High Risk by G.K. Parks (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

around to the back of the truck and opened the rear door. After that, we couldn’t see what was happening. The camera angle didn’t allow us to see inside the truck, but they must have been prepping the interior for the pickup. That was the only thing that would explain the delay.

“Johnson, switch to the store’s exterior feed. Same timestamp,” Winston said. While the LockBox crew was occupied, two similarly dressed men entered the pot shop. “Freeze it there.”

I narrowed my eyes at the grainy feed. “Son of a bitch.”

“We’re attempting to run them through facial rec, but that’ll probably be a bust.”

“Those guys don’t work for LockBox,” I said.

Winston rolled his eyes. “You think?”

“What about the interior footage?” Fennel asked. “That shop had cameras coming out the wazoo. Did any of them catch anything?”

Winston crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the table while the tech cycled through the various feeds. “Nothing but the bills of their caps and some chin.”

“Their uniforms don’t fit.” Just like our eyewitness had told us. I thought about the shop owner, but I’d been notified ten minutes ago that he didn’t make it. “What about after they left the shop?”

The tech switched the feed again. “They’re on their way out, but the shop owner stops them.”

“He probably realized something was off about them,” Fennel said.

“Yeah, so they killed him.” Winston turned away while the one on the right struck the owner in the throat with a baton. Blood splashed against the bottom of the door, just like you’d see in a Tarantino film, except this violence was real. I grimaced.

“That’s probably the weapon used to knock Rook unconscious.” Fennel tightened his jaw but kept his eyes glued to the screen. “Do we have footage of the firefight?”

“Nope.” Winston spun to face the conference table. A sketch had been made to scale of the area with points of interest marked. “Forensics determined this is where the bulk of the action happened. It’s in a blind spot. It’s out of range of the shop and the traffic cams. No other cameras in the vicinity caught it. We aren’t sure how Lindsey Rook managed to get himself taken or how he became another victim, but LockBox has turned over their recordings from inside their truck. Unfortunately, right before this massacre happened, the footage turns to static.”

“Jammer,” Fennel said.

“Or inside job.” Winston shrugged. “Guess that’s up to you two to decide. But I want this mess put to bed quickly and quietly. Shutting down a subway station at lunchtime on a Saturday isn’t something my detectives should be doing. Understood?”

“But, sir, the shooters were right there,” I protested. And they’d basically used the same play they had at the cleaner’s, except this time four men were killed.

“Then why didn’t you arrest them?” Winston asked.

“They got away,” Fennel said.

Winston kept his gaze on me. “How? You stopped the trains. Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. I only saw one. He might have escaped into the tunnel when the train stopped,” I said.

“And the other?” Winston asked. He pointed at the image still on the screen. “I count two, and so did the 9-1-1 caller and the eyewitness you questioned.”

“We only encountered one shooter,” Fennel said. “They split up before we arrived.”

“I don’t give a shit what they did. You just have to find them and arrest them.” He jerked his chin at the door. “Get to it.”

“Yes, sir,” Fennel said before I could open my mouth. I glared at the lieutenant, but he was right. This was our case, and if we’d handled it better yesterday, five people might still be alive today. The thought sickened me as we returned to our desks.

You can’t think like that, Olive, my dad’s voice said. All you can do is your job. The rest is up to them. Shitheads will always find a way, no matter what you do. Leave that behind. It won’t help you.

“Liv,” Fennel nudged me, “you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m just thinking about something my dad used to say.” I slammed my palm on the desk. “I wish I’d realized it sooner. The uniforms. The dry cleaner’s. They must have had this planned all along. If only I’d figured it out, connected the dots.”

“Go easy on yourself. We didn’t have anything to go on.” He straightened the papers on his desk and reached across to organize the stack at the edge of mine. “But now we do.”

“We do?”

He offered a wan smile. “Yeah.” He grabbed the legal pad he’d been using and flipped to a clean page. “The target couldn’t have been the couple dozen grand they got from the dispensary. The target was the hundred million that should have been in the back of the truck. They wouldn’t have gone to that kind of trouble to steal uniforms and time everything so perfectly if they just wanted to rob one place.”

“Yeah, but how would that have worked?”

“It’s elementary, my dear. They probably didn’t count on the delay or the shop owner stopping them. I’m guessing they would have left the shop, found someplace to take cover, waited for LockBox’s actual guards to go inside, and then they would have approached the truck. The driver would have seen the uniforms and carts and opened the doors, and once inside, they would have convinced him to take them to a predetermined location or killed him and driven the truck themselves.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of speculating.”

“It’s what I’d do. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

I bit my lip. “It’s a good plan, except none of it worked out, including the timing. And we still don’t know where they went after they abducted Rook and before we caught up to them in the train station.”

Fennel grabbed a map and marked the