Exposure (4 page)

Zippers opened. Martin cast a look upward. Each of the four men was throwing bound stacks of money into the bags by denomination. Guns protruded from their pockets.

The leader shook a bag. “Pack ’em tight.”

“Did we bring enough bags?” another one asked.

“Just pack ’em down.”

Martin lowered his head. The sounds continued around him, the rustle of clothes, the soft plop of bill stacks tossed upon one another. Ten minutes. The men couldn’t have been in the bank longer than that, but it seemed a lifetime. A drop of sweat rolled off his jaw onto the floor.

Shelley sniffed. Olga had not made a sound.

“How much you think’s in here?” one of the robbers asked, his words breathless.

“He oughtta know.” The leader’s clipped voice. A knee dug into Martin’s shoulder. “How much?”

For a moment rebellion burned. A lie formed on Martin’s tongue, then melted away. “Almost seven million.”

“Seven million!” one of them crowed.

Claustrophobia welled up Martin’s throat. He forced himself to examine the binding around his hands. He tried to pull his wrists apart — and they moved a fraction of an inch. How long before he could work his way out of the rope?

“Come on, come on,” one of the men hissed.

Martin’s heart constricted. He gazed toward the door of the vault. Beyond it he could see the length of the bank, the glass front door at the other end. Through that lay the outside world. His family.
Air.

“This one’s full,” Number Two said. A zipper closed. “Who’s got room for more hundreds?”

“Here.” The leader’s voice.

The cart jiggled, the soft sound of gloves scraping bottom.

“That’s it.”

Zzzip.
Multiple bags closed. All but the leader ran out of the vault, carrying two duffels each, leaving nine full ones behind. Martin figured each bag had to weigh around thirty-five pounds. One duffel on the vault floor remained empty. The leader stayed in the vault, keeping his eye on Martin and the women. As if they could go anywhere.

The three men soon returned, lugging out six more bags total. Two of them ran back a third time and picked up the rest, including the empty one. Their footfalls scuffed across the bank floor, then faded.

At the vault’s door the leader turned, gun drawn. He pointed it at Martin’s head. Martin went cold.

“Have a nice evening.”

The man swiveled and disappeared.

Martin’s body sagged. Shelley burst into sobs.

“Shh, wait.” Martin listened for the opening of the rear door. He heard nothing but the whoosh of blood in his ears.

“They’re gone.” Olga twisted her hands in her rope.

Martin tried to think. His head was about to explode. He needed to
breathe
. “Let’s get this cart out of the vault. Shelley?”

“Yeah, okay.” Her voice shook.

“I’ll get in front.” Martin shuffled around, the women moving in the same direction, until his end of the cart pointed outward. Martin’s back was now to the door, nothing but the closing-in walls of the vault in his line of vision. He dragged in air. “Okay. I’ll back up. Follow me.”

As a team, they performed an awkward knee ballet, inching the cart along. When he passed the vault door, Martin turned his head to the side and gulped deep breaths.

“You okay?” Olga’s face shone with perspiration.

“Yeah.”

Another minute and the entire cart stood outside the vault. Martin’s insides still shook. But he could breathe.

He twisted his arm to view his watch. The robbers had been gone maybe five minutes. “Try to untie yourself.”

Dry-throated, Martin fought against his rope. Shelley struggled fitfully with hers, sniffing and swallowing hard enough to make her throat click. Olga made no sound.

Within minutes Martin’s skin burned.

Slowly his rope loosened. He pushed his thumb beneath the topknot and worked it. When he could turn one wrist perpendicular to another, he picked at the ties with the first two fingers on his right hand.

After twenty minutes his left hand wriggled free. He slipped out of the rope completely. Ignoring the pain in his wrists, he moved to untie Shelley, then Olga. His fumbling fingers had gone numb.

His nerves felt like raw meat. Nico hadn’t told him he’d be shackled in the vault. Martin wouldn’t sleep for weeks.

But they’d pulled it off.

Martin and Shelley pushed to their feet. Olga’s legs were stiff. She sat down on the floor and massaged her muscles. Martin stumbled toward the nearest bank alarm.

As he reached out his hand to set it off, he checked his watch. Nico and his three cohorts had been gone for almost thirty minutes.

Plenty of time for a clean getaway.

Pulse fluttering, Kaycee followed Officer Mark Burnett as he checked the rooms in her house. He looked carefully, making sure all windows were locked. Every footfall felt like a step toward Kaycee’s grave. Around this corner, maybe the next, the people watching her would be waiting.

First Mark went through the open arched entry into the dining room, where he bent down to look under the table. Then under the matching arch into the large living room at the front of the house. Kaycee hung close, her spine rigid and brittle. She tingled with the sense of eyes watching from the dark outside. Before they left a room she closed all curtains and shades within it.

“We forgot the back bathroom and utility area.” She pointed with her chin toward the living room’s second arch, leading back to the kitchen.

“We’ll circle around.”

They crossed back into the kitchen, the offending bare table on their left, pantry on their right. Past the pantry and down the hall. Kaycee remained there while Mark checked the half bath on their left, then the utility room. “All clear,” he announced.

In the hall to the right was the door to Kaycee’s office, where she wrote her newspaper columns — thanks to Mandy Parksley. Four years ago Kaycee read Mandy some excerpts from her diary about struggling with the paranoia of being watched. Mandy knew someone at the
Jessamine Journal
, a local weekly paper, and made a phone call. “You’ve got something here, Kaycee,” she urged. “And that knack of yours for seeing a fear in others, even when they won’t admit it. The way you saw through mine. You can help people.”

