The Ghost of a Chance (Krewe of Hunters #38.7)

Chapter 1

Billy Mendelson had the nose of his Glock 18 pressed tightly to Angela’s temple. She knew the gun.

She knew its capabilities.

What she didn’t understand was how a young man who had graduated with honors and attended a prestigious college on a full scholarship could be standing there, gun pressed to her head, threatening the staff, customers, and three little children in the bank with certain death if they didn’t follow his every instruction.

Except, when she realized who he was, she also remembered what had happened to him.

He’d already warned that if an alarm went off in any way, shape, or form, he’d shoot her and move on to the children.

Being a member of the FBI’s specialized unit known as the Krewe of Hunters, Angela Hawkins Crow was familiar with guns—and very bad situations.

Billy smiled at her. “Right now, lady, you’re it. If anything goes wrong…”

“I don’t believe anything will go wrong. And I can help you,” Angela told him.

While years of experience might help her deal with her physical and verbal reactions to a situation, she was human. And she couldn’t help but think about her children: Corby, who was managing his final years of high school with excellence. And Victoria, who was now into gymnastics, dance, and swimming…

She thought of Jackson, head of the Krewe. Also, husband, father, companion, and partner in all from the beginning. The love of her life…

And the Krewe itself, even the people working in the Blackbird Division. They called her when they needed help. She’d become an amazing expert at finding information on just about anything…

No one is irreplaceable , she reminded herself.

But she didn’t want to be replaced.

And then there was the physical death, of course. Well, if he shot her at this range and from this angle, it would at least be quick: intense pain for seconds, perhaps, but then…

“Billy. Please,” she said quietly. “We will do whatever you say. There’s no reason for anyone to die here.”

“No?” he asked her. “Well, people die. Death is a fact of life.”

He was a handsome young man, tall with a good thatch of dark hair cut so a lock fell over his forehead. He was green-eyed and possessed good, strong cheekbones.

A woman huddled on the floor by the tellers’ stand suddenly cried out.

“How can you do this? After—”

Billy, holding Angela with the nose of the gun still held tight to her head, swung around to stare at her.

“You can go first,” he told her. “Like I said, people die.”

People did die. As he’d said, death was a fact of life. But Angela remembered the event she had seen and read in the news, an event the Krewe of Hunters hadn’t had any involvement in. It had been a hard investigation.

And never solved.

Mendelson.

Just weeks ago, robbers had broken into the house of a jewelry designer and his wife, killing the couple and getting away with a small fortune in diamonds.

The couple was this young man’s parents. So, knowing that pain, how could he?

“Billy. You said you wanted us in the vault. Just put us all in there and do whatever you need to do. Please,” Angela said. “We’re not stupid. We’ll do whatever you want us to do. No alarms, no police.”

A little boy sitting on the floor with his mother, perhaps five or six years old, began to sniffle and cry.

“Shut him up!” Billy warned.

“Please. Just get us all into the vault, just as you said you wanted to do. Then take whatever you want,” Angela said again, careful to speak softly but clearly, offering a smile that wasn’t at all filled with laughter but did contain warmth.

One thing her years with the bureau had given her were classes in self-defense, negotiations, and profiling…

Classes that taught her when self-defense was an option, the best way to speak during negotiations, and how to deal with someone who was so badly on the edge that every single care had to be taken to keep oneself or a roomful of people from being killed.

Of course, she could only pray that she was putting the pieces together properly.

“Please,” she repeated. “We will all do every single thing you tell us to do.”

He whispered something, but she barely heard him.

“I’m sorry.”

He moved closer to her as if his words were meant only for her.

“My mother did that—everything those bastards said. And they killed her and my dad anyway.”

“But that’s them, Billy. Not you,” she told him. Her words were almost a whisper now. This had come to something that was between the two of them.

“You know who I am.”

“And my heart bleeds for you. Billy, I know you probably won’t believe this, but I can help you. I can employ every resource in the world to trap the monsters who hurt your parents,” she told him. “Really—”

“The cops were all over it.”

“Not to brag, but I’m almost a genius with the Internet. I can find out what others can’t. And I have friends who are just as good.”

“No, no, no. I’ll be gone to the moon—well, South America, at least. Somewhere far, far, away. And I’ll start over completely. Or I’ll be dead,” he told her.

“Then we’ll get everyone into the vault now, and when you’re gone, I’ll still try to find justice for your parents,” she vowed.

He looked at her for a long moment, and she thought maybe he believed her. Right now, there was only one objective: to keep these people alive.

