Lewis Security

by Glenna Sinclair

  “We’d better pretend not to know each other,” Pax said to Christa. “The rest of the staff will be here any minute.”

  “Right. Good call.” I noticed the way her eyes lingered on him just a little longer than they had to before she turned to go to her desk. He looked at her, too. They reminded me of that old Bonnie Raitt song about giving people something to talk about, and I wondered if they had any idea how clearly into each other they were. At least I wasn’t the most obvious person in the room when I stared at Marcus a little longer than I needed to.

  “That’s a good angle, lock that in.” Marcus bumped into me as he hurried around, calling out instructions. “Oh, sorry.” His hand on my arm was as brief as the smile he flashed in my direction. I opened my mouth to tell him it was okay, but he was already busy positioning another camera. I needed to catch my breath.

  “You all right?” Christa asked.

  I pried my eyes away from Marcus’s butt. “Sure. I’m fine.” Man, could he wear a pair of jeans.

  “You sure? You seem a little distracted.” She came over to where I stood behind my desk, frozen. “This is all for the best, you know. This security stuff.”

  She thought I was concerned about security? It was almost funny. “Oh, I know. And I feel so much safer now that you guys are here,” I murmured, turning my face away from where Felicia and Monica were coming in. I saw Peter behind them, and he must’ve told a joke because all three burst out laughing as they walked in. They stopped short just like I did. Felicia’s eyes went wide, and I knew she was thinking along the same lines as I had been.

  “Boy, oh boy,” she said, shaking her head. “I should’ve dressed up a little today.” She winked at one of the random guys, and he checked her out as she walked away. I could see how her tight skirt and ultra-high heels would catch the eye. She was only in her late thirties, still hot—even if I thought she wore a little too much makeup, but some guys went for that look—and she loved the attention. Sometimes I wished for her confidence. Most of the time.

  She hurried over to me. “Holy crap, we hit the jackpot around here!” she whispered. Her cheeks were flushed, and it wasn’t just the blusher she’d put on that morning.

  I giggled. “They’re only here until we open, I think. To set up the new system.”

  “Still, it’s nice to have a little eye candy for once.” She glanced over at Peter. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” he smirked.

  “Eh, they’re okay,” I shrugged.

  “Just okay?” She nodded in Pax’s direction as she slid out of her coat. “I’d climb that one like a tree.”

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed Christa stiffening a little in her chair. I deflected fast. “He’s all right, if you like bald guys. What about that one, the one you winked at? He’s pretty cute.” He had long blonde hair pulled back in a man bun—not my cup of tea—and when he pushed up his sleeves, I could make out the intricate ink on both arms.

  “Mm, he’s tasty,” she murmured.

  “Don’t either of you have anything better to do?” Peter grumbled from his desk.

  “Oh, shut up,” Felicia fired back with a grin. “You’re just jealous that you’re not the only nice thing to look at anymore. And don’t get on my case for objectifying men when I saw those bachelor party pics you posted from last weekend, thank you very much.”

  “Okay, okay.” He held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Don’t bite my head off.” He hurried away to the kitchen, shaking his head.

  “I don’t even wanna know what you’re talking about,” I said with a sigh.

  “Disgusting,” she declared with a grimace. “Anyway, I might try to get Man Bun’s attention before he leaves.”

  “Good luck.” I patted her on the shoulder and watched as she sashayed her way to her window. Her voice was a little louder than it needed to be as she asked Avery, another teller, how her night was. Her eyes kept darting over to where Man Bun perched on a ladder. All right, so at least I wasn’t the most obvious woman in the bank. That was a relief.

  I sat down and pretended to busy myself, even though my thoughts wouldn’t stop swirling around Marcus. It was like somebody flipped a switch in my brain and all of a sudden, I had a crush.

  I watched as he climbed a ladder to position the camera closest to my desk and told myself to at least look like I was curious about what he was doing instead of drooling like a goon. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from him. Where did that body come from and why hadn’t I noticed it before? While I was asking rhetorical questions of myself, there was another: How did the seams of his t-shirt stay togetherwith muscles like that underneath? His thick shoulders and biceps flexed as he stretched. I watched the muscles of his back dance under the cotton shirt. My mouth was suddenly full of saliva and my head felt all buzzy.

  He glanced over his shoulder in my direction and my cheeks nearly burst into flame. I looked down at my desk—did he catch me ogling him? Oh, God, he probably did. What was he thinking? Probably that I was pathetic. Sitting there, drooling over him like a lonely old maid. Then again, back in the day, a single woman my age would be considered an old maid.

  “I’ll see how it looks from inside.” I kept my eyes down when he got off the ladder and walked past my desk, suddenly very busy with paperwork. He was only looking back at me to check out the angle of the camera, where it was pointing. He wasn’t looking at me. I needed to get over it, and fast, if I wanted to keep from making an idiot of myself. I had learned to live with public clumsiness, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to live with being labeled lovesick.

