by KJ Kalis
From behind where Jess was standing, she could hear more murmuring and the bank phone ringing. It had to be the police. Had the robbers talked to them yet? The muffle from the hood made it nearly impossible to hear anything except for the words of the man who barked at them. Jess did a quick calculation. Depending on which way they turned the hostages, Abby would either be behind Jess or Jess would be behind Abby. Jess’s mind reeled, trying to get her bearings. Which way was the entrance? She’d been in the Catalina branch of the South Ridge Bank a million times, but for some reason, her mind couldn’t grasp which direction was which.
The man’s voice boomed again, “Okay, get up!”
Jess heard a shuffling noise behind her as if feet were moving slowly on the ground. They were being lined up. Where they were going, Jess didn’t know. The breath caught in her chest as she felt a warm hand on her left shoulder. A little bit of pulling and a firm grip around her wrist landed her hand on the shoulder of someone in front of her. Jess felt the fabric, trying to focus on anything other than the fact that she was a hostage in a bank robbery. The fabric felt smooth, the fibers woven flat and tight, as though it was part of a men’s suit jacket or something. Whoever it was seemed to be a bit taller than she was, maybe just shy of six feet. It wasn’t Abby, that was for sure. Jess focused back to the hand on her left shoulder. We’re going to get through this, Abby, just hang on, Jess thought, wishing she could say the words out loud.
The booming voice bounced off the bank walls again, “Good. I see everyone wants to get out of today’s experience alive. In a moment, we will ask you to move. You are to move forward until we tell you to stop and then stand still. If you don’t, you know the consequences.”
A moment later, Jess felt a push from the hand behind her. Was that Abby? It had to be the signal to move forward. Looking down, Jess realized she couldn’t see her feet. The hood was cupped underneath her chin, so the best she could do was shuffle forward. She dragged her feet on the ground, the soles of her tennis shoes making an occasional squeak on the tile. “Okay, everyone, stop,” the voice said again. “No one move, until we tell you to do otherwise. Understood?” Jess nodded in what she hoped was the response the robbers wanted. She hoped Abby nodded too.
They stood in the line for what seemed like another fifteen or twenty minutes. Jess’s arms dangled at her side, her body limp. The murmuring from behind her disappeared and then there was silence. Jess wondered if her ears were playing games. Why is it so quiet? The sound of her own breath going in and out through her nostrils echoed in her head. As best Jess could tell, a few more minutes went by before there was noise ahead of her, yelling and shouting, then a loud bang that dropped Jess to her knees. Hitting the hard ground, pain shot up through her legs. There was the sound of boots running past her, yells of “Police!” everywhere. Jess rolled over and sat on the floor, not moving, unsure what to do. Did the police really come to rescue them or was this the robbers just testing her to make sure that she wouldn’t move?
A moment later, Jess felt a warm hand on her shoulder and heard a female voice, “It’s okay, ma’am. I’m with the police. I’m gonna pull the hood off.”
Jess blinked as the light in the bank constricted her pupils, blinding her. What seemed like a warm and friendly place to do her financial business had now turned into a war zone. Police officers, dressed almost exactly like the bank robbers, except for the yellow letters emblazoned across their chests that read “Police,” were stationed at every corner of the bank, their tactical helmets strapped under their chins, their eyes scanning. Jess heard crying to her left and glanced over, to see an older woman who couldn’t seem to get off the floor. Two police officers were kneeling by her, one of them waving toward the front door. A team of paramedics ran by, their medical bags slung over their shoulders. Jess reached up to touch her face, pulling the strip of tape away from her mouth. Exhaling, she felt fresh air pass her teeth. The female police officer was staring at her, not saying anything.
“Abby? Where’s Abby?” Jess said, staring at the officer.
The officer shook her head a little bit. Jess noticed her name badge read Sullivan, “Abby? Who’s that?”
“My niece. She was in the bank with me. I thought she was right behind me,” Jess glanced to her left and right, feeling another wave of fear crash over her. She scrambled to her feet, “I have to find her.”
