Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Two days later, Mary watched Rayne, Emily, and Casey come into the bank. She’d been trying to figure out how to approach Rayne, but she’d so far chickened out every time.
Not only that, but things with Truck had been weird.
He’d been different since their friends had found out she and Truck were married, but lately he seemed distant.
When he left for PT in the morning, he didn’t wake her up to tell her he was going, and he didn’t sit next to her on the couch at night either.
In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to distance himself from her altogether.
Mary was worried that she’d lost not only her friends, but it looked like Truck had finally had enough of her bitchiness and wishy-washiness and was getting ready to dump her too.
It didn’t help that he and the rest of the team were heading out of town this weekend for a mission.
She hated when he left. Every single time, she worried that he’d never come back.
That he’d be killed overseas. She knew he and the others were good at what they did, but something bad could always happen. Always.
Her life was out of control, and Mary wanted nothing more than to throw herself in Truck’s arms and beg him to love her forever, no matter what she did or said to fuck things up. She also wanted to prostrate herself in front of Rayne and beg her to forgive her.
Eyeing the women as they entered, Mary decided this was it. She needed to suck it up and ask Rayne if she’d come over so they could talk. It was time. Way past time. She’d never had a problem speaking her mind in the past; it was time she got back to that Mary.
She was on break and knew she had about fifteen minutes before her boss would give her the evil eye, indicating it was time for her to go back to work.
The bank was busy as lunchtime was nearing.
Taking a big breath, Mary walked up to Rayne and Emily.
They were standing off to the side waiting for Casey to finish her transaction.
“Hi,” Mary said uncertainly. She hated feeling this way.
“Hi,” Rayne responded without the usual friendliness in her tone.
“Mary,” Emily said, nodding at her.
“Do you have a second?” Mary asked Rayne.
Her best friend’s gaze shot to Emily, then to Casey, who had walked up to them, before meeting Mary’s. “Not really.”
“Please,” Mary whispered. “I have a lot of things I need to say, more than I can get through on my break, but I need to at least tell you how sorry I am.”
Mary could tell Rayne was struggling with her emotions just as she was. She wanted to put her arms around Rayne and hug her, but knew she’d be rebuffed…rightly so.
Looking around, Rayne said, “Is there somewhere we can go so we aren’t in the middle of the bank with everyone looking at us?”
Taking that as a good sign, Mary immediately nodded. “Yeah. The break room in the back. Typically it’s off-limits to anyone but employees, but I’ve seen my boss bring some of her friends back there. I know she won’t say anything.”
“Fine. Come on, Em. Casey,” Rayne said to the other women.
Mary nodded. She wasn’t surprised Rayne wanted the others there for moral support. She would’ve too. Too bad it would make it feel like it was three against one, but Mary supposed she’d made her bed, now she had to lie in it.
She led the way to the back room. They passed two vaults—the money vault, and the one with all the safety-deposit boxes.
The latter door was open. It stayed open during the day, except when a patron wanted to access their box.
Then they were accompanied inside by an employee and the door was shut, giving the patron privacy.
It had a thick rug on the floor and a table in the middle of the room.
Mary hated that vault. With all the safety-deposit boxes lined up, and the subdued lighting inside, it always reminded her of a morgue, but on a smaller scale.
The drawers were nowhere near big enough for a human, but she’d had a nightmare one night of opening one of the boxes and having a miniature body sit up.
Shuddering, Mary concentrated on the break room in front of her. The door was propped open and, once she was inside, she turned to face Rayne. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for not telling you that I’d married Truck. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“You think I’m mad about that?” Rayne asked incredulously. Her brows were drawn down and she was frowning.
“No,” Mary said, looking at the floor. “I know why you’re upset with me.”
As if she hadn’t spoken, Rayne continued, “I don’t give a shit that you went behind my back and got married.
Though I am pissed that you’re leading Truck on.
He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and deserves to be loved more than anyone.
I know you care about him, but for some reason you’re holding yourself back, and he doesn’t deserve that.
