“So, six months ago, when the laundering failed…”
“Oh that was fun,” she whispered. “He had to pay for the guns out of pocket instead of profit.”
“He turns a profit.”
She nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. He does. A healthy one. He lives in a guarded fortress out by Fayetteville.” Letting out a long, slow breath, she pursed her lips. “This is all we’ve managed to gather to try to take him down, but those guards at the top of the hill…they’re assassins and snipers and we just don’t know what to do at this point.”
“Well, who the hell are you?” I asked.
“Former Sheriff of a little town called Lochgelly,” she said. “Spent a couple of years as an army sniper before that. I got, cough, voted out when I started to put up a resistance to Bradshaw and the whole fentanyl thing.” She slumped against the wall. “I just wanted to keep it away from the people in the town. And I didn’t want his thugs around. But I’m one woman with a few friends, and he’s a Goddamn drug kingpin with assassins for hire.”
I smirked. “Your own little vigilante army. Does he know it’s you? Does he suspect anyone?”
“He suspects everyone, he trusts no one. I just keep hoping someone comes around who can really help us. If I could meet the pencil pusher who stopped the laundering, I’d kiss him. And if we could stop those shipments coming in, we’d have a better shot at trying to regain ground on the drugs in the area.”
“So the way I’m understanding this is, you need to stop the money going into the banks to leave the area and you need the drugs to stop coming in.”
“In a nutshell.”
I scrubbed my hand down my face. “How the hell are they getting millions in cash into the banks?”
She looked up and stared me straight in the eye. “My sister.”
“Excuse me?”
She massaged the worry divot between her eyebrows. “My sister, Bobbi-Jo. He courted her, knocked her up, married her and now has his iron claws in her. She’s the bank manager where they deposit the money.”
“Is she in on it?”
Gail considered her answer. “That depends on what you mean by in on it. She does the deposits, massages the books, and hopes to God no one notices. If you’re asking if she’s a willing partner? Not even close. He’s got her by the twins.”
“Hell.” There was not one but now three kids involved in this mess. “The twins are why she won’t leave and you won’t act.”
“I can’t act,” she said. “He’ll kill those kids in the blink of an eye. He’s one of those men with no soul in his eyes. Those kids are a means to an end, the end being money.”
I thought for a second, and decided to trust this woman. “I got that hot pencil pusher out in my car. The one who stopped the laundering. Problem is, he’s a target too. They killed his wife in front of him. They’ve tried twice to kill his kid. We’ve been running and trying to stay ahead of them. They keep finding us.”
“Surveillance cameras,” she said.
“What?”
“He doesn’t trust trackers or bounty hunters, or PIs. He has a massive software and hardware set up for facial recognition and he tracks by camera. There are more than most people realize out there.”
“Holy shit,” I mumbled. “That didn’t even occur to me. The UK is littered with them, but I was always scrubbed…”
Gail stared at me. “You…you really are Agent McInnis.”
“Former… Why? What have you heard?”
“The price on your head is huge. .”
“My little old head?” I smiled and fluttered my eyelashes. “Why whatever did I do aside from smearing several of Wittesburg’s lackies across the Autobahn and violate his ass for the thumb drive.”
“What?” Tossing her head back, she laughed. “You’re kidding. I thought that was a lie!”
“That he hid the drive in his ass? Nope.”
She chuckled for a few more seconds, and then let out a breath. “Look, I’m just a former army sniper turned sheriff turned fucking hairdresser trying to keep the people I love safe. I keep my ear to the underground, hoping to hear something that can help me. I have old friends who stayed in, and some who went into the mercenary business. I chat once in a while with them, and just keep up. Two weeks ago, I heard something. Someone looking to find the source of that gun money being laundered. I know where it comes from, so I had someone help me answer.
“I’m not good at anything that isn’t direct confrontation or sniper distance. That’s why I’m hoping for a mutual conclusion. I want my sister free from that fucking monster. I get my sister, and the rest of the world gets Childress Bradshaw dead.”
I scratched above my eyebrow, and looked at the room around me. “I need to scope the bank out. Got an address? Oh, and I’ll need one of those Heckler and Koch HKs. I don’t want my man carrying a six-shooter anymore.”
Vaughn
I stared at the gun on my lap.
“You’re kidding. This thing is high powered and clip loaded.” I felt slightly hysterical.
Her voice was low and collected. “I’m not kidding. You’re carrying a six-shooter and that’s not going to work to protect you or Dylan.”
Motherfucker, I didn’t like a goddamn thing about this situation. Leaving Dylan with some random hairdresser named Gail in the middle of Bumblefuck, West Virginia while we were an hour and a half away scoping out a bank was not what my nerves needed.
“I need a fucking Xanax around you, woman,” I mumbled.
“At least you don’t need a Viagra.”
She shot me a grin, and I sighed. I finally took the gun off my lap and swapped it out in the holster. I took the little six-shoot Ruger and put it in the glove box.
“How do you keep on ending up in the driver’s seat?” I groused.
“Because I don’t want to take the chance we’re going to get chased and I won’t have time to bark out directions to avoid death and dismemberment.”