Sullivan nodded, a few wisps of hair coming loose from the bun neatly tied at the back of her neck. She put a hand on Jess’s arm, “I’m sure she’s outside. That’s where all the hostages are. Let’s go look out there.”
Jess pushed Sullivan away and ran past a couple of the police officers. The doors of the bank had been propped open with the entry. Just outside, Jess stopped, blinking in the sun. The street in front of the bank, between where she and Abby had breakfast and where they’d been held had turned into a small city, a mobile command unit set up near the corner, three news vans set up behind that, their long satellite booms jutting into the air. To her left, Jess saw a tent and a line of ambulances and police cruisers. The entire street was clogged with them. There was no moving around except for by foot. Jess looked behind her and saw Sullivan, “Where are they?”
Sullivan pointed at the white tent near the ambulances, “Over there. All of the hostages and the detectives are over there.”
Jess’s heart pounded in her chest and she took off at a run. She had to find Abby. The hot Tucson sun was pouring down onto the street, the canvas from the tent flapping gently in the breeze. “Abby?” Jess yelled, stopping just outside of the tent. “Abby? Where are you?”
A man dressed in jeans and a shirt approached Jess and stood right in front of her. He was about five inches taller than Jess, making him maybe five feet ten inches, with a shaved head and small eyes, “Ma’am, I’m Detective Jamison Saunders. Who are you looking for?”
“My niece, Abby Montgomery. She’s twelve. We went to breakfast,” Jess said, whirling around and pointing at the diner across the street, the words coming out of her mouth in a tumble, “and then I needed to go drop off some paperwork at the bank. She was right next to me when the robbers came in. Where is she?” Jess whirled back around, her heart skipping a beat, her hands clammy.
Saunders stood in front of her like a tree, not moving, “We’ve transported a few people to the hospital, but I’m not sure about anyone who’s twelve. Are you sure she was at the bank with you?”
Heat rose in Jess’s cheeks, “Are you kidding me? Are you actually asking me if I imagined my niece was in the bank with me? Yes, she was in the bank with me. Now, where is she? What have you done with her?”
Detective Saunders stared at Jess for a second, then glanced at Sullivan. Jess saw Sullivan shake her head slightly as if she was letting Saunders know that Abby was nowhere to be found. Saunders reached out a hand toward Jess’s arm, the skin tan and brown from the desert sunshine, “I’m sure she’s here somewhere, ma’am. Just give me a couple minutes to find her. In the meantime, why don’t you sit down and we’ll have our paramedics take a look at you and then I’ll ask you a few questions for our report.”
Jess could barely hear the words coming out of the detective’s mouth. Walking past her was a team of FBI agents, their badges swinging from their necks. Another team of paramedics rolled a gurney toward the bank. Jess couldn’t stand still -- she kept scanning the crowd for Abby. Saunders said something to her, but Jess couldn’t make out the words. Bile rose in her throat. Abby had to be here, somewhere. She was right next to Jess when the robbery happened. Jess scoured her memory. It was all broken apart, like a vase that had fallen on the floor and shattered into a million pieces. Jess remembered going into the bank with papers in hand, Abby behind her, then the commotion of the robbers, Jess pushing Abby behind her to protect her. It was a mother’s instinct, although she didn’t have any of her own kids. Her brother, Chase, barely trusted Jess with Abby. It had taken years for him to agree to let Jess take Abby out without him or his wif
e present. Now Abby was missing.
Jess blinked a couple times in the bright sunshine and then glanced at Saunders and Sullivan who weren’t saying anything. They were just watching her, like they were waiting for her to calm down or change her story. For a second, Jess wondered if that was some tactic they learned in the police academy to calm victims. The problem was Jess wasn’t calm. She wouldn’t be until she found Abby. “I have to find her. I’ve got to go,” Jess said, taking off at a run towards the bank of ambulances that were parked off to the side, their lights flashing.
