He hugged his precious magazines to his chest. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
She shook out a fresh bag as she moved to Helen’s station. Helen looked even more anxious than usual. Her hand shook around her cup of herbal tea, and her trash can was already full of peppermint wrappers. She slid her purse off her desk and into her lap, covering it with her arms as Vero began to clean. “Did you hear what happened to Darren?” Helen asked, practically clutching her pearls. “It’s terrible. It could happen to any of us, you know. One minute, you have a pocket full of cash, and the next, some stranger jumps out of the shadows and takes it all, and you spend months looking over your shoulder, wondering how you’re going to pay your bills.”
“Pretty terrible,” Vero said absently as she dusted. She watched Helen out of the corner of her eye, wondering what the woman was hiding in her purse. Several bottles of essential oils clattered across the desk as Vero accidentally knocked them over with her rag. She muttered profuse apologies as she put the items back in their place.
“It’s fine,” Helen insisted. “It was my fault. I should get out of your way. I’ll just run to the bathroom while you finish up here.” Helen got up, locked her drawer, and tucked her purse possessively under her arm, making a beeline for the ladies’ room. Philip was too engrossed in his crossword puzzle to notice.
Vero glanced up at the camera behind her head. She couldn’t afford to get caught snooping around a bank teller’s workstation. Not while she herself was suspected of being a thief, no matter how stupid and unfounded that accusation was. It would be far too risky a move. But maybe she could do some snooping somewhere else.
Somewhere there weren’t any cameras.
Vero took her cleaning supplies and slipped quietly out of the teller area. She hustled to the bathroom and spotted Helen’s shoes under the partition of a closed stall. Vero ducked down, peeking under it. The strap of Helen’s purse dangled close to the partition between the stalls, which meant the purse itself was probably sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser.
“Hey, Helen!” Vero said cheerfully as she walked into the adjacent stall and locked herself inside. “What a coincidence! I had to pee, too.”
“Um… okay,” Helen responded.
“Oh shoot! Wouldn’t you know it. I forgot my purse.” She reached under the stall, grabbed the strap of Helen’s bag, and yanked it under the partition.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Helen cried.
“You don’t happen to have any feminine hygiene products in here, do you?” Vero asked over Helen’s shocked protests. “Aunt Flo’s paying a surprise visit, and I need to borrow. Don’t mind me, I’ll just grab what I need and give your purse right back.” She tore open the zipper and rummaged inside, frantically searching Helen’s wallet and all the hidden inside pouches for deposit slips or cash. Helen pulled up her pants and flew out of her stall. She pounded on the door. When Vero didn’t answer, Helen got down on her knees and reached inside, groping for her purse. Her hand closed around the strap. A tug-of-war ensued, both women grunting as they fought to hold on to it.
“Come on, Helen,” Vero said through her teeth as she pulled. “We’re the only two ladies in this place. If we don’t look out for each other, who will?” She held fast, the random contents of Helen’s purse scattering across the floor as the bag was pulled violently back and forth. Quarters and loose pens clattered to the tile; used tissues and a collection of Starbucks receipts drifted out. Vero shoved a hand into the open zipper pocket, holding the main compartment tightly with the other as Helen wrestled with the strap.
“You could have just… asked!” Helen grunted. “I would have… passed one… under the stall to you!”
“You sounded busy! I didn’t want to interrupt!” Vero braced a foot on the door, holding her ground. She dragged a handful of tampons, some hand lotion, and a few loose bills out of the bag with her free hand. Desperate, she twisted the compartment sideways and dumped the last of the contents onto the floor.
Not a single deposit slip. Nothing more than a Ziploc full of gummy bears and a crinkled twenty that looked like it had survived several rounds of laundry.
That was it. Not one damn clue.
Helen beat against the door with her fist, insisting Vero return her purse. Vero got down on her knees and stuffed everything back into it, except for one tampon. She tossed it over her shoulder into the toilet and zipped up Helen’s purse. She held on to it as she stood and stomped down hard on the toilet’s handle, the power flush drowning out Helen’s furious demands.
When the bowl was empty, Vero released her hold. The purse went flying. Helen shrieked as she flew backward off her feet and landed on her butt on the floor. Vero unlatched the lock and flung the door open. Helen stared at her wide-eyed as Vero wiped sweat from her brow and said, “You’re a lifesaver, Helen. I owe you one. Literally.”
Helen glanced down, where her purse rested in her lap. She unzipped it and peered inside, looking both perplexed and relieved as she closed it again. “Don’t mention it,” she said in a shaky voice. She looked a little uneasy when Vero extended a hand to help her up and ushered her out the door.
When she was alone, Vero sagged against the wall, hoping Helen was too mortified to mention their horrible exchange. It hadn’t been Vero’s finest moment, but at least no one would see it. She could hardly risk being caught on camera in Costco, much less holding a woman’s purse hostage in a public restroom.
She took her phone out of her pocket and pulled up a search bar, Googling her own name, searching for any updates in her case, anything to suggest that a warrant had been served. She didn’t imagine the cops would initiate a full-blown Rambo-style manhunt for a college dropout who’d supposedly made off with her sorority’s treasury fund, but she didn’t want to take any chances either. If her face was going to be plastered all over the news, she wanted only two things: for them to use a decent photo (preferably a cute selfie from her Instagram account and not the one on her driver’s license) and to have a head start out of town before her family saw the headlines. This was the one safe, private place where she could check the news before she left the bank to return to Ramón’s apartment.
She sagged with relief when she didn’t find any new media hits.
Then, with a pained sigh, she deleted every one of her social media accounts. All the “friends” and the “likes”… they were all bullshit anyway. And they would only make it easier for people to find her. The news stations would choose the picture that cast her in whatever light made the best story, and people would see what they wanted to see, no matter what photo they chose.
She put her phone away, dreading the thought of leaving the bathroom. She hoped Helen hadn’t said anything to anyone. That Terence wasn’t waiting for Vero in the hall. The last thing she needed was to get fired before she had a chance at a promotion. It would be just her luck if Terence started suspectingherall because of a wrestling match over a tampon.
This whole investigation of hers was taking too damn long. The thief should have slipped up by now. They should have made some critical misstep that Terence would have spotted on his security footage.
Unless…
Vero stiffened as she thought back to the conversations she’d had with Terence since she’d been hired: his observations during his visit to the bank last night, his offhand comment about wanting to upgrade his house, and the fact that he had a vault key…
What if the thief wasn’t working in front of the cameras? What if he’d been working behind them all along?
Ramón’s truck was in his parking space when Vero returned from the movie theater on Saturday. It had been her first afternoon off since she’d started at the bank, and as much as she would rather have spent it shopping at the outlet mall in Leesburg, she was leery of spending too much time in crowded public spaces, especially ones so close to the Maryland state line. Instead, she’d opted for a double feature in a dark theater, where no one was likely to recognize her.
