“You sure we weren’t followed?” I asked with more than a hint of nerves at being on an open street after days sequestered away in the condo.
“From the Bay?” Ramesh asked. “Yes, I’m sure. Your trail has been wiped. Entrance to the bank is half a block up.”
I took a breath to try and calm myself. Bray had let me bring my gun this time. I felt its cold presence against my back, near where he’d touched me. My heart rate picked up as we closed in on the bank.
Its glass front walls spanned the bottom floor of a tall, silver building. A security guard patrolled out front, and inside, I could see smiling employees conversing with customers at glossy desks. A row of tellers lined the back wall.
“Fancy place,” I muttered.
“I mean, if you’re stashing a giant diamond inside, I’d thinkit would have to be,” Bray muttered back. “You’re going to get us into this box, right, Ramesh?” he said.
“Roger. Your name has been added to the authorized list for access,” Ramesh said into our ears.
“Do I even want to know how you managed that?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell you anyway,” Ramesh said. I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Okay, showtime,” Bray said when we approached the bank’s door. He swung it open and again put his hand on my lower back. It shot a tingle through me, maybe because I missed his touch, maybe because it soothed my nerves. We were moments away from what we’d come for. The keystone of the past ten years was locked inside a small metal box somewhere inside this bank.
We walked inside and the smell of money and high-gloss floors mingled in my nose. No matter how modern and new a bank was, it could never shake the telltale salty, stale aroma of the world’s ultimate motivator.
Bray led us to an open teller. My heart was in my throat. “Hello,” he said pleasantly. “We need to access my family’s safe-deposit box.” He pulled a slip of paper out of his coat pocket and slid it across the teller’s desk.
The teller, a Black woman who looked to be in her thirties, took the slip and read the number on it. She entered something into her computer and turned back to us with a welcoming smile. “I’d be happy to assist you today. May I see some ID?”
“Of course,” Bray said and reached for his wallet. I silently prayed she wasn’t going to ask me for ID too, because all I had was Lauren Thomas’s, and I doubted she was on any list. “This is my wife,” Bray said and nodded at me. “She’s been helping me take care of a few things in the wake of my uncle’s death.”
I was shocked at how smoothly the lie rolled off his tongue.
The teller seemed to buy it. For good measure, I gave her a sad smile with just my lips and then wove my arm through Bray’s and leaned against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Bray,” the teller said once she looked at his ID. Her name tag said JASMINE. “I can escort you back to the safe-deposit room when you are ready.”
“We are ready right now,” Bray said, and I squeezed his arm to stop him from sounding too eager.
“Sure,” Jasmine politely said. “I’ll meet you at the end of the aisle here.” She pointed to her left.
“He’syouruncle now?” I whispered to Bray once she was out of earshot.
“It was the safest bet with a different last name,” he muttered back. “And the lie worked for you, didn’t it?”
“Sure, to fool some neighborhood moms about why I was crying, not to break into a vault.”
“Well, it worked, so I’ll take it.”
“This way, please,” Jasmine said when we met her at the end of the bank of tellers. She opened a swinging gate to let us onto her side, and then led us to a door that required a keycard to access.
We passed into a sterile hallway with another keyed door at the end, and then into a room lined with hundreds of locked boxes. Each had a combination lock built into its face, made up of five numbered wheels.
Jasmine stood to the side and gestured for us to enter. She watched us with discerning eyes, as if seeing if we’d pass the final test of opening the box.
I silently prayed Bray knew the combination and wasn’t about to blow this. Sure, I could have broken into it with the right tools, but that was off the table if we were playing the roles of grieving nephew and spouse.
My heart thumped hard as I followed him to box 237.
“Two-thirty-seven, here we go,” he said out loud. “Just need to remember the right five digits,” he muttered, and I realized he was talking to Ramesh.
“Five, one, eight, one, six,” Ramesh read off.
