Chapter One

One

Old sins cast long shadows I’ve often been told and I can tell you it’s true. Those sins may be dead and buried, but their shadows live forever. And they have claws that will tear the heart right out of you.

When I walked into the fire I knew it was dangerous, but I hoped I wouldn’t be burned. After all, when you sell your soul, after you’ve made a deal with the devil, the flames might not set you ablaze, but there’s always a cost. I knew it would have to be paid at some point, but I didn’t know the price. And it didn’t matter. I had no choice.

When Pandora opened the box she released all the evils upon the world. Her curiosity brought misfortune. But I didn’t open the box because I was curious. I already knew what I’d find there. I knew exactly what it would unleash, but I hoped I could handle it. I still hope so.

At least tonight I won’t have to think about it. Nothing is going to happen, not yet. I’ve got two chilled bottles of wine in the backseat calling my name and the bag of takeout Thai food I place carefully into the hatch smells so delicious I’m tempted to grab a spring roll right now, but I resist.

I slam the door shut and I’m going around the back of the car when pair of strong hands grabs me. A black hood is pulled over my head and I put up a good fight until a second pair of hands restrains me and I’m thrown into the back of a car. There’s no point in fighting two assailants I can’t even see.

My heart is pounding and my mind racing. Keep it together. Stay calm. I guess they aren’t going to kill me–they could easily have done that by now. So this is something else. The devil wants his due.

 

Two

TWO WEEKS AGO

“It won’t take long. The bank’s closing in fifteen minutes,” I say as I push open the door.

“Promise?” I hear Maja ask as I end the call and realize I’ve made a liar out of myself. There’s a long line inside the bank and single flustered teller is serving customers while the head teller is on the phone at the back of the room. I can see the manager is in his office with some clients.

From the sighs of frustration I can hear and the tense body language of everyone ahead of me, it’s clear they’ve all been waiting a while. At the front of the line, an old guy with his long grey hair in a ponytail is leaning on the counter, monopolizing the teller. His leather jacket and very expensive hand tooled cowboy boots indicate he’s wealthy and his body language and attitude speak of entitlement. I’m sure we’ll be waiting a long time.

I take a deep breath and scan the line, trying to be patient. Ahead of me is a frail elderly couple both sitting on their walkers, a young mother with a toddler in a stroller and a fussy infant on her hip, and the usual guys in hoodies and businessmen in suits. Just behind the guy at the counter I recognize my friend Rachel. As usual, she’s impossible to miss. Rachel’s plus-sized and doesn’t try to hide it–the purple highlights in her grey hair perfectly match the woven lavender and purple cape she’s wearing. I’m sure it’s something she’s woven herself; Rachel’s a textile artist who lives and teaches at the feminist collective outside town.

To pass the time I distract myself by glancing around the bank’s interior. Built over a hundred years ago, it’s a beautiful old limestone building and a symbol of our town’s earlier prosperity, especially compared to the shuttered factories and boarded up shops currently lining Main Street. Most of the bank’s original architecture was lost when they renovated and carved up the interior space. I bet there are carved mouldings and ceiling medallions behind the modern drop ceiling that’s been hung a few feet below the original one. The ugly speckled foam boards are stained and water damaged, thanks to the flood last week that forced the bank to close for repairs. Scaffolding is still set up along one wall and there are sections of ceiling still exposed, revealing wiring, and plumbing and sprinkler lines.

Another impatient glance at my watch tells me it’s five minutes to closing. Just as the security guard is about to lock the main entrance, a man wearing a baseball cap slips in. The guard turns the lock and pulls the metal security grill partway across the glass doors then turns the sign to Closed and stands ready to let customers out as they’ve finished their business. Then the man in the baseball cap yanks a neck warmer up over his face and pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket.

“Move,” he says, motioning the guard away from the door as three guys in hoodies step out of line ahead of me, pulling balaclavas over their faces and shouting “Get down! Everybody down on the floor!”

Within a minute they’ve cleared the offices and start herding all of us into one of the back rooms.

“Drop your cell phones and wallets here,” one of the robbers shouts, kicking a blue recycling bin in front of the door the room. One by one we’re quickly searched then sent inside. Before he locks us in, he tears out the phone on the desk so we can’t call for help. They take the manager with them and I can see the look of terror on his face as the door closes. He knows he’s going to die.

Nobody says a word as we’re all straining to hear what the robbers are doing. At least they’ve kept the lights on and I’m able to quickly scan the room. There are no windows and the only way out is the locked door.

“Did you hit the alarm?” I ask the teller. He drops his head, embarrassed. I feel the tension flare in the room when everyone realizes the police aren’t already on the way. “Are they going to kill us?” someone whimpers.

