Confused by Shadows

by Geonn Cannon

  "Samantha, come on," Lindsay said.

  "She's going to want an interview," Samantha said as Lindsay guided her from the room. "She's good at the jailhouse confessional things."

  "What were you two even doing here?"

  Lindsay pointed at the deposit slip island and slipped effortlessly into her on-air persona. "The tall bald man...the white man with the glasses. His name is Russell McKee. He's a construction worker. Last week, the bank accidentally added half a million dollars to his account. He alerted the bank rather than taking the money and running."

  "That's amazing."

  "It is, isn't it?"

  "Yeah. Putting people on the news because they showed basic human decency."

  Lindsay's smile faltered and she said, "Come on, Sam."

  Bryden and Russell were next. Lance watched Bryden and said, "Your son is safe. That's the important thing, right?"

  "Yeah. On the outside. With his mom and her girlfriend."

  "Her wife."

  "Her partner."

  "Same thing."

  Bryden's jaw tightened and he brushed past her. "Go into that office and enjoy your meal. Please remember to fill out your customer service card if you were pleased with your visit."

  Russell McKee, the man who had made being a good person newsworthy, stared at the white paper wrapping his sandwich. "I should have just taken the money," he said. He looked at her and said, "Do you know why I'm here?"

  "Yeah."

  He shook his head. "I should have just taken the money. What, I can't use a half million bucks? But I have to do the right thing. Miss work—which comes out of my paycheck—to come down here and do an interview for the local news. And what happens? I get taken hostage." He snatched a can of soda off the tray and said, "No good deed, huh?"

  "Tell me about it," Lance said. "Go down that hall to the first office."

  "Why are you separating us?"

  "Because I have the gun and the idea appeals to me. Go."

  Russell McKee sighed and went down the hallway.

  Only two hostages remained without a sandwich. Lance motioned over Tania and the young brunette in the black skirt. The women pushed themselves up and walked up to the makeshift buffet. The brunette took her sandwich and soda, and tried to hurry past Lance without being seen. Lance put a hand on the woman's arm and she yelped, shrunk in on herself, and said, "Please, don't, don't."

  "Go down the hall."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it. We're separating you." She saw how frightened the woman was, and softened her voice. "Nothing bad will happen. It's arbitrary. Just go."

  "Can I get my shoes?"

  "No," Lance said.

  The woman didn't argue. She shuffled down the hall in her bare feet.

  Tania was still taking her time examining the remaining sandwiches. "Well, everything's just going perfectly, isn't it?"

  "Nice job with that door alarm."

  Tania's smirk vanished. "I disabled it. I know I did."

  "The hundred cops outside would like to contradict that statement."

  "You might want to watch your mouth, Artemis."

  Lance said, "Go down that hall and into the office."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm sick of looking at you. Go."

  Tania smirked and carried her lunch down the hallway.

  Lance checked her watch. It was just barely eleven in the morning. They'd been in the bank for a grand total of fifty minutes. She picked up three sandwiches and carried them out into the main room. She handed one to Nemesis and the other to Aphrodite. Nemesis put hers on her lap, unfolded the wrapper across her thighs, and began to dismantle the food. She put the bread to one side, the lettuce next to it, and separated the turkey and cheese. Then she broke a corner off one piece of cheese and popped it into her mouth.

  Aphrodite nudged Lance's arm, tearing her attention away from the spectacle. "That's nothing. You won't believe how she eats—"

  "Grow up," Lance said. "Go keep an eye on the people in the first office."

  "Why me?"

  "Because I told you to. And it puts these potted plants between you and this very non-bulletproof glass." Aphrodite shrugged and motioned for Nemesis to follow her.

  Lance carried the last sandwich into the safe deposit vault. Hatcher was drilling another box, teeth clenched as he leaned into the drill. Sweat beaded his forehead and made his face shine. "Zeus! Got a sandwich for you."

  "No time to eat," he said. He was out of breath when he dropped the drill, yanked the box out and flipped the top open. He rooted around in the contents for a minute, then tossed the box aside. "God damn it!" Lance saw a growing pile of boxes in the corner, all of them angrily discarded and spilling their contents on the floor. Jewelry, stocks, bonds, ledgers, any amount of money was lying at Hatcher's feet, apparently not worthy of his time.