  The thought of being an old maid came back to me, and I tried to remember the last time I was with a man. Had it been so long that I couldn’t pinpoint a month—or year? No wonder just the sight of a muscular man on a ladder was enough to make my mouth water. I looked back through the photos on my phone, hoping for a clue. Ah, yes. I went to a concert with Jake just before the holidays, only over a year had gone by since then. Jake had seemed a nice enough guy, and we had a good time over the month or so that we’d dated, but something was missing—in and out of bed. He’d never even spent the entire night. Just one of the reasons I broke things off. That and the fact that I never felt inspired to ask why he wouldn’t stay. There was nothing deeper than physical stuff between us.

  Then, I found out why he’d never stayed over: the girlfriend back at his place. It took a long time to get over being the other woman, knowing I was so easily led on. After that I’d sort of stopped trying.

  “Looking good,” Marcus announced when he came out. I reminded myself he wasn’t talking about me, but rather the feed from the camera. I needed a cold shower.

  “Higher resolution cameras?” Peter asked. He was so obviously trying to insert himself in the process. I had a feeling Felicia was right about why he was so ruffled. Being the only young, handsome guy in the branch wasn’t exactly unpleasant for him. He liked the attention and missed it once it was gone. It was sort of sad.

  “Yeah—among other things.” Marcus’s tone was short, and more than a little superior. I’m the big dog here, he was saying. Just get back to your own work and leave me to the real work. All that did was make me like him more. A lot more. I had never cared very much whether a man was alpha or not, but I was starting to see the attraction.

  Peter looked less than impressed. I bit my lip and looked away before he caught me smiling.

  Chapter Eight – Marcus

  “How’s this new system coming along?” Ricardo leaned in to examine the wide monitor that had replaced the row of screens.

  “We’ve moved into the early twenty-first century,” I reported with a smirk. “No more video tapes.”

  “Well, that’s a plus. It’s just a shame something like this had to happen to wake up the corporate guys.” His eyes moved over the various feeds. “What do you think about these people?”

  I shrugged. “They’re pretty normal people. Nobody’s wearing a ‘guilty’ sign, unfortunately.�
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  “Damn. That would make the job so much easier.”

  “We should make one up and leave it lying around, just in case somebody feels like putting it on. Who knows?” I turned away from the monitor to face him. “So. How’s the alibis?”

  “Everybody we checked up on looks okay. That’s the thing about social media. Half the people working here love checking in wherever they go.” He shook his head. “I mean, it helps me, but I still don’t get it. Who cares where you went to dinner?”

  I snorted. “I don’t get it, either. Why would I want to make it easier for people to find me? What if I don’t wanna see them?”

  He laughed. “You’re even less social than I thought.” He pointed around to the various bank employees. “This one was at a wine bar. This one was at the movies. Oh, and he was at a bachelor party.” The last one was Peter.

  “I can’t tell if you’re disgusted or impressed,” I smirked.

  “Maybe a little bit of both. We checked up on his pictures from the night. He posted all of them. And I mean all.”

  He struck me as the kind of guy who would do that. I’d been to bachelor parties. I’d been to strip clubs. But posting them all over social media? That was way against the unspoken guy code. What if somebody’s girlfriend or wife saw something—or the bride-to-be? “What a dick,” I muttered. Just another reason not to like him, along with his smug face and the way he always smirked when he saw me walking by.

  “Yeah, he sorta seems like a dick. But a dick with an alibi. And all the others have receipts from where they say they were, so they’re in the clear. We’re only waiting on three others.”

  “What if they all check out?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “What do you think?”

  I thought it bugged the hell out of me that I wanted to tell him he was wrong. “That sucks.” I turned back to the monitor. She was talking with a guy who was waiting to see George. Did she know how close she was to being the only suspect?

  I had to say something. “Why are you so sure this was somebody inside the bank? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier for a bank employee to steal through the computer systems? Hands-off, behind-the-scenes?”

  He nodded. “Of course, but there was an audit six months ago. It looked like there could’ve been a discrepancy in a few accounts, but it was all explained away by a bug in the system and everything went back to normal. Since then, there’s been a lot more scrutiny.”

  “And whoever wanted to pull the robbery would have to do it the old-fashioned way,” I mused.

  “Pretty much. They’d also have to know the type of security system in use, so whoever hacked in would know how to do it.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t all that difficult to scramble the feed. I mean, I have a nephew in kindergarten…”

  He rolled his eyes with a snort. “It might seem easy to you, but some of us would find it a little more challenging.”

  “I guess.” She was back at her desk, head down, working hard. She couldn’t possibly know there was a target on her back.

  “It would be helpful if you kept an especially close eye on her from now on,” he said. “Don’t ignore the others, but make sure you watch what she was doing in the weeks leading up to that night. Let me know if anything sticks out, especially anything from earlier that day.”

  I bristled and shifted in my chair. “I can’t shake the feeling this is wrong,” I admitted. “I mean, really wrong. She just doesn’t seem the type to pull something like this. What if we put all our attention on her while the actual thief is somewhere else out there?”

  “I’m not saying you have to ignore the rest of the bank.” He sat on the edge of the table with his arms folded. “Just, you know. Keep a close eye on her.”

