Candice nodded as if she understood my pain. After elegantly setting down her teacup, she said, “I figure you’re going to be like this while your body goes through withdrawal.”
“What does that even mean?” I snapped.
“It means that you’ve been used to a steady supply of sugary, fat-filled, carb-loaded grossness your whole life. One meal that isn’t jam-packed with any of that and your brain gets denied its usual supply of dopamine, which’ll put you into a free fall of crabbiness.”
My jaw clenched and my temper flared, but why I couldn’t really pinpoint. All I knew was that I was angry at Candice. Or maybe I was just hangry at her. It was hard to tell. “Maybe I’m crabby because my feet hurt, my calves are screaming, my quads are ready to strike, and this new top you bought me has chafed me so bad under my arms that I can’t even raise one high enough to give you the finger.”
Candice smiled winningly at me. “That’s the spirit.”
I shoved a grape into my mouth lest I say something (else) unkind. Taking a deep breath while chewing on the grape, I swallowed and said, “Did you find anything out about the robberies?”
“Oodles,” she told me. “Lots of good stuff.”
“Like?”
“I found video of the bank that was robbed next to the site where you found the ancient remains.”
“Do tell.”
Candice picked up her tea again. “It makes for some interesting viewing. I’d like to have you watch it, though, before I comment further on what I found.”
Wadding up my napkin, I tossed it on the table, where it bounced right into Candice’s teacup. It wasn’t like I was aiming to do that, but it sure as hell brought a smile to my face. “I’m ready to go,” I said. “You?”
Candice considered the soggy wad of paper product in her drink, then gazed up at me with half-lidded eyes. “Nice shot.”
“Thanks. I’ve been practicing.” For emphasis I offered Candice my most winning smile.
She countered by motioning to the waitress. “Could you bring us the check, please? My friend here is paying.”
A bit later and after a short shower, I came out of the bathroom to find Candice hovering over my phone. “Worried it’s going to explode?” I asked her.
She picked up the phone and offered it to me. “I think Rivera just called you.”
My gaze darted to the clock radio on the nightstand. “It’s not even nine yet.”
“Best to listen to the voice mail,” she said as the phone chirped with the notification.
I did, setting it on speaker so we could both hear. “Ms. Cooper,” Rivera said. “It’s Special Agent in Charge Rivera. I’ve updated Director Whitacre about yesterday’s events and your role in them. We think it best if we terminate your services at this time. Please contact your bureau chief to arrange for a flight home. If you have any further questions, you should contact him.”
The message ended there and I sat down heavily on the bed. “I’ve been fired before,” I said. “And I knew it was coming, but shit. This blows.”
“You’re telling me,” Candice said. “The pool was up to six fifty.”
Ignoring her attempt at levity, I tossed the phone to the side and got up to blow-dry my hair. “Would you do me a favor and call your husband and tell him that we need two seats on the first available flight out? With any luck we’ll be home by late tonight.”
“No,” she said.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to look back at her. “Oh, so I have to call him and deliver the bad news?” I asked, a little challenge in my voice. Candice makes me act the role of a grown-up more than anyone I know. It’s totes annoying.
“No, I don’t think either of us should call him.”
I turned fully around and crossed my arms. “Explain.”
“Nothing’s really changed here,” she began. “I mean, we sort of assumed Rivera was gonna cut you loose, and I did spend a lot of my sleeping time last night researching these bank robberies, and we have a series of murders that will take place at some point in the future to halt, so why should it matter if Rivera doesn’t want us around? We can still work the cases and have you prove yourself by finding a clue that the FBI didn’t have before you got involved.”
I noticed that Candice didn’t suggest we’d be the ones to solve it. I was betting she’d wanted to say that, but—amazeballs friend that she is—she didn’t want to put any extra pressure on me. Suddenly, if Candice had suggested another run, or even a set of wall balls, I’d have been in. She always seemed to have that effect on me—she made the seriously difficult seem totally doable. “Okay,” I told her.
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“I mean, why aren’t you protesting? Are you playing with me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, I’m not that bad, am I? I’m in, Candice. You’re right; we don’t need the L.A. bureau’s permission to look into these cases. We can roust up some info on our own.”
Candice eyed me critically for another couple of seconds, probably wondering if I’d say something like, “Gotcha! Now, let’s get the hell outta here!” but when I didn’t offer up any kind of counterargument, she said, “Okay, then. Good. Now, we just have to figure out what to tell Brice before he ca—”
My phone rang, interrupting her. I looked at the display, then held it up to Candice. “Too late.”
“Dammit,” she muttered, then took the phone to answer it. “Hey, babe. It’s me. Abby’s in the shower.” She listened for a bit, then said, “I understand. She gave it her best shot, and there’s no faulting her for it—not that she’s letting herself off the hook or anything. . . . Yeah, I’m afraid she’s taking it hard. She really wanted to do some good for these guys, but they weren’t cutting her any breaks from the start. . . . Right, right. Okay, well, if it’s all the same to you and Dutch, I think that a couple of days out here by the beach might do her a world of good. I’m going to drive us up the coast a little ways, check us in to a B and B, and force that girl to relax—take her mind off her troubles. You guys won’t have a problem with that plan, will you?”
