Execution Style

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Mercy grimaced as she handed over the last packet of papers.

  Todd read them quietly, going through each and every one before he spoke next.

  “So, did they give you a reason why these were called in?” Todd asked, lowering his glasses from his face and rubbing his eyes.

  “No. Just that they were called in. I asked around, though, and was told that the week we were gone, Linda Moose spent quite a bit of time at the bank with the manager,” I growled.

  He blinked.

  “I’ve got a couple of people on my payroll that can do a little digging. However, as of right now, this is all legally binding. They have the right to call the loan in at any time,” he said honestly.

  “Fuck,” I hissed. “That fucking bitch.”

  Mercy squeezed my hand, digging her fingernails into my skin. “Seriously? Stop cursing in front of people.”

  Dually chastised, I smiled apologetically at the man in front of me. Even though I was sure Todd used those words on a daily basis, fancy suit or not.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said with a smile in my voice.

  “As for what you do next, liquidating some assets. Sell your house so you can keep some of the money you’ve made on it over the two years you’ve had it. Get married, buy a new house that’s not through Kilgore Bank and Loan. Keep me updated on information, and let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” Todd said as he stood.

  We stood, too, and I offered my hand to the man.

  He took it, shaking my hand with genuine affection. “Marines.”

  I laughed.

  He’d known that I wanted to know.

  Smart man.

  Chapter 20

  Most people sleep peaceably in their beds at night because there are men out there ready to do violence on their behalf.

  -Coffee cup

  Mercy

  Two weeks later

  “If you’d let me help you, this would all be unnecessary,” my mother said for the fifth time as we walked up the bank’s steps.

  I turned to her and shook my head sadly. “I know you do, mom. But I also know you have a lot of money in medical bills that you’re paying right now for dad’s hospital stays and heart surgery. I don’t want to, nor will I add to your burdens. It’s fine, I promise.”

  She had succeeded in calling in my business and home loans, making me have to choose which one I wanted to keep.

  I went with my business loan and had pulled out just into the green since I’d started Second Chance four years ago, making me realize it was the right decision.

  My house, however, had to be sold in order for me to do it. Her house, though, sat untouched and unoccupied while Miller and I shared his room at his apartment that he shared with Foster.

  I’d had multiple offers of help, not just from Miller, but from the men in my employ, the members of Free, The Dixie Wardens, and all of the SWAT team, as well as other members of the community.

  I didn’t take any of it, though. It’d been a bone of contention since we’d gotten back from Las Vegas and learned what she’d done.

  I was now walking into the bank to cash in the check that would pay off the rest of my business loan.

  Then I had an appointment at the house that I now owned.

  My mother, however, thought I was making a very bad decision.

  I didn’t. And I knew that, deep down, Miller didn’t either.

  He may say he was mad, but he understood wanting to accomplish something on my own.

  Which was why he was buying a house this afternoon himself.

  I’d managed to stop him from buying my house, but only just barely.

  He was a sneaky devil, though, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do it despite me pleading with him not to.

  Not that’d he’d fucking care.

  I hadn’t seen him more than an hour at the end of the night since I’d told him I was selling my house.

  I’d spent more time with his brother this past week than I had with him.

  “Mrs. Shepherd, Ms. Shepherd, how can I help you today?” The slimy bank manager asked cordially.

  I wanted to punch him in the fucking nose.

  “I’m here to pay off the business. I sold my house yesterday, for a good amount more than I purchased it for, thanks for not asking. Here’s the check,” I said, handing it over to him.

  His eyes bulged when he saw the amount. “You-you’re paying it all?”

  I nodded. “You said, ‘Pay in Full’ on the papers. That’s what I’m doing.”

  He nodded and took the check over to the computer nearest to the wall.

  “Well, let’s just do that real quick.”

  The bank manager I was dealing with was named Elbert Rommel.

  He probably was an okay guy at one point in time, but as I’d learned just last night from the private detective my lawyer had hired, Elbert had a little gambling problem. Elbert liked to spend money that wasn’t his, and Linda had, somehow, found out.

  The private detective was still narrowing down how Linda had found out, but he’d turned over all his information to the local PD detectives with the hopes that they’d do something about it.

  Therefore disabling Linda’s avenue to do more harm to anyone else.

  “Alright, Ms. Shepherd, I have you paid in full. The bank will be sending out the deeds in a few short weeks. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Instead of answering, I turned around and walked towards the door.

  My mother had a few choice words for him, though, which was what saved me from getting a glass door to the face when it was shoved violently open from the other side.

  “Everybody down,” a woman’s frantic voice said. “Everybody down, and don’t stinkin’ move.”

  Stinkin’?

  Despite my thinking that the woman’s choice of words were childish, the gun she had in her hands was anything but childish.

  I dove to the floor, moving towards the corner, as far as I could, since there was a popcorn machine in the way.

  I was fairly well hidden, although my mother wasn’t.

