Did someone need to prove something?
Or did someone want to stop something from being proven?
Just as my mind was spiraling into the land of what-ifs, my phone buzzed on the desk, vibrating itself halfway across a stack of printouts. I grabbed it and saw it was… Madge.
To answer or not to answer since most times you couldn’t get her off the phone. But then maybe she had more to add about the bank heist.
I swiped to answer. “Madge? Everything okay?”
“No, Pepper, everything is not okay,” she whispered sharply, the way people whisper when they want the whole world to hear. “I just saw one of the bank robbers on Main Street.”
I shot upright in my chair. “You what?”
“He was walking right past Sadie’s Bakery & Café,” Madge said, breathless but whispering like a stage actress performing suspense. “I’d just stepped out with one of Sadie’s raspberry cream turnovers, to die for, Pepper, absolutely sinful, when I saw him. Shifty eyes. Quick steps. The kind of man who pretends he’s window-shopping when he’s actually casing the area.”
“Casing what, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” she huffed. “That’s why I’m following him!”
I blinked. “You’re what?”
“Following him on foot,” she said matter-of-factly. “And let me tell you, he’s walking fast. Probably because he knows I’m onto him.”
“Madge, stop. Do not follow a potential bank robber.”
“Not on your life,” she said. “He’s headed toward Yesterday’s Treasures, and Main Street will take him out of town. You think I’m going to let him slip away before the sheriff gets here?”
“Speaking of the sheriff… why didn’t you call him?”
“I did!” she said, deeply insulted. “And that annoying policewoman told me he was busy and would return my call ‘as soon as possible.’ ‘As soon as possible,’ Pepper! What does that even mean? By then the man could be halfway to—oh! He just turned the corner. I have to pick up my pace!”
“No, Madge?—”
“Don’t try to stop me, Pepper. Vigilance is everything.”
“Madge—”
“I knew you’d understand,” she said breathlessly. “Hurry. I can’t tail him alone the whole way.”
She hung up.
I stared at my phone briefly, then bolted out of my chair and headed for the stairs, Mo following me. Roxie couldn’t care less.
“Sorry, big guy, you can’t go with me this time. This is a covert operation and you’re too much of an attraction to participate.”
Mo grumbled and went and stretched out in front of a vent where the cool air from the air conditioner flowed the coldest.
I parked along Main Street,close enough to Yesterday’s Treasures that I could see the shop’s display windows glinting in the sun. When I stepped out of the truck, the heat wrapped around me like a blanket.
I took a moment to slip my sunglasses off and dropped them in the pocket of my yellow tee, then patted the pocket of my cut-off jeans to make sure I didn’t forget my phone, a habit I wastrying to break, though more so as an excuse to scan the sidewalk before I started walking.
A wise move since it gave me time to spot Madge without appearing like I was looking for anyone in particular. She hurried over the moment she saw me, her voice low but urgent.
“There he is,” she whispered, nodding toward a man near the end of Main Street. “Don’t look too fast or you’ll alert him.”
I turned my head a notch toward him. “Madge, I’m pretty sure he’s not watching for us.”
She ignored that. “That’s him. The man I saw casing the bank. Same clothes. Same walk. Same… presence.”
