“Prefers to hang out with his alive friends. No, really, it’s cool. I get it. Ignore me. But can your alive friends do … this ?”
Horrible moist sound effects from behind Nate. He didn’t even want to know. It dawned on him that Abara was staring at him expectantly.
Nate did his best to look attentive. “Sorry. What?”
“I said, I had some buddies came back with PTSD. You dealing with anything like that that might be relevant to how things went down today?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see Charles poking his tongue through a hole in his cheek. “Nah,” Nate said. “Got over that a long time ago.”
The elevator doors spread to a panorama of cops, CSI, and bank security workers. Radios bleated, iPhones chimed, cameras winked. Charles had vanished—he hated commotions—and Nate found himself immersed in bloody memories of the morning. He moved forward on numb legs, the pill bottles rattling in his pocket, untouched. By the lobby, Abara held down the crime-scene tape, and Nate high-stepped over. The black security guard was gone, but evidence cones marked the outline of his body. The smudged pool of blood looked shiny and gelatinous beneath the overhead fluorescents.
A burly little man hurried over and blew out a breath, exasperated. He was balding, and the male-pattern swirl had lifted from his pate. It had been a long day. He introduced himself as the bank director of physical security, shook Nate’s hand earnestly, then launched into the update.
“Looks like they dodged the parking-lot cameras downstairs, rode the service elevator up. So much for eleventh-floor security. As you saw, dark clothes, not form-fitting, big boots. Hard to read height, weight. No flesh showing anywhere, so witnesses couldn’t get a read on their ethnicity.”
“Considerate of them to leave their bodies behind,” Abara said.
Nate was having a hard time lifting his focus from the crimson smudges on the floor tile. He thought of the guard’s eyes, rolled back almost to solid white.
The security director continued, “Before they hit the vault, they broke down the door to the security closet and unplugged the DVR box that caches the digital footage.”
Abara made a popping sound with his lips. “So they could work the vault with their hoods off.”
“Right,” Nate mumbled. He pictured the man stepping into sight in the vault doorway, gripping the circular saw, the hood pushed up atop his head. His ear, torn away in a spray of black blood. How he’d looked back and Nate had shot him again through the forehead.
He heard Abara’s voice, as if from a distance. “… you okay?”
Nate nodded quickly. “Fine, fine.”
“These guys were pros, moved fast and hard,” the security director continued. “No one could get to an alarm. Our vault door’s eighteen inches of steel, tool-resistant for thirty minutes, but it was, of course, open for the business day. So they sailed in through the day gate. They used a diamond-tipped rescue saw to hit one of the quarter-inch Diebolds, got a little over three hundo into a duffel. Which, thanks to you”—a nod to Nate—“is still sitting on the floor in there. They were razoring into the safe-deposit boxes when you went in guns blazing.”
Abara was nodding along; he’d heard this all already. Clearly, repetition was a big part of the investigation—sifting through the evidence again and again, looking for flecks of gold.
The robbers’ bodies lay where they’d fallen, hoods now tugged off, flight suits sliced open and peeled back like flayed skin. Nate walked where directed, minding the cones, the blood spatter. He found himself crouching over the first corpse in the lobby, regarding the clean-shaven face. You’re gonna want to listen now, girlie. So much less menacing without the black hood and bug eyes. Younger than he’d have thought.
Nate wanted to reach down and touch the waxy features. “He’s what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”
“This
Horrible moist sound effects from behind Nate. He didn’t even want to know. It dawned on him that Abara was staring at him expectantly.
Nate did his best to look attentive. “Sorry. What?”
“I said, I had some buddies came back with PTSD. You dealing with anything like that that might be relevant to how things went down today?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see Charles poking his tongue through a hole in his cheek. “Nah,” Nate said. “Got over that a long time ago.”
The elevator doors spread to a panorama of cops, CSI, and bank security workers. Radios bleated, iPhones chimed, cameras winked. Charles had vanished—he hated commotions—and Nate found himself immersed in bloody memories of the morning. He moved forward on numb legs, the pill bottles rattling in his pocket, untouched. By the lobby, Abara held down the crime-scene tape, and Nate high-stepped over. The black security guard was gone, but evidence cones marked the outline of his body. The smudged pool of blood looked shiny and gelatinous beneath the overhead fluorescents.
A burly little man hurried over and blew out a breath, exasperated. He was balding, and the male-pattern swirl had lifted from his pate. It had been a long day. He introduced himself as the bank director of physical security, shook Nate’s hand earnestly, then launched into the update.
“Looks like they dodged the parking-lot cameras downstairs, rode the service elevator up. So much for eleventh-floor security. As you saw, dark clothes, not form-fitting, big boots. Hard to read height, weight. No flesh showing anywhere, so witnesses couldn’t get a read on their ethnicity.”
“Considerate of them to leave their bodies behind,” Abara said.
Nate was having a hard time lifting his focus from the crimson smudges on the floor tile. He thought of the guard’s eyes, rolled back almost to solid white.
The security director continued, “Before they hit the vault, they broke down the door to the security closet and unplugged the DVR box that caches the digital footage.”
Abara made a popping sound with his lips. “So they could work the vault with their hoods off.”
“Right,” Nate mumbled. He pictured the man stepping into sight in the vault doorway, gripping the circular saw, the hood pushed up atop his head. His ear, torn away in a spray of black blood. How he’d looked back and Nate had shot him again through the forehead.
He heard Abara’s voice, as if from a distance. “… you okay?”
Nate nodded quickly. “Fine, fine.”
“These guys were pros, moved fast and hard,” the security director continued. “No one could get to an alarm. Our vault door’s eighteen inches of steel, tool-resistant for thirty minutes, but it was, of course, open for the business day. So they sailed in through the day gate. They used a diamond-tipped rescue saw to hit one of the quarter-inch Diebolds, got a little over three hundo into a duffel. Which, thanks to you”—a nod to Nate—“is still sitting on the floor in there. They were razoring into the safe-deposit boxes when you went in guns blazing.”
Abara was nodding along; he’d heard this all already. Clearly, repetition was a big part of the investigation—sifting through the evidence again and again, looking for flecks of gold.
The robbers’ bodies lay where they’d fallen, hoods now tugged off, flight suits sliced open and peeled back like flayed skin. Nate walked where directed, minding the cones, the blood spatter. He found himself crouching over the first corpse in the lobby, regarding the clean-shaven face. You’re gonna want to listen now, girlie. So much less menacing without the black hood and bug eyes. Younger than he’d have thought.
Nate wanted to reach down and touch the waxy features. “He’s what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”
“This
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