by Cindi Myers
She could have refused to tell him, but what would be the point? She had no use for that key, and the sooner this was over with, the better. She gave him the address, a rural area on the south side of town. He smiled and nodded, and her heart beat a little faster. He was a handsome man, but the fact that she was thinking about that at a time like this made her uncomfortable.
“You mentioned you used to work for the newspaper,” he said. “But you own a flower shop now?”
“Yes. Eve’s Garden—on Main Street.”
“Am I keeping you from your work?”
Would it make a difference if she said yes? “I have an assistant who’s there now.” Weekday mornings were usually not particularly busy times, and Sarah was more than capable of handling anything customers were likely to need.
“You’ll have to give me directions to your home,” he said. “I only moved here a little over a month ago and I’m still learning my way around.”
“Oh? Where did you move from?” she asked.
“Washington, DC. You might already know that the Ranger Brigade is a task force of officers from many branches of law enforcement. I’m with the FBI.”
He said it the way another man might say “I’m with the post office.” Or “I’m with the school district.” Just another government job, though this one required him to carry a gun and arrest people.
Her gaze swept over him once more. He probably wore a shoulder holster under the suit jacket that emphasized his broad shoulders and muscular arms. He had to be at least Dane’s age, but like Dane, he kept himself in shape. She supposed it was a requirement of the job.
She pulled her attention away from his body as they passed through the town of Montrose. “Turn left at the third traffic light,” she said.
Her little bungalow sat in a grove of trees near the river, a rustic construction of stone and weathered metal that looked both modern and decades old. “Nice,” he said, as if he meant it, as he stopped the cruiser in the driveway.
“It was built by a sculptor,” she said. “I got it for a good price because it only has one bedroom and one bathroom.” She took out her keys, and he followed her to the front door and waited while she unlocked it and stepped inside.
Light from the large windows spilled onto the polished wood floors and dappled the leaves of the dozens of houseplants that filled the wide windowsills. More plants, along with vases of fresh flowers, adorned the kitchen island and several side tables. “I see you like to bring your work home,” the commander commented.
“I like living things in the house,” she said. “And having plants is very healthy.”
She stopped in the kitchen, feeling awkward. All those dates, and she hadn’t invited any of those men inside her home. No one since Dane.
“The key?” he prompted.
“Oh, of course. It’s back here.” She indicated the short hallway that led to the bedroom, and he motioned for her to precede him.
She was acutely aware that she hadn’t bothered making the bed that morning, the sheets half trailing along the floor on her side of the bed, the comforter a rumpled pile at the foot of the bed. The pajamas she’d worn—pink fleece with cartoons of sheep all over them—were draped over a white-upholstered armchair in the corner.
Aware of the man beside her taking this all in, she hurried to the dresser, and the wooden chest that served as her jewelry box. The box, of juniper wood with an inlaid marquetry hummingbird, was the work of a local artist and had been a gift from Dane their first Christmas together. That had been in the early days, when she believed they would marry and have children together.
She opened the box and lifted out the top tray, then rummaged in the loose collection of single earrings, broken bracelets, a watch that needed a battery and costume jewelry she no longer wore. “It’s in here somewhere,” she said.
Sanderlin came to stand beside her, the bulk and warmth of him feeling intimate in this small room, with the unmade bed just behind them. “Are you sure that’s where you put it?” he asked.
“I’m positive. It was the first thing I ever put in here.” She continued to rummage through the contents. “Dane gave me the box on Christmas Eve and asked me that same day to go to the bank with him to fill out the paperwork and get the key. Afterwards, we went ice skating, then had dinner and came back here and I made a point of putting the key in this box.” Frustrated, she spilled the contents of the box onto the dresser. A couple of beads and some loose change spun like tops amid the tangle of necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
Sanderlin leaned closer, their shoulders rubbing, and helped her comb through the piles. “It’s not here,” she said.
“Are you sure you didn’t give it back to Trask when you split up?” Sanderlin asked. “Maybe with a bunch of other things, and you just forgot.”
“I didn’t give it back,” she said. “He never mentioned it, and I truly had forgotten. But I know it was here.” She had a sensory memory of her fingers brushing over the toothed edge of the key as she searched for a pin to fasten a shawl only a few weeks before.
“Is anything else missing?” Sanderlin asked.
She stared at the jumble of jewelry on the dresser top, dismay growing. “Nothing. Just the key.”
“Is it possible someone came in and took it?”
“You mean—broke in?” Nausea rose at the idea.
“Have you noticed anyone strange hanging around? Has anything happened to make you feel uneasy, especially in the last few days?”
“No.” Could someone really have come into her home without her knowing about it?
Sanderlin glanced around the room, as if assessing the situation. “For now, let’s go to the bank,” he said. “We don’t need your key to access the box.”
Numb, she followed him out of the room. She studied the rest of the house with new eyes. Had some stranger really come in without her knowledge and stolen that key?
That was ridiculous.