Candice winked at me while I gave her a thumbs-up.
“That’s great, Brice, thanks. What’s that? When do I think we’ll be home? Uh . . . I don’t know, maybe four or five days from now. I’m gonna play it by ear. The important thing is to just make Abby feel better about herself. Some beach therapy should be just the ticket. I’ll have her clear it with Dutch, so don’t say anything to him until I let you know, okay? . . . Great, sweetheart. Love you.”
Candice then handed me the phone and I called Dutch, saying almost exactly what Candice had said to Brice, and playing up the pity party for myself. “Beach therapy sounds great, Edgar,” he said sweetly. “You two have a good time together and relax. I’ll hold down the fort here, and look forward to seeing your new tan lines.”
I giggled at that. “Thanks for understanding,” I told him, suddenly missing him very much.
After getting off the phone, I gave Candice a thumbs-up, then stepped into the bathroom again to dry my hair. The grin on my reflection in the mirror was huge.
Chapter Seven
• • •
A short time later, Candice and I watched the video of the La Cañada Flintridge bank robbery together, huddling around her laptop. Neither of us spoke until I’d replayed it a third time. The video depicted four robbers, wearing ninja costumes, which showed almost no skin except for the area around their foreheads. Their eyes were obscured by sunglasses, and their mouths were covered by the costume. They also wore gloves to prevent leaving any fingerprints.
The one thing I noticed was that they moved just like the assassins they’d dressed up as. They were each broad shouldered, narrow at the waist, like trim and fit athletes. They were also nimble, quick, and disciplined
, without the telltale signs of anxiety or clumsiness I’d come to expect from all the robbery videos I’d seen.
Bank robbers on the whole tend to be nervous and stiff while in the process of robbing a bank. I’ve watched a lot of videos of them over the years, and even though many of the thieves attempt to project a sense of calm, they almost never succeed convincingly.
“Wow,” I said after the video ended. “These guys are stone-cold smooth.”
“Right?” Candice said, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression pulled down in a frown. “I mean, I know it’s their fifth robbery, but no way should they be that good. Look at how fluid they are, like trained soldiers. Not a misstep or odd gesture among them.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “Nor are there any hands shaking or legs trembling in the mix. None of them seemed even remotely nervous. This looks practiced. Drilled down to the finest detail.”
“Which is why they’re so efficient,” Candice pointed out. “They were in and out with fifty thousand dollars in a little over three minutes.”
“Same amount from all the banks?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “This was the only bank that gave up the information about how much the thieves got away with. My guess, though, is that the other banks were hit up for similar amounts.”
“They move so smoothly,” I repeated, backing up the video again. “It’s like they’ve had training in martial arts or dance or something.”
“Probably martial arts,” Candice said. “I mean, why else choose the ninja outfit?”
“Because it’s a damn good outfit,” I said. “It obscures anything that might lead to your identification in a lineup. And I’ll bet the people in the bank were so scared they wouldn’t even be able to tell you anything about the robbers that could’ve been seen up close.”
“They’re all of slight build. Lean, even,” Candice noted. For emphasis she pointed to the two robbers closest to the doors.
“Yeah,” I said. “I caught that too.”
Next Candice pointed to one robber’s hands. “They all wore gloves, so no fingerprints, and no one was injured during the robbery, so no DNA left behind.”
“What about the weapons?” I asked, tapping the screen where one robber wore an array of silver throwing stars at his belt.
“They all wore them, but nobody threw them,” Candice said. “I checked online and there’re no reports of anyone at any of the robbed banks getting injured. Or that any of the stars were ever thrown.”
“Interesting weapon to bring to a bank robbery, wouldn’t you say?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t be my first choice,” she confessed. “But they’d be effective if I were a teller and was asked to hand over the dough for fear of ending up with one of those between my eyes.”
“Do you have a theory about why there were no dye packs used? I mean, fifty grand is a lot of money to just let walk out the door without trying to foil the plan, right?”
Candice smirked at me as if I’d said something cute. “For most banks, dye packs are a costly pain in the ass. The money they lose in the robbery gets covered in ink, and then they have to spend lots of their own man-hours accounting for all the serial numbers on each bill to have it replaced. It’s easier on them to simply file a claim with the FDIC and let the FBI worry about catching the thieves.”
“Would’ve made our jobs a little easier, though, huh?” I said.
“Who said there was any fun in easy, Sundance?” my best friend replied with a grin. “Anyway, all we have right now is this footage, so turn on that intuition of yours and tell me what’s pinging off your radar.”
I stared at the computer again and replayed the entire video for a fourth time. One of the robbers caught my attention and I focused on him. “This one,” I said, pressing my finger to the image. “The guy by the door. He’s the leader.”
Candice squinted. “I would’ve pegged the guy at the counter.”
