Lewis Security

by Glenna Sinclair

  “No, no, you look nice.” He gave her a thumbs up. “And you look like you’re feeling better,” he said to me.

  “I do feel better, thanks. Wait. Did I look that bad yesterday?”

  “No. Just tired. Understandable. Well, I’m off to my cave.” He gave us both a short nod, then brushed past and left us to ourselves.

  “He’s such a charmer,” Christa muttered as she rolled her eyes.

  “He doesn’t seem too bad,” I murmured.

  “Not that he’s a bad guy, but he’s a real tough nut to crack. Not overly friendly, you know? But tech people can be that way, I guess. They spend a lot of time working on computers and surveillance systems and whatnot, and not a lot of time around people. So they lose their social skills.”

  I nodded thoughtfully as I fixed a cup of coffee. “Or maybe they work with those things because they’re no good at being around people in the first place.”

  “Could be,” she said with a grin. “Either way, he’s smart as they come, but I never really know where I stand with him.”

  “Well, as long as he knows what he’s doing in there, he can be however he wants to be. I would love to know who did all this.” We carried our coffee out to our desks. Meanwhile, the rest of the desks were starting to fill in, and the tellers were opening their windows.

  “Lauren! Oh, my God!” Felicia ran over to me, arms out. “I almost died when I heard what happened, I swear to God!” Only she pronounced it gawd, in true Staten Island fashion.

  “I’m fine. Really, I am.” I gave her a hug, and she looked at me critically.

  “Just the same, you’d better take it easy, huh?”

  “I will,” I promised, then I noticed how she kept glancing over at Christa.

  “Hi. My name is Christa Samuels, from corporate.” She shook Felicia’s hand, careful of the long, lacquered nails. “I’ll be taking this empty desk while we investigate the robbery.” She was a smooth liar, I had to give her that. I wondered what it would be like, having a job that would let me be somebody different all the time.

  “Please, if there’s anything I can do…” Felicia trailed off, then went back to her window and finished opening up. I waved at the others as they came in. All of them looked concerned, and like they wanted to ask me a million questions but didn’t want to come off as being nosy, either. Felicia didn’t care either way, though it helped that she was my closest friend at the bank.

  Peter walked in and took the desk to my other side. “What’d you do, Jones? Knock yourself out cold?”

  And then there was Peter, who was like my annoying little brother. I told myself time and again that he was a nice guy—and he was—but he was always teasing me. Maybe he liked me and didn’t know how else to show it. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Yeah, you know me. I would trip over thin air and break my neck if given the chance.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  He slid out of his suit jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, and his broad shoulders and thick arms were evident. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, not at all. Tall, blonde, fit. Clearly jockeying for George’s job, too. He could have it, as far as I was concerned. I had my sights set on bigger things. A job in the Manhattan office, for one. Anybody could work at a small branch. I wanted much more.

  “Besides, how did you even know what happened to me?” I asked as he opened his laptop and settled in.

  “I talked to George. He told all of us what went down and warned us we’d be questioned by the cops at some point today.” He shook his head. “It’s unreal. And seriously, no kidding, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks.” Just when I was most annoyed with him, he’d say something sweet and look at me with those deep blue eyes of his and I’d forgive him.

  ***

  All day long, I kept looking at that spot on the floor where I woke up. Right in front of where Christa was sitting. That’s where I passed out. How long was I out for? There was no way of knowing when we didn’t have any security footage and my memory was a blank.

  I told myself everything was okay. That was the past. Nobody hurt me and nobody was going to, either. Marcus was watching and he was the best. It sort of became my mantra.

  Meanwhile, Ricardo Montez set up shop in our conference room and brought employees in one at a time to ask them for alibis. I could see how shaken up they were. Was it because they were guilty or just because nobody ever wanted to be questioned by the police? Probably more the latter. I remembered walking around a department store once when I knew some of the employees were watching me closely, thinking I was suspicious. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but just knowing they were watching made me fumble around and get lost while I was looking for things, so I’d have to double back. I even knocked over a mannequin.

  I told myself that was why everybody looked so shifty all day. It didn’t mean one of them did it. But one of them must have, right? According to Detective Montez, at least. Whoever pulled the job knew too much about the bank—including the code to the vault. I couldn’t ignore that little bit of evidence when it was right in my face, even when I didn’t want to believe any of us were capable.

  I looked at one of the cameras, trained above my desk, and frowned. How long would it take him to figure out who did it?

  Chapter Six – Marcus

  I noticed her frowning up at me and wondered what the problem was. I couldn’t see anything happening around her and guessed she was just trying to send me a message.

  “You’re not happy about this,” I murmured to myself. “Well, neither am I, sweetheart. Gives us something in common.”

  I wondered about her. The things George said about her kept swimming around in my head. Smart, dedicated, sweet. I checked out her desk. A few pictures of a little boy who couldn’t be more than two. Not hers. No signs of a kid in her apartment. A nephew? She loved him, whoever he was. A tiny teddy bear. I wondered where it came from, why it meant enough to get a spot on her desk. A couple of plants. Pretty average stuff, all around.