“Maybe the key fell out when you were looking for something else and you didn’t notice,” Sanderlin said.
She nodded. “That must be it.” But the skin at the back of her neck prickled. Something felt very wrong about this.
They left the house, and ten minutes later the commander pulled into the bank parking lot and followed Eve into the building. A slim young woman with jet-black hair looked up from a desk near the door. “Good morning,” she said. “May I help you?”
“We need to open a safe deposit box.” Sanderlin handed the woman, whose name tag identified her as Liz, the key.
Liz stood. “I’ll need your identification and the box number.”
“Two eight two,” Eve said, and opened her wallet to her driver’s license.
“You remembered,” Sanderlin murmured as they followed the woman through a vault door and into a room lined on both sides with safety deposit boxes.
Was he implying she had visited the box more recently than she had told him? “Numbers tend to stick in my head,” she said. She could have told him she still remembered her high school locker combination, though really, why should he care?
Liz took the key and Eve’s identification to a computer terminal in one corner and began typing in information. A few seconds later, she beckoned them to her. “I’ll need you to sign here, showing the date and time you’re accessing the box,” she said.
Eve signed the electronic keypad and Liz returned her driver’s license. “I’ll retrieve the box for you, and replace it when you’re done.”
The box felt very light when Liz handed it to Eve. “When you’re ready to leave, press that button and I’ll come let you out,” she said, indicating a button on the wall by the vault door.
Eve waited until she and Sanderlin were alone in the vault before she carried it to the counter that ran the length of the middle of the room and lifted the top.
T
hey both stared into the box. “It’s empty,” Eve said, stating the obvious. “Why would Dane send me that key when there’s nothing there?”
Chapter Four
Grant pushed the button to summon a bank employee. Eve continued to examine the safety deposit box, as if she expected to find something they had missed. Her shock over finding the box empty appeared genuine, as had her consternation over being unable to find her copy of the box’s key.
Liz returned. “Well, that didn’t take long,” she said, but her smile faded when Grant showed her his badge and identification. “I need to know who last accessed this box and when,” he said.
Liz glanced from the badge to his face to the empty box. “I’ll have to ask my supervisor,” he said. “I believe that information is confidential.”
“I have permission to access this box,” Eve said. “Surely you can tell me who else has opened it.”
“I’ll have to ask my supervisor,” Liz said again, and fled.
“Do you get that kind of reaction often?” Eve asked when they were alone again. “She acted as if she’d seen a ghost. Or maybe an ax murderer.”
“The badge can catch people off guard,” he said.
“Must make it tough to pick up women,” she said.
“I haven’t had much of a problem with that.”
She turned away, but not before he caught the hint of a smile. Was she flirting with him? Because she was nervous and trying to break the tension? Or because she felt the same attraction he did?
The door to the vault opened again and a short man in a dark suit that appeared to be too large for him entered, followed by Liz. “I’m Dwight Lawson,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”
Grant displayed his badge again. “I need to know who last accessed this deposit box, and when.”
“I came here today to retrieve something from the box and the box is empty,” Eve said. “I want to know who else has been in here.”
Lawson walked to the computer terminal and began typing. A moment later he said, “The box was opened yesterday at 4:30 p.m. by the owner, Dane Trask.”
Behind Grant, Eve gasped. He reached back and squeezed her hand, a warning to let him do the talking. “Who escorted Mr. Trask into the vault?” he asked.
Lawson consulted the screen again. “Ms. Emerson is one of our senior employees,” he said.
“I need to speak with her,” Grant said.
“She just returned to her desk,” Liz said.
“Bring her here please,” Lawson said.
While Liz went to fetch her coworker, Lawson turned to Grant. “What is this about?” he asked. “I heard the news reports about Dane Trask.”
“We’re trying to find Mr. Trask,” Grant said.
Liz returned with an attractive black woman Grant judged to be in her fifties. Her name tag identified her as Felice. She glanced at Grant and Eve, then addressed her boss. “Liz said you wanted to see me.”
“You admitted a man to the vault yesterday about 4:30,” Lawson said. “A Mr. Dane Trask, for box number 282.”
“Yes, sir. I remember because we were going to close the lobby soon.”
“What did this man look like?” Grant asked.
“Not to be rude, but who are you?” Felice asked. “I can’t talk about our clients to just anyone.”
“Special Agent Grant Sanderlin, with the Ranger Brigade.” He showed her his badge. “We’re looking for Mr. Trask.”
“Don’t you watch the news?” Lawson asked. “There’s a $25,000 reward for information leading to Dane Trask’s apprehension. The man is a suspected terrorist.”
Felice’s eyes widened at this, but she held her ground. “I help my daughter with my two grandsons in the evenings,” she said. “The only TV I see these days is Daniel Tiger and Dinosaur Train.”
“You’re not in any trouble,” Grant reassured her. “I just need you to describe this man for me.”
She pursed her lips, considering. “He was tall,” she said. “Maybe six-two. A white man, with short dark hair and brown eyes. Handsome. And very charming.” She flushed, looking years younger.
