Marcus still seemed to be just as shocked as me. That was actually a relief—if he had known all along that this was coming, I wouldn’t have been able to take it. Knowing the police didn’t believe me was bad enough.
He looked at Marcus, too. “I just talked to your boss. The agency is dropping the case.”
Somehow, that bothered me more than anything else he’d said up to that point. “Why? How can you do that? I thought the point was to protect me!”
“Yes, but from whom are they protecting you? Meanwhile, your boss is spending a lot of money he doesn’t need to be spending.” He stood, looking down with an expression that told me he thought I was nothing more than a common criminal. “I’m sorry, but we can’t look at you as a witness anymore. We have to approach this as though you’re the guilty party.”
Chapter Nineteen – Marcus
I couldn’t believe it. Why wouldn’t Pax tell me things had changed? Did he care how stupid he made me look, standing there with my mouth hanging open as Ricardo told me how to do my job? Meanwhile, Lauren’s heart was breaking.
“Nobody mentioned this to me.” I felt like she should know that.
Ricardo scowled. “Don’t throw me under the bus. You knew we had our doubts all along.”
I wanted to tear him apart. Could he have been a little more compassionate? He couldn’t see Lauren’s face when he was busy giving me dirty looks, but I could. It crumbled.
“So you thought I was guilty all this time, too?” she whispered.
“No, I didn’t.”
“But he just said you did.”
It was like a landslide. Everything was slipping out from under my feet. “Just because I knew the police had doubts doesn’t mean I had them, too.”
Ricardo pointed at me. “You told me yourself she didn’t give you anything to go on when you spent time one-on-one,” he said.
“You’re making it sound like I was spying on her! I wasn’t spying!”
It didn’t matter what I said. Her eyes filled with tears. “Is that what this was all about? Us, I mean?”
“Oh, Christ.” Ricardo massaged his temples like we were giving him a migraine.
I shook my head. “No! Why would you even think that?”
“Because it makes the most sense.” Her voice wobbled like she could cry at any second. “It’s all clear now. How could I have been so stupid?”
“Would either of you mind us getting back to the reason I’m here?” Ricardo snapped. He never raised his voice like that—it surprised both of us into shutting up. “Like I was saying, you’ll now be treated as a suspect, though no charges have been filed. We’ll be going through your finances, however, as well as any activity on your laptop. I’ll be taking that with me now.”
“Now? Right now?” She looked at me like I could help her, when there was nothing I could do.
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” I asked him in a low voice.
“Don’t bother trying to defend me,” she spat. “They’ll see that I’m innocent when they don’t find anything on my machine.”
“I hope that’s true,” he said. “I truly do. It’s not as if I wanted things to work out this way, but I have bosses the same as anyone else. We’re under a lot of pressure from the bank’s corporate offices to find out who did this and how they did it—they see it as a much bigger issue than a single theft, you have to understand. The way they see it, if it could happen once, it could happen again and again. They’re panicking, which is making my bosses panic. This isn’t my call.” He shrugged, palms up.
“But you could go to bat for me, couldn’t you? I can’t believe you don’t believe me by now,” she said. “What do I have to do to convince you I had nothing to do with this?”
His eyes hardened. She didn’t know him like I did—once he looked like that, it meant his patience was wearing thin. “You could tell me a little something else about that night. I’ve spoken to several neurologists about this and they all agree that the injury you sustained should be healed at this point, and any memory loss should’ve cleared up by now.”
She looked to me for help, but I stayed silent—mainly because I was starting to wonder how right he was. The doctors said she should’ve remembered by then. Why didn’t she? Was she lying to me? I took a step back, away from her.
Her face fell. “Really?” she whispered. “This is a nightmare.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you in for further questioning tomorrow morning—it’s a little late now, but it can wait. Eight o’clock?”
She stared at the floor. “I have to go to work in the morning.”
“No, you don’t.” Her head snapped up, eyes questioning him. He grimaced as he explained. “George feels it best that you stay out of the bank until the case is closed.”
“He what?” She looked stricken, while I didn’t know if I should turn away or pull her into my arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. I knew what I wanted to do, for sure. I wanted to hold her and protect her and tell Ricardo to go fuck himself for not believing in her. Only I wasn’t sure if I believed in her, either. Mainly because it seemed less and less likely that she was innocent.
“It’s for the sake of the case,” he said. “I hope you believe me when I say I’m sorry.”
“You don’t believe me, so why should I believe you?” She stared at him, hard, and I was surprised when he was the first one to blink.
“You shouldn’t. I don’t blame you.” He glanced at me. “Are you almost finished here?”
I tried to find something to say. “Yeah. Just about. Even though it doesn’t matter now, if we’re pulling out.” I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t stand the sight of her eyes, all the pain in them.
“Pax said he’d send the team in tomorrow to take everything down.”
Why didn’t he tell me that? Didn’t he trust me enough with that information, especially since I was head of the team? I swallowed my pride long enough to reply. “Okay. I guess that’s the way it is, then.”