  “You really think she’s guilty, huh?”

  “I’m not sure she isn’t guilty. Let’s put it that way. We can’t rule anybody out.”

  “It seems unlikely is all I’m saying.”

  “Unlikely why? When you went to the police academy, how did they teach you to handle cases like this?” There was a crease between his eyebrows when he frowned the way he was frowning at me just then.

  “Yeah, yeah. Point taken. But I’ve been watching people for a long time. You know that. I don’t miss much of anything. And this girl—” I pointed at the screen “—isn’t hiding anything.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  He smirked. “You sure you and George don’t have the same feeling about her? She’s just the best girl in the world?”

  “Watch it,” I warned. “I’m a professional.”

  “So you’re not a little interested in her?”

  “Not in the least. I just think it’s unfair for her to get blamed for something she didn’t do.”

  He nodded, lips pursed. “Understood. And it’s not like I want the girl to pay for something she didn’t do, either. I’m just saying, let’s not rule her out. It would be a big mistake.”

  “All right. I’ll look at her just the way I would look at anybody else.” The way I’ve been doing so far, I finished in my head.

  Chapter Nine – Marcus

  “What’s all this?” I walked into the bank and saw that somebody had been decorating. There was red and pink crepe paper hanging from the ceiling, red helium-filled balloons in the shape of a heart tied to the grates in front of the teller windows.

  “What does it look like?” Felicia, the one with all the hair and makeup and nails, was finishing hanging up a red paper heart with an arrow through it. She was wearing just about the reddest sweater I had ever seen.

  “Oh, hell. Is it already Valentine’s Day?” I asked. “How did that happen?”

  Lauren giggled. She was standing on a step stool, taping a heart to the wall. “See, there’s this thing called a calendar…”

  “Okay, okay.” I told myself not to look at her even though her curves drew them like a magnet. She was wearing a light pink sweater and a tight gray skirt that ended just above her knees. When she stretched on tiptoe to stick more tape to the wall, I caught a glimpse of her lean thighs. It was all I could do to keep from licking my lips.

  The thing was, she had no idea. Maybe that was why I liked her so much already. She wasn’t the kind of girl who flaunted herself. She was modest, and that was sexy. Some women didn’t understand how much sexier it was to leave something to the imagination. If I knew what her thighs looked like because she was always showing them off, I wouldn’t have started to thicken a little below the belt at the thought of seeing more when she stretched like that.

  “Earth to Marcus.” Lauren waved her arms. “Come in, Marcus.”

  “Huh?” I realized I had been staring and hoped she didn’t notice. The blush on her cheeks told me maybe she did.

  “I asked, what’s your favorite candy?” Her smile was almost too sweet. I couldn’t stand it.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Who cares?” She opened her mouth to prompt me for more, but I turned around and went straight to the little room I worked out of and shut the door—probably a little harder than I needed to.

  An hour or so later, there was a knock at the door. I could see on one of the screens that it was Christa.

  “Come in.” I was rewinding footage from two weeks before the robbery, just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. I didn’t look over at her until she cleared her throat. Loudly. “What’s up?” I asked.

  Her face was a mask of something like amusement. “What’s with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were so rude earlier. I was just coming out of the kitchen and saw that little exchange between you and the girl. What gives?”

  “Nothing gives. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I stared at the screen, willing her to leave me alone. Maybe if I ignored her long enough, she would. And maybe pigs would fly.

  “Yes, you do. But I can refresh your memory, if you want. That very nice girl out there,
the one who has made breakfast for me every single morning and was only asking you an innocent question, was hurt when you acted like a dumbass. She didn’t say anything to me about it, but I could tell you hurt her feelings. All we need is for her to complain that you’re being nasty, or for George to see you pulling something like that. You know how stressed out Pax is lately. He wouldn’t take a complaint well.”

  I was ready to tell her to mind her own business, but she was right. Pax would rip my head off if something got back to him. He was like a powder keg. “What’s with him lately, anyway?” I asked.

  “Don’t change the subject,” she warned. “I’m serious. Be nice to her, okay? Or at least try.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be nasty,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “I mean it. I wasn’t. I have work to do in here, you know. I don’t get to socialize with the clients.”

  “Socialize?” One look at her face, the way her eyes narrowed, the way her chin almost touched her chest as she glared, told me I had picked the wrong word. The very wrong word.

  But damned if I wasn’t stubborn, too. “Yeah. I said socialize. I don’t get to wake up in the morning and have breakfast waiting for me. I don’t get to sit out there and play on a computer all day long, either. I’m trying to figure out who robbed this fucking place, in case you forgot.”

  “Oh, get over yourself, Marcus. Everybody knows what you do is important, so we don’t need to have a dick measuring contest. Why don’t you admit how shaken up you still are over Vienna pulling one over on you, and how much it bothers you that you like Lauren? Why don’t we just clear the air?”

  I couldn’t believe she was calling me out like that. Was I that obvious? “You’re so off-base, it isn’t funny. Now before you miss something happening out there, why don’t you get back to it? And I’ll get back to it in here.”