“What exactly are you doing?”
Faith paused the footage again. She pointed to the screen. “Look here.”
Amanda normally kept her reading glasses on a chain around her neck. Will guessed she’d left them in the car. She leaned forward, her nose almost touching the screen. “What am I looking at?”
“Here.” Faith pointed to the fish-eye mirror. “This is the only camera in the store, but you can see some of the front entrance in the fish-eye mirror. Watch the truck.”
Will leaned in, too. The footage was the kind you normally found in convenience stores. The equipment was old. The VCR tapes were reused. The average cell phone camera had a hundred times better resolution. Still, he could clearly make out a man crawling out of the back of the truck. He kept low, knees bent, back curved, as he shuffled away. Instead of going into the store, he headed toward the back.
Three robbers, not two. One in the truck. One in the store. One securing the exit.
Faith asked, “No known associates on either man?”
Amanda had her phone out. She dialed a number as she told Faith, “We’ve got data processing running their backgrounds. It could be an hour or more before the computers spit anything out.” She held up her finger for silence as she put the phone to her ear. It was answered on the first ring. She said, “Nick, we’ve got a third suspect, possibly on foot. He was hiding in the back of the truck. Close down the perimeter for five miles. Pull all recently reported stolen vehicles. I want door knocks on every house within a two-mile radius. Send me a tracking team and start a fingertip search of the woods behind the store.”
She nodded as Nick obviously relayed some new information to her.
Will looked down at his cuffed wrists. His back had been to the window when the guy jumped out of the truck, but he still felt bad for missing what was obviously an important clue. And that wasn’t all he’d missed.
Will asked, “Where’s the bag of money?”
Faith said, “Is that what you had?”
“What are you two talking about?” Amanda had finished her call. “What money?”
Faith fast-forwarded the tape, and Will saw his mad scramble down the aisle, the plastic bag full of cash gripped tightly in his hand. Faith paused the image. The bag was on the floor. They all turned in unison and looked at the same spot on the floor.
The money was gone.
“Well.” Amanda paused dramatically before continuing, “If only we had a way to know what happened to that bag.”
Faith took the hint. She fast-forwarded the tape. Will saw himself stand up again. This time, instead of walking backward, he was running forward to tackle Wayne Walker.
“There you go,” Faith said. The girl from the front counter had apparently not run out the back door to find help. She’d stuck around, waited for the right moment, then sneaked back in and grabbed the bag of cash.
Faith paused the tape. “This doesn’t make sense. The person who got out of the back of the truck looked like a man.”
“That’s because he was. Is.” Will explained, “That’s the girl behind the counter. She took the money on her way out.”
“No.” Faith shook her head. “We’ve got her outside. She’s a hundred years old if she’s a day.”
Will shook his head, too. “She’s twenty, tops.”
“How hard did you hit your head?” Faith indicated an old woman sitting in the back of a police cruiser. The door was open. Her long gray hair was disheveled. Her blue dress was faded from too many washings. Even from twenty feet away, it was obvious to Will that the woman’s face more closely resembled a dried apple core.
Amanda supplied, “She’s the mother-in-law of the store owner. He’s currently out of town on business. She can’t recall where he is, and the Lil’ Dixie Gas-n-Go corporate phone number rings at the store.” Amanda indicated the old woman with a wave of her hand. “Samantha Lewis, or Maw-Maw, as she likes to be called,