“I’ve finished running Route Eleven. Everything clear.”
“Be sure you’re in position to control the traffic light in Hurley when the time comes.”
Things like that kept snagging her attention—the glimmerings of some sort of movement in the night, like a whale too far below your ship to see. Something was starting up out there. Was it connected to her three guys?
There was one more vehicle for Dalesia to pick up tonight, the truck they’d transfer the goods to. This truck couldn’t be stolen, because they’d have to use it more than once after the robbery, so Dalesia and McWhitney two days ago had taken the MassPike west to Albany, New York, and rented a truck, McWhitney using his legitimate business credit card from his bar. It had been stashed since then in the municipal parking lot in Rutherford. Now, after delivering Parker to the police car, Dalesia drove to Rutherford, left the Audi in the truck’s place, and drove the truck to the factory.
McWhitney was already there with the Chevy Celebrity, a car about as old as Parker’s police car but which had gone through a much more strenuous life. It was dinged and scratched and dented all over, and the muffler sounded like a bad case of asthma, but it ran.
McWhitney had all four of the Celebrity’s doors open, so its interior lights illuminated to some extent the area around the car. Too much light might attract attention, which they didn’t want.
When Dalesia got out of the truck and joined him, McWhitney was studying the Carl-Gustafs and their rockets in this soft light. Looking up, he said, “I never loaded one of these things before.”
“If they were that easy to do wrong,” Dalesia said, “they wouldn’t sell them to so many third-world countries.”
“That sounds good. I’ll watch.”
“Sure,” Dalesia said, and armed the weapons with self-confident speed.
Watching him, McWhitney said, “Parker in place?”
“Just waiting,” Dalesia said.
“Like all of us.”
And like the armored car crews, all of whom were ready by one, when a police escort came to lead them to the Deer Hill Bank.
The five engines made enough noise pulling out of the parking area that Sandra went to the window and looked out. A whole lot of armored cars? Going where? Too late to get out to her own car and follow them. She went back to her scanners.
At one-thirty, when the moving men were just starting to load the four armored cars, under the direction of Jack Langen and other bank officials, separating files from commercial paper from cash, Dalesia used McWhitney’s pickup truck to leave the factory and go meet Elaine Langen and get the number of the armored car that they would want. And an hour later, Dalesia drove fast into the parking lot of the diner at the intersection where the robbery was to take place, and where Parker was waiting in the police car, because anybody who saw a police car behind a diner late at night would just assume the cops were cooping.
Parker saw the pickup drive in, and was out of the police car before Dalesia had stopped. Dalesia called out his open window, “Didn’t show! The damn party at the bank’s
Parker got into the pickup. “I’ll direct you to her house,” he said, and removed the police hat and jacket along the way.
When they reached the Langen house, it was completely dark. There was a door at the end of the multi-car garage, with a window in it. They smashed the window, unlocked the door, stepped in, and the white Infiniti was there. They moved fast through the dark house, up to the second floor, found her room, switched on the light, and she lay on her back on the bed, asleep, dressed except for shoes.
“Wha?” she said, blinking, lifting her arms to protect her eyes. “Wha?”
“Up,” Parker told her. “Fast!”
“Oh, my God!” She sat up, horrified. “I forgot!”
“You got drunk. On your feet. Now!”
“I will, I will, oh, I can’t believe I—”
Wailing, she hurried away into the bathroom, and seven minutes later she was moving fast down the stairs with them, saying, “The maid sleeps way in the back, she won’t hear a thing.”
“You just go there and out,” Parker said.
“I can’t go back there for just one minute.”
They all went through the house to the garage, Parker saying, “Make it three minutes.”
“Five tops,” Dalesia said.
“Oh, God. I never thought I’d do a— It was the stress, it was my father’s— Oh, never mind.” Distracted, she triggered open the garage door. “I don’t know why I’m explaining myself.”
“We’ll follow you.”
Driving back toward the bank, seeing those headlights well back but constantly there in her rearview mirror, Elaine cursed herself for a fool. Everything she did was wrong. Shooting Jake, for God’s sake! Getting drunk and forgetting what she was supposed to do tonight, and for
With a wince every time her eyes saw those headlights, small, sharp, accusing, she thought, what if they didn’t come after me until it was too late? It isn’t too late now, I can make up for it, but what would they have done if I’d spoiled the whole thing? They would not have let me live, she assured herself. They would not have let me live.
I want to get away from here. But not that way.
But she had another chance; she could still do it right. She’d go to the bank; she’d tell Jack she’d gone home for a nap but really wanted to see at least part of the big move, so here she was, back. She’d make chitchat for a few minutes, find out which armored car would contain the cash, and then plead tiredness, say she’d seen enough to