“Good. I’ll wait out in the hall.” He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, that much was obvious. I waited until he closed the door to look at her.
I was too slow. She whirled on me. “You used me.”
I blinked. “How could I use you?”
“To get close to me and find out what you could about this stupid case. Right? How else can you explain standing there, not defending me? You believe him all of a sudden? How is that possible?”
I looked over at the door and kept my voice low at the thought of him standing right outside, probably listening in. “Because he makes sense. It fucking kills me to say this, but he does. I don’t understand why you can’t remember what you saw, and I have to wonder if you do remember but just can’t tell anybody.”
Her shoulders slumped. “You can say that to me after what I thought we were to each other?After what we just did, like, twenty minutes ago?”
“Don’t do that.” I shook my head. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair? To ask how you can sleep with me, but tell me you don’t believe I’m innocent? How do I know you weren’t using the crush I had you to get close to me, then report back everything I said?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Did I give you enough material?”
“How do I know you weren’t doing the same thing?” I snarled. “Using me, distracting me from my work so I wouldn’t see what you did.”
She shook her head. “Get out of my apartment. You disgust me.”
“Gladly.” I picked up my laptop bag and the bag holding my clothes and things, then stalked out to the hallway. Ricardo winced at the slamming of the door.
“That went well,” he muttered, loosening his tie. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything. You’re right—there’s no reason why she doesn’t remember, except she doesn’t want to remember. That’s all.” My hand tightened around the straps of my gym bag until my knuckles went white.
> “I didn’t mean to cause issues between you two. I didn’t know…” he trailed off, clearing his throat when he did.
I shook my head as we stepped into the elevator. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I wanted anybody to know. And it’s over now, anyway. I can pick up the rest of my stuff tomorrow, when we take the cameras back.” I hated the way my chest tightened when I said the words out loud.
“You do realize we don’t know anything for certain, right? I would just hate to see you burn bridges for no good reason.”
“I understand. It’s for the best, either way. It was unprofessional of me to look at her as anything other than a client.”
“Maybe. But stranger things have happened. And if she’s lying, she’s a very good liar. She puts up a good front.”
“Please. Let’s not talk about it anymore, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
***
I stopped back at headquarters to drop off the old camera. The place was practically empty, just like I was counting on it to be. I didn’t want to face anybody just then. Life was better alone. I had forgotten for a little while why I liked it that way, but she had reminded me.
Tricia and Zeke sat at the control panel, and both of them turned in surprise when they heard my footfalls on the stairs.
“Hey, stranger! What brings you in?” Tricia asked.
“Just bringing this old camera back. It was glitching out. Wanna take a look at it for me?”
“Sure thing.” She took it and immediately started looking it over. Meanwhile, I ran a hand over my console. They had taken care of things while I was gone. Nothing was broken, nothing went haywire just because I wasn’t there to watch everybody like a hawk. Maybe they didn’t need me the way I thought they did. Or maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was—I hadn’t seen anything of value at the bank, had I? I couldn’t even help Lauren prove she was innocent, the one thing I wanted more than anything else. Deep down inside, I didn’t believe she did it. I didn’t think she was capable of using me the way I’d accused her of doing. How could I be that clueless? Why did I lash out at her like that?
“So, how’s it going over at the bank?” Zeke asked.
“Boring as hell,” I admitted with a laugh.
“Like this is so exciting?” he asked, one eyebrow arched. “At least you get out and see different people every once in a while.”
“It’s overrated.” I opened my laptop on the table. “Mind if I go through today’s footage while I’m here?”
“Go ahead.” So I sat in my usual chair and pulled out my headphones, the way I always did. It felt good, being back home in a sense. I knew the rules at the agency. Nothing shook me up there. I could go through my days and know pretty much what to expect and what people expected of me. I wanted to warn Zeke and Tricia against being jealous of my assignment. A little variety wasn’t worth it.
I cued up the footage from that day and felt a stab of guilt when I remembered what we were doing while the rest of the bank worked. I had been watching closely up until lunch, when Lauren joined me. My body responded to the memory no matter how much I wanted to shut it out and tell myself it meant nothing to me. She was just another girl, probably a liar and a thief. Dylan could fall for a girl like that, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I was smarter than that.
I started the footage around the time Lauren got up from her desk and knocked on my door. Things went along like they normally did—the bank started to fill up with customers on their lunch break, the tellers cashed checks and joked and talked about the weekend coming up. Same shit, different day.
Ricardo came in. So that was when he went to George’s office to talk things over. That had to be when they decided it would be best for Lauren not to come back until things cleared up. My blood boiled when I thought about what a coward George was. He didn’t have the balls to tell her to her face that he didn’t believe her anymore. He left it up to Ricardo. And what if she was actually innocent? How would he explain himself when she came back to the bank?
I leaned my chin on my closed fist and scanned the activity across the different feeds.
Until I noticed something.
I leaned in and watched closely, then went back twenty seconds. Again. Again. Every time, I watched as Peter walked past Lauren’s desk and dropped a file on the floor.