Grunting, I had to concede she had a point. I wasn’t good at this spy shit.
“And you’re sure Gail is going to keep Dylan safe?”
“Uh yeah,” she said. “She’s got a niece and nephew in this mess and she knows what it’s like to worry about kids being safe. I don’t know her well, but she’s sincere about being on our side in this.”
“How do you know?”
“My gut. And don’t laugh. I go by my gut more often than you know.”
“Wasn’t going to.” I let out a resigned breath.
It was quiet a few more minutes, and I pulled out a book I’d found on the table at Frankie’s Hair and Wax. A James Patterson novel called Along Came a Spider. I opened it and started reading.
“You are absolute shite on stakeout, sir.” Bridget’s words were low and quiet again.
“We’ve been sitting here for three hours.”
“It’s a stakeout. Oh my God, do you not know what that means? It means you sit here, quietly, and watch. Not read.”
“I’m bored.” I whined.
“You are a fucking child.”
“Seriously, how do you do this?” I gestured vaguely. “I’m bored out of my effing mind.”
She eyeballed the book. “Clearly. James Patterson. Should have grabbed the Fifty Shades of Gray.”
“What? So I could sit here sporting a chubby the whole the time?”
“Well, not the whole time.” Her mouth kicked up in a sexy smirk.
“Yeah? And then who’d be keeping an eye on the bank? Because it sure as hell wouldn’t be you. I doubt I could keep my eyes open with your lips around my dick.”
The air sparked between us. It just lit up with sex you could almost smell. And if it stayed that way, we’d have to roll the windows down to let out the sex.
Christ on a cracker.
Bridget rubbed her temples. “If you touch me right now, I will go off like a fucking rocket. And the last thing we need to do is lose this after three hours of sitting here, next to each other keeping our
hands to ourselves.”
“Fuck.”
“Not right now.”
“Comments like that are not helping my erection.”
“And comments like that aren’t helping me stay away from your erection.” Bridget shook her head. “God, I want to jump you so bad right now.”
“Same.” I coughed and glanced out the window. “Shit. There.” I tried to point, but jammed my finger in to the glass, and grunted. At least the pain reduced the swelling in my pants.
Bridget turned slowly in the seat, a level of nonchalant disinterest that was shockingly impressive—given I knew how passionate she could be in several different situations.
“That’s the vehicle,” she confirmed. “You ready to play Suzy Homemaker?”
“Only if I don’t have to wear the heels.”
“Oh, just get out of the car and follow my lead.”
She shook her head, but she wasn’t really angry. Walking around the car, I offered her my hand and we crossed the street to the tiny, and ridiculously over-named First Main National Third Bank. We were ahead of the men in the SUV as we headed into the bank.
I was still tossed off balance by Bridget’s brown wig that I had to keep reminding myself I shouldn’t stare or keep stealing glances.
It just looked so damn strange.
She and I stood at the ‘Please Wait Here’ sign for one of the loan officers to notice us. I decided it was appropriate for me to case the joint at that point. Cough. So, as we stood there, I casually looked around.
The bank building was old. Probably from the early 1800s. The tellers were behind a ten foot tall bulletproof wall of plexiglass, and there were just five stations. Only two were open, plus the drive through. There was only one little old lady at the window and the other teller was reading a book.
I, Alex Cross. Another Patterson book. I snickered.
“Clam it,” Bridget teased me.
My eyes followed the line of the ceiling to the rear of the massive room where there were two glass-enclosed offices looking down on everything. One was clearly the managers and one was a senior officers. They could literally see everything going on in the room.
The vault was under them, and the stairs up were off to the left, behind the last loan officer’s desk. On the other side of the tellers was an emergency exit.
“Can I help you?”
I snapped myself back to where we were standing and found a young woman standing there.
“Oh, hi,” I managed. “Yes. My wife and I are looking to possibly take out a mortgage, and we were wondering if we could talk to someone about that.”
The woman huffed and looked at her watch. I saw her mentally cursing us—it was already three in the afternoon and the conversation would take a lot longer than just the half an hour before closing. She shook it off and motioned us to follow her. “Sure, of course. Come on back.”
Bridget made moony eyes at me and it took everything I had not to bust out laughing and roll my own.
The desk was a good spot. It was before the stairs, and her back was to the wall. Bridget and I could see the front of the building.
“So, what makes you two want to become homeowners.”
More moony eyes, and Bridget laid a hand on her stomach.
I wasn’t supposed to react to this?
“Well, we just found out we were blessed with a honeymoon baby,” she said, softly and sweetly.
Sweet Baby Moses in a reed basket. The very idea of Bridget being pregnant with my child did things to every single nerve in my body. And the way she said it, with the serene look of joy in her eyes…
Fuck. Me.
I’d fallen harder and faster than I’d ever thought possible. She could kill, she could kiss, she could coddle. She could protect, and she could defend. She could create and destroy in one fell swoop.
And she was doing all of that to me.
Quite suddenly, I was having trouble breathing.
Bridget’s eyes found mine, and she looked—shocked. Unprepared. Grabbing my hand, she kept up the charade, but only just. “Babe, are you okay?”