And she would do anything in the world to make that happen, praying that, somehow, she might keep herself alive, as well. There might be one problem, though. Jackson and Corby knew where she was. She had simply run to the bank to pull out some cash for Corby’s class’s fundraiser for the victims of the latest storm that had wiped out hundreds of homes. They’d planned on buying pastries created by all the kids’ different parents and turning their purchases into an impromptu party for those in the Krewe who were in the area at the moment.

Billy smiled suddenly. “You’d best all behave,” he told her. “Because I’m not alone. Say hi, Kenneth.”

At the front of the bank, one of the men seated on the floor waved a hand in the air and rose, reaching beneath his jacket as he did.

He, too, had a gun. From her distance, Angela couldn’t tell what type of handgun it might be.

But regardless, it carried bullets and death.

Her family knew she was here. And while she had incredible faith in Jackson, she prayed he was able to control the situation, and that no one barged in, guns blazing.

Because that would surely cause a bloodbath.

* * * *

“Where’s Mom?” Corby asked Jackson. “She’s usually faster than a speeding bullet. Oh, sorry, Dad, I guess comparisons to bullets isn’t a great thing in your line of work.”

Jackson made a face for his son. “Maybe the bank was busy. I should have told her to just use the ATM.”

“You know Mom. She probably wanted more cash than she could pull from the machine. When she says we’re buying stuff from everybody, she means everybody ,” Corby said and laughed softly. “And she may be worrying about paying for her own pastries—she isn’t sure everyone will like her eclairs.”

“Hey, I worked on those eclairs, too,” Jackson reminded him.

“Maybe that’s what she’s afraid of,” Corby teased.

“Stop picking on Mommy,” Victoria demanded, standing to her full height.

Jackson grinned. Corby was their adopted son. They had met years ago on a very strange case where they discovered that the very young-at-the-time Corby needed parents—and that he had their special talent…or curse, as well. Then they had Victoria. They were truly blessed because their kids loved each other.

Even though they were part of a unit that dealt with the very worst of human depravity far too often, their family made it work. And they got to see the best in humanity, as well.

Corby made a face. “I’m just…” He paused and looked at Jackson. Jackson knew his son didn’t want to say that he was worried and make his sister worried, as well.

“All right. Corby, take your sister—and the eclairs—down to the tables outside the store. I’ll head to the bank and find out what’s going on with Mom. I’ll also call Mrs. Cunningham, your friend Justin’s mom, and ask her to—” He paused. He had a lot of faith in his son, but Corby was still a kid. Still, he didn’t want to use the words look out for you .

“To help you if you need anything,” Jackson finished.

“You mean you want her to look after us,” Corby said.

Jackson groaned. “Whatever. Go. I’ll see what’s up.”

Corby grinned. “Yes, sir,” he told his father. “Victoria, let’s head out.”

The two walked in one direction while Jackson headed in the other to the bank. As he neared it, he slowed his pace. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he just knew something was wrong. There was a note on the door.

Reopening at 2:00. Computer failure.

Computers could glitch, but at the same time, such a message on the door seemed a little odd.

Jackson moved carefully, sliding against the wall at a distance, then easing along it to a point where he could see through the tinted glass.

There were people in the bank.

On the floor.

Well, the note allowed for a new kind of holdup. Maybe the bank robbers just wanted the money and had no desire to kill anyone.

But among those in the bank, someone would want to be a hero, this was a situation where heroes could get others killed.

He didn’t dare call Angela and alert a possible killer, though it might not matter. The robbers had probably collected everyone’s cell phones first thing.

He needed eyes and ears in the place, and while his team could move within minutes, they might not have even that long.

Jackson saw Angela and a young man at her side.

One with a gun to her head.

But it looked like Angela was speaking to him. It was difficult to see clearly beyond the tint in the glass.

He slipped farther back to make sure he wasn’t seen and pulled out his phone to call for backup.

* * * *

“Please let me get everyone into the vault,” Angela pleaded, keeping her voice sweet. “I can do this with everyone behaving perfectly. And then you’ll have us out of the way, and you and Kenneth can clean out the cashiers’ stations and get everything you want.”

“How do you know what I want?”

“You are committing armed robbery in a bank. That should mean you want money,” Angela said, still keeping her voice as sweet as possible. “I’m ready to help you toward that goal.”

“Why?”

“Because you can get your money, and then you and Kenneth can get away,” Angela said. “I’m sure Kenneth wants the cash. That’s why he’s using you and your pain to help him,” she added as if reasoning it all out in her mind.

Billy frowned. For a moment, Angela was afraid she might have pushed the wrong button. But in the boy’s frown, she saw that she was right. Kenneth—whoever he was—had pounced upon the young man’s pain. Billy was being used.

“All right,” Billy announced loudly.

The gun was no longer pointed at Angela’s temple; instead, he had aimed it at the crowd.