“Hey, Trish? Come here. I want you to look at this and tell me if I’m seeing things.” My heart beat double time as she leaned over my shoulder. “Watch this. Tell me what you see.”
I started the recording. There was Peter, standing up with the file, turning to walk in the direction of the file cabinets along the wall, past Lauren’s desk. Just as he crossed behind her desk, he dropped the folder on the floor. When he bent down, he was mostly concealed by the desk. When he stood up with the folder more or less intact, he was tucking something into his pocket.
“See? There.” I pointed.
“Yeah, I noticed that.” I went back again and again. Zeke joined us, and all three of us watched as Peter slipped something into his pocket when he stood up from behind Lauren’s desk.
“What could that be?” Tricia asked. “What does she keep back there, under the desk?”
“Her purse,” I murmured. “It had to be. I remember her having it by her feet.”
“So he took something out of her purse?” Zeke asked.
“Or maybe something fell out and he meant to give it back to her later?” Tricia murmured. “No, that doesn’t make sense. He would’ve left it on her desk or put it back in the bag. Why would he do anything else?”
“Unless…” I sat back in the chair. “Unless he planned it that way. He waited until she was away from the desk and George was distracted by Ricardo. Everybody else in that section was out to lunch by then. Nobody was watching. He took something out of her purse, but he did it in such a way that the desk blocked my view. What was it?” No matter how closely I looked, I wasn’t sure.
“A phone?” Zeke asked.
“No, I saw her use it after work,” I said.
“Maybe that’s what it was, and he gave it back to her later,” Tricia reasoned.
“That still doesn’t make sense. Why put it in his pocket, then give it to her? Why not just leave it there if it fell out, whatever it was?” I shook my head. “I’m willing to bet that whatever it is, he still has it.”
“Maybe you should call Ricardo and let him know,” Zeke suggested. “This guy’s a thief.”
“Yeah, but stealing from a coworker’s purse and stealing from the bank are two different things.” Still, it made me wonder about him. What was he up to? And what had he taken?
“Let’s watch it again.” I went back and started from the time Ricardo entered the bank.
Chapter Twenty – Lauren
“Where the hell is it?” I muttered through tears of frustration. I had torn the place apart and still couldn’t find my wallet. It had to be around somewhere. “God damn it!” I threw myself down on the couch and sobbed. After everything else, a missing wallet was the last straw. I had looked everywhere, had turned my purse out on the floor. Nothing. Just what I needed. I’d have to cancel all my cards, which meant updating the bills I paid automatically unless I wanted my power turned off.
Where could I have lost it? I hadn’t even used it all day. I considered calling Marcus to see if I dropped it in his car, but I would’ve swallowed acid right about then rather than hear his voice. He was dead to me. I couldn’t imagine what I ever saw in him.
Even picturing his face in my mind made me cry harder. I was so wrong about everything. He never cared about me, only about his stupid case. That stupid bank. Stupid George, not believing in me. It was enough to make me rethink everything we had been through together, all the work we did, all the respect he’d pretended to have for me for so long. Nothing looked the same anymore. Even after the cops solved the robbery and things went back to normal, they would never be normal. I would never feel comfortable there again.
I’d have to find a new job. The thought was enough to make the tears flow harder than ever. I had loved my job. I’d been proud of my work and sure it would pay off one day, when I moved up the ladder. I could never move up the ladder once corporate knew I was a suspect in a robbery. They’d never see me the same again, just like I’d never see George the same.
And Marcus. He kept coming back to me, like a record playing over and over. I could still feel his touch all over my body, like fingerprints left behind. I forgot all about my wallet for a minute and ran for the bathroom, turning on the shower and stripping down in a flash. I had to wash myself. I had to be clean of him. He wasn’t part of my life anymore, just like the bank would never be after that night.
I wished I had known that day was my last day. I would’ve gotten my things from my desk. I probably still could, or maybe Felicia would bring them to the apartment for me. If she didn’t think I was guilty. Did she? Did everybody? The thought made me feel cold in spite of the almost scalding hot water. I washed up quickly, scrubbing hard until my skin turned red, then got out and dried off.
My wallet. Maybe I left it at the bank. That had to be it. It could’ve fallen out of my purse, under my desk. Anything else and I would’ve left it there forever—even the pictures of Toby could be reprinted if need be. But my wallet?
I wondered if my key card still worked. Knowing George, it probably did—his absent-mindedness and the strain of knowing Ricardo thought I was guilty had probably combined to make him useless. I decided to go back and look for the wallet and maybe grab the rest of my things while I was at it. What would they do? Arrest me? Nobody said it was against the law for me to go back there. If my key card still worked, it wasn’t like I was breaking in.
I smiled ruefully to myself as I got behind the wheel of my car for the first time in days. Christa and Marcus had driven me everywhere. It felt good being in control of myself again, even though it was only because everybody thought I was guilty. There were drawbacks to everything, I guessed. Freedom in exchange for suspicion.
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