror. Of a world breaking apart.

Kaycee blinked. What did
that
mean?

She turned into her driveway and hit the button for the garage door. As it opened, Mark pulled into the drive behind her.

In silence they walked under the covered way toward the back door. Kaycee could feel the vibes coming off Mark. He didn’t believe anyone hid inside the house. After all, she’d cried wolf four times before.

As her shaking hand lifted the house key, Mark stopped her. “When you got here, was this door locked?”

“Yes, and bolted. This key turns the bolt and opens the door, but the regular lock stays in position until I undo it from inside.”

Mark looked around. “See anything unusual out here?”

“No.”

“All right. Let’s go in.”

Kaycee slid her key into the lock. As she pushed open the door, panic overwhelmed her. She swallowed hard. “I’ll just . . . wait out here.”

He moved to go inside.

“Light switch is on your left, remember? And the camera’s across the kitchen, on the table.” A thought hit her. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“I picked up the camera. I left fingerprints.”

“Okay.”

The overhead light flicked on. Kaycee’s heart cantered into double time. She pressed knuckles to her mouth.

Fight the fear
,
fight the fear.

Mark stepped into the kitchen.

That dead man’s face. It throbbed in her memory. The eyelids frozen half open. The gore. Who was he? Who killed him?

Who
was watching her?

“Where’d you say the camera is?” Mark spoke over his shoulder.

“On the table.” She pointed, averting her gaze.

“Don’t see it. Is there some other table?”

“No. It’s right where you’re looking.”

“There’s nothing there.”

She stilled for a moment, then edged over the threshold to his side.

The table was empty.

Anger and fear and violation swelled within her. She stared at the blank spot, one hand thrust in her hair. “It was there, I swear it. It was
there
.”

“Okay, okay.“

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a two-year-old, Mark. I’m telling you I saw a camera on that table!”

“Maybe you — ”

“It took a picture of me.” Her voice rose. “I picked it up and saw the picture in its viewer. And then I clicked back one photo — and that’s when I saw the dead man. A close-up. And it wasn’t just
any
dead man. It was
real
dead. Like holes-in-his-head dead. And words were written right into the picture. They said, ‘We see you’ . . .”

Kaycee leaned against the counter and covered her eyes with her hand.

Awkward silence rolled off Mark.

“Tell you what.” He touched her on the arm. “Let’s walk through the house together, all right? Make sure everything’s clear.”

With unseen eyes watching? No way. She couldn’t walk through this house ever again.

Mark surveyed her. “You could stay here and wait if you want.”

By
herself
? “No way. I’m coming.”

Muscles like taut rubber bands, she trailed him out of the kitchen.

The longest day in Martin Giordano’s twenty-nine years had begun with a mouse in the toilet.

“Eeeeee!” his four-year-old daughter, Tammy, shrieked. “Daddy, get it out!”

Martin stood in his pajamas, surveying the gray creature swimming around the stained bowl. What to do? He couldn’t flush the thing. What if it backed up the pipes? But he wasn’t about to reach his hand in there and pull it out.

Lorraine hovered behind him, one hand to her mouth and the other gripping their little girl’s shoulder. Tammy’s frightened sobs quickly turned to heavy coughing. “Come on now, shh, shh.” Lorraine picked Tammy up and held her tight. “You don’t want to make the cough worse. Daddy will take care of the mouse.” Carrying Tammy from the bathroom, she looked over her shoulder. “Get my big ladle.”

Martin trotted to their cluttered kitchen and grabbed the utensil from its top drawer. Back in the bathroom he closed the door. In one fluid motion he dunked the large metal scoop into the toilet, jerked out the mouse, and flung it into the cracked bathtub. Water flew in all directions. The mouse landed with a wet
thwap
.

Before it could struggle to its feet, Martin beat it to death with the back of the ladle.

Breathing hard, he stared at the tiny body and shuddered. Corpses looked so cold.

With the ladle he scooped up the mouse and threw it in the waste paper basket. Sweat itched under Martin’s pajama top as he carried the trash into the kitchen and emptied it into the garbage can. The tainted ladle went into the sink.

From Tammy’s bedroom barked the sound of the cough she’d had for months now. The cough that remained undiagnosed, along with the paleness of Tammy’s skin and her constant tiredness.

Martin wrapped his fingers around the edge of the old Formica counter and rested his forehead against a cabinet. If only her sickness could be taken care of as easily as fishing a mouse from the toilet. All the money that surrounded him every workday, and he couldn’t even afford proper medical care for his only child.

Now, after hours at Atlantic City Trust Bank, Martin still heard that cough in his mind as he fought to reconcile his books. Left elbow pressed against his desk, right leg jiggling, he stared at the digits jumbling in his head. His fingers twitched against the calculator keys. To his right behind the teller counter, Shelley and Olga talked in low tones as they performed the workday’s final duties. Martin’s gaze slid in their direction. At twenty-four, the same age as Martin’s wife, soft-spoken Shelley stood tall and thin, a willow tree next to Olga’s stump of a figure. Olga was in her fifties, a no-nonsense, diligent worker who gushed constantly about her “blessed grandbabies.”

Guilt twinged in Martin’s stomach.

“Tammy’s too sick to go to preschool again,” Lorraine had told him as he left for work. “I’ll just keep her home with me.”

