Since We Fell

She shook Manfred Thorp’s hand as he ushered her into the office. He shut the door behind her and she imagined the girl in the waiting room diving into her bag, grabbing her cell phone, and texting Ned or Lars: She’s in the bank.

Ned and Lars, if they were watching the parking lot from one of the cars under the great sugar maple, would now search the parking lot. They’d find Brian easily enough—lying on the backseat of a car under a tarp was hardly foolproof. One of them would open the door, place the muzzle of that silencer to his forehead, and—pop!—lather the backseat with his brain matter. Then all that would be left to do would be to wait for her to exit the bank.

No, no, Rachel. They’d need Brian alive to get the money wired back into their account. So they wouldn’t kill Brian.

But what did they need her for?

“Now how can I help you?”

Manfred was looking at her funny, waiting for her to speak.

“I need to access my safe deposit box.”

He opened a drawer. “Of course. Can I see your driver’s license, please?”

She opened her bag, fumbled inside for her wallet. She retrieved it. Opened it. Pulled out the fake license and handed it across the desk to him.

He didn’t look at it. He was too busy staring at her. She hadn’t been wrong about his eyes—they were, if not cruel, callous and entitled. He’d never formed an opinion about himself and his place in the world that wasn’t flattering.

“Have we met?” he said.

“I’m pretty sure,” she said. “My husband and I rented this box about six months ago.”

He tapped a few keys, looked at his computer screen. “It was five months ago.”

Like I said, she thought, about six months ago, dick.

“And you have all-access privileges.” Another click on the keyboard. “So if all’s in order, we can take you down there.” He held her license up to the screen—comparing signatures, she assumed—and his eyes narrowed. He sat back in his chair, pushed the chair an inch or two back on its wheels. He flicked his eyes at her and then back at the screen and then down at the license in his hand.

Her throat closed.

Followed by her nasal passages.

No oxygen coming in, no oxygen going out.

The office was unreasonably hot, as if it sat on a thin ledge of shale over the mouth of an active volcano.

He dropped her license to the floor.

He leaned sideways in his chair and picked it back up, tapped it off his knee. He reached for the phone and she thought of pulling the gun from her bag, pointing it across the desk at him, and telling him to take her to the fucking safe deposit box right fucking now.

She couldn’t imagine a world in which that scenario ended well.

“Nicole,” he said, the phone in his hand.

She heard herself say, “Uh-huh?”

“Nicole Rosovich.”

She realized she’d sucked her lower lip so deeply into her mouth it probably looked like she’d vacuumed up her chin in the process. She opened her mouth and looked across the desk at him, waiting.

He shrugged. “Cool name. It’s got a good hard sound to it.” He pressed a button on the phone. “You work out?”

She smiled. “Pilates.”

“It shows.” He said into the phone, “Bring the keys over to the office, Ash.” He hung up. He handed her license back to her. “Should be just a minute.”

The relief flooded her body like a broken fever until he reached into a drawer and said, “Just a quick signature.”

He slid a signature card across the desk to her.

“You still use these things?” she said lightly.

“As long as the old man is still with us.” He looked up at the ceiling. “And thank God he is, as I say every day.”

“Well, he built all this.”

“He didn’t build it. My grandfather did. He just . . .” His voice trailed off. “Whatever.” He unclipped a Montblanc from his shirt pocket and handed it across the desk to her. “If you’d do the honors.”

Thankfully she hadn’t returned her license to her wallet. It was on the desk by her elbow. She’d learned last night through two hours of practice that even when the signature was right side up—particularly when it was right side up—the only way to duplicate it was by seeing it as a shape. Last night, she’d also done best when she’d taken it all in with one quick glance and then plunged straight into duplicating it without pause. But that had been last night, at the kitchen table in Woonsocket, without any stakes.

I am enough.

She looked at the license, drank in the signature, and put the tip of the Montblanc to the signature card. She was halfway through the signature when the door flew open behind her.

She didn’t look back. She finished writing.

Ashley came around to Manfred’s side of the desk and handed him a key ring. She remained by his side and stared down at Rachel as if she knew her name wasn’t Nicole, as if she could see the clips that held her wig in place.

Manfred went through the key ring until he found the one he liked. He noticed Ashley beside him.

“Are you on break?”

“Sorry, Manny?”

“Thank you for the keys, but we have a bank to run.”

Ashley smiled at him in such a way that Rachel knew he’d pay for it later, and just like that Rachel knew they were fucking, which may or may not be news to the blank-faced wife in the pictures, but probably would be to the two hopeful, pudgy boys in the same photos. As Ashley left, Rachel decided Manny cheated on the wife because of her blankness, but he cheated on his sons because they were fat. And you don’t even know it, do you, you son of a bitch? Because you have no integrity. So vows—the ones you made in a church or the ones you should have made to yourself—mean nothing.

He didn’t even glance at the signature card before he came out from behind the desk. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

When they exited the office, the girl had left the waiting area. Had she been waiting on a boyfriend or girlfriend, perhaps? They’d agreed to meet here because her lover had some banking to do before they could pop over to the Chili’s across the road. She wasn’t in the bank any longer, at least not the parts Rachel could see. So that was it—boyfriend or girlfriend came to meet her and they were now ordering the Tequila Lime Chicken across the road.

Or scenario number two: She’d ID’d Rachel, texted Ned, Lars, or men like them, and now she was driving home with plausible deniability in her pocket should the police ever question her about the woman in the blond wig who’d been assassinated in the parking lot around 10:15 that morning.

Manny stopped before an eight-foot-high vault door. He stepped in close to a keypad and punched some numbers onto it. He took one step to his left and pressed his thumb to another pad. The vault door clicked open. He pulled it back. Now they faced a gate. He unlocked that with one of the keys on his ring and then led her into the vault.

They stood there, surrounded by safe deposit boxes, and she realized she’d never asked Brian for the number.

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