I shook my head. “No. There’s something about him that makes me think he’s in charge. Don’t quite know what it is yet, but he’s the one to focus on. And there’s also something about the way he moves. It’s a little different from the others, right?”
Candice leaned forward while I rewound the footage a bit and let it play to show her what I was looking at. “He’s . . . more confident,” she said. “Which is saying a lot, as these four are by far the most confident bank robbers I’ve ever seen, but you’re right, there is something he projects that the others are responding to.”
“And that,” I said, pausing the video to point again to the screen. “See his right hand? He’s tapping his finger to his thigh. I think he’s counting the seconds.”
“Hmmm,” Candice said. “Weird when there’s a clock right on that far wall,” she said, observing the slightly blurred image of the clock to the left of the door.
“Not really,” I said, studying the ninja leader. “To watch the clock, he’d have to take his eyes off the people in the lobby, which would make him vulnerable. This way, he can watch everything that’s going on and keep the gang on schedule.”
We watched in silence to the end of the footage and then I swiveled slightly in my chair to face Candice and ask, “Where’s the security guard in all this?”
“Don’t know,” Candice said. “But I’d like to.”
“Do I smell a field trip back to the bank next on the agenda?”
She flashed me another grin and reached for her purse. “You do, my friend. You do.”
* * *
We arrived back at the same bank I’d visited the day before with my good ol’ buds Dumbledumb and Dumbledumber. I was in much better spirits now that I didn’t have to worry about hurting their feelings.
Given the choice, one hundred percent of the time I’d rather investigate a case with Candice at my side. Unless of course we’re getting shot at. Or attacked with knives. Or are falsely imprisoned, pulled into raging rivers, rammed off the edge of bridges, kidnapped, strangled, or strapped to a bomb, or are running from serial killers, the mob, the law, and/or our husbands . . .
pause . . .
pause . . .
Hmmm, allow me to amend. Given the choice, ten percent of the time I’d rather investigate any case with Candice at my side. The other ninety percent I’d rather be at the Taco Shack enjoying a giant wet burrito, but why split hairs? The point is that I was glad to be out from under the FBI’m-a-Dumbledumb’s scrutiny, and advancing the case with my bestest bud at my side.
“Tomorrow I think we should pull you into the gym,” Candice said casually as we exited the car. “A round of wall balls and kettlebell swings would do you some real good, Sundance.”
Hmmm, allow me to amend again. One hundred percent of the time I’d rather not investigate anything for anyone anywhere ever again.
With a mean squint I said, “I don’t much like you today.”
“Ouch,” she mocked. “How will I go on?”
“You’ll be sorry tomorrow when I die under the weight of a wall ball.”
“The kettlebells are the more serious threat,” she warned as she held open the bank door for me.
“To you or to me?”
“Not sure yet,” she said. “It could go either way.”
“Good morning!” said a cheery voice, and we both turned to see a woman with dark blond hair, twisted into a pretty severe knot, approach us, wearing a dark blue suit and a white silk top. “Are either of you interested in one of our low, low interest rate credit cards today?”
Candice appeared to perk up a little at that. “How’d you know?” she asked the woman, who seemed honestly startled by the question. Turning to me, she added, “Hey, Abby, I think she’s psychic!”
I didn’t really know what was going on, so I just forced a smile and blinked in confusion.
For her part the woman blushed and said, “I’m not??
?I swear! But we are offering a great deal on all our credit cards. Would you like to come on over and fill out an application?”
“I would,” Candice said happily. When the woman began to lead the way over to a desk, my BFF winked at me and mouthed, Play along.
As we were sitting down, the woman extended her hand to Candice first, then to me. “I’m Mary,” she said.
We gave our first names to her and then she launched into a short lecture about all the financing options available at the bank. I wondered if Candice really intended to fill out the paperwork for a credit card; it seemed a lot to do just to get on a bank employee’s good side, as I assumed she was doing only so she could pepper the woman with questions about the robbery.
Sure enough, as Candice pointed to one of the brochures fanned out in Mary’s hand at the end of the lecture, she said, “I like that second option with the reward points, Mary, but I’m a little nervous about sitting here to fill out the paperwork. I heard this bank was robbed a few weeks ago?”
Mary’s winning smile faltered. “Oh, my,” she said, covering her mouth and blushing like we’d just told her she had spinach in her teeth. “That wasn’t really a big deal,” she said. “Just some bad people who probably won’t ever come here again.”
Her voice rose a little at the end, and became slightly shrill. She blushed for a second time and quickly handed Candice the brochure. “It only takes a moment to fill out the application,” she said. “We can have you approved and on your way in fifteen minutes!”
Candice took the brochure and the pen Mary eagerly offered her and began to scribble down her information. “Is it true you guys were robbed by ninjas?”
Mary cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable about the fact that Candice wasn’t letting it go. “We’re not supposed to talk about it,” she whispered.
Candice pressed her lips together like she couldn’t believe poor Mary was being forced to keep all that terribleness bottled up inside. “Years ago,” she said, “I was robbed at gunpoint.”