  Why did I care? I didn’t want to believe she was capable of a bank robbery, even though I knew Ricardo thought she might be. I could tell as the day went on, just watching the questioning going on in the conference room, that he was getting frustrated. What did he expect? A tearful confession?

  He took a break at lunchtime and came in to see me. When he was in front of the bank employees he was buttoned-up, professional, a little stern. As soon as the door closed behind him and it was just the two of us, he leaned against it and loosened his tie with a heavy sigh.

  “This is exhausting. Give me a good shooting any day. At least there’s a clear-cut victim and usually a vicious criminal.”

  “Why are you even assigned to this case?” I wondered. “Nobody got hurt.”

  “The girl,” he said, jerking his chin in the direction of her monitor. “Since she’s mixed up in it and the robber probably saw her, it classifies as a Special Victim case.”

  “No shit. That sucks.”

  “Eh, at least she seems like a decent kid.” He ran a hand over his head, then down the back of his neck. “I mean, if she was hard to get along with, it would make things that much worse. You don’t know how hard it is to act sympathetic when a victim does just about everything to kill your sympathy.”

  “I bet,” I chuckled.

  “But other than her, it’s the bank. Yeah, some personal stuff was stolen from the safe deposit vault, but for the most part it’s insured cash. A faceless victim, in other words. I’m trying to get the big, bad bank’s money back.” He rolled his eyes. “Sorry if I don’t cry myself to sleep tonight over that.”

  “So you like knowing there’s somebody who’s really hanging on your work,” I said. “Like, it’s life-or-death type stuff you like the best.”

  “I guess so, yeah. That’s why I got into Special Victims in the first place.” He checked his watch. “Vienna will be here soon.”

  “Oh, you’re bringing her in?” A former ca
t burglar-turned-police investigator, she was also the fiancée of one of our agents.

  “Yeah. I figure, it’s a robbery. She knows everything about that stuff.”

  “Send her my way,” I suggested. “I wanna know what she thinks about this security system and the skill level it would take to override it.”

  “Will do. I want her to watch the rest of the interviews and go over the footage from the others, too. Maybe she’ll see something I didn’t.” He pointed to the monitor showing the feed from the conference room. “What do you think? I know you were watching. Anybody jump out at you?”

  “Not really. The one with the nails and all that jewelry, she had a few theories, didn’t she?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, you can always tell the ones who watch too many police procedurals in their free time. They think they can solve the case for you.”

  “She’s really the only one who stuck out at me,” I said with a shrug. “And not for the right reasons. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay—nobody else stuck out at me, either. There’s always the afternoon. Vienna will help shake things up a little.”

  “Just be careful she doesn’t end up stealing something,” I joked.

  He straightened his tie and got ready to go back out. “Don’t even kid like that. She doesn’t do that anymore—or it would be my head on a platter.”

  ***

  Vienna sat next to me, ankles crossed on the table. “Who do you like for this so far?” she whispered. Anybody who walked in would think she was talking about a game on TV. She sounded like she was talking about one, too—there was enthusiasm in her voice.

  “Jury’s still out. I don’t like the looks of the guy who sits next to Lauren. The one who looks like a ski instructor from a teen comedy back in the eighties.”

  She choked a little on her salad. “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I mean it. Look at him. He probably kisses the mirror every night after he brushes his teeth.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “You don’t like blonde guys. Duly noted.”

  “It’s not that. You can just tell he’s full of himself.” I watched as he leaned on Lauren’s desk and said something. He smiled down at her.

  “Hmm. I wonder if that’s really your problem with him.” I felt her eyes on me as she looked my way. “In case you didn’t know this, you’re not too bad to look at yourself.”

  “Shut up. I wasn’t fishing for compliments.”

  “Just the same, I’m gonna give them to you. If you’d spend a little more time out in the sun, living like a normal person, you’d lose that pasty look you always have. Otherwise, you have the body.” She looked me up and down.

  “Careful, or I’ll tell your fiancé you were coming on to me in a dark room,” I warned.

  “But you do,” she insisted. “You’re cute. Maybe even hot, if you’d stop mistaking the glow of a computer screen for actual sunlight. You need Vitamin D, my friend. Maybe a few lessons in how to talk to a girl, too.”

  “I know how to talk to girls,” I growled.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re a real Casanova,” she snorted.

  “I do all right.”

  “I’m sure you do—but you could do better. You could score a girl like this one.” She jabbed one finger at the monitor showing Lauren laughing at something that douchebag said. I felt my blood starting to boil.

  “Who says I wanna score a girl like her?” I asked, then turned my attention back to the conference room.

  “You’re right. Who says?” she asked softly.

  “Stop baiting me.”

  “I’m not baiting you.”

  “Bullshit. You’re fucking with my head the way you fucked with me the day you came to the office. Remember?”

  She had the grace to blush, at least. “Sorry. That wasn’t personal.”

