Exposure - By Brandilyn Collins Page 0,13
daily carts in the vault. Almost seven million.”
The vault. Martin would have been forced to open it, and he was claustrophobic. “Did they make you go inside?”
“Yeah.”
Oh, no. “They pulled a gun on you?”
He hesitated. “Lorraine, I’m okay.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, but — ”
“Martin!” Lorraine’s hand pressed against her cheek. “Could you see their faces? Can you identify them?”
“They were wearing masks. All I know is the first guy was tall and thin, and the second was real short but muscular. I don’t even remember what the other two looked like, except they all wore solid black.”
Men with masks. And guns. Rage shot through Lorraine. What those criminals had put her husband through! How would he ever feel safe at his desk again?
“Martin — ”
“Look, I can’t talk right now. The police just got here, and I have to give them my statement.”
Lorraine sank down on the bed. He was trying to keep her from worrying, but what he’d endured had to have been terrifying. “Okay. Just . . . get home as soon as you can.”
“I will.”
“Martin. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The line clicked. Lorraine lowered the phone and stared at the thin brown carpet. A gun aimed at her husband. Martin, who worked so hard trying to support his family. Who’d held her for hours when her mother died, who couldn’t wait to rock their newborn. Who’d moved “his girls” here to Atlantic City with dreams of buying a house with a fenced backyard where Tammy could play. Martin, her Martin could have been killed. He could have been killed!
Lorraine started to shake.
She had dreams of her own, and Martin was in the center of all of them. Lorraine wanted a big family — something she’d never had. Now both her parents were dead, and she had no siblings. She wanted four, maybe five kids. The old Ford van she’d driven to Atlantic City full of moving boxes in the back still only had its front two seats — one for her, one for Tammy. How big and empty it seemed. When the three of them drove somewhere as a family, they used Martin’s car. Lorraine dreamed of needing a new van full of seats, every one taken. That nice house with the picket fence — she wanted it ringing with kids’ noise and laughter. Friends coming over to play, slumber parties, and afternoons of baking cookies. Martin was a good father. She could see him on the floor with the kids, reading them stories, wrestling with his sons . . .
Lorraine’s dreams were built on hope. And on Martin. She would be nothing without Martin.
And some greedy, scum-of-the-earth criminals had held a gun to his head.
“Mommy!” Tammy called from the living room.
Loraine closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Coming, sweetie!”
Rising from the bed, she pushed down her fear and anger. As she headed up the hall she managed to paste a smile on her face. “Guess what, Tammy? Daddy will be home soon!”
EIGHT
Kaycee slumped on Tricia’s couch, one leg stretched out on the cushions. Her elbow dug into the back, her head resting on a fist. Exhaustion and anxiety warred in her nerves. Not to mention concern over her own sanity. She’d told Tricia everything, wanting, needing empathy. But the further Kaycee got into her story, the less plausible it sounded.
Still — that dead man’s face. The gore smeared in his hair, his half-open eyes. We see you. The picture wouldn’t go away. It floated in Kaycee’s brain like a photo on ocean waves, first bobbing on a crest, then pulled under only to resurface.
Now after midnight she and Tricia sat, each deep in thought, trying to find an explanation for the inexplicable. Tricia was in her rocker-recliner, the footrest popped up. Her ample frame, some forty pounds overweight, filled most of the chair. In jeans and a sweatshirt, no makeup, she looked tired, her plump lips drawn down, her eyes at slow blink. Tricia worked as an administrative assistant to the dean of students at Asbury College — which meant reporting to work first thing in the morning. She should have been in bed long ago.
Kaycee rubbed her forehead. “I’m losing my mind, Tricia. This is the fifth time since Mandy’s death I’ve called the police to my house. Before it was just thinking I’d seen a shadow or something. But I swear this camera was real.” Kaycee squeezed her eyes shut. “Tomorrow the chief of police will be coming around to cart me