I used to love that smile. It meant my man was about to strike. But now, I loathe it. And him. Because his smile has no other dimensions — it’s either conquest or absence. When I came to him, hurting, there was no warmth. There was nothing inviting me to get close to him, to share my heart, my grief, my pain. When I came to him, his face was blank. As I tried to spill the first few words of my hurt to him, there was nothing but confusion and, beneath that, disdain. He made me feel like I was trying to drag him down.
Now, observing him as he sucks in every facet of Eleanor’s story, it makes my stomach turn to be on the receiving end of that same sharp smile.
“What happened then, Mrs. Dunne?”
“Well, I knew that I now owed more money than I had readily available. All I have is a monthly pension from my college and not much in the way of savings or investments or anything of the sort. So, I went in to my bank and I talked with them about a loan.”
He nods. “What happened when you got to the bank? What was the process like in applying for this loan? Do you recall who you spoke to?”
Eleanor sighs and rolls her eyes. “I spoke to some woman. Her name escapes me. And the process overall? It was confusing — I’m not fluent in all the terminology they use — but I got the money that I needed, I paid what I owed, and I thought that would be the end of it. Except, well, paying back the bank, of course. But then things got complicated.”
“Back up a second, Mrs. Dunne,” says David, in the same tone of voice he’d use whenever he had a witness under cross-examination. His smile is still on his face. In fact, it’s grown larger. More rapacious. And every once in a while, his eyes dart to me with menace. “What bank was this?”
“Southwest Regional Bank,” she says, warily. Eleanor shifts in her seat, uncomfortable beneath David’s unwavering gaze. “Why?”
He drums his hands on his expensive desk. Hands that aren’t meant for holding, for comforting; these hands exist exclusively for taking, for climbing relentlessly the ladder of life.
And still, there’s that smile.
Gotcha, it says.
“This was a mistake,” I say, rising, motioning for Blaze’s mom to do the same. She braces her hands against the armrests, readying to stand. “Eleanor, we should go.”
“No, stay. I just have one more question and I’m certain that I can help your case,” he says. That smile is still on his face.
Eleanor wavers. On the inside, I am screaming at her to stand and follow me to the door.
But she doesn’t. She’s caught in the web that David’s been spinning since the second we came in here.
“Mrs. Dunne, you mentioned Southwest Regional Bank.”
“I did.”
His smile widens. He leans forward.
“Interesting. That is the same bank that your son attempted to rob, correct?”
Chapter Fourteen
Blaze
Tracking the van and the thugs inside it without being seen isn’t hard; I’ve never been more aware and determined to stay out of sight than I am right now, dressed in a getup straight out of of high school — a Backstreet Boys t-shirt, baggy jeans, and a denim vest with various band logos on it — and driving my mom’s old Volvo station wagon.
At least no one from the MC is here to see me right now. I would never live this down.
With spy-like stealth, I cruise Torreon, hunting for the thugs, and eventually track the van to an enormous construction site on the outskirts of town. It’s a mess of girders, a massive concrete foundation, rebar, and a couple dozen guys in flannel shirts, jeans, and hardhats. On one end of the site, obscured by a heavy cement truck and a backhoe, is a white portable trailer.
I pull up to the lot in time to watch the Army guy, Howser, exit the van, don a bright orange safety vest with the words ‘Foreman’ on the back, and a yellow hardhat. He stops at the entrance to the work site, yells some orders to his big crew of thick-necked, empty-headed workers, and then makes his way to the office trailer.
Careful to stay out of sight, I park my mom’s Volvo at a distance and settle in to do some reconnaissance.
Five minutes in, two cars arrive.
One’s a luxury towncar, pure black, shining with polish in the way that says the person driving it lives for the high life and loves showing it off. I’d bet anything there’s a powerful engine under the hood that’s just screaming for the tight-assed owner to open her up on the highway.
The other car is a decades-old Toyota sedan. Boring white, badly in need of a wash, and lacking any kind of distinguishing characteristics in the way that screams the person behind the wheel is either poor or too sensible for their own good.
Side by side, they pull up to the foreman’s trailer. I lose sight of them as they park, obscured by the big backhoe and the cement truck.
I catch glimpses. Blurs. Impressions. Sliced views of each of the cars and their passengers. A man and woman, both in suits, get out of one car. Another man, also in a suit — though this one screams government wages — gets out of the other car.
At this distance, I can’t hardly see shit. And what I can see? Well, that tells me that the people in these cars are just as