  "How many of these things are you going to open?"

  "As many as I have to," Hatcher said. "As many as it takes to find what I'm after."

  #

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Detective Camden ushered Martin Collins-Stark behind the barricades and walked him toward the park. "Kind of turned out to be an exciting day, huh?" he said. "What were you planning to do today?"

  "My mom dropped me off for a weekend with my Dad."

  "No school?"

  "Mom let me sk..." He caught himself and looked at the badge on Camden's belt.

  Camden laughed and patted Martin's shoulder. "I think we can let that slide for now. Listen, anything you can tell me about the situation in there, I want to hear it. How many people in masks are there?"

  "I don't know. Five or six? They all have different colored ties on."

  "What colors?"

  Martin thought as they went into the gazebo. "Green. Yellow. Red. White. Blue. Orange."

  "Any more?"

  "No."

  Camden wrote 'six H.T.s' on a piece of paper. "How many people were in the bank with you when the robbers came in?"

  Martin looked down at his sneakers.

  "I don't need an exact number. Just whatever you can tell us."

  "Well...this woman was sitting next me. She was real young, wearing a black skirt. And a blue blouse. And she had on high heels, but then she took them off after they made us sit down."

  Camden's lips curled into a smile. "Okay. Do you remember anything above her neck?" Martin blushed. Camden chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I was a teenager myself not too long ago. Okay, I'm going to have you talk to one of my officers about what happened in there. Don't worry about being exact, just whatever you remember. Can you do that for me?"

  "Sure."

  "I didn't get your name."

  "Martin Collins-Stark."

  Camden held out his hand and Martin shook it. "Congratulations, Martin. You have a cool story to tell all the girls at school on Monday." He waved a female officer over and said, "All right, you go with Officer Locke. I'll check in on you in a little bit."

  He handed Martin over, thanked Officer Locke, and left the gazebo. He walked toward the MCU, but was intercepted halfway there by Clayton. "Detective Camden. There's a woman at the barricade who is asking to be let past. She says her son and ex-husband are in the bank."

  "Name?"

  "Chelsea Collins-Stark."

  "Let her in," Camden said. He followed Clayton across the green carpet of the park. Chelsea Collins-Stark was leaning against the barricade, two officers standing in front of her to keep her from coming in. Camden was shocked; she was gorgeous. Supermodel gorgeous. Strong Greek features, olive skin, and golden brown hair. "Damn. Even I'm turned on by her."

  Clayton turned and said, "Sir?"

  "Never mind, Claremore."

  "It's Clayton, sir."

  Camden ignored the correction. "Mrs. Collins-Stark?"

  "Are you in charge?"

  He waved her in and the officers stepped aside to let her through. She walked up to him and held up a cell phone like it was a badge. "My son and
ex-husband are in that bank. Matthew called me and the phone was—"

  "We'll have time for all that later, ma'am. For now, you need to know that your son is out of the bank and he's with one of my officers right now."

  Chelsea sagged. "Oh, my God. Oh, thank God."

  "If you'll come with me, I'll take you to him. Thank you, Officer Clayton." He guided her back toward the gazebo. "Ma'am, if you don't mind, we need anything you can tell me about your husband. I want to try and force the hostage takers to see them as human beings, not bargaining chips. I don't want them to see a single hostage as expendable."

  "Ex-husband," Chelsea said, and then she scoffed. "You came to the wrong woman if you want to humanize him. But I'll do what I can."

  "Thank you," Camden said.

  Chelsea spotted Martin in the gazebo and called his name. She broke away from Camden and hit the gazebo at a dead run, grabbing Martin and lifting him off the ground. Considering they were close to the same height, it was quite an impressive feat. Camden smiled and looked at a nearby officer. "One good ending," he said under his breath. "Let's hope this is a sign of things to come."

