lot of work these days. I thought about consulting Land, but my chef was about to nod off on the bed.
“I remember being shot at, yes,” I said, “but answers are not going to come to someone who sits on a hospital bed waiting to be discharged for two stitches. I’m fine.”
Danvers looked at Land’s arm. “So I see.”
“So have you learned anything about the shootings?” Land asked, even though his eyes were closed. I had assumed that he’d dropped off to sleep, but apparently he was listening to the conversation.
“Not much. A few people at the restaurant next door gave us a description, but it boils down to blue sedan. The plates were covered with mud or paint or something, so we couldn’t get the plates either. So now it’s a matter of looking at some traffic cameras and seeing if we can locate them.”
I remembered Land’s words. Even finding the men would not fix this problem. The shooters would not sell out the person who had hired them to do this job. The person who wanted me dead would just look elsewhere for someone else do to the crime.
That didn’t get us any closer to the person behind all of this. It just meant that I had to be careful. I knew I’d start by varying my routines. Even so, there was only so much I could do. I still had to be at the food truck from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the window open and coming in contact with everyone who stood in front of me. I knew that I couldn’t shut down the truck either. I needed the money too much. Even if I had an extra $30,000 in the bank, I didn’t want to give in to those who would try to kill me. I was stubborn.
“So were you in security too?” I asked, the words spilling out of my mouth without thought. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress or the sedatives, but I was certainly open with my questioning today.
Danvers shot Land a look that was both pleading and pissed. I wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but obviously he had not wanted to share that information with me. Now he knew that the cat was out of the bag.
I waited for an answer, but nothing was forthcoming from him. The moments passed in silence.
“Yeah, that’s none of your business,” Danvers said finally. True, it wasn’t my business, but my curiosity was aroused since neither one of them were talkative about it. I envisioned them as James Bond types, who circled the globe fighting crime, except that they’d ended up in Capital City.
“Land thinks that the person behind this insulated himself from the crimes by hiring someone to shoot at us. Thoughts on that?” I said, sitting down on the edge of Land’s hospital bed.
“Land certainly talks a lot when he gets shot,” Danvers noted. “Yeah, this feels like a gang shooting except that there are no gangs in this part of town. It would be odd if they just drove half an hour out of their way to shoot up a bank branch.”
I remembered the money that had been deposited into my account and explained the situation to Danvers. He nodded. “The tellers brought that up. We had them check again, and the money is gone. It was definitely used to keep you standing in one spot, so you’d be an easy target.”
Even though I knew the money wasn’t mine, I felt robbed that someone had taken it all back. It had been a lure, a bait to get me in a place where they could shoot me. With access to electronic fund transfers, this definitely looked like something much larger than a gang drive-by gone wrong.
“We’re looking into the transfer to see if we can find where the money went, but if they were sophisticated enough to do this, then I’m sure they’ve managed a series of transfers to keep us guessing for months.”
Danvers asked a few more questions and left. Land was pretty out of it still, so I let him sleep for a while. The ER staff indicated that he could rest there unless they got swamped. Since I was still feeling a little fuzzy, I decided to walk it off rather than stay put. My mind was reeling, and I needed the
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