  The woman with the gun hadn’t spared her any mind, though, thank God.

  “Everybody, I said get down!” The woman screamed once again.

  I winced, and felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

  Alarm shot through me as I frantically thought through my morning.

  Did I put my phone on silent?

  When it didn’t ring out, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I had.

  Thank you, Jesus.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t answer it, though.

  Who was on the other end?

  Turns out, it was the loan coordinator…for the loan I’d just paid off.

  After slowly slipping my phone out of my pocket, I grimaced as the same man who’d been calling me night and day for two weeks now started jabbering a mile a minute.

  I wasted no time in hanging up on him, though.

  Lifting my knees to my chest, I immediately dialed 911, with the phone in between my upraised knees and my chest.

  I couldn’t tell you what the woman…or man…was saying.

  All I could tell you, was that whomever was on the other end, had me on the line.

  It helped that the crazy woman that started to sound more and more familiar continued her ranting.

  “I want every single bit of cash out of each and every one of your drawers. Even the ones in the back. Speaking of which, close the windows down and close the curtains. Turn off all open signs,” she screeched.

  Bank robber. Got it.

  She looked good, too.

  She had on tight black pants, high heeled boots that came up to her knees, and a black skin tight turtle neck.

  She was wearing a black and white wool scarf wrapped around her face, making the only thing I could see her eyes.

  I couldn’t even tell her hair color, but if I could guess, i
t’d be blonde with lighter blonde highlights. That’s just what her voice made me think of.

  Kilgore was a fairly tight-knit community, so it wasn’t every day that I didn’t know who someone was. Which was why it was nagging me to death that the name of whomever was behind the mask wasn’t coming to me, but it was right on the tip of my tongue.

  Her hands were covered in black leather gloves, and the bag she held in her hand was a Dooney and Burke.

  So the woman needed money? Why?

  My guess, was that she spent it all on her wardrobe.

  I bet she drove a Lexus.

  “Now!” She screamed.

  “Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes,” the woman repeated over and over.

  By the thirtieth time she said it, I guessed she’d been there for going on five minutes. Making her goal of two minutes comically incorrect.

  Curling into myself, as well as my way beyond too tight jeans would allow, I hunched over the phone to see if I could hear the person on the phone.

  I wouldn’t be saying anything. I wasn’t one to bring the attention of a killer to me on purpose.

  Vaguely I heard the words ‘hostages’ and ‘SWAT.’

  Then my stomach tightened.

  “Oh, shit,” I said softly. “You need to warn Miller.”

  I said it so softly that I didn’t think the dispatcher would hear me, but she did.

  “Miller?” I heard repeated.

  “Boyfriend. On the force.”

  That time I caught the attention of the crazy lady with the gun.

  Her eyes swept behind her, totally missing me where I was wedged behind the popcorn maker.

  It was one of those actual popcorn poppers, kind of like the ones at the movies, but shrunk into a more manageable size.

  It was hot, too. The smell of popcorn was so tantalizing that my mouth was watering.

  The butter was sitting in front of me, and the bags of pre-made, ready to melt in your mouth, popcorn was sitting only inches from my face.

  “…officer Spurlock. SWAT. Mercy?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed once crazy lady turned back around.

  “We don’t have any bags,” I heard said hesitantly from the front. “The armored vehicle just picked up our deposit, taking our bags with it.”

  The woman screeched. “You’re telling me you don’t have any money, either?”

  Oh, shit.

  The woman’s hand, the one that was holding the gun, started to wobble.

  Then a lone siren pierced the silence of the morning air, causing the woman to whip her head around and stare fearfully at the door.

  “Someone, go lock that,” the woman urged quickly. “Now.”

  Fuck me.

  My God, my language lately was deplorable.

  I really needed to figure out a way to stop using those words before the baby came.

  A movement in the corner of my eye had my eyes widening in surprise.

  The man was a fucking giant.

  And the scar on his face was very intimidating.

  He had graying hair at his temples, but the rest of it was a pure, rich black.

  The man looked uncannily similar to the man I’d met on our trip to Vegas, Sebastian.

  He had the same facial features, as well as demeanor and build.

  I’d heard Miller, as well as Silas, talk about the man.

  I believed his name was Sam. Silas was Sam’s father, and Sebastian was Sam’s brother.

  They didn’t look half as intimidating as this man did.

  He had a look on his face that spoke a million words. Or more like screamed them.

  He was pissed, and he wasn’t afraid to let it show.

  He was also aware that I was looking at him, and that I had a phone in my lap.

  He started spelling something in the air with his fingers, and it took three tries of him spelling it that I finally understood.

  “Someone’s in here with me. He says the gun is fake,” I whispered.

  I shouldn’t have felt relieved, though.

  I should’ve known that if he’d known the gun was fake, that he wouldn’t have stayed where he was on the floor for so long.

  He was on his belly with his hands up by his ears. His face was resting on the ground, and I could clearly see the outline of a gun at the small of his back.