“Home” was a dingy two-bedroom apartment in an old building opposite two rows of storage units running parallel to each other. The living room window overlooked the units and their surrounding concrete. The view from the kitchen window on the opposite side was a rundown industrial street. Next door to the apartment lay the cramped office for the rentals, where Lorraine spent her days. The rental place ran the width of a block. It was gray and depressing, but the apartment came free along with a meager weekly paycheck for Lorraine’s management of the storage units. They could have lived in a much better place if it weren’t for Tammy’s sickness. Seemed like every other dollar went for doctor visits and cough syrup.

Martin glanced at the clock on the bank’s wall. His leg jiggled higher.

A faint sound from the rear door of the long bank made Martin’s head jerk. He stilled, listening. Both doors had been locked when the bank closed. Another noise, a metallic click. Martin swiveled in his chair. The door yanked open.

Four men wearing black ski masks over their heads burst inside, the first two with guns drawn. The second pair each carried four large duffel bags.

Martin jumped to his feet.

“Stay where you are!” The man in the lead pointed a gun at his chest. “Hands in the air.”

“You too.” The second gunman aimed at Shelley and Olga. His voice sounded like stirred gravel. “Get your hands up now.”

Shelley’s thin arms rose, shaking. Her gray eyes bugged, her mouth hanging open. Olga stacked both hands on top of her head. Her lips pressed, a defiant expression on her rectangular face.

“Back up against the wall.”

The women obeyed.

Martin’s heart rammed against his chest. His eyes cut from his coworkers to the gunmen. The leader was tall and lithe, the second very short but stocky. Even though the man was fully clothed, Martin could tell he was all muscle. The third and fourth were moving so fast he could hardly tell their sizes. All four wore black from head to toe, including gloves. The cutouts on the ski masks were small, barely showing their eyes, noses, and mouths.

The two carrying duffel bags threw them on the floor near the vault and hustled back outside. They quickly returned, each carrying four more bags.

“Come out front.” Man Number Two kept his gun on Shelley and Olga. “Hands stay up. Hurry.”

The leader ran to Martin, Man Number Three beside him. The third man whipped a pistol from his pants pocket. Martin flinched.

Lorraine. Tammy.

“Where are the keys to the vault?” the leader demanded.

“In my long desk drawer.”

“Stand back.”

Martin stepped aside while the leader grabbed at the drawer. Man Number Three kept his gun on Martin’s face. In that horrific second Martin pictured his head blown away.

He glanced at the two women as Olga shoved through the teller’s swing door with her thigh. Shelley followed. They stopped in front of the counter five feet from Man Number Two.

“Over there. Move it.” The robber gestured with his chin toward the rear of the bank. Both women scurried toward the vault. One of the men herded them to stand off to one side. At their feet lay the empty duffel bags.

The leader yanked Martin’s keys from the drawer and tossed them over. Martin’s arm jerked up to catch them.

“Open the vault.”

Martin swallowed. He looked at Shelley and Olga as they huddled, white-faced, staring down the barrels of two guns. “Don’t hurt them.”

“Go
.”

Martin headed to the vault. With fumbling fingers he inserted the key and cranked the heavy door open. Shelley and Olga crowded nearby, the younger woman’s breath like muffled gasps.

“Inside.” The leader pushed him. “You two, go with him.”

Shelley let out a wail.

Martin’s heart dropped to his toes. “I can’t go in there! I’ve got claustrophobia!”

“Shut up and go.”

Martin and the women slunk inside, the first two men behind them. In the center of the vault stood two large metal carts with Plexiglas tops, crammed with money. The bills were pressed down, stacked, and bound according to denomination.

The second two men hustled in the duffel bags.

Air squeezed into Martin’s lungs, thick and heavy. The walls bent in, so close. Sweat trickled down his forehead.

“Look at all that cash!” Number Three peered into one of the carts.

Those carts held far more money than normal for a bank. Three casinos on the Atlantic City strip sent their daily take into Trust Bank. Three other banks also sent their daily deposits.

“How’d you get in here?” Martin heard himself ask.
Keep talking. Keep calm.
“That door was locked.”

The leader stabbed him with a look. “We can pick a lock, so what?” He grabbed Shelley’s arm. She yelped. “Get on your knees by the cart. You too.” He gestured toward Olga and Martin.

Man Number Four unzipped a duffel bag and withdrew a flathead screwdriver and hammer.

“You can’t lock us in here.” Olga sank to her knees. “I’m supposed to visit my grandkids. If I don’t show up, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

“I said you’ll be fine,” the leader snapped.

Martin got down beside Shelley. His mouth was open now, sucking in air. His clothes stuck to his skin.

Man Number Three yanked pieces of rope from a duffel bag. With rough movements he tied Shelley’s hands to a leg on the first rectangular cart. She lowered her head and cried.

“It’ll be . . . okay,” Martin whispered. He could barely breathe. “It’ll . . . be okay.”

Number Three bound Olga to the leg next to Shelley. He tied Martin to one at the other end.

“Look down and close your eyes,” the leader said.

Martin did as he was told. He heard the sound of hammering, metal against metal as one of the men pried open the padlocked compartments of the cart. The legs jerked this way and that, pulling at his arms, his shoulders. The smell of dust and perspiration swirled around him, and his heart swelled against his ribs. This wasn’t over yet. What if they shut him and the two women in this vault? Martin thought of his words to Shelley.
It’ll be okay
. Maybe it wouldn’t. He and his coworkers might all be killed.

He thought of Lorraine in their run-down apartment. She was probably reading to Tammy. Such a good mom. She deserved so much better.

Tammy
,
your daddy loves you.

The pounding stopped on the cart to which they were tied. Feet squeaked against the floor. The noise began again as they broke into the second cart. All that clanking and smashing. The sounds rattled in Martin’s brain. His teeth set on edge.