  “Coming in, acting like you were all impressed with the equipment when you really only wanted to know how you could hack into it.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “And then you hacked in and I haven’t been able to live it down since.” It wasn’t easy for me to talk about, but the way she had gone around me like that stung, even a year and a half later. She had made me look like a fool and fled the country—it was only lucky for me that there were no charges against her when she did, or else my ass would’ve been grass. So would Dylan’s for letting her sneak away from the safe house. My work was my life, and she had made me seriously question what I did and how good I was at it. I hated that. And I thought I was over it, but apparently not.

  “Wow, I didn’t know you were seriously pissed at me over that.” She touched my shoulder. “I really am sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly in those days, you know that. I only wanted to get away.”

  “Yeah. I know. It was a long time ago. I need to get over it.”

  “That’s not who I am anymore.”

  I smirked. “That’s a little bit who you are, or you wouldn’t be doing the work you’re doing now.”

  She grinned. “Okay. Maybe. I like thinking about a job, planning it in my head the way I think the guy who did it planned things out. It’s all the fun without the danger of getting caught.” She leaned in and tapped one of the six monitors. “What about the manager? This George guy?”

  “What about him?”

  “I mean, what do we know? Has Ricardo said anything?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Is he even looking at him as a suspect?”

  “I have no idea. He doesn’t share things like that with me.”

  She chewed her lip and twirled a strand of blonde hair between two fingers. “He’s the most obvious suspect.”

  “Why? He hired us.”

  “Yeah, and why did he do that?”

  “To make sure Lauren’s safe from whoever did this.”

  “Or to make sure he knows when she starts getting her memory back.” She glanced at me. “Ever think about that?”

  “Obviously, no. I didn’t.”

  “Because you don’t have the mind of a criminal.”

  “I never thought I would hear that sound so much like a put-down.”

  She giggled. “You know what I mean. You don’t think the way a criminal thinks.” She sat back, staring at the monitor which showed George standing by Lauren’s desk, talking about something. And Peter—I had to start using his actual name when I was thinking about him—tried to make it look like he wasn’t listening in. I smirked. He was so obvious.

  “Yeah. If I were the person who pulled this off, I would want somebody with her all the time just in case there was something she remembered. If I were paying for all this, it would be my right as the client to ask for regular updates, yeah?” She looked at me, but didn’t wait for me to answer. “It’s the next best thing to trailing her around himself. Yeah. I bet he had something to do with it.”

  “That’s a pretty big accusation.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna go out there and accuse him in front of the entire bank, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I am gonna recommend to Ricardo that he keep an eye on that guy. I don’t trust him.”

  “He really likes her,” I murmured, nodding toward the monitor. “He makes it sound like a father/daughter relationship, but I get a feeling there’s more to it than that.”

  “Oh, please. A girl like her? That face? Those eyes? Shoot, I practically have a thing for her myself, and you’ve seen who I’m engaged to.” She winked, and I decided to leave it there before she started on me again about scoring with Lauren.

  I started wondering again about George. Back at her apartment, I’d overheard Lauren mentioning George’s wife. So he was married. He drove a pretty nice car for a bank manager—it was just a small branch, how much could he earn? Maybe the wife made the money, or maybe she came from money. And maybe he was tired of an older woman and wanted somebody younger.

  I shook my head and reminded myself I wasn’t a detective. I wasn’t even a field agent. It
wasn’t my job to figure out a motive. It was my job to catch something on the footage.

  I slid a tape in from three weeks earlier and started watching while Vienna watched what was happening around the bank. The sooner I picked up on something, the sooner I could get back to headquarters. Things made sense there.

  Chapter Seven – Lauren

  “What’s all this?” I stopped short on walking into the bank at the end of the first week after the robbery. There were people milling around all over the place—for a second, it was enough to make me remember that night, all the cops going to and fro. Had there been another robbery?

  No. They weren’t cops. Cops didn’t wear jeans and work boots and ball caps. I took a deep, shaky breath.

  “Oh, so we’re a go with this, huh?” Christa walked over to Pax, who I hadn’t noticed until then.

  He grinned. “Yeah, we worked it out with the bank. Who knows? We might end up wiring all branches by the time this is over.”

  “You’re rewiring the security system?” I asked, looking around. So the people there were his people. That made a lot more sense. I told myself to chill out and get my heart beating at a more normal speed.

  “We are. The head of my surveillance team insisted.” He smirked, cocking his head in the direction of a man giving orders to several others. He stood a head taller than the rest of them, and his deep voice resonated through the room as he called out instructions to two men on ladders.

  I realized it was Marcus. Why hadn’t I recognized him right off? Because he seemed like a different person—confident, in charge, even smiling. He loved what he was doing and was glad to finally get his way. He laughed over something with one of the other techs, and I thought for the first time about what a nice laugh he had. He needed to do more of that.

  “Let me see what it looks like inside.” He turned and noticed me standing there, staring, but he only jerked his chin up in recognition before heading to the security room.

  “Wow,” I whispered. I had to catch my breath. What happened all of a sudden? There I was, thinking he was just a dorky tech geek who didn’t always say the right thing in social situations, when he had so much going on under the surface. For the first time all week, I saw him as a man.