But, more than that, I’m pissed that the person I was closer to than anyone didn’t tell me her cancer had returned. ”
Mary wasn’t sure what to say. Her throat had closed up and she felt as if she was going to burst into tears any second. Having Rayne look at her as if she couldn’t stand to be in the same room was the most painful thing she’d ever experienced.
Even more painful than when she’d been sixteen years old and learned her mama had been telling the truth about men all along.
Even more painful than having Mama kick her out of the house the day she’d turned eighteen, even though she hadn’t graduated from high school yet.
Even more painful than the day she’d learned the cancer had returned.
“I don’t understand why you pushed me away,” Rayne continued. “Did I do something wrong? Say something? I know you’ve had problems trusting people, but I never in a million years would’ve thought that you didn’t trust me.”
“I trust you,” Mary said after a beat.
“No. You don’t. If you did, you would’ve told me the second you got that diagnosis.
You would’ve let me come over and hold your hand while we dealt with it.
You would’ve told me you couldn’t afford the treatments and we could’ve done some fundraising to pay for it.
Instead, you pushed me away and married Truck for his money.
Were you ever going to tell me about any of it?
Your marriage? The cancer? Or were you going to keep laughing it off when I told you I was waiting to marry Ghost until you sucked it up and admitted that you loved Truck as much as he loves you? ”
Mary opened her mouth to respond, to deny Rayne’s harsh words—but a weird noise from the lobby distracted her.
The other women didn’t even turn their heads, maybe because they weren’t as familiar with the everyday sounds of the bank.
Holding her hand up to the other women, she stuck her head out of the break room and looked over the heads of the tellers at the windows.
What she saw had Mary moving before she’d really even thought about it. She grabbed Rayne’s hand and gestured for Emily and Casey to follow her. “Don’t say a word!” she whispered urgently. “Follow me.”
Without waiting for them to respond, she tugged Rayne out the door and headed for the safety-deposit vault. The safest place for them was there. Even though Mary hated the room, it was absolutely impenetrable.
Not only that, but if the two men with guns in the lobby decided they wanted more money than what was in the tellers’ drawers, they’d ask to be let into the money vault, not the one with the safety-deposit boxes.
“Holy shit,” Rayne exclaimed softly as Mary pulled her inside. “Is this really happening?”
Without answering, Mary gestured for Emily and Casey to hurry and the second they cleared the door, she shut it as quietly as she could, even though she didn’t think the robbers could hear the door shutting over the sounds of the screams and crying now coming from the packed lobby.
Mary did what she’d been trained to do in a situation like this.
She secured the door, trying not to shiver when it felt like the lid to a coffin shutting, and went straight to the phone on the wall.
It was a separate line from the rest of the bank, for safety reasons.
No one would see the red light on the desk phones indicating someone was using it.
She dialed 9-1-1 and quickly explained the situation to the operator.
She didn’t have a lot of details, but told the lady where she was, who she was with, approximately how many customers there were in the lobby as far as she knew, how many robbers she saw, and how many bank employees there were.
The operator wanted her to stay on the line, but Mary hung up and immediately dialed another number.
Rayne, Emily, and Casey were murmuring behind her, but Mary ignored them for the time being. “Come on, come on,” she chanted as the phone rang in her ear.
“Hello?”
The sound of Truck’s voice immediately calmed her. “Truck, it’s Mary. I need you.”
“What’s wrong?” His voice was hard, but composed. It kept her from losing her shit.
“I’m at the bank and there’s a robbery in progress. Rayne, Emily, and Casey are with me, and I locked us in the safety-deposit vault. We can’t hear what’s going on out there, but the guys had guns.”
“Are you all right?”
At his question, Mary’s eyes filled with tears. How like Truck to worry about her first. “Yeah.”
“And the others?”
Mary turned to look at her friends. They were huddled together and looked completely terrified. “They’re good. We’re all good,” she told Truck, lying. She didn’t think he needed to know they were on the verge of freaking out.
“Okay. I’m on the way. The guys are all here…and I’m gonna bring another Delta team with me. We’ve got this. Hear me?”
“Yeah. I called 9-1-1.”
“Good. Mary…we got this,” Truck said again, more urgently. “All you gotta do is stay safe. Can they get in?”