Page 39 of New Rules
Since Wade lived in this building, he’d come down immediately after hearing the sirens and seeing the cop cars in the parking lot. He’d wasted no time calling Vince and Archer and filling them in. Vince was the last to show up, only about five minutes ago, but the others knew most of what had transpired.
“You heard me give the story to the cops,” Tammy said, clearly tired and not wanting to repeat everything.
“I don’t think there’s a damn person in this room who thinks you two were napping in this room when the burglar came in,” Vince said, his brows raised and a grin on his face.
“Actually, we were,” Tammy said, exasperated, and then threw up her hands. “Fine, we had sex in the office and then fell asleep.”
The men in the room had all been looking at each other or at the floor at her first acknowledgement, but when she mentioned where we’d had sex, they all started scanning the room, tryingto figure out if they were seated in the same spot where those activities had taken place.
Wade was seated in the chair behind the desk and was now looking down at it as though it might be infected. Vince, who had been half sitting, half leaning against the desk, now slid off and took a step to the right and leaned against the opposite wall, clearly worried the desk might be contaminated.
Tammy and I were seated on the couch, so they had nothing to worry about in that regard, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. Served them right for being intrusive. They didn’t need those details in order to solve this case.
“Walk us through exactly what happened, every detail you can think of,” Archer said. He may be a private investigator now, but his history as a cop was coming through crystal clear.
Tammy and I took turns detailing everything from the time we’d fallen asleep until when the cops had gotten there.
“And you’re sure you didnotset the alarm before you fell asleep?” Vince asked.
“We weren’t planning to fall asleep, so I didn’t think to set it before,” Tammy acknowledged sheepishly. “The beeping we heard was because the back door had been left open.”
“If you pull up one of the new security cameras we installed, you’ll see the burglar enter, look at the alarm panel, and then begin to move around the kitchen before coming to the office,” I explained. “The would-be thief paused just a few steps away from the office. My guess is he or she noticed the light was still on, or—” I paused, turning my head to look at Tammy “—maybe they heard movement as we put on a few extra layers of clothing.”
Tammy said nothing, but the pink hue that flushed her cheeks gave away her inner thoughts.
“Whoever it was turned around quickly—too quickly, because they stumbled into some things in the kitchen area before darting out the back door,” I finished.
“All black clothes, mask, gloves, and no way to see his face,” Archer added, having seen the video himself.
“Am I the only one thinking this wasn’t a coincidence that both times happened on a Sunday night, when the money in the drawer would be the highest?” Wade asked.
“No, but the coincidence may not mean what you think it means,” I said.
Archer agreed, nodding from where he stood, leaning against the doorframe. “This neighborhood in general is quieter on Sunday nights, so it could be they think there’s less chance of being spotted. Could also be that Sundays are the most convenient night of the week for them—they don’t work, they have a ride, kids are at someone else’s house…”
“You think this person has kids?” Tammy asked.
“I just mean, in general, this could be the most convenient day of the week for them to pull this off, not necessarily because the money drop is higher,” Archer clarified. “We know that, but this person may or may not, so we can’t bank on that information just yet.”
“I think we need some more people here on shift at night, with no one closing by themselves until this person is caught,” Wade said to Tammy, and I agreed. “We may also want to consider doing the late-night bank drops again, this time taking Axel, Andre, or whoever’s available with you.”
“I’ll officially pull Axel off any cases he’s got, and he can just work full time at the bar for now,” Archer said.
“I can pick up some shifts like the old days too,” Wade offered. “Don’t worry, Tammy. This won’t affect the others’ hours. We’ll just shift to having one of us work with the others.Like you and Corey or Axel and Sam—something like that. But no one closes alone anymore.”
“Honestly, it’s okay,” Tammy said, nodding. “We’re still short a bartender, so it shouldn’t affect hours too much. This will be good for the servers and other staff, too. Some of the women have been nervous to go out to their cars at night, so if we’ve got extra people on hand, they can buddy up leaving at night.”
Everyone in the room nodded in agreement before finally heading out for the night to try to catch at least a little bit of sleep.
I had been kicking myself for being so close to catching the suspect tonight but missing my opportunity because I had to take extra seconds to get dressed.
My original plans were changing by the second, but I also knew I needed to let the adrenaline crash come and go before I made any rash decisions.
In the short amount of time I’d gotten to know Tammy, I knew this wasn’t going to be a simple mission. I also knew I needed to butter her up. So, I was going to take the knowledge I’d learned in the last week and use it to my advantage.
I just hope it worked on getting her to agree to my brand-new plan.
Later that morning,I decided to call in the big guns.
