offered to get things started there while Bran went looking for the witness who’d called 911. Charlie Warring was about Bran’s age. With any other detective in the department, Bran would have refused, but he and Charlie had developed a trust.
“You suppose the lieutenant has already notified the FBI?” Charlie asked.
“Undoubtedly,” Bran said with resignation. He’d never worked with the feds before, but he’d have his chance now. They were all over any bank robbery.
He found the pharmacy doors locked. A man peered at him from a distance away. When Bran held his badge up to the glass, relief appeared on the man’s face and he hurried to let him in. With a nod toward the back, he said, “The lady who saw what happened is with the manager. Should I keep the door locked?”
“No need now. The robbers are long gone. But locking up was smart.”
Bran took a moment to determine that no customers had been present when the witness came tearing in. Then he strode down an aisle and, at the back of the store, found an unlocked door marked “Employees Only.” Past a restroom and what appeared to be a break room was an office. He knocked and identified himself as police.
A woman called, “Come in.”
There were two women inside, one with her back to him, the other behind the desk. She rose to her feet at the sight of him. From the nice suit, he guessed she was the store manager. “I’m Laverne Dailey,” she said.
“Detective Bran Murphy.”
“Are the robbers still in the bank?” she asked.
“No, they were gone by the time the first unit arrived. I can assure you we’ll do everything in our power to identify and arrest them.” He heard the coldness in his voice.
The sight of those bodies had hit him harder than usual, maybe because of the location and the identity of the victims. This wasn’t a domestic, or the fallout from a bar brawl. The dead weren’t drug dealers or gang members. The bank was the kind of business where people expected to be safe. To the best of his knowledge, there’d never been a bank robbery in this county. And bank robbers didn’t usually kill.
“A uniformed officer will be stopping by to ask some questions, just in case an employee noticed activity by the bank.”
During his speech, the woman sitting with her back to him hadn’t turned around. In fact, she hadn’t given any sign she’d even noticed his arrival. She hunched over, her arms crossed as if she was hugging herself. Traumatized, and why wouldn’t she be?
Honey-colored hair was bundled on the back of her head. His gaze fastened on it. Some people’s hair was all one color. Hers had threads of pale gold, brown and red amongst the predominant dark blonde. He bet if he studied it long enough, he’d identify a dozen or more colors that together added up to a gorgeous, heavy mass of hair that...he knew.
No. It couldn’t be.
He grabbed the second chair in front of the desk, pulled it to face hers and sat down. “Miss—”
She looked up and his mouth went dry. The woman who had haunted his dreams for months looked at him with red-rimmed, puffy eyes.
“You,” she said flatly.
So she had recognized his voice. Bran let his gaze move over her, and what he saw made his heart stop beating.
She was pregnant. The curve of her belly was unmistakable. Bran wasn’t an expert on pregnancy, but she had to be past the first three months or so, when women didn’t much show. She wasn’t swollen so big he’d worry about her going into labor right now, either. If he had to guess—
Jesus. If he had to guess, he’d put her at five or six months.
Six months ago, almost to the day, he’d made love to her without using a condom. He’d worried about that for a long time, even as remembering what it felt like to have her without the irritating barrier of latex heated his blood.
When he lifted his stunned gaze to her face, he found wariness had joined the grief and myriad of other emotions already there. Bran opened his mouth but had just enough self-control to close it before he said the obvious. Did you plan to tell me? Later, when they were alone, he’d be asking that question. Right now, he had a job to do. And she’d seen something horrific enough, he wasn’t about to kick her when she was down.
“Ms. Dailey, may we borrow your office or the break room?”
The manager understood what he was asking. “Please, stay here,” she said, coming around the desk. “Lina, are you sure I can’t get you a drink?”
“That’s a good idea,” Bran said. “Something with sugar. She’s in shock.”
“I don’t need—” Lina’s brief defiance collapsed. “Thank you. But no caffeine, please.”
Laverne Dailey squeezed her shoulder. “Of course not.”
Lina and Bran sat in silence until the manager returned with a 7Up. Bran cracked it open and handed it to Lina. “Drink. The sugar will steady you.”
After a moment, she nodded. The door closed quietly behind Ms. Dailey.
Lina took a swallow, but her hand was shaking, so he took the can from her and set it on the desk. “I need your full name,” he said, wincing at how stiffly that came out.
He read the desperation in her eyes. “I wasn’t imagining things, was I? Maya is dead.”
“I’m afraid so. Maya...?”
“Lee. She is...she was a loan officer. And my best friend,” she whispered, desolate.
Battling the need to draw her into his arms, he said, “I’m sorry for your loss, and that you had to see something so terrible.”
She sucked in a breath. “Jurick.” She spelled it. “That’s my last name. I’m Alina Jurick.”
“You live locally, I take it.” He couldn’t help the wryness in his tone.
Her eyes slid away before meeting his again. “Yes. I live in Clear Creek and teach at the middle school.”
“What do you teach, Lina?”
“Social studies.”
Bran only vaguely recalled his long-ago middle school classes. Social studies had been a mishmash of history and government, maybe a little anthropology and archaeology thrown in. He’d have liked to ask more, like why she had chosen to work with kids that age, but made himself stay on topic.
“Okay. You came to do some banking.”
She shook her head. “No, Maya and I were going to have lunch. I talked to her about fifteen minutes before I arrived. I parked on the street instead of in the lot, because her boss doesn’t even let employees park there, never mind friends.”
He heard about her perplexity when she found the doors locked in the middle of the day, and resisted asking why the hell she hadn’t called the cops right then.
“It