  #

  Ares and Lance watched the group in the first office, while Aphrodite and Nemesis watched the group in the office cater-corner to it. Morpheus continued to move money from the vault, two thick bags at a time. The pile had grown large enough that Lance didn't have a clue how he expected them to get all the bags into her car. She stood in the door of the office, listening to the sounds of the hostages sipping soda and chewing their lunches. They were all sitting on the floor around the perimeter of the room, except for James Callaway, who had elected to sit with his back to the desk.

  "You're on TV, right?" Archie said to Lindsay.

  "Yes, I am."

  "I'm Looking at You, or something."

  "Looking Out For You," Lindsay said. "Always nice to meet a fan."

  "He didn't say he was a fan," James Callaway said. "He just said he recognized you. It's different."

  Archie said, "I do happen to like her."

  "Oh. Sorry. It's just she does these inane human interest pieces that make me want to gouge my eyes out every time she comes on. I just assumed."

  Samantha the camerawoman bristled. She was seated next to Lindsay. "Watch your mouth. She does a lot—"

  "Sweetheart, speak when spoken to, all right?"

  Lindsay held up her hands between the two in an attempt to calm the situation down. "Maybe we should all just—"

  "Why don't you all just shut the fuck up?" Ares said, raising his voice a bit with every word. He stood up and moved between Lindsay and James. "You're making me want to do some very bad damage. And hey, look," he held up the gun, "I got the means. So sit here, eat your damn food, and be quiet." He put his finger to his lips and then returned to his seat and put his feet up on the desk. "Like corralling cats, man."

  "Herding cats," a brunette woman said. Lance turned and saw the barefoot young brunette whose name she hadn't learned. "It's...it's like herding cats." She looked down at her sandwich and muttered, "The proper phrasing of the idiom."

  "Are you a teacher?" Lance said.

  The woman looked up at her and nodded. "Cassandra Stark, second grade, Lincoln Elementary. It was my planning hour. The kids were in the computer lab. I just popped out to get some lunch and make a quick deposit so there would be enough money on my debit card." She held up her sandwich. "If only I'd known I would be getting fed for free."

  James scoffed and knocked his head against the desk. "I wouldn't exactly call this free, sweetheart."

  The phone started to ring again.

  Hatcher left the vault and crossed the room. Lance could see that his clothes were now mostly covered with dust. He jabbed the speakerphone button and said, "Detective."

  "Hello again, Mr. Zeus. I wanted to thank you for letting that young man go. It showed me you're a reasonable man. He's with his mother right now, and he has you to thank for that."

  "Yeah." Hatcher's jaw was tight and Lance saw his eyes shadow over. "Yeah, I'm happy to help."

  "Listen, we've been at this for over an hour already. What do you say we get this under way? What do you want? What will it take to get you and all of those people out of the bank?"

  Hatcher was looking at the piles of money stacked in the middle of the room. "I want a van. A clear path to Canada. We go over the border, we disappear with the cash."

  "I can maybe do the van. The rest of that—"

  "You'll have to do better. I'll be waiting for your call." He hung up and searched for the phone's cord. He pulled it out of the wall, gathered the phone under his arm, and carried it back to the vault with him.

  Lance turned and looked at the hostages. Tania was staring at her. Lance decided to play up her part a little and jerked her gun at her. "What's your problem?"

  "Nothing," Tania said.

  "Maybe we should toss you into the vault once Morpheus gets it emptied out. Just in case you decide to be a hero."

  Ares snorted and leaned back in his chair.

  Russell McKee looked at his watch and said, "It's almost noon. Might as well lock us all in the vault. You heard that Zeus guy talking to the cop. They're not going to finish this any time soon."

  "What do you do?" James said.

  "I work construction."

  James sighed. "So you miss one day. Big damn deal. My restaurant is about to go into lunch rush. If I'm not there, I'm going to have half a dozen monkeys trying to spin plates on sticks. And they're not particularly bright monkeys, either."

