"No," I tell him, shaking my head and waving toward the front door. "Go. I hope it's not as bad as he made it sound."
"So do I," he says. One hand resting on my hip, he leans down for another kiss. "Call me later. Love you."
"Love you, too."
He rushes out of the house, and I shudder. Sometimes it's easy to forget Sherwood isn't a little utopia nestled at the base of the Virginia mountains. It's such a small, cozy place, it can seem like nothing would ever go wrong here. Even with the horrific string of crimes that brought me back home after seven years away. But then something like this happens, and I'm forced to remember it's just reality here.
At least the people of Sherwood have Sam as their sheriff. He followed in his father's footsteps and devotes himself to protecting the people of his hometown the same way. Sam isn't a superhero. He can't stop every crime from happening. But he sure can scoop up the aftermath of those hurt by the crime, and make sure those responsible pay for what they’ve done.
Shaking off the disquieting feeling from thinking about what Sam is about to face, I go back into the kitchen. Dean is finishing up breakfast, and I start cleaning off the table.
"Is everything alright? Do you want to cancel today?" he asks.
"Definitely not. He's responding to a messy situation, and I always hate thinking about things like that. But there's not much we can do about it. I help him with investigations, but it doesn't seem as if there's really going to need to be an investigation for this. There is, however, an investigation waiting at that bank. Let's get ready and head out there," I say.
After cleaning up the kitchen, I get dressed in one of the sleek suits I usually wear when I have to go into headquarters. My face usually wears the makeup equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt, so I throw on a couple of extra layers of mascara and a sweep of lipstick to balance out the elevated outfit. Dean looks me up and down when I meet him in the living room.
"Wow. You're going full-on Bureau. Should I put something nicer on?" he asks, looking down at the jeans I'm feeling pretty jealous of at the moment.
"No," I tell him. "We're doing a whole good-cop, bad-cop situation here. But since neither of us is actually a police officer, we're going with fashion. Some people respond better to formality, some to something more casual. We'll go at them with both and see what we can get out of them."
He nods, his lips pressed together as he contemplates the theory. "It's a plan. Let's go."
Since he already knows where he's going, we climb into Dean's car. I put on my seatbelt and turn every available vent toward me. The summer heat is stifling. The few seconds I’m outside between the front door and the car make me want to pour my travel tumbler of ice water right down my cleavage.
"You realize we might not be able to get much information from them once we get there," Dean mentions a few minutes later, as the air conditioner has kicked in, and I've solidified back into a cohesive human being.
"I know all about confidentiality in banking. They probably aren't just going to crack open the financial records without a warrant from the investigating officers. But that doesn't stop us from asking about his interactions with them, and what they know about his wife. And it's another reason we have the different wardrobe options going here. Sometimes people are more forthcoming when I look official and just let it slip that I'm an agent. I can't tell them I'm on duty or doing an official investigation, but I don't have to refute it, either," I say.
"You just love riding the line, don't you?" Dean grins.
"It's a family trait."
“You can say that again.”
Chapter Fourteen
"I guess if he wanted to use a bank where he wasn't likely to be noticed, he nailed it," I comment as Dean pulls into one of the six parking spots in the front of the bank.
"There are more parking spots in the back," Dean says.
"For when everybody with an account here shows up at the same time?" I ask.
Standing beside the car, I look around, marveling at the sheer lack of life around the building. It is an old-fashioned building with tall white columns at the top of brick steps. Black shutters flank large windows along the front. Set on a side road of an already quaint town, the bank shares the stretch with only a few other buildings. All look like throwbacks to another time.
"It supports my theory he wanted to disappear," Dean says. "He chose somewhere barely on the map, far away from everybody who knows him. Who would think to look somewhere like this for him?"
I sigh. "What is it with me and small towns?"
"It's your birthright," he says.
That sends a bit of a chill along my spine. "Not something I like to think about."
"If it makes you feel any better, I've scoured the entire town and the surrounding ones, and haven't found anything about Mason or his wife. They don't live here. So maybe this is the only small-town thing about it," Dean offers.
I consider this for a few seconds. "Alright. I'll take it."
We walk through the doors and into a space that doesn't seem to know what time period it wants to exist in. The interior of the bank is a blend of the quaint vintage style of the outside and sleek contemporary details. We walk along a beige-tile half leading through dark gray industrial carpeting that fills the space created by a crescent of teller windows. Something about it makes me think of Gringotts, but all the people behind the counters seem decidedly human. I'm good with that. Now is not the time for me to discover I have magical powers. Dean
