were downright punctual. Robbie waited until Caleb turned his gaze back to him. When he spoke, there was no denying his anger again. His rage. “When the shooting started, Alyssa Garner threw herself over me—someone who could have been dead any moment—to protect me. She could have run and tried to hide like the others, but no, she covered me up like she was indebted to me. Like I was a good friend or even family. And by some miracle she wasn’t hit in the process. But you want to know what happened after they surrendered?”
Caleb might not have known the woman named Alyssa past a minute ago, but he knew he wasn’t going to like the answer already.
Robbie nearly bit the words out. “Before anyone could stop him, Dupree Slater walked over to us and shot Alyssa right in the back.” He let that sink in. “Now, you tell me. What kind of man does that? What kind of man shoots an unarmed young woman who was just trying to save an old man like me in the back?”
“Not a good one,” Caleb answered. He was surprised at the anger growing in him. It wasn’t a good feeling. Not after what had happened back in Portland. He tried to distance himself from it, but then he pictured the woman who had stood before him only a few minutes beforehand.
Her light auburn hair had been pulled back, showing blue eyes, bright and clear and nice. They’d sized him up and then left him alone, traveling back to see what must have been the memory of Dupree Slater killing people before he’d tried to kill her too. He hadn’t been able to see if her smile lit up the rest of her expression. Dupree had stripped her of it simply by her recalling a memory.
Caleb now felt like he needed to apologize to her, which was absurd. He hadn’t known her name or what had happened when he asked about the bank robber.
Robbie, seemingly coming down off his emotional high, let out a long exhale. It dragged his body down. His expression softened. He gave Caleb a tired smile.
“You seem like a man who’s dealt with bad before,” he said, reaching out to pat Caleb on the shoulder.
The contact surprised and unsettled him. Another sentiment he wasn’t used to from the general public in Portland.
“But know that just because we’re a small community, it doesn’t mean we’re all good here either. There’s bad everywhere. Even in a small place like Carpenter.” The man gave another weak smile and then was gone.
Caleb went back to his job. He decided it best to keep his mouth shut as he manned the detector. Instead he tried to catalog everyone who walked into the courtroom with a new perspective. Now he felt a small connection to a case he hadn’t even bothered to research. It was irrational to feel involved, or, as his sister would say, maybe it was compassion attaching his thoughts to the woman named Alyssa. He’d never met her before and doubted he’d have a chance to talk to her ever again, but still he felt anger for what had happened to her. That feeling made him question every person who filed into the courtroom and his or her part in the robbery.
So when a man dressed in a suit wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses walked toward him and stopped just shy of the metal detector, Caleb was already trying to figure him out.
How did he fit into that day?
Had he been one of the hostages?
Had he known someone on the inside?
Or was he just there to gawk?
“Has it started yet?” the man asked, motioning to the closed doors.
Caleb shook his head. “Not yet.”
The man started to turn away.
“You aren’t going in?” Caleb asked after him, surprised.
“No, I’m only here to wait for a friend,” he said. “I’ll do that outside.”
The man smiled, adjusted his glasses and was out the front doors in a flash.
Caleb would later pinpoint that smile as the moment he knew something bad was about to happen. But in the present he would try to pretend everything was all right, dismissing the feeling in lieu of doing his job correctly. He’d already almost lost his career because he’d let himself get carried away once. Plus, like he’d told Robbie, he was new in town. That man, and his out-of-place smile, could have been one of the nicest locals he’d ever meet. Who was he to judge? Especially after what he’d done?
So he’d let his mind swim back to dry land and stood diligently at his post. This was just another job he had to do—and do well—to get back to where he should be. Back in Portland, away from small towns and their problems. Away from everyone knowing your name. Away from the humidity, droves of mosquitoes and copious amounts of sweet tea. He didn’t have time for distractions. He needed to focus on the end goal.
But then no sooner had he gotten the thought than the fire alarms started going off.
* * *
THE JUDGE WASN’T even in the room before Alyssa and the rest of the courtroom were being ushered outside.
Just when I was getting up my nerve, she thought in the middle of the group. Together they all created a blob of people talking loudly to one another, to the point where even her thoughts became muddled. She tried to look for someone in charge to ask them if it was a false alarm or if the fire was real but couldn’t see anyone other than her courtroom companions. At least there was a smiling one among them, looking right at her.
Robbie picked his way through the crowd to stop in front of her.
“It’s always something, isn’t it?” he greeted, motioning back to the building. The sirens screeched something awful. While Alyssa had been itching to get everything done with, she was at least thankful to be out of that noise. The beginnings of a tension headache were starting to swarm in the back of her head.
She snorted.
“We spent a year waiting for this day,” she said. “What’s a few more minutes?”
“Your optimism is always refreshing,” he said, knowing full well she’d been sarcastic.
She smiled up at him.
In the last year, she’d grown close to Robbie and his wife, Eleanor. She’d made sure they both knew that they owed her nothing in trying to protect Robbie at the bank. Mostly because she hadn’t done a thing to actually protect him. With or without her body covering his, he’d still almost died. But then they’d point out that if she hadn’t been where she was, Dupree might not have shot her.
“Nowhere in that bank was safe as long as Dupree and Anna were inside,” she had often countered.
They would quiet then, remembering Larissa and Carl had been shot too. And nowhere near where Robbie and Alyssa had been.
Still, Alyssa and the Rickmans had grown close through more than any sense of warranted or unwarranted life debt. Which made her feel more comfortable being candid around either of them. She lowered her voice and admitted something she wouldn’t have said otherwise.
“I’m a little glad I get a break from seeing Dupree, though. Between the newspapers, the local news channels and the occasional nightmare, I’m tired of seeing him.”
Robbie nodded.
“Even Eleanor can’t stand to turn the TV on lately. But, like I tell her, this is our last hurdle and then we’re done,” he said. He reached over and patted her arm. “After this we can all move on and live happy, full lives with a completely rational fear of banks for the rest of those happy, full lives.”
Alyssa gave him a smile for his attempt at humor and hoped that was true. Closure for her would be when the Storm Chasers landed behind bars for life, never to hurt her or anyone else ever again.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?”
They turned to none other than Judge Anderson, the judge for this case. Her robes moved in the stiff breeze as she descended the entrance stairs and came to a stop in front of the crowd. Another courtroom deputy, an older man Alyssa recognized