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Sinclair nodded but didn’t speak. The rest of the team remained just as quiet, so she kept going. “The leader told us all to get down on the ground with our hands behind our heads, and the big guy took the security guard’s gun. He wasn’t as calm. He was”—breathe. Breathe—“meaner. He shoved the guard to the floor even though the man wasn’t fighting back. The leader said they didn’t want to hurt anybody, but they would if they had to. He didn’t yell or anything, but with how the bigger guy was acting…”
Silence filled the room, pulsing in time with her quickening heartbeat until she finally said, “The leader’s voice was dead serious. I knew he meant it. He told the bank manager, Rosalie, to go to the back with the other two men. He knew her name.”
Camila realized it as the words came out, and Sinclair’s brows lifted.
“She could have been sitting at a desk with a nameplate,” Hale said quietly, but Camila shook her head.
“No. I mean, maybe,” she allowed, “but it wouldn’t have mattered. The leader never went over there, so he wouldn’t have seen a nameplate even if she had one.”
A deafening silence filled the air, and oh.Oh. “Sorry,” Camila whispered. “I guess you weren’t really talking to me.”
“No, it was a really good observation,” Hale said, her smile taking a little bit of the heat out of Camila’s cheeks. “You’ve got a great eye for details, and we want to hear anything you remember, no matter how small.”
“Okay. Well, the leader told Rosalie to go with the other two men, but Roman tried to get the leader to let him go instead.”
At that, Matteo shifted in his seat, only by a fraction, but it was enough for Camila to a) notice, and b) wonder why that was a big deal. Knowing her brother, he’d almost certainly have made the same offer.
“The leader said no. Then he said something about being behind and sent the two men and Rosalie to the vault, but he stayed with us by the tellers’ counter. After a few minutes, the smaller man came out by himself. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he didn’t look happy.”
At Sinclair’s questioning look, Camila said, “He was gesturing a lot, like something was wrong. That was when the leader came over and told me to get up. I didn’t want to, but he…” She paused. Tried to take a breath. Pretty much failed. “He pointed his rifle at me. He asked me my name—not just my first name, but my full name. I was scared not to listen to him.”
“Wait.” Matteo straightened in his chair, shoulders taut. “He asked yourfullname? And you gave it?”
“Yes.” It occurred to her, only now, that she could have lied, but she’d been so freaking scared, the truth had flown right out. In hindsight, it had been kind of a weird question, and wait, why was her brother looking at her like…
Oh. Oh, God. “You don’t think he’ll try tofindme, do you?”
“It would make him incredibly stupid,” Hale said quickly. “And this robbery was pretty well-planned.”
Sinclair nodded in agreement. “Going after you, especially now, doesn’t make any sense. And Hale is right. It doesn’t fit with his MO. It’s far more likely that he asked to get you to comply.”
“You were very brave to do what he told you to,” Maxwell said, and Camila’s laugh popped out before she could corral it.
“Roman would disagree with you. He told the leader that I wasn’t strong enough to help and to let him go instead.”
“He did?” Isabella asked, her surprise obvious.
“Yeah,” Camila said, her surprise probably just as clear on her face. “Didn’t he tell you that when he made his statement?”
Sinclair cleared his throat and said, “Let’s focus on your statement right now. After the leader asked your name, you went with the smaller assailant. Did he say anything to you on the way to the vault?”
“No. In fact”—Camila scanned her memory—“he never spoke at all. He took me back to the vault, and I could tell right away that Rosalie needed help. She was sitting on the floor, gasping for air. The big robber told me to start packing money into a duffel bag, but I knew Rosalie needed help. I said I thought she was having an asthma attack, and he said he didn’t care. I told him he’d care if she died, because it would make getting away with the robbery harder. I know I shouldn’t have talked back to him,” she said, partly because ithadbeen pretty impulsive and partly because her brother’s jaw had just tightened hard enough to crack a molar. Maybe two. “But Rosalie couldn’t breathe. I was scared she would die.”
“What did he say?” Sinclair asked.
The echo of the man’s voice, loaded with menace, sent a shiver up Camila’s spine, but she straightened against her chair and said, “He said I had twenty seconds to help her. Then he said, ‘if you fuck around, I’ll shoot you both’.”
Matteo hissed out a curse, but she wasn’t really interested in having him lecture her in front of his entire unit, so she kept talking. “Rosalie had her inhaler in her pocket. I gave it to her, then I helped the robbers pack a bunch of money into a duffel bag. As soon as the bag was full, the bigger guy hit me. That’s the last thing I remember before I woke up in the vault with Roman telling me the police were on the way.”
Hollister broke the beat of silence that followed. “You probably saved Rosalie’s life, Camila.”
“Is she okay?” Tess hadn’t been able to tell her anything about Rosalie’s condition—patient privacy laws, and all that stuff. But surely that didn’t apply to cops, too.
“She’s still at Mem, but she’s stable,” Capelli said, gesturing to the phone on his desk. “I got the call just before you arrived. Tess wants to keep her overnight just to be sure her oxygen levels keep improving, but she said Rosalie should make a full recovery.”
Relief splashed through Camila’s chest. “Oh, good.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us, Camila?” Sinclair asked. “Anything about the men’s voices? Accents, speech impediments? Even if it’s small and seems inconsequential, anything you can remember might help us.”