For split seconds, Angela considered making a calculated lunge, but a trigger could be pulled so quickly that, despite all the training in the world, such a tactic could fail.

“This lady is going to direct you all to the vault. You follow her, or you die.”

There was one problem, of course. Angela couldn’t open the vault.

She stepped forward. “I need the bank manager. This place is going to be robbed,” she said, “but we can all live. Please, help me.”

A slim, attractive woman with light-auburn hair stepped forward. She appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties and seemed nervous but determined.

“I’m Elise Benton,” she said. “The main manager is off today. I’m his assistant.”

Angela nodded gravely to her, giving her a grim smile that showed her thanks.

“Then, Ms. Benton, you’ll lead the people, and I’ll follow to make sure we all get in safely,” Angela said.

“How adorable,” the man Billy had called Kenneth quipped.

Angela observed him carefully. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties, so he had almost twenty years on Billy. He stood to about five-ten and had a medium build, longish blond hair, and a clean-shaven face. But something about his expression was hard, as if he didn’t care one way or another if anyone died. Maybe he was unhappy that it didn’t appear they were going to shoot someone. It didn’t look like anyone in the bank would give them any trouble.

Not even the two guards. They’d emptied and tossed their guns when they first saw Billy aiming his weapon at a boy of about ten.

Angela tried to count people as they passed. The bank tellers, the manager, and two young women who had been working at their desks totaled six. Two guards, seven adult customers, and three children—aged five years to ten, if she had to guess.

“Follow me, please,” Elise Benton said.

“What if we want something that’s in the vault?” Kenneth asked Billy.

“Um, no one can open the private boxes,” Elise told him.

“No. The other vault. Where you keep the real money,” Kenneth said.

“I will open it,” Elise promised. “I will open it for you, I swear.”

“You need to tell Elise what you want done,” Angela explained. “Do you want her to open the money vault and have you lock her in the vault with all the personal boxes?”

“Kenneth,” Billy called. “Come over here. Take Elise to open the rear vault. No, wait. Open the first one so we can get the others in, and then take her on down to the rear as soon as you get the first open for them to start getting in.”

Apparently, Billy and Kenneth knew the setup at the bank.

Angela and Jackson had been doing their banking here forever. They had a safety deposit box here themselves. There wasn’t much of worth in it except to them and their kids. They had papers about their family history and important information should something happen to them, legal documents—critical in their line of work—and a few bits and pieces that weren’t expensive but mattered to them as they had belonged to their families and were old.

Their things in their little box in the vault didn’t matter. But it meant Angela knew the bank’s layout. The front had the teller stations and a few desks for those with other banking business. A hall to the right when you faced the street led to the restrooms, the break room, the manager’s office, the vault with the customer’s boxes, and lastly, the vault with the bank’s supply of cash. There was a back door that led out to open employee parking in the back, but during office hours, it automatically locked—Angela had learned that while chatting with the manager once.

It was a safety precaution.

An alarm could be triggered by the manager or any of the tellers, but the manager had already come out of her office to speak with one of the desk officers when Billy announced the holdup, saying he’d shoot a teller and a customer if any alarms went off.

No help from the back , Angela thought dryly. Because if someone tried to breach the bank that way, an alarm would go off.

Despite his threats, she wasn’t sure about Billy.

Somewhere inside him was the boy who had watched his parents’ murders. Who had felt the agony of losing them before his very eyes.

But Kenneth…

He was a long shot. He seemed amused by the terror around him.

They paused for Elise to go through the numbers on the vault and let the sensor scan her eye.

The door opened, and people filed in, two moms and one dad urging their children inside quickly. The bank employees, including the two security guards, went last.

One of the guards paused and looked at Angela. There was something hopeless in his eyes, as if he felt he had failed them all. She shook her head briefly, wishing she could tell him he’d done the right thing by giving up his weapon. If he’d tried to stop these two, he and someone else would have likely died.

“Right. See, everyone is getting into the vault,” Angela said to Billy.

“Yeah, yeah. Your people are walking in,” Billy said.

“Like I said,” she told him softly.

“Right.”

“Move. I need to go on with this, er, lady,” Kenneth said.

“Go on,” Billy told him. “We’re out of the way.”

“She can help with the cases. Get them all filled up,” Kenneth said, pointing at Angela. He grimaced and went on with Elise to the far vault.

Billy looked at Angela.

“Not you,” he said. “You’re helping with the cases.”

“I can’t open anything here,” she told him. “I’m just a customer—”

“We need help filling our bags with the money.”

“I will do whatever you need.”

He smiled. “Right. And you’ll make a great human shield if anyone gets in here and tries to shoot Ken or me.”