New Rules (Raising the Bar #2)

ONE TAMMY

ONE

TAMMY

Brains are awesome. I just wish everyone had one.

Years as a bartender made me realize that brains might not be standard equipment for all.

For example, the man in front of me. His name was Donald, and he was a regular here at the Watering Hole pub. He came in when he said or did something stupid and his wife kicked him out—which usually happened at least once a week.

“Tammy, hear me out, though,” Donald continued, slurring his words.

“Brenda’s always tired. Every day she’s tired.

When I told Brenda that a man needs more naked massages, she told me that if I wanted her help with that, then I had to help out around the house more so she wouldn’t be so tired after she gets home from work.

But…that’s dumb. House stuff is the woman’s job. You get that, Tammy.”

I stopped and stared at this man in front of me—a man who clearly had more confidence than common sense.

I had no idea why on earth he thought he was going to get me to agree on such an asinine subject and told him as much. “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong. And one of us needs to be the smart one here.”

His immediate need to argue made me realize I should have cut him off a few beers ago. “Yeah, but my dick ain’t gonna suck itself.”

“I miss who I was before I heard that,” I said, closing my eyes and wishing for a moment that I was something other than a bartender.

I’d met Brenda before, and I still had no idea why she hadn’t kicked him to the curb, but I knew other women who stayed with their man when they shouldn’t. It wasn’t my place to tell anyone what to do.

“Since Brenda isn’t here to defend herself, I feel the need to speak for her—and all women, for that matter—when I say you’re confusing your wife with a maid.”

“What’d you say?” he slurred again.

I rolled my eyes and groaned. “I said it’s time for a cab to take you home,” I told him and then walked over to close out his tab.

“But Brenda ain’t gonna let me in.”

“Then have the cab drop you off at a friend’s house, but you’re done here for the night.”

Because this happened often, I always took Donald’s credit card when he first came in so I could hold on to it until I closed out his tab. And to make sure I had something he needed in order to make sure he didn’t drive himself home.

“Keys,” I demanded, holding out my open hand.

He grunted and grumbled, but he handed them over. Once I had them, I handed him his credit card along with the check.

“Sign that and go get yourself a cab. I’ll see you in a couple days after you apologize to Brenda.”

“Not happenin’,” he mumbled, but he absolutely would.

Corey, my other bartender for the night, helped escort a whining Donald outside to get a cab. The look on his face when he returned told me that was not an easy task.

I wiped down the counter area and printed out a check for another customer before Corey finally spoke up.

“How that man is still married is beyond me,” he said.

“No clue either,” I told him, shaking my head. “I’ve met Brenda a few times, and she seems like a smart gal, but she’s clearly got rose-colored glasses on when it comes to him.”

“More like blind and dumb if you ask me,” Corey mumbled back and then elbowed me. “Why don’t you get out of here? We’ve got like four people left in the entire place. I think I can handle closing.”

I’d closed the last two nights, so I was fine with heading home a little early tonight. I was the manager, though, so I felt bad just walking out. But Corey was right. There was hardly anyone in here, so it made no sense for me to linger.

I stayed for another twenty minutes restocking, cleaning up, and making sure he didn’t have much to do when he finally closed the place down in two hours before I finally packed up.

“I’m headed out. See ya tomorrow.” I waved to Corey as I left.

“I’m off the next two days, but I’ll see ya around,” he hollered back, and I nodded, remembering he had swapped shifts with someone else earlier today.

I drove the quick five minutes home to my townhouse.

It wasn’t huge but it was mine. When I’d retired from the Army several years ago, I’d used my savings to buy this place, and it was the first big item that had ever truly belonged to me.

After years of moving around, having something permanent mattered, and this place felt like home the moment I moved in.

I had an end unit in a group of four townhomes.

It had red brick all around and a small deck off to the side.

Being on the end meant I could sit on my patio space and not see my neighbors.

