I got busy wiping down the tables. “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
I finished that job and made a trip to the employee bathroom just off the storage room. When I had washed my hands, I stepped out to the sound of Rosalie yelling at someone to put those guns away and get their sorry butts on down the road. Then Scarlett said something about not opening the cash register in a tone I didn’t recognize.
“We are being robbed,” I muttered, and my chest tightened. There were people out there with guns. Or was this a drill that Rosalie had thought up to see how I would react? I tiptoed back into the kitchen and was about to peek out through the service window when I heard a feminine voice say, “Old woman, I told you to get over there to that cash register beside the waitress.”
I counted to ten and raised up again to take another look. This was no drill. There were two people in masks, and each of them held a gun sideways, like gangsters in the movies.
“Move, old woman!” the one with a masculine voice demanded.
Nobody talked to my friend that way if I could do anything about it. Rosalie was not old by any stretch of the word, which told me that the two robbers were punk-ass kids. I took another quick look from the side of the window and saw Scarlett at the cash register. I couldn’t see her face, but her back was ramrod straight. From that angle, it was difficult to see if she was scared or angry, or both. Rosalie had a clean condiment tray still in her hands and was facing the service window. When she noticed me, she glanced down at the counter where she kept the sawed-off shotgun. Was she telling me to try to get to the gun?
Fat chance. I had to make it over to the counter without being seen. The two masked people had guns with what looked like high-capacity magazines attached to them. Were those even legal in the state of Texas?
Robbery isn’t legal, either, so I’m sure they don’t obey rules.Ada Lou was back in my head.
I checked them both out from my hiding place. One was tall and skinny. The shorter one wore a T-shirt so short that it showed a belly button ring. If they thought they were taking money from us, they had cotton candy for brains—not when I needed every dime to move on with my life.
It’s time to prove if Rosalie and Scarlett are your friends. Will you do anything to protect them?the irritating voice in my head asked.
I stopped myself before I blurted out, “Yes, and hush before they realize I’m here.”
There was no way I could get to that weapon, not even if I laid on my belly and crawled under the door like a snake. Bonnie and Clyde out there would see me for sure.
“Keep your hands up, or I swear I will shoot you,” the girl growled loudly.
All I had in the way of a weapon was a wooden spoon, a butcher knife, and what was left of a pot of hot baked-potato soup. I doubted that the spoon would do much damage. I hated the sight of blood, and besides, I would be dead the minute I rushed at them with the knife. The hot soup might slow one of them down, but the other one could shoot Rosalie or Scarlett without a single thought if I burned his or her partner.
That was when I remembered the pistol in my purse. It hadn’t been fired in years, but it was loaded, and I was a good shot back when I could find a range to practice at.
“If either of them lowers their hands, I’ll take out the waitress,” the guy said. “Now, open that cash register and then take us to the safe and open the damned thing.”
“There is no safe,” Rosalie lied.
“There better be, or the next customer will find y’all’s dead bodies in the back room,” he threatened.
Oh, my. She will be spending every day for a week in confession for lying,I thought as I eased away from the window, then tiptoed across the kitchen and back into the storage room, where my purse was located. I carefully unzipped the concealed compartment, removed my five-shot .38, and then took my phone from the side pocket. I wasn’t sure if Dell City even had a police department, but I tiptoed into the bathroom and dialed 911. A man answered and I whispered, “I own the Tumbleweed café, and there are two people with guns trying to rob the place.”
“Where are you right now?” he asked.
“In the bathroom, but they are threatening to shoot Rosalie and Scarlett,” I answered.
“I know the place and both of those ladies. I’m sending someone down there right now. Stay on the phone with me until they get there.”
“I can’t.” I ended the call, took a deep breath, and slowly made my way back to the window.
I took a quick peek and saw that everyone was still in the same place they had been when I left. Rosalie caught my eye again and shifted her gaze back to the counter for the second time.
“You really don’t want to do this,” Scarlett said as she opened the cash register. “Two policemen come in about this time every day for a slice of pie and some coffee. They’ll be here any minute.”
Rosalie didn’t make the sign of the cross or roll her eyes toward the ceiling as she addressed the robbers.
“Jesus sees everything you are doing,” she said. “Ev-ry-thing.”
I bit back a nervous giggle because what she said played right into my plan.
“They are bluffing. We should have been out of here five minutes ago. Go on over there and get the money,” the man said.
The woman kept her gun up and used the other hand to put the money from the cash register into her big purse. “Where is your tip jar?”