It turned out that the only way Kaycee could publicly write about her fears was to inject a sort of self-deprecating humor. The technique was a hit. Within six months Kaycee’s local “Who’s There?” had gone national.

Kaycee pressed against the wall as Mark checked under her desk, which sat in front of a window facing Mrs. Foley’s house. His gaze roved around her filing cabinet, a table, an old stuffed armchair that used to belong to her mother.

The office led into the den at the house’s front corner. Not much furniture to check behind there. A couch, a TV, some tables and lamps. Most of Kaycee’s house was furnished sparsely. Five years ago the down payment alone had taken everything she had. Since then she’d added what pieces she could.

From the den they climbed the stairs and turned left. The upstairs area only covered the middle part of the house, leaving downstairs “wings.” Mark searched through the two bedrooms and the adjoining bath in the middle. He checked in the closets, under the beds, and behind the shower curtain. Kaycee hung back, feeling awkward and vulnerable as he looked through her private spaces.

We see you.

How would she ever sleep here tonight?

Back in the hall, Mark gave her a nod. “Everything’s clear.”

Kaycee didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

They descended the stairs in silence.

Mark unlocked the front door and walked outside. Kaycee turned on the porch lights and followed. Her white-columned porch wrapped partially around the side of the house, ending at the set-back dining room. From that part of the porch a sliding door to the right led into the living room, and a second one at the end led to the dining area. Mark inspected the locks on both doors. They were secure.

Back inside, Kaycee relocked and bolted the front door. She faced Mark in her living room, arms crossed. The worn hardwood floors and the comfy sofa in her peripheral vision didn’t feel so homey now. The walls pulsed with unseen threat.

“That camera was
here
, Mark. Somebody put it in my house.”

He nodded. “You want to make a statement? I’ll add it to the file.”

“Bet that file’s getting pretty thick.” Kaycee couldn’t keep the defensiveness from her tone.

Mark looked at a loss for words — almost as if he wanted to believe she wasn’t crazy but couldn’t find the evidence.

Kaycee’s heart panged. She shifted on her feet. “So what do we do now?”

“I’ll be on patrol all night. You can have my cell phone number. And I’ll drive by here often.”

“And what if whoever brought that camera comes back between drives?”

“Call me and I’ll come — ”

“I could be dead by the time you get here.”

Mark pulled in a long breath. “Kaycee, I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe. I
am
taking this seriously.”

“Really? Or are you thinking, ‘Sure, sure, this is just crazy Kaycee.’ ”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.

Maybe sometimes your fears make you see things . . .”

“I
told
you that camera was here.”

Mark held up a hand. “Okay.”

For a moment they faced off, his hurtful words from last month echoing in her head. Even if they had revealed more about his own issues than hers, they still hurt. Kaycee swallowed. “And I am
not
making this up just to give me fodder for my next column.”

“I never said anything like that.”

“Close to it . . . last month at the birthday party for Chief Davis. You told me all my column does is stir up other people’s fears, and I don’t really want to overcome my own, because then what would I do for a living?”

“If I said that, I didn’t mean it.”

“You did say it. You know you did.”

Mark looked away, forehead creasing. Kaycee continued to eye him. Why couldn’t he just admit he had fears like everybody else? His were written all over him. Ever since his fiancée broke their engagement and moved away three years ago, he’d kept his distance from women, clearly scared to death of being hurt again. But no, he had to put on this act like he didn’t need anybody.

Mark swung his gaze back to her. “I’m sorry, Kaycee. I’d had a bad day. I don’t really think that about you.”

Kaycee’s eyes burned. She didn’t care what most people said about her — Kaycee Raye’s whole life was laid out in “Who’s There?” But this man was different.

She lifted a shoulder. “Never mind. It’s okay.”

Silence ticked by. Mark cleared his throat. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay alone tonight. Is there somewhere else you can sleep? A friend’s house?”

Kaycee glanced at her watch. Going on ten o’clock. Not too late to call Tricia. Kaycee certainly didn’t want to stay in this house. The very thought of turning out the light, trying to sleep . . .

A terrifying thought flared. “Mark, the words on that photo said, ‘We see you,’ ” Kaycee blurted. “Could somebody have hooked up video cameras in here?”

Great, now he really
would
think she was crazy.

He spread his hands. “I searched all over the house.”

“You were looking for people.”

“You want me to look again — for cameras?”

“Well, if I’m in a starring role, at least I should know about it.”

“Was that a yes?”

She nodded tightly.

Again they walked through every room. Mark searched corners, window sills, within the leaves of plants — anywhere a tiny video camera might be hidden. He found nothing. By the time he finished, Kaycee’s nerves sizzled.

Mark stood in her kitchen, hands on his hips. “So how about that friend’s house?”

Kaycee crossed her arms. How she wanted to leave. The darkness beat giant wings against her windows. But there was
nothing
in this house. No intruder. No lens. If she stayed with someone she’d be giving in. How would she ever regain the strength she’d had before Mandy’s death if she caved in to her fears?

“Kaycee, you don’t have to fight this one,” Mark said, as if reading her thoughts.

That one sentence, coming from Mark, was all it took. Any resolve Kaycee could find within herself melted away. “Maybe I’ll just . . . call somebody.”

“Good. I’ll escort you wherever you go. Tomorrow you can come down to the station and fill out a report. And if you want an officer to come back into the house with you, whoever’s on duty will do that.”

“Okay.”

Soaked in defeat, Kaycee picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number. Tricia Goodwin answered on the second ring. “Of course you can come,” she said. “What happened?”

“Tell you when I get there. Don’t freak when a policeman pulls up behind me.”