What sold this place for me, though, was the fact that our complex backed right up to a national forest, so my end unit looked out onto a whole bunch of trees and serene privacy—with no potential for future building.

As soon as I walked in, my cat, Jasper, came up to greet me. He was a Maine Coon, and a big boy at just over twenty pounds, but he was a snuggler and loved to greet me at the door to remind me he was ready for cuddle time.

I set my purse down on the counter of my small entryway and scooped him up.

Carrying him through the kitchen, I grabbed some water and made my way back to my bedroom.

Usually after my shifts, I couldn’t just fall right asleep, so Jasper and I snuggled in bed while I watched some TV until I was tired enough to zonk out.

Unfortunately, even after finally dozing off, I had trouble staying asleep—mostly because my bladder was protesting. Plus, when I woke, Jasper was lying on my face.

I decided to just get up and go to the bathroom. Sleeping through the night without peeing at least once was a joy from long ago in my younger years, so I was used to it.

When I lay back down, I tapped my phone, curious if I had even gotten thirty minutes of sleep.

My phone showed it was just after three in the morning, but what really had my attention were all the alerts from the alarm company.

I opened to swipe through them, wondering if Corey had had a hard time with the security panel when he closed up two hours ago.

But as I moved through the app, the alerts kept coming—in real time.

What in the world?

Why was Corey still there this late?

Wondering what was going on, I went to open the app connected to all our security cameras and noticed they were all black. Not because it was dark out, but because there was no connection.

As I swiped through camera after camera, they all came up the same. All twelve cameras were black.

This wasn’t right.

I opened another app on my phone, the one that would show me the hidden camera I’d set up at the bar because I suspected Donald and a few others might be reaching over the counter to help themselves.

I flipped that open and saw a darkened bar, but at least it was still showing something.

With no lights it was hard to see, but the camera had night vision, so there was at least a bit of a green glow.

I scrolled back in time and watched the moments tick by, but just a few seconds later, a shadow moved across the left side of the screen. I swiped back and paused.

A figure.

A figure in all black. Barely visible in the dim light, but it was there.

Someone had just broken into the pub.

Two hours later, I stood in the parking lot of the Watering Hole, staring at the sign for the place that had become my home for the last several years.

The pub occupied the right side of a mixed-use building just outside Atlanta. On the left side was Ranger Shield Security.

Same building, two very different businesses.

Ranger Shield was a private security and investigations firm founded by Wade, Archer, Jack, and Vince. The pub had funded the early days of their security company, giving them a steady income while they built the firm from the ground up.

Wade now owned the entire building. His uncle had sold it to him roughly four years ago when he retired—along with the pub, which Wade and I co-managed.

I’d worked for Wade’s uncle and had been part of the package when he’d bought the place.

The first floor housed both businesses. Ranger Shield’s lobby sat beside the bar, where Ruthie, their administrative assistant and Jack’s wife, worked alongside Cat, the company’s web developer and Vince’s wife.

The second floor held the operations side—offices and whatever classified work those badasses did behind closed doors.

The third floor of the building was a home. Wade and his wife Ellie had converted two small apartments into one large three-bedroom unit for their growing family. It made sense. Wade could be close to both businesses and get upstairs to his wife and daughter within minutes.

The location of the pub and security business had always been strategic.

The building sat just down the road from Dobbington Air Reserve Base, headquarters of the 22nd Air Force and home to multiple reserve and National Guard units.

It meant a steady stream of military-trained personnel for future employees on the security side—exactly how they’d found Diego, Andre, Delia, and most other members of their team.

Plus, it meant a steady stream of customers for the pub.

Tonight, though, none of that mattered as I stared up at the sign that had given me a job—though it felt more like a home—after I retired from the Army.

With the exception of Jack and Ruthie—likely at home with their new baby—most of the Ranger Shield crew stood beside me in the parking lot.

A robbery.

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 had disarmed 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.