thanked the teller and turned. Despite the sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt, a passing glance revealed that the man at the front of the line wasn’t a kid so much as a thirty-something who needed to lose the saggy pants and accept that gangsta was a look few people over sixteen could pull off without drawing undue attention to themselves. Of course, that was probably the point.
Eli’s gaze slid back to the blond chick. He’d much rather pay attention to her more subtle charms.
She didn’t seem to mind the early-morning crush of customers, hurrying in to take care of business before they had to report to work themselves. She stood out from the others in line the way a froth of cream cooled his morning coffee.
He liked a woman who was calm and sophisticated, and buttoned up tight like her conservative suit. Women like that played relationships the way they conducted business. There were always rules to follow, barriers to respect. A man couldn’t get in too deep with her, which suited him fine.
Intelligent conversation was good. Shared interests even better. Mutual lust was a bonus. But Eli knew enough about getting burned by emotional connections that once he detected any hints of personal commitment going on beneath the suit of a pin-striped pinup, he walked away from them as fast as his size thirteens could carry him.
Hmm. Not just a nice bod. She was observant, too. Blondie had noticed the over-the-hill rapper wannabe as well. She hesitated as she approached the teller window and turned her head ever so slightly to watch his departure.
Eli caught a glimpse of her profile and a spark of recognition tried to catch hold inside him. But she smiled and turned away at the teller’s greeting before a name could click into place.
What did register was that she was older than he’d suspected from the rear view. But she wore it well. The fringe of hair that framed her face had blended into the clean contours of her jaw and cheek. And the hints beside her eye and mouth that she might be closer to fifty than forty hadn’t appeared until they’d crinkled into view with her smile. Pretty as she was, Blondie probably had a successful husband, two-point-three kids and a house in the suburbs to go home to.
Ah, yes. Reality. Though certainly not his.
Time to tone his interest down a notch.
Another teller reported for early-morning duty at a third window, and Eli used the shifting of the waiting patrons to adjust his silk tie and find something new to study. The man with the gangsta look slipped into the elevator instead of exiting through the brass-trimmed glass doors. Maybe there was a problem with his account, and he’d been told to take it to one of the offices upstairs.
Eli rolled his neck against his crisp white collar. That scenario didn’t sit right. The guy had been too friendly with the teller. A man with a problem would have raised a stink.
A second man, who stood out from the suit-and-tie crowd as much as over-the-hill gangsta had, swooped into Eli’s peripheral vision at the new window. The tension in Eli’s neck crept out across his shoulders. This guy wore a regulation business suit like almost everyone else, but he’d topped it with a long black trench coat. The calendar might say autumn, but it was still early enough in the season that the air hadn’t crisped yet. There was certainly no chill to chase away on a sunny morning like this one.
Trench coat man wore a pair of mirrored Ray•Bans that he left on as he struck up a flirty conversation with the young woman who was still setting up her cash drawer. An internal sensor, borne of fourteen years on the force and a lifetime of cleaning up other people’s messes, blitzed across Eli’s nerve endings, warning him that something was wrong with this picture. Two men in sunglasses early in the morning? Eli shook his fists loose down at his sides and squeezed his left arm against the Glock holstered inside his jacket.
He slid his gaze back to the front door to the uniformed guard who had checked his badge and cleared his gun before allowing him to enter the bank. The young black man was focused on something out on the front sidewalk rather than on the six, seven—Eli silently counted them off—make that ten customers and staff here on the first floor. A second guard, as close to retirement as the other was to his rookie year, strolled through the lobby, chatting with customers and staff.
Blondie was curiously assessing her surroundings, too. Her movements slowed as she stuffed a bankbook into her purse and angled her head toward Mr. Trench Coat, watching him stride across the geometric designs of the carpet and disappear into the public restroom.
Eli was more suspicious than most cops. And those suspicions were eating at him now, making him fidgety inside his skin, though he allowed no trace of his thoughts to show. His instincts were to follow Mr. Trench Coat and verify that he knew something about the weather forecast that the rest of them did not. Though he prayed the man’s unusual appearance had such a benign explanation, Eli’s suspicions warned him otherwise. He tried to catch the guard’s eye again to find out if the younger man had taken note of the two out-of-place customers.
“Good morning, sir. May I help you?” The teller’s bright blue eyes smiled a greeting as she drew Eli’s attention back to the teller’s station. But Eli zeroed in on the three-piece-suited man behind her who shuffled out from the vault area with an expanding folder tucked under his arm. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, pulled out a white handkerchief and mopped at the perspiration dotting the top of his balding head. Then he nearly jumped out of his oxfords when the older guard greeted him from across the room.
Baldy managed a nod and a vague response. But the guy was sweating. In the air conditioning. The pasty skin from forehead to pate indicated the man was either having a heart attack or…
Damn. Eli’s growing tension clenched through every muscle, then dissipated, leaving an icy chill of certainty in its wake.
Do not rob this place this morning.
He had to get to court. He had to be there for Jillian.
He didn’t have time to be right about this.
Eli jerked his head from side to side. Elevator to the north. Bathroom to the south. Baldy behind the counter. A perfect triangle surrounding the customers, the guards and the money inside the tellers’ drawers.
Glancing over his shoulder, Eli tried to catch the guard’s eye at the front door.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
“Sir?” The teller’s voice demanded action.
Eli leaned across the counter, pulling open the front of his jacket to flash his badge and whisper into the startled girl’s ear. “Hit your silent alarm. Now.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
He didn’t want to start a panic if he was wrong, but his gut told him he was right. Something was going down.
Blondie sensed it, too. She’d pulled her cell phone from her purse and was walking straight toward the older security guard. She touched the man’s arm, urging him to mask his stunned expression. Blondie turned and faced Eli full-on, but she was pointing past him toward the public john.
What the hell?
Eli wasn’t the only cop in the building.
Recognition did him little good now. There was no time to identify himself. No time to do more than to warn the teller to get off her stool and seek shelter down behind the counter. “Hit the ground. Now!”
The
