“Why are you doing this, Gary?”
He stood before her, legs spread, gun pointed at her. “You fired me. I can’t get a job. Who’s gonna hire someone my age? I worked my whole adult life here at the bank, and for what? A measly severance package that didn’t even last six weeks.” He paused, his throat working. “This is my only chance. To look after my wife.”
“What’s wrong with your wife?”
He glared at her, then his gaze drifted away. “She has Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t even know me anymore, sometimes. Doesn’t know our son. She’s in a home. They look after her there, but…it costs money. I got no money.” His voice thickened. “What do you expect me to do?”
Keara’s gaze flicked from the gun back to his face.
“Oh Gary.” The words sighed out of her. “I didn’t know that.”
“What difference does it make? You saying you wouldn’t have fired me, if you’d known? Bullshit! You fired Mike and he has a brand-new baby to support. Born too early. Needs all kind of expensive care. You don’t give a shit about anyone. All you care about is the bottom line. Money. Numbers. That’s all we are to you.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered. She did care about her staff. But she had a job to do.
His cell phone trilled again, an incongruous cheery sound in the echoing room. He opened it. “What?” This time he listened for a while. “Yeah. That’s right.” His shoulder slumped a little. “I know. Yeah. I know.” He paced across the room, but kept Keara in his sights. She sat there, gaze fastened to him, his earlier words buzzing through her head.
This was all her fault. If she hadn’t fired him, he wouldn’t be so desperate as to do this. She was going to die because of it. How could she make this right? She leaned her head back against the wall. Sweat prickled her underarms. Heat suffocated her. She wiped a hand over her mouth.
“Let me talk to her,” Gary said. He looked defeated. “Let me talk to her. Then I’ll come out.” Pause. “Yeah. With Miss Callaghan.”
A moment of silence while Gary paced again across the room. “Rosie? Hi, baby. How are you?” His face changed, his eyes softer, his mouth unsteady as if he might cry.
Keara’s heart squeezed and ached. She put a hand to her mouth and watched him. Listened.
“I love you, Rosie. Just remember that, okay? Always remember I love you.”
Oh God. What was he going to do? It sounded as if he thought he’d never see her again. Panic trickled down her spine in a cold drizzle. Her legs twitched on the floor.
He closed the phone and gestured again with the gun. “Stand up.”
She rose to her feet, legs weak and shaky. He opened the door and stood aside. “Go on.”
She stared at him. “What?
“You can leave. Go.” He motioned with the gun again.
“Just go?” She couldn’t believe it. Would he shoot her in the back as she walked away? And why wasn’t he coming?
He nodded, subdued, an aura of overwhelming loss and defeat surrounding him. Keara stopped. What was he going to do? Oh God. Oh no. She knew why he wasn’t coming. Her stomach heaved.
Now her fear wasn’t for herself. “Gary.” She put out a hand. “Come with me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. They’ll put me in jail.”
Throat squeezing, chest aching, she shook her head. “We’ll find a way, Gary. A way to help Rosie.”
“Yeah right. I told you. There is no way. Not anymore. This was my last hope. I told you to go!”
“No! The bank can help you. Please, Gary, come with me. We’ll work something out. We’ll look at an early pension payout, maybe a way to continue your benefits, some kind of loan…there are lots of options.”
His eyes, earlier stony and cold, regarded her with cautious hope for a stretched out moment. “Really?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Gary. I really am. I’ll try to help. To make up for it.” And she would. Her heart ached for the pain she’d seen in him when he talked to his wife. She’d never loved someone like that, but it had to be excruciating, to see someone you loved dying from the inside out, slowly, not even knowing who you were anymore.
He considered it. She waited, legs so shaky she thought she might fall down. So close. Would he do it?
“You know I keep my word,” she said softly. “I may have to make decisions people don’t like, but…I’ve always done what I said I would.”
He still hesitated, stared at her warily.
“Okay.” He bent down and grabbed the balaclava off the floor and pulled it on.
Why was he doing that? They already knew who he was. Her gut tightened again. He took hold of her, this time in a firm but not painful grasp, still holding the gun on her.
Was he being honest? Or was he still going to kill her? Her heart thudded painfully as he gently urged her forward, down the hall and into the lobby of the bank. But the anguish and love she’d seen in this man’s eyes were not the emotions of a cold-blooded killer. As they moved forward, him behind her, his hands on her but this time gentle, she knew he wouldn’t kill her. Probably never had intended to kill her.
“Keep your hands up and in sight,” he told her.
Why? Obediently, she did so as they walked out the front door of the bank.
Oh Jesus. In the sunshine outside the bank, a spinning impression of crowds of people, television cameras, SWAT officers, guns, vans and cars assaulted her. She kept her hands up. Gary held the gun pressed to the side of her head.
His finger could accidentally pull the trigger. Even if he didn’t intend to kill her anymore. One of those SWAT officers could shoot her, aiming for him. They could scare him and his finger could so easily…pull…the…trigger.
Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.
Her eyes flickered around. Distant shouts mingled with Gary’s harsh breathing in her ear. A loud pop split the commotion. Gary’s weight dragged her down, the pavement of the sidewalk meeting her knees in a harsh kiss, and she cried out.
Chapter Two
She never felt more alone than in the middle of the night, when the world was dark and quiet and still, everyone else asleep in their beds.
“Oh, Keara.” A heavy sigh came from the other end of the phone line. “What are you doing up again?”
Keara swallowed and sank down onto her couch. “I just had an idea for what we can do for Monica’s birthday next weekend,” she told her friend Paige.
“What! Why are you calling me about that in the middle of the night? You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”
“No. I haven’t had one for a couple of weeks,” Keara lied. “You know me, I just get thinking about things and I…I can’t get back to sleep.”
“Maybe you need to go back to that shrink…what was his name?”
“I don’t need a shrink,” Keara snapped. “I told you that before.”
“Then why haven’t you gone back to work?”
Keara pressed her lips together. She’d tried to go back to work. She hadn’t even told Paige about that embarrassing incident. She’d really flip out if she knew about that. She’d be picking her up and driving her to the psychiatrist herself. Which. She. Did. Not. Need.
Keara’s throat clogged and her chest tightened. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“Keara…”
“’Night, Paige.”
She clicked the phone off and dropped it to the butter-colored upholstery beside her. She tipped her head back and blinked at the ceiling, eyes stinging. Damn.
She could call Monica.
But no. Monica had gone away to San Diego for the weekend with the new guy she’d been seeing. And she couldn’t call Essie. With her new baby, she might be awake in the middle of the night. But if she was asleep and Keara called and woke her up—again—she’d kill her. She’d made that mistake once before. Besides, if her friends all talked about how she kept phoning in the middle of the night, she’d never hear the end of it.