“I doubt it.” I have no idea, but I try to sound as if everything is under control, even though it makes no sense. Most bank robbers are in and out in a couple of minutes. This looks like they are planning on a longer stay. Why lock us up? Are we hostages?

“Please, try to stay calm,” I say. “We all need to sit down, especially you two.” I push the two office chairs over to the elderly couple who gratefully collapse into them, their arms around one another. “The rest of you, just sit on the floor, behind the desk. It’ll be safer there.” I’m thinking of gunfire. The walls are just thin partitions–a bullet would go through them like cardboard, in case either the robbers or the police decide to start shooting.

“Who the fuck put you in charge?” The old guy with the ponytail barks, crossing his arms and looking for a fight. I may be only five foot five inches tall, but I could take him down in a heartbeat if it came to it.

“She’s a police detective,” Rachel snaps before I can reply. “Asshole.”

He glares at her and it looks like he’s thinking about starting something with her, then sits on the edge of one of the desks, either unable to get down on the floor or unwilling to look like he’s complying. I no longer care.

The baby starts to snuffle and cry and my heart falls. The last thing we need in here is a screaming baby. The mother slips it out of the sling and quickly lifts her shirt. An audible sigh of relief goes through the room as the baby starts nursing. The only sound is the embarrassed laugh of the man in the suit. I recognize his face from ads plastered all over the town’s buses and transit shelters. He’s a local realtor: Joe Rossi.

Rachel sidles up next to me. “Lucy, do you have your gun?”

“It’s my day off.” I shrug. It wouldn’t have done any good since they’d just have taken it from me anyway. God only knows how much trouble that would create for me at the station and I’m already in for it with Maja at home: I’m definitely going to be late for dinner.

I perch on the edge of the desk next to the security guard. “Are there other alarms?” I keep my voice low.

“Sure,” he says, shooting a glance at the trainee teller. “But someone has to trip them.”

“What about cameras?” He nods. “Oh yeah, all over the place.” Okay, so at least we may have a shot at identifying them after the fact. Something doesn’t fit though. They didn’t pull up their masks until after they’d begun the robbery. Maybe the cameras aren’t working after all, and they knew it.

I keep my ear to the door and can clearly hear the sound of machinery.

“Are they cutting the vault door?” someone asks. “Isn’t that where all the money is?”

“I doubt we even have 30K on reserve in the vault,” the head teller says. “This is just a small local branch.”

Not that thirty thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money, but I don’t think it’s enough for four robbers, two with guns, to risk holding up a bank for. Robbing a teller at gunpoint for the contents of a cash drawer is typically the work of a lone robber. This is something else.

“I think they may be after the safety deposit boxes,” the teller says in response to my look. “They must be drilling out the locks.”

I feel my anxiety building and know I need to do something, soon. Sitting in here, waiting for something to happen and being unable to do anything about it is not something I’m able to handle.

A glance up at the dropped ceiling tiles overhead gives me an idea. If I can just get up there the noise of their drills will mask what I’m doing.

“Did they count us when we came in here?” I ask the security guard.

“I don’t think so.” He looks confused. “Why?”

“I need you to boost me up there.” I point at the ceiling. “Everyone else–stay quiet.”

We both climb onto the desk and I push up against a ceiling tile. It pops up easily and he heaves me up high enough that I can pull myself up above the suspended panels, ignoring the pain in my shoulder.

“You’re going into the ventilation duct?!” The trainee teller says. “Awesome!”

“No. Just the ceiling. This isn’t Die Hard.”

“Still very cool.” He gives me the thumbs up.

“I’m going to drop down on the other side and unlock the door,” I whisper. “When I do, you’re all going to run out down the hall to the back of the building and out the emergency exit. Help each other,” I point to the elderly couple who are already getting up and clutching their walkers. “Understood?”

“But when we open the emergency exit the alarm will sound,” the head teller says.

“I’m counting on it. Count to fifty before you go out that back door. And when you do, keep running–all the way up the street, okay? Get as far away from the building as you can.”

I carefully keep my weight over the steel ceiling supports as I slide the tile back into place behind me. “If anyone comes in, I was never here, okay?”

I creep along the inner ceiling, hearing ominous creaking every time I shift myself to crawl forward, but the structure seems stable so I keep going, wondering the entire time what the hell I’m doing this for. We could have all just stayed locked in the room. The robbers would have finished what they’re doing and left the way they’d come. But that’s not me. Feeling vulnerable and exposed, just waiting around and hoping for the best isn’t something I’m capable of doing. I know from painful experience; I tried for years and it ended badly.

