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He was standing off to the side pulling his debit card out of his wallet and grabbing a withdrawal slip in case he needed to fill it out as he had no clue and couldn’t remember the last time he had to come inside to get cash.
Before he could get in line behind the one other person waiting for the single teller to get to them, a man walked in wearing a long black coat and black ski mask on his face.
It was colder than shit out, but his gut said this wasn’t right.
Most people lifted those masks when they were in public.
A second later, the guy pulled a rifle out and shouted, “This is a robbery. No one has to get hurt. I’ll be in and out fast. And don’t hit the alarm.” He was pointing the rifle at the teller.
The one person that was in line dropped to the ground and just sat there with their arms up.
The loan officer posted at a side desk looked at Brooks. She knew him from school. She knew what he did for a living.
He shook his head at her and she nodded.
The robber walked closer to the teller, his head moving around. “Everyone out here in the center where I can see you. Move slowly.”
The robber had the rifle moving around pointing at people as they walked slowly to the center of the room. More employees than anything.
A bag was tossed to the teller. “Fill it now. Do it from all the drawers. Where’s the manager?”
“Right here,” a woman said. She was walking forward with her hands up too.
“How long before you can empty out the safe?”
“I need two employees to verify the code to get to the room and then again into the safe. One to two minutes at minimum.”
“I don’t have time for that,” the robber said. “Keep filling it up now.” The teller was moving to the next till. “Everyone closer together now!”
The loan officer moved next to him. “Try to distract him if you can,” he said.
She nodded and inched to the center with the rest of the group. When the loan officer tripped and landed on her hands, the robber turned his back to Brooks allowing him to charge the guy, tackling him to the ground like he was trying to stop the winning touchdown on a Friday night game under the lights. A shot was fired but not until the rifle was up in the air.
Shit, he’d been banking on the thing not being loaded and hoped to hell no one got hurt.
He threw a punch to the guy’s face when he tried to struggle, got the guy dazed and managed to wrestle the rifle away and toss it aside. Then he turned the guy over and had him on his stomach, his hands secured behind him, his knee keeping the robber down, face to the floor.
Brooks turned his head to the loan officer. “Call it in and take my keys out of my side pocket. Go to my silver truck out front and there are cuffs in the glove box. Don’t touch my gun when you get the keys.” Which was covered by his jacket.
That would teach him to keep his cuffs on him now. He didn’t think much of them on his body in his job, but he had his gun on him at all times while on duty.
He supposed he should be thankful that he didn’t have his State Police jacket on, then he wouldn’t have been able to catch the guy unaware.
When the loan officer returned, she handed him the cuffs and he secured the guy and yanked him up.
“Is everyone alright? Anyone hurt?” he asked.
There were a lot of shaking heads. He noticed the manager had the shotgun by her, but he shook his head for her not to pick it up.
He heard the sirens coming fast and the local police rushing in the door.
“Jesus, Brooks. Talk about the right place at the right time.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got to stop running into each other this way, Ethan.” The last time he saw him was when Ivy’s apartment had been broken into.
Ethan grabbed the robber away from him.
Now he could calm his damn heart down. He’d never been shot at before.