  "Do you have any idea what kind of pay I get? If I miss one day, just one, I may not be coming back tomorrow. They'll have some—"

  "I thought I said to be quiet," Ares said. He came out of his chair and rounded the desk. He grabbed James by the front of his shirt, hauled him to his feet, and tossed him through the door. Lance had to step out of the way or risk being knocked over. James hit the ground and rolled onto his back, looking up to see Ares' gun aimed at his head. "Maybe I ought to just get rid of the troublemaker. Solve everybody's problem."

  Lance could see that Ares' hand was shaking, his entire body rigid and wired. He wanted violence, wanted blood, and he was going to do whatever it took to get that. She looked at the hostages to make sure no one moved and stepped toward Ares. She was an arms length from him when a heavy bag of money slammed into Ares' shoulder. Ares was thrown to the side, dropped his gun, and landed in a heap against the wall.

  Morpheus, the thrower of the bag, had ditched his suit jacket. His wide shoulders threatened the seams of his shirt, his sleeves rolled up to just under his elbows. He hauled Ares to his feet, slammed him against the wall, and punched him in the face.

  "What the hell is going on out here?" Hatcher asked as he came out of the vault.

  "Nothing," Lance said. "Ares just got a little carried away. Nothing that will happen again. Right, Ares?"

  A thick line of blood ran from Ares' nose to his upper lip. "Yeah. Sure."

  Morpheus released him and stepped back. Ares wiped his face on his sleeve, then looked down at James. "You're damn lucky, you piece of shit. Get up. Come on, get up."

  Ares took off his tie as James got to his feet. He folded it in half and then said, "Open your mouth." James just stared at him. "I said open your mouth, bitch." James opened his mouth and Ares put the tie into it. He stepped behind James, tied the silk off and made sure it was nice and tight. "There ya go. That oughta help me keep my cool." He shoved James forward, back into the office. "Sit your ass down and be silent. Absolutely still. I want them to say we had twelve human hostages and one motherfucking statue. You got me?"

  James sat on the floor with his back to the desk, rested his elbows on his knees, and bowed his head. He put both hands on top of his head and began to rock slowly back and forth.

  "That's more like it," Ares said. He put his feet back up. "Peace and quiet. Hear myself think."

  Lance rested against the doorframe and shook her head. Are
s was a hair trigger, no question why Nemesis had chosen to call him the god of war. She was about to take a stroll across the lobby when she spotted Aphrodite motioning her to the other office. Lance looked at Ares, nodded toward Aphrodite, and walked over to her. "What's up?"

  "Weepy Teller needs to pee," Aphrodite said. "I'd rather not leave Nemesis in charge of even one hostage. Will you take her?"

  "Sure," Lance said.

  Aphrodite turned and motioned for Carey to stand up. She stood, smoothed her hands over her black and white checked slacks, and approached Lance. "The bathroom is just down that hall," Carey said. Lance nodded for her to lead the way. Lance peered into the safe deposit vault when they passed it. Hatcher had set the phone up on the desk, where it sat amid a growing pile of white dust. Carey looked as well and said, "What...what is he looking for? Right. Like you'll tell me. I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. Go on."

  Carey went into the bathroom and glanced over her shoulder as Lance followed her in. She picked a stall and Lance waited next to the door. She looked at herself in the mirror. In the past six months, she'd gone from haggard fugitive to thriving mechanic to dapper bank robber. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "We really don't want to hurt you. We're just here to get the money and get out." She turned her head toward the stall. "Are you done? Carey?" She pushed the door open slightly and Carey lunged at her.

  Lance swept Carey's arm away and the light glinted off the thin razor pinched between her thumb and index finger. Carey shouted and swept the blade down again, aiming at Lance's face. Lance tried to block the attack with her arm and the razor sliced her wrist. "Jesus Christ!" She cupped the wounded wrist with her right hand and dropped her gun. She rushed forward and slammed into Carey's midsection.

  Carey grunted as the air was knocked from her lungs, and cried out when she hit the tile wall. Lance backed up, grabbed Carey's arm, and punched her wrist. Carey's fingers flexed open and the razor dropped to the floor with a deceptively quiet 'tink!' Lance picked up the razor and placed it on the counter. She turned and said, "What the hell were you thinking? You were going to go back out there and take everyone else down with one razor?"

  "I thought...I thought..."