From behind her, Jess heard shouts from the detective, “Wait! Let us help you!” But she didn’t listen. Going from ambulance to ambulance, Jess looked inside, grabbing the arm of one of the paramedics. “How many people have gone to the hospital?” Jess said, “I’m looking for my niece.”
“I think three, ma’am. They told us to be ready for a few more. I guess there’s an older lady in the bank that’s having trouble breathing.”
“Any of them a young girl? Dark, wavy hair, twelve years old?”
The paramedic shook his head, “Not that I know of. You might want to check with command under the white tent. They can probably help you better than I can.”
Jess glanced back at the white tent, the cluster of people still standing under it, trying to stay out of the hot sun. She turned back to the line of ambulances. Maybe Abby had darted in one of them, trying to stay safe after the police broke into the building? Jess ran past five more ambulances screaming, “Abby? Abby? Where are you?”
She wasn’t there.
At the end of the ambulances, Jess turned back towards the command center at a half walk, half run. Her entire body felt like it was poised on the brink of collapsing, the adrenaline surging and receding as she realized she couldn’t find Abby. Saunders was still standing in the same position she’d left him, taking down notes on an old-fashioned pad when Jess ran back under the tent, “I can’t find her. Where is she?”
Saunders blinked and then closed the notebook, shoving it in the back of his jeans pocket, “Come on. I’ll take you back in the bank. Maybe she’s hiding in there somewhere that we don’t know about.”
Jess nodded and followed him, trotting behind his long strides. At least he seemed like he might believe her. Inside the bank, there was a lot of movement. Paramedics and police officers were still working on clearing out the last of the victims. The woman that had been having trouble breathing was now on a gurney, strapped in, an oxygen mask on her face, her lips pale and her eyes closed. The team of FBI agents had fanned out all over the building, the bright yellow letters on the back of their T-shirts letting everyone know the feds had arrived.
Just inside the door, Saunders stopped, looking at another officer, “Any idea how these guys got away?”
The officer shook his head, “Not yet.”
Saunders looked at the young man, “This woman is looking for her niece. She said they entered the bank together, but I don’t have any record of anyone under the age of sixteen in the bank. Do you?”
The officer shook his head, “No, sir. I watched all the hostages as they came out. Nobody looked to be any younger than about thirty to me. I could be wrong though.” The officer shrugged.
Jess’s stomach cramped. The officers were making her feel like she was crazy. Abby was with her. That was a fact. She stared at them, wondering what she’d need to do to get them to believe her. “Where are the cell phones? They took all of our cell phones.”
Saunders pointed at the teller’s counter, “Looks like they might be working on them over there.”
Without thinking, Jess ran over to where a forensics expert was taking pictures of all of the cell phones. They were lined up on the counter. Jess scanned the phones and then pointed, “That one!” Jess pointed to a pink case with a Hello Kitty sticker stuck to the back. The sticker was a joke. Abby didn’t like cats and she certainly didn’t like Hello Kitty, but for some reason she thought it was funny. “That one is Abby’s.”
Detective Saunders gave a slight nod to the tech, “I need this phone…” he said.
“And that one, too,” Jess said. “That one is mine.”
The forensics technician, a small blonde woman with her hair tied in a low bun behind the back of her neck took a few more pictures and flipped each phone over with rubber glove hands. “Want me to dust these for prints?” she said.
Before Saunders could answer, Jess said, “You won’t find any. They had gloves on. That much I remember. Until they put the hoods on…” Jess swallowed hard remembering the feel of the dark fabric sliding over her face, the chemical smell of the new fabric as it flowed into her nostrils. “I gotta go.”
Jess grabbed the two cell phones from the forensics tech and started to leave, when Saunders called after her, “I still have questions for you. I can help you find Abby.”
Jess didn’t wait. They couldn’t help her find Abby. Until a minute ago, Detective Saunders hadn’t even believed Abby existed. She ran out of the bank and disappeared into the crowd, knowing that finding Abby was up to her…
2
Jess darted between two buildings, dodging the blinking lights and the police tape that had been practically wrapped around the entire block where the bank was located. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her hands were still clammy, but she made her way down an alley, darting left and then turning right behind another building before weaving her way back to the parking lot where she’d left her car. A lump formed in her throat. What if the emergency vehicles blocked her car in and she couldn’t get out? As she slowed down, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She needed to call Chase. He needed to know what happened and that it wasn’t her fault.
