Exposure

you said — the alternative’s a whole lot worse. Tomorrow I need to go home and finish my column for this week. I have to work in my office, live in my house. This town’s my life, and I’m not moving!” Her jaw flexed at the bitter memory of her mother forcing her to move constantly as a child. No more of that, ever again. Kaycee had first heard of Wilmore, Kentucky and its friendly, quiet atmosphere soon after her mother’s death. Its very name stirred something within her. Kaycee wanted to choose her own place to live — and settle for good. She visited Wilmore to check it out, and the town had felt so right. So comforting. Like coming home.

Tricia rose and padded over to the couch to sit beside Kaycee. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

Kaycee’s fingers curled into the couch. She leaned against Tricia, eyes burning and tiredness seeping through her bones.

Only then did it register — the name Tricia had spoken into the phone some minutes ago.

Belinda.

It hit Kaycee like a punch in the gut.

NINE

Martin drove home from the police station, his limbs in knots. The questions the two detectives asked! And while a tape recorder was running. Was it just his guilty conscience, or did they suspect him already? He’d been nervous, shaken. But what victim wouldn’t be after staring down the barrel of a gun? He’d told the detectives of his claustrophobia, how he’d had to force himself to remain calm in the vault. The memory of those moments still hung over Martin like a suffocating cloud.

“I hear you.” Detective Forturo tapped his pen against the table. “I got a brother who’s claustrophobic. He would’ve gone nuts.” Forturo was huge and bald, a wattle of ruddy skin at his neck. And so thorough. He must have been on the force for decades. Every time their gazes met Martin had to will himself not to look away.

“You’ll do this right, won’t you?” Nico’s dirty brown eyes had bored into Martin at their last meeting. The man was so cold. Martin had seen enough of the Mafia as a kid in New York City to know its members lived by their own code of honor. But Nico’s honor went no further than the Lucchese family. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, with your sick little girl and all.”

Nico’s threat echoed in Martin’s brain as he watched the detectives’ tape recorder turn. If it weren’t for Tammy he never would have done this.

Besides, he’d had to do it. Once he started talking to Nico, once he began to hear the plan, there was no backing out. He’d be dead by now.

The detectives wanted to know every detail, beginning with how the robbers got into the bank. Martin shook his head. “Everything happened so fast. But I did ask them how they got in because I’d locked those doors myself. The leader told me they picked the lock.”

Surprised flicked across Detective Petra’s face. He looked ten years younger than Forturo, a muscled, solid block of a man with shaggy brown hair. “He answered your question?”

Ice slid through Martin’s veins. He managed a shrug. “Not really. They were working on getting the vault open, and he mumbled some disgusted comment like, ‘So we can pick a lock.’ ”

The detectives wanted descriptions of the four men, what they were wearing, down to the make of shoes. The brand of duffel bags they carried. Martin honestly couldn’t remember any of that. “Maybe Shelley or Olga can tell you more.”

Forturo jotted a note. “Hope so. And we’ll look at the tapes from your security cameras.”

The two women were somewhere else in the station, also being questioned. Martin tried to imagine their answers. Surely they’d say good things about him. He’d gotten them out of the vault and untied them. He’d kept his cool.

The detectives moved on to ask about his home life, his friends. How long had his family lived in Atlantic City and what had brought them here? What did he do after hours? Who did he hang out with?

Did they suspect his connections?

Much of what Martin told them was the truth. He and his wife and daughter had left New York City six months ago. At twenty-eight he’d wanted to leave the mean streets of NYC and move to some new town big enough to provide opportunity and decent medical care for Tammy. They didn’t socialize much. Lorraine was in the rental office most of the day, right next to their small apartment. Many times Tammy had to stay home from preschool with her. As for Martin, he worked at the bank and came home.

Except for the times he’d spent at a certain bar after work. The bar where he’d met Nico. But Martin kept that to himself.

After an hour and a half of questioning, the detectives said he could go home. But Martin hadn’t seen the last of being interviewed. No, tonight had only been the beginning. The FBI would be heading up this investigation, Forturo told him, and agents were already on the way from their Newark office, about two hours’ drive away. They’d meet with the detectives to go over the information gleaned tonight, but tomorrow they’d want to see Martin personally.

His fingers tightened on the wheel. Why hadn’t he thought about all this ahead of time? What made him think he could fool all these professionals?

A good night’s sleep, that’s all he needed. He was just too tense tonight. No time to calm down.

Forturo had towered over Martin as they stood. “Thanks for all your help, Mr. Giordano. Sorry you had to go through this.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He walked to his eleven-year-old Pontiac in the station parking lot, rehashing his answers. I did it right. Didn’t I?

In the car his thoughts had turned to the money.

His cut was one hundred thousand. A pittance, given the take. But to Martin it amounted to a gold mine. One hundred thousand could buy Tammy all the tests she needed. The care and medicine, if they discovered some hard-to-cure disease. They could make a down payment on a house — in a year. He couldn’t go throwing around money anytime soon.

All Martin had to do now was keep it from Lorraine. How he’d explain the money he didn’t know. A long lost rich uncle died? He’d think of something. For now he’d hide it. Somewhere.

Tomorrow he would get the cash.

Martin turned into the lighted storage lot and parked his Pontiac next to Lorraine’s old van. As he rounded the corner toward the apartment, the door flew open. Lorraine ran out, their daughter in her arms. “Daddy’s home, Tammy!” Feigned brightness coated the terror in his wife’s voice. “Daddy’s home!”

Martin wrapped them both in a desperate hug and hung on tight.

TEN

Darkness surrounds Kaycee, smothering, chewing. She senses walls around her, closing in. Something mashes her arms to her chest. Both legs prickle with sleep. Kaycee struggles to cry out, but her mouth won’t move. She fights for oxygen, but the air is stale and thick as cheese. Panic swells her throat shut. Fingers — her own? — claw her lungs. Breathe. Breathe!

Someone shoves her from behind. Kaycee’s limbs wrench free, and she scrabbles through blackness, churning, churning. Light