AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Harper’s stomach clenched. “Is it Samuel? Did you find the girls?”
Baruti shook his head. “We won’t hear anything until mid-morning on Sammy when the doctor does his round. Still nothing on the girls. But, we finally got ahold of the bank manager. Come on.”
Harper fell into step with Baruti. It was five in the morning. Harper found it difficult to be enthusiastic about waiting this long to get anyone to act.
“The bank manager has a pull-out sofa in his office and slept there last night. That’s why it took so long to contact him,” Baruti explained. “I caught him up, and he’s pulling security footage now. As soon as we get a warrant, he’s ready to open Saaina’s box for us.”
All this damn waiting. “How long for a warrant?”
“I imagine we’ll have it by the time we get on the road.” Baruti grabbed a lanyard off a desk as they passed then tossed it at Harper. “You’re pretending to be Sammy. Don’t introduce yourself and I won’t draw attention to you.”
Harper nodded. He wasn’t in the mood to make nice. All that effort had gone into playing his part, and that was done. Robin didn’t need Harper Gonzalez. She needed Harper Wright.
“What do we know so far?” he asked.
Baruti’s tone was grim. “Nothing.”
There was a warrant waiting for them by the time they loaded into the dark SUV with Logan and joined the thickening New York City traffic heading to Manhattan. Harper was certain he could have jogged the distance faster.
According to Logan, Evan, Jamie, Tucker, and Kelsey would be joining them at the bank. Harper wasn’t exactly looking forward to coming clean to the rest of the team. He’d already gotten a text from their tech analyst Cat chewing him out. That was probably more from new parent nerves than genuine frustration. Harper had been at the hospital to help Cat and her wife welcome their little screaming bundle of joy into the world, but just barely. He’d left for Florida two days later.
He attributed the success of his undercover endeavor to Cat being distracted. Without the baby, she’d have been on to him in no time. And while Diha had a damn good poker face, Cat’s specialty was ferreting out the truth.
After what felt like an age, they arrived at the bank. Security waited to usher them inside and up to the floors most people would never glimpse. That was where they found the bank manager waiting for them in an upper-level conference room.
He was an unflappable older man who insisted on reading everything himself before uttering anything. After that, he folded the warrant then sat at one of the chairs around the conference table.
“Sit, please?” the bank manager asked.
Harper remained standing, hanging back behind Baruti who had taken the lead.
“Has your security pulled the tape yet?” Baruti asked in a far more pleasant tone than Harper could manage.
The bank manager folded his hands and the first glimpse of an actual expression crossed his face. It was only a slight curl of his lips, but that seemed to mean something.
“Yes, unfortunately.” He picked up a remote and pressed play. “This man here? In the dark coat and hat? He was here a few days ago. We know he pulled the box belonging to Saaina Suleiman, but he wasn’t the first.”
“What?” Harper said before he could stop himself.
The bank manager pressed the remote a few more times. “Security brought me this. It’s from after-hours. We had a few more cameras installed in the auxiliary rooms after an incident but didn’t inform everyone. I can only imagine that’s why this gentleman chose this spot. Before, it wouldn’t have been captured.”
Harper took a few steps closer to the projector screen as the tape began to play.
A man wearing a security uniform entered some sort of employee-only area carrying a safety deposit box.
“Here you’ll see him pause? He’s blocking the view of the camera he knows about,” the bank manager explained.
Harper and the others watched the security guard take a much lighter box from under the table. It was sitting at just the right height he didn’t have to bend or anything. He then placed that box on the table. That done, he held the original down at his side and turned in such a way that his body would hide the box.
“Who is he?” Baruti asked.
“An employee we haven’t seen since this day,” the bank manager said grimly.
The security guard proceeded to use two keys to unlock the box. He moved aside some other items that looked like envelopes and jewelry before sliding a bulky laptop out of the box. The laptop went into a backpack he slung over his shoulder before replacing the contents. His exit from the room was as choreographed as everything else they’d seen.
“How long ago was this?” Baruti asked.
“Tuesday,” the manager replied.
