Page 3 of New Rules
Not just any robbery, but a high-end, meticulously planned one.
The cameras had all gone down at the same time, giving no indication of who might’ve done it. He, she, or even they haddisarmed the alarm and reset it fluidly as if they’d done it a million times before.
Since most transactions were on credit or debit cards, we didn’t house that much cash. What we did have, we put in a sealed bag inside a locked drawer inside our locked office.
This person was able to get into the locked office and into the locked drawer and take the money in one clean sweep.
I didn’t know how easy it was to pick locks, but it didn’t seem easy to do all of this if you were just an idiot looking to score some easy cash.
“Has anyone been able to get a hold of Corey?” Vince asked.
“No, but on nights that he closes, he usually sleeps until nine or ten before he ever responds to any texts I’ve left him,” I told them.
I understood the urgency of why they wanted to talk to him since he had been the one to close up, but Corey didn’t strike me as the thief type. Though I’d been wrong when judging men before, so who knew whether I was right.
“If you give us his address, we can go over and talk to him,” one of the officers said to Wade. “We’d like to talk to him as soon as possible so we can try to get to whoever is responsible as quickly as we can.”
“You think someone might try to rob us again?” I asked. I’d never robbed a place before, but I didn’t think criminals came back to the same place frequently.
“Not likely, but they walked away with a pretty penny,” the officer replied. “If they thought they could do it again and not get caught, they might.”
While I had left before we officially closed, I knew our cash take-in was likely higher than usual since we’d had a big Army retirement party earlier that evening. Wade had grabbed our ledger from the office, where the closer put in the exact dollar amount for us to keep track.
“The number in the ledger showed forty-eight hundred dollars in that money bag,” Wade told the officer.
Because we couldn’t go to the bank on Sundays, Sunday night’s till contained both Saturday’s and Sunday’s cash, which was why the total was so high.
We’d used the night drop service at our bank for years, but recently there had been several reports of business owners being held at gunpoint while making deposits. After that, Wade and I had decided it was safer to lock the money in a small safe at the pub and wait until Monday to take it to the bank during regular hours.
“I can pick up a few more shifts at the bar and help close,” Axel offered.
Axel technically worked for Ranger Shield, but a few months ago, he’d started picking up some shifts at the bar to help with his English skills. He spoke fluently but struggled with phrases and colloquial terms, and chatting with customers helped with that.
“This didn’t happen when we were open, though, so why would we add more people during business hours?” I asked.
“It might be better to have some bouncers or security staff that walk the perimeter of the building at night for a few days just to keep an eye on things,” the officer added.
“I’ll do it,” Diego offered. “I’m the only one who’s not tied down with a ball and chain like you all are.”
“I’m available, too,” Andre added—calm, steady, like he’d already calculated the risk and decided it was worth it.
“We’ll add both of you,” Wade said. “You both good to swap to nights for the next week or so? We don’t need you both every night, so you can each pick two or three nights, and we’ll rotate.”
They both nodded and whipped out their phones to go over schedules for the next few nights.
After more questioning, I finally went home to shower and put better clothes on than the sweatpants and hoodie that I’d slapped on in a hurry to get to the pub.
I stood under the steamy spray for quite possibly the longest shower I’d ever taken. I had hoped the blazing hot water would have whisked away my problems as easily as it had taken away my top layer of skin, but alas, it did not.
I put on some clothes, fed Jasper and myself, and tried to relax for a little bit, but it was no use. My mind raced with thoughts of the bar the entire time. Then I switched to chores, hoping that would give my brain something else to focus on.
Nearly three hours later, I made my way back to the office for what felt like the Spanish Inquisition…part two.
TWO
TAMMY
The rest of Monday was a whirlwind. Wade and I spent most of the day in the small office of the pub, going over everything. Two detectives also came by to ask more questions.