Once I’ve moved about ten feet along, I carefully pop up one of the ceiling tiles and take a peek below to make sure none of the robbers are in sight. I don’t see anyone so I take a deep breath, slide the tile over and I’m about to drop down the nine feet to the stone floor, then I hesitate. What if I turn my ankle or break my leg? That wouldn’t be helpful and I don’t need another injury; I’ve barely recovered from my last one. So I shuffle a little further along, planning to drop down onto one of the sofas that line the wall outside the meeting room, when suddenly one of the robbers appears below me. He’s looking up, curious about the noise and I freeze, holding my breath. I see he has his weapon tucked into his belt, like an idiot. He’ll shoot his balls off one day.

He goes over to the door and tests it, making sure it’s still locked. Satisfied everything is under control he turns to leave as I allow myself to fall through the ceiling, right on top of him. He’s not as soft a landing as the sofa would have been, but he still breaks my fall. It may also have broken his neck, but I don’t bother to check. I’m not that interested in his well being.

I run to the door and start to hustle everyone out. Two by two they creep out of the room and head down the hallway, leaving me with the security guard.

“I’ll just take out the trash,” the guard says as he picks the limp body and tosses him like a rag doll into the office, then gives me a wink as he closes the door.

First I take the robber’s gun–a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol, exactly like my police weapon.

“Thanks,” I whisper. “Now go. When you’re all there, count to fifty and head out the door.”

“You aren’t coming?”

I hold my finger to my lips and shake my head, then give him a little shove to get him going as I creep back down the hall and wait for the alarm to ring. When it does the robbers will come running and I’ll be ready for them. I count to fifty, but no alarm goes off. I wait another ten. Is the alarm silent? Is it even working? Were they not able to get out?

I can’t risk waiting any longer so I creep up to the end of the hall and look toward the bank vault. I can still hear sound of drilling and metal being smashed and I can just get a glimpse of the men pulling jewellery and cash out of the safety deposit boxes and dropping it all into a bag. A glance behind the counter tells me the teller’s cash drawers have already been emptied.

How much time has passed? It feels like ages, but I know that’s just the adrenaline rushing through me. They’re working fast and should be done in a few minutes by the look of things. As I watch one of the robbers comes out of the vault carrying a bag that he leaves by the front door. Then he slides something into the inner pocket of his jacket, unlocks the front door, slips past the metal security grill and heads down the sidewalk. He must he going for the getaway vehicle.

I see two other robbers still in the vault, filling another bag. The bank manager is cringing in the corner of the vault, clearly terrified, but there’s nothing I can do to help him. They still have another gun, and I’m not about to risk endangering the manager by attempting an arrest now. As I turn to head out the back door I see the second gun, just lying on a desk behind the teller station. They must have felt so confident once they’d locked us all in they thought they wouldn’t need it.

I draw the Glock from my belt and check the magazine. It’s loaded. One of the guys in a hoodie carries a bag out to the front door and puts it down, then peers through the glass, checking for the driver. While his back is turned I creep up to the vault, picking up the second gun on the way.

I knock on the metal bars of the vault with my weapon and the robber turns, thinking it’s his partner. He goes for his weapon, but remembers too late that he’s left it lying on the counter. He freezes, staring at my gun.

“Raise your hands.” I see his eyes behind the balaclava, desperately calculating what to do as the bank manager takes the advantage and runs out of the vault and cowers behind me. Then I slam the metal gate shut, locking the robber inside.

At the sound of the vault slamming shut the last robber comes running and I turn to meet him. He’s already standing in the middle of the bank, eyes wide in astonishment before he even notices me pointing the gun at him. I see his eyes dart toward where the gun had been lying on the counter.

“Too late,” I shake my head. “Now, lie on your stomach, hands above your head,” I shout over the sound of sirens outside in the street. He panics and starts to run toward the back exit, but I fire a shot that gets him in the leg. That puts him down and as the police rush through the door I lay down both weapons and raise my hands in the air.

“Hi Detective Gauthier.” One of the Constables recognizes me and grins. “Are you working today?”

“Funny,” I smirk. Two more patrol officers come in, weapons drawn. They look disappointed when there’s nothing to do but clean up and they holster their guns and head over to the man lying on the floor. He’s moaning in pain from the bullet in his knee.

“There’s another one in the back office,” I say. “And one locked in the vault.” I look around for the manager, who’s now peeking over the top of the courtesy desk. “Maybe he can help you get him out.”

“Did you get the driver?” I call after them as they spread out to get to work. They look baffled and stop short.

“What driver?”

“There was another guy. He went out the front door just a minute ago.” They shake their heads.

“Dammit!” I pull out my phone to call Maja. I’m going to be late.

“Looks like I’m going to be stuck at work,” I say when she picks up.

“You weren’t at work Lucy,” she sighs. “You went to the bank.” She pauses for a moment. “You did go to the bank, right?”

“Yeah…Something came up. Now I’ve got paperwork to do.”

“But Abby and Chantal are coming for dinner! I don’t understand…”

“Save some for me. I’ll be late.”