Except for the eyes, that could describe Dane Trask. Or any number of other men. “You verified his identity?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“What kind of identification was it?” Grant asked. “A driver’s license?”
The lines on her forehead deepened. “Not a driver’s license.” She moved to the computer terminal and consulted the display. Her face cleared. “It was a military ID. I remember now that I thanked him for his service and he said he was happy to serve.”
“I’ll need to see the security feed for this area for yesterday afternoon,” Grant told Lawson.
“I’ll need a warrant to show you that,” Lawson said.
“I can get one,” Grant said.
“And while he’s doing that, Dane is getting farther and farther away from us,” Eve said.
Lawson looked startled, as if he had forgotten she was in the room. He turned back to Felice Emerson. “Was there anyone else in the vault area at the same time as Mr. Trask?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“Then I can show you the security footage,” Lawson said. “We’ll need to go into the back offices, if you’re done in here.”
He led the way back through the lobby, past the tellers’ counter, through a door that blended in with the wall. He tapped a code on a keypad beside the door, then escorted them in, to a room where a row of wall-mounted monitors displayed black-and-white images of various areas of the bank. In the vault they had just left, Liz and Felice stood with their heads together, talking. Lawson frowned up at the image, then moved to a desk where a young man looked up from yet another monitor. “Special Agent Sanderlin is with the FBI, and he needs to see the security footage for the vault area for yesterday afternoon at 4:30.”
If the man was surprised at the request, he didn’t show it. His expression didn’t change as he began typing, then scrolling.
“I can’t believe that man was here and no one noticed,” Lawson said. “That story has been all over the news.”
Grant didn’t answer. Eve stood at his side, silent, but practically humming with tension. He wanted to take her hand again, to steady her, but didn’t think it would be appropriate.
“Here you go,” the young man, who wore no name tag, said. He angled the screen toward them and they all leaned in to view a tall, dark-haired man follow Felice into the vault. He said something that made her laugh and she left him. As soon as she was gone, he opened the box, dumped the contents into the satchel he had slung over one shoulder, then summoned Felice to escort him out. The entire sequence took less than five minutes.
“He kept his head down, and angled so you can’t really see his face,” the young man said. “The cameras are placed to catch faces, so you’d have to make a real effort to avoid them.”
The man in the video had been making an effort, even putting his hand up to shield his face at one point.
“Run it again,” Grant said.
“That isn’t Dane,” Eve said when they had watched the clip a second time.
“I need a copy of that,” Grant said. Maybe Hud could enhance the image to get a better ID.
“I don’t see how you could tell who it is,” Lawson said. “But Felice checked his ID. She wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“IDs can be faked,” Grant said.
They waited for the copy of the security feed, Grant thanked Lawson, and they left. Eve remained silent until they reached the cruiser. “That wasn’t Dane,” she said again.
“How can you be sure?” Grant opened the passenger door and held it for her, admiring her legs as she slid in, while trying to appear not to do so. She had very nice legs, shapely with good muscle tone.
“I just know it w
asn’t him.” She looked pained. “We were lovers for three years. I know how he walked, how he carried himself. The person in that video—there were similarities, similar height, similar build, but that wasn’t Dane.”
Grant was inclined to believe her. Dane Trask’s face was on posters all over town, online and on TV. The odds of him strolling into a bank at that time of day and not being recognized by anyone were slim to none.
“The shoes weren’t right,” Eve said.
“What do you mean?” He put the cruiser in gear and backed out of the parking space.
“The man in the photograph was wearing athletic shoes. Dane didn’t even own a pair. If he needed casual shoes, he wore hiking boots or leather sandals. I used to tease him about it.” Her expression was triumphant. “It definitely wasn’t Dane.”
“I believe you,” Grant said.
“He didn’t even look at the contents of the deposit box,” Eve said. “He just dumped everything in that satchel.”
“He was in a hurry,” Grant said.
“Or maybe he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, so he took everything.”
This struck Grant as particularly insightful. “That’s a very good observation. Who knew Dane had given you that deposit box key?”
“No one. At least, I didn’t tell anyone. And why does that matter?”
He waited, and saw when the answer came to her. Her face paled, but she held steady. “You think the person who got into that box did so with my key.”
“We have Trask’s key. Yours is missing.”
“Someone stole the key from my house? When? And how did they know it was there?”
“A jewelry box on the bedroom dresser isn’t exactly a devious hiding place,” Grant said. “Experienced thieves know to check places like that.”
“But again—why would anyone want to steal that key, or the contents of Dane’s deposit box?”
“Maybe for the same reason Dane sent you the key. Because there was something in there he wanted the public to know about.”
“Maybe whatever it was proved he isn’t guilty of the crimes he’s being accused of. Or maybe he put a letter in there, explaining why he disappeared.” Eve hugged her arms around her middle. “How are you going to find out who’s doing this and stop them?”