I coughed and my lungs started working again. I took a few deep breaths. “Sorry. I have to go back to the doctor. The asthma again…”
She gave me a watery, weak smile that while it reached her eyes, it didn’t disguise the sudden confusion there. The sudden bout of feelings neither of us expected in that moment.
“Well!” The lady behind the desk chirruped, and sliced through our moment. Thank God. “Congratulations! We can certainly get going on the mortgage process so you can buy your dream home soon enough to get settled for your precious bundle. Now, may I see your IDs to get going?”
We both pulled out the fake driver licenses that Gail offered, with an apartment located in Gauley Bridge. I’d made myself remember all these stupid details so we weren’t caught in our lies early on.
We watched at the men from the SUV walked in, carrying money bags. They were linen and stamped with the name of the bank on them. A woman who looked shockingly like Gail had appeared on the stairs and she looked stone cold frightened.
I had never, ever seen someone look as scared as she did in that moment. She was ghostly pale and her hand was trembling as she played with a strand of her hair.
She directed the men to the vault as she opened the door to the tellers’ area and held it for them.
“You’ll have to excuse them,” the woman said. “They always have a drop off this time on Thursday.”
I desperately schooled my features. This woman had just told us there was an assload of cash brought into the bank every Thursday at the same time. That was like handing a pyromaniac a match and saying, ‘Don’t light that.’
How many people had she told that to?
Bridget reached into her purse and pulled out a folder. “We were told that y’all have a lot of paperwork you need to do this, so we brought our taxes and pay statements for a few years. Try to keep it all neat, y’know?”
Where the hell had this adorable southern belle accent come from? This woman was seriously going to kill me dead with all her little quirks and perks.
“Well, we won’t need most of that yet.” She was distracted by scanning our IDs. “Huh. That’s strange. How long have you lived at this add—”
Three shots landed in the ceiling of the bank.
This idiot behind the desk had probably told everyone who walked by about the Thursday Cash Deposit, because there were five balaclava-wearing, shotgun-wielding figures standing in the door.
“Are you fucking kidding?” Bridget growled.
I saw her hand reaching for her own gun, and grabbed it. Shaking my head lightly, I didn’t want her to draw unless it was a desperate situation. “They just want the money.”
She swallowed hard, and nodded.
“Everyone get down on the floor. Take off all your jewelry and put your wallets out in front of you.” The tallest of the five gunmen strode forward. He pointed his shot gun at Bobbi-Jo. “You. Get those fuckers out here with those bags.”
Nodding, Bobbi-Jo moved slowly and carefully into the vault and motioned to the five at the front of the bank.
“This is gonna get ugly,” Bridget whispered, slipping off the fake jewelry she was wearing and pushing her wallet out in front of us. I did the same, but slipped my real wedding ring from my real wedding in to the small pocket on the right. These fuckers weren’t taking that.
The men who had brought the money in marched back out of the vault, empty handed, and the last one pushed the vault closed.
“What the hell is this?” the drug money leader asked.
“The cash you just put it in there. Open the vault and get it all back out.” The guy aimed his shotgun.
The drug money leader shook his head. “Nope. Not happening. That money belongs to my boss, and the five of you are shit out of luck once the sheriff gets here.”
“Note to self,” Bridget mumbled, “Sheriff on the take.”
Her eyes t
racked everything going on around us, and I finally brushed her hand with mine. “What do I need to do to help.”
She smirked. “Mm. You watch those offices up there.” She indicated the ones in the back of the building and elevated. I was about to ask how when I realized there was a perfect reflection of them in the windows in the front.
“What do you think is going to happen?”
“A shoot out,” she said, simply. “The idiots in the masks aren’t smart enough to realize that the men dropping off the cash aren’t country bumpkins. They’re highly trained professionals who get extra for safe deliveries.”
“The idiots in the masks?”
“Country bumpkins with a plan for people who were willing to step away from the money.” She glanced at me. “They won’t.”
Chapter Twenty
Bridget
This was exactly the worst place to be.
Those men with the money were paid to protect it, and protect it well. These yutzes with the guns had no idea what they had stepped into.
And they had no idea I was lying here, trying to figure out how the hell to get out.
All I wanted to do was see how this got handled by Bobbi-Jo and the bank. I could have gone straight to the fortress Gail mentioned and gotten in and out with the kids.
“Open the vault!” the masked leader screamed it and aimed the shotgun. “Open it! Give us the money!”
All of the money men pulled out their guns and pointed them back at the masked morons.
“Fuck shit damn,” I mumbled. “Cover your ears, that idiot is going to pull the trig—”
The sound of the shotgun in the enclosed space was absolutely deafening and I could see everyone cringe and the one teller started crying. All of the buckshot landed at the top of the bulletproof cage, mottling the clarity.
We had to get out of here. I didn’t care if these assholes made the place run with their guts, but we and the others needed to get out.
I glanced over my shoulder to where Bobbi-Jo was standing next to the closed vault behind the Plexiglas. She and those two tellers needed to get the hell out that emergency door, and I needed to get us and Big Mouth Martha here out the front door. There was no one else I could see that was in danger.
Plain Sight Page 19