23 Minutes Read Online Free PDF Page B

can’t know how tall she is—“shorter than …”
    She cuts herself off. She was thinking that he was a bit shorter than the guy he ended up killing. She remembers how the thief’s arm was angled up to press against the young man’s throat, pinning him against the wall, the gun against his temple … She once again feels the spatter of the warm blood against her face and chest, and she can’t stop her free hand from reaching up to her hair, tofeel for the bits that have lodged themselves there.
    Zoe starts shaking and can’t talk anymore. She cuts off the connection halfway through something-or-other the 911 dispatcher is saying and holds the phone back out to the woman with the kids.
    â€œIs that true?” the boy demands, sounding like a district attorney cross-examining a hostile witness. Obviously, this child’s mother has let him watch way too much TV. “You came all the way here from Independence Street before you could find anybody to let you borrow their phone?”
    â€œSherman, hush,” the mother says, taking the phone. But she once again glances back in the direction of Independence.
    The phone rings. Well, actually, it plays the theme from the Indiana Jones movies. The woman sees the calling number and holds the phone out to Zoe.
    Zoe shakes her head and takes a step away.
    The woman’s face immediately grows red enough that she looks ready to burst. “You better not have used my phone to make a crank call,” she practically spits out.
    â€œI didn’t,” Zoe protests. “I saw him. He—”
    The boy interrupts. “And he let you leave during the actual robbery? Or did he take the gun out on the street for all the world to see and then walk into the bank?”
    â€œNo,” Zoe says. “I …” But her voice drifts off. How can she possibly answer? Telling people about playback has caused more problems than playback itself.
    The boy continues in his scornful tone: “And he didn’t even wear a mask to hide his face?”
    Zoe pictures it again: How the man shot out the cameras thatwould have left a record, as though not concerned about the human witnesses. The moment when Zoe had the realization that he was going to kill them all. When she would have played back, except he was holding onto her at the time.
    â€œNo,” Zoe tries to explain. “But he had a hoodie. And his collar up. And …”
    The obnoxious kid is sneering, unwilling to believe the most believable aspect of her story.
    â€œThere was a man with a gun,” Zoe repeats. “In Spencerport Savings and Loan. And I can’t simply dawdle”— dawdle was one of her mother’s words—“around here and chat with you.”
    She turns on her heel and steps back out into the rain, walking rapidly away from them, away—even more so—from Independence Street and the bank that is about to be held up.
    â€œHey!” the woman calls after her. “Hey!” The Indiana Jones theme, which had stopped briefly, starts again.
    Zoe begins running, despite the rain-slickness of the sidewalk.
    She turns down Franklin and makes another turn when she gets to Valencia. The woman can’t conceivably be chasing after her. The boy on his own might—probably would, in best cop show tradition—but not the mother. Definitely not the mother with the timid little girl in tow. Zoe just hopes they won’t talk the 911 people out of believing her call.
    She stops to readjust the folder, which is digging into her side, which is when she starts to hear sirens. Good , she thinks. Though surely the police wouldn’t approach a bank robbery with their sirens blaring, alerting the robber, would they? And yet the noise seems to be coming from behind her, in the general vicinity of the bank.
    None of your business , she reminds herself yet again.
    She has to have been in this story line at least seventeen,