  There’d been ample time for him to shoot her if that would be all it took.

  B-O-M-B.

  He spelled it to me over and over.

  In fact, he did it so long that I thought he was getting a little mad that I wasn’t relaying the information. The truth was, was that I was frozen in fear.

  I pushed through it, though, to get the information relayed.

  If anything else, the responders outside the room needed to know, otherwise that could mean the death of every person in the room, as well as some outside.

  “The man. He says she has a bomb.”

  The dispatcher cursed.

  That was when I knew it was all going to hell.

  A Charlie Foxtrot in the first degree.

  Cluster. Fuck.

  I’d gotten that term from Foster when he described something that was happening on the television. A show about cops in the city of New Orleans who’d been in the middle of a riot.

  An hour later, I knew it to be true.

  “It’s hotter than balls in here,” I growled.

  I’d been sitting in the corner for so long that my legs were numb, and I was fairly sure that they’d turned the air conditioner off, too.

  I was sweating. My mom was sweating. The man on the floor, Sam’s, entire back was drenched. I could see this mainly because his shirt was gray, and the sweat was staining his shirt a much darker gray.

  It also didn’t help that the popcorn machine was still on.

  I would’ve unplugged it, but the stupid thing had a light on it. The moment I did, the light would go out, and alert the woman to my presence.

  I’d tried to go to sleep, but Sam kept trying to relay information to me when I dozed off, and started to get pissy.

  Therefore I’d stayed awake, and sweated my balls off the entire time.

  “I have to pee, too.”

  I was fairly sure the 911 dispatcher thought I was crazy.

  The desk phone near my mother rang, and my eyes widened when the woman’s head whipped around.

  She’d just been standing there, pacing frantically in a tight circle with piles of money at her feet.

  She hadn’t said a word, and that was what was the most disturbing.

  “Answer it,” the woman said breathlessly.

  The shit head, I mean Elbert, answered the phone with shaking hands.

  “H-hello?” He squeaked. “Uh-huh.”

  His eyes turned to the woman. “The man on the phone would like to speak with you.”

  The woman screamed.

  It was an enraged scream. One that was so full of hatred, madness, and pain that I winced.

  What I also did, was widen my eyes shortly after as I finally realized who the hell it was behind all the black.

  Sarah Higgins. My arch nemesis, and the woman that’d been tormenting me since my junior year in high school.

  “Oh, fuck. It’s Sarah Higgins,” I whispered.

  Somehow I’d moved from my spot, too, because Sam started shaking his head at me when I peaked around the cart to get a better look at her.

  I blinked.

  She’d lost quite a bit of weight in the time since the altercation at the diner weeks ago; now she resembled more of a department store mannequin. The ones that were only metal. Not meant to look like an actual human being.

  Beee-dooop.

  I froze as the sound of my phone going dead stopped everyone in their tracks.

  Even Sarah.

  She whipped around, turning her crazy gaze on me, pinning me to the spot.

  “You,” she hissed, marching f
orward.

  I came up to my knees first, tucking my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, before standing fully.

  “Yep, me,” I agreed. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but that’d be a lie.”

  The big man on the floor went up to his knees the moment Sarah passed him, and I knew what he was going to do the moment I saw him come to his hands and feet.

  I just had to keep her talking.

  “What are you doing with that fake gun?” I snapped, pointing at the gun in her hand.

  She lifted the gun, and aimed it directly at my face. “Care to find out how real it is?”

  I blinked.

  No matter what Sam said about it being fake, I didn’t have actual proof. He could be mistaken. He could be guessing. He could be freakin’ bonkers, too.

  I chose to have trust in him, though. Especially since he was moving quickly towards the back of Sarah.

  His feet were exceptionally silent as he moved, almost like a hunting cat stalking his prey.

  “You’re right,” Sarah said, tossing the gun away and ripping open her shirt. “But this baby is as real as can be. Thanks to your bat-shit crazy almost mother in law, that is. You can thank her for this fiasco. I can’t believe she made me do it. Jesus Christ.”

  Sara yanked off the scarf that’d been covering her face, and then tossed down the bag, freeing her arms.

  When she had the jacket down to her elbows, that’s when Sam struck, looping his massive bicep around Sarah’s throat and choking her out in a classic hold that every woman secretly wished never happened to her.

  And as I’d always assumed would happen if that were to happen to someone that was much smaller than the assailant, Sarah clawed at Sam’s arm frantically to no avail.

  Slowly, her struggles ceased until they were nothing more than feeble, random movements.

  Finally, her eyes closed, and she went limp.

  “Fucking hell,” Sam growled, allowing Sarah’s body to slip slowly to the floor under his guidance.

  That was when I got my first good look at Sarah’s chest.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked worriedly.

  Sam nodded, his black hair falling into his eyes before he swept it out again. “Sure the fuck is.”

  “It actually says BOMB on her chest. What’s in those bottles?” I asked.