Jess shoved Abby’s phone in the back pocket of her jeans and pulled up Chase’s number. Her hands were shaking and the phone bobbled. She nearly dropped it. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her car. With the phone pressed up against her ear she glanced left and right, trying to see if she could get out of the parking lot. There were no police cars with flashing lights or yellow tape anywhere to be seen. That was a break, she thought, thinking back to just a few hours before when she and Abby had arrived in Catalina on the outskirts of Tucson’s downtown. It wasn’t always easy to find a parking spot.
As Jess got in her car, she felt her heart race again. Chase hadn’t picked up. Jess chewed her lip, scrolling through her contacts, trying to call Piper, Abby’s mom. No luck. Piper might not even accept her call. The two of them hadn’t always gotten along that well. Piper wasn’t exactly someone Jess would hang out with, with all of her fancy, designer clothes and lunch dates with her friends. Jess was a bit more rough-and-tumble, sometimes even more so than her brother, who was frequently buried in books or some sort of research. Piper’s phone went to voicemail. Jess pushed her shoulder length, straight dark hair behind her ear as she left a message, “Piper, it’s Jess. I was at the bank with Abby and there was a robbery. I don’t know where she is. Call me when you can.”
Jess threw the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, nearly sideswiping another vehicle at the end of the row, “Easy, Jess. You’re not going to be any good to anyone if you get yourself killed,” she muttered. Of course, the detectives were going to do everything they could to get Abby back, but they were more focused on securing the bank right now than anything else.
Out on the road, Jess traveled down Canyon Pass and took a right onto State Street, hitting the merge onto highway seventy-seven. As she drove, she thumbed through her contacts, going back to Chase. She called him twice more, but he didn’t answer. Typical. She couldn’t leave him a message on his phone like the one that she left for Piper. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, not after what happened.
Memories of years before surfaced in Jess’s mind as she gripped the wheel a little harder, willing Chase or Piper to call her back. Jess remembered the week after the house fire. They’d ended up staying with their next door neighbor until their aunt could come
in from Boston to get them. Jess had snuck out early the morning after the fire and climbed into the heap of blackened rubble that had killed their parents and sat in the space that used to be her bedroom and cried. It had still smelled like smoke, even after the fire department had doused it with thousands of gallons of water. She’d never told anyone about it. The fire had ruined her relationship with Chase, who was sure a lit candle in Jess’s room had caused the blaze that burned their parents alive. Even the reassurance from Fire Chief Andrews, who told them they’d found faulty wiring in the furnace, didn’t change his mind.
They had all lived together with their Aunt Bonnie in Boston for only two years. Chase had gone to college after that and Jess and her brother hadn’t spoken while he was away, Chase furious at Jess for the damage he thought she did to their family. Nothing had been able to change his mind, not until Abby, his daughter, had been born. Rachel, their much younger sister had stayed with Bonnie when Jess went to college. She never went back.
And now Chase's most important possession, his daughter, was missing, because Jess hadn’t been able to keep track of her.
Jess gripped the wheel a little harder. It had only been a few minutes since her last attempt at contacting Chase, but she tried to call again, passing a semi-truck on the freeway going breakneck speed. “Chase, pick up,” she yelled. He didn’t.
As Jess passed the outskirts of Catalina, she tried to relax, staring out the side window for a moment. Catalina was what most people would expect to find on the outskirts of any semi-major city. A few grocery stores, two movie houses, a few parks and lots of restaurants with homes dotted in developments up and down the flat areas of the desert and peppered along the dry mountainsides.
Jess refocused on the road and racked her brain, trying to figure out where Chase might be and why he wasn’t answering her calls. He knew she was with Abby. Wouldn’t all of her calls alert him that something was amiss?