Page 7 of Resuscitation
Early the next morning,he and Connor waited in their stolen sedan, plated especially for the job. When the jewelry store owner, an elderly woman, opened up, they rushed in after her, fully masked, and slammed the door behind them.
“Down! Get on the ground!” Mercer barked, brandishing his pistol and pointing it squarely at the woman’s forehead. She froze in shock, her eyes darting between the gun and the two men.
“Please! I—I don’t want any trouble!” she stammered, her voice quaking with fear.
“No talking, just do what I say! Open the goddamn cabinets.” Mercer gestured with his gun.
Connor’s gaze darted from the woman to his brother, needing both hands to hold his pistol steady.
The woman’s hands moved slowly, shaking as she fumbled with the keys at her waist.
“Keep eyes on her,” Mercer ordered Connor. Mercer slipped his own pistol into his belt and pulled out the large sports bag. With a swift motion, he reached inside the open case and grabbed fistfuls of the jewelry, throwing it all into the bag.
“More! Keep going, open the others,” he urged her, his voice laced with threat.
The woman moved as fast as she could, unlocking cases. There was a momentary, tense silence punctuated only by rapid breaths and the sound of gold, stones, and other precious jewels clunking into the bag.
“That’ll do, right? Let’s get outta here.” Connor stepped forward from where he’d been keeping an eye on the door.
“In a sec. Where’s the good stuff?” Mercer demanded. “You got a safe back there?”
She dropped to her knees, making Mercer wonder if she had some kind of floor safe. Shit, no, she was reaching for something else.
“Stop! Shoot her, Connor!” Mercer shouted, fumbling his own gun free with one hand, unwilling to drop the bag with the jewelry.
But Connor froze. He shook his head as if he hadn’t understood Mercer’s words.
“Shoot the bitch!” Mercer screamed.
In one desperate, final act of defiance, the woman pressed her palm against the alarm button. A blaring blast erupted through the store.
Pistol finally in his grip, Mercer aimed at the back of her head, anger surging through him.
Connor stopped him. “Let’s go!”
Mercer bared his teeth, his face contorted. “Fuck!”
They turned, scrambled to open the door, and ran to the car.
Almost made it, too.
ChapterFour
Friday,February 13th, 8:04 P.M.
Steering with one hand,Blake used his other to stab at the ambulance’s radio controls for the fifth time. Only a crackling hiss came back in response.
“Dammit. I thought Wayne said this thing was fixed already,” he muttered. He slammed the console with his palm before giving up.
“Now he gets to blame it on your physical abuse of corporate equipment, and they’ll take it out of your paycheck,” Alyssa quipped.
Blake smiled despite his growing frustration. “All my check will buy ‘em is a toy walkie-talkie from the dollar store.”
“Let me.” She leaned forward, turned the radio off, then ever so gently, tapped it back on, giving the volume a slight nudge, re-setting the frequency just so, and then clicking the button. An energetic squawk filled the cab.
“Just needed a woman’s touch,” she said with a smirk. “And you know what that means? She who wields the power of the radio?—”
“No, please, no!” Blake said with mock terror.
