Lisa looked outside as an American Centurion armored truck stopped in front of the lobby, which had three ATMs. One guard started loading a cart while another stood by, scanning the lot and the building.
The guards started for the entrance as Lisa stepped to the counter. After paying, she slid her items and wallet into her shoulder bag. Then she made a quick search in her bag for her supermarket ID, not certain if she’d left it at home, or if she’d thrust it in her bag after finishing her shift before driving upstate.
She barely noticed the rumble of the four motorcycles that had pulled up alongside the armored truck. Adjusting her bag, she saw several people standing near the ATMs; some were studying the large map of Greater New York City above the machines.
As the armored truck guards entered, Lisa froze.
Two of the motorcycle riders, their faces hidden by their helmets and dark shields, were dressed in full-body riding suits that were bulky around their abdomens. They were wearing gloves and gripping handguns as they came up behind the guards.
The first rider shot the first guard. A gout of blood and fragments of his skull blasted across the floor to a vending machine.
At the same time, the second rider came up on the guard wheeling the money cart and fired into the back of his neck.
Lisa caught her breath.
“Everyone down!” the first shooter yelled, seizing the guards’ guns. “Nobody fucking move! Put your phones on the floor beside you now! Put your hands behind your head! Look at the floor! Don’t look at us!”
Lisa slid to the floor. Her magazines, water and other items tumbled from her bag around her.
The second rider produced a sack and moved swiftly, collecting cell phones from staff and customers throughout the center.
Outside, the two other riders had sprayed something into the truck’s air intake, forcing the driver to exit, double over and vomit. Then they shot him. The two riders entered the truck and quickly unloaded money into backpacks and saddlebags.
In the service center, a woman began wailing.
One of the riders herded all staff and customers from the washroom, the restaurant, the kitchen, the snack shop and gas counter into the center’s lobby, forcing them to the floor at gunpoint. The other gunman produced folded nylon bags and commanded the nearest person, a sobbing teenage girl, to help him fill them. The plastic wrapped around some of the cash had torn. Bundles had rolled over the center’s floor lobby near Lisa.
The gunman collecting the cash grunted as he snatched the packs that had fallen around her, whizzing them into the nylon bags. His partner eyed the people on the floor for movement.
The man on the floor next to Lisa turned his face to her. He looked about thirty, was clean shaven with quick intelligent eyes. He was wearing jeans, a jacket and T-shirt.
“I’m a cop,” he whispered, keeping his hands outstretched over his head. “My gun’s on my right hip under my shirt.”
She nodded.
“You slide closer, lift it out,” he said. “Tuck it under me. They’re wearing vests, but I can get off head shots.”
Lisa could not breathe.
She was motionless until the man’s urgent gaze compelled her to move. She worked her way closer to him, carefully extending her left hand, pulling away his jacket, feeling the hardness of his gun. Lisa got it loose. Her sweating face was two feet from his.
He nodded encouragement.
As Lisa pulled, the weapon slipped from her fingers and rattled on the floor. A gunman flew to them, grabbing the gun before the cop could. He patted the man, taking his second gun from his ankle holster. He jerked at the man’s jacket, extracting a folding police wallet and examining it.
“Fucking FBI!”
Lisa looked into the young agent’s eyes.
The gunman pushed the muzzle against his head.
Lisa’s breathing quickened. The agent blinked and said, “Jennifer, I love you,” before his skull exploded, propelling brain matter onto Lisa’s face.
The killer moved and pressed his gun to her head.
The gun drilled into her head with crushing savagery.
As Lisa waited for death, blood pounded against her skull.
She looked into the lifeless eyes of the cop beside her, feeling bits of his brain tissue on her face, her skin prickling with fear, her heart hammering against the floor.
Time stood still. Like a dream.
The smell of lemon floor cleaner mixed with a burning aroma from the gun. She sensed sweet lake air and water lapping on the shore as she saw Taylor and Ethan, then Bobby, their smiles melting in the sun.
As Lisa’s pulse thundered, she found her misshapen reflection in the black shield of the killer’s helmet, trapped in a dark abyss.
Her mind streaked to her last seconds with Bobby, his stubble brushing her cheek, the hint of his cologne, his soft,
Ethan. Taylor.
Her last moments with them when she’d dropped them off at Rita’s before driving upstate: Taylor in her pink T-shirt with the kittens and the tiny mustard stain; Ethan, serious and angling for a new computer game.
She’d hugged them so hard.
Watching them shrink in her rearview mirror, leaving them behind.
Lisa raised her head, turning so it scraped against the gun. Turning until she looked into the black shield, searching the monstrous darkness, piercing its semitransparency, she found the killer’s eyes, two black points of fury, boring into her through the blood splatter.
With every ounce of her strength, Lisa summoned Bobby, Ethan and Taylor, feeling their brilliant faces shining down on her. She seized them, wrapped herself around them. Lisa could feel them now, smelling their skin, their hair, their essence. Her entire life blazed before her like a falling star as she begged heaven not to take her from her children, prayed with such intensity she voiced the words.
“Please, don’t. I’ve got kids. I’m just a cashier. Please, I’m begging you.”
All of it had happened in a heartbeat as Lisa waited for the gunman to end her life.
But no shot came.
Another second passed. A shadow crossed over them.
“Did you hear me?” a second gunman shouted at the first. “Let’s go!”
The second man gripped a bulging canvas bag and jerked the killer’s arm. “Why did you shoot him?”
