Projection (29 page)

“The clothes!” Michelle gasped, stricken.

“Exactly. But what he doesn’t know is that the anklet isn’t the key to projecting. It’s just a symbol. And he can’t possibly know about the words. It’s not in any of the research I did. Plotinus must not have written it in his diary because he was worried that it could fall into the wrong hands. He had to have taught them to Gemina, and she must have passed them down to her own daughter, and on and on. But spoken. Always spoken. It’s why Tina couldn’t find anything written about it in the Oculus Society archives.”

“But if he thinks that the anklet is the key, then he’ll have to wear it when he tries to project with Nick,” Gretchen said.

“So then we’ll have to catch him,” Ariel added. “We’ll have to catch him while he’s got it on.”

“He’s meeting Nick at the bank on Monday right after school. Nick thinks Rob wants to transfer some money into his account for him to hold onto until Rob gets settled in a new city,” Jessica explained. “But I think it’s just a ruse to get Nick alone.”

Michelle nodded. “He’s got a safe deposit box at the bank,” she offered. “It was in the file from the PI. I’ll bet you that’s where he’s keeping the anklet.” She tapped on her leg as she tried to think like Rob. “He’ll go to the bank early, to get the anklet out of the box, and then he’ll go back outside and wait for Nick.” She paused. “It would be a genius plan, actually, if the anklet really worked. God, you’d think if he was that smart, he would have been able to find himself a job in the last ten years.”

Jessica almost laughed. Ariel cracked a smile. But Gretchen’s face darkened, and Jessica swallowed. She reached out and placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“So how do we get the police there?” Gretchen asked. “It’s not like we can call them up and tell them our theory. They’ll think we’re insane.” She lowered her voice. “And I’m finished with people thinking I’m insane.”

Jessica looked at Michelle, waiting to see if she’d come up with the idea on her own. It wasn’t even a second before Michelle locked eyes with her. They both smiled.

“I know exactly how,” Michelle said.

At exactly 3:10
P.M.
Monday afternoon, Gretchen pulled up across the street from the Delphi Bank and Trust. None of the girls had said a word since bolting from school minutes earlier. Jessica snapped off her seatbelt and glanced at Gretchen, then Ariel. They nodded. The white van that Michelle had described was inconspicuously parked about half a block behind them. As they approached it on foot, the door to the van slid open and Michelle waved them inside, sliding it shut again behind them.

The inside of the van had been reconfigured. The back seats had been ripped out, and a long, wide shelf that functioned as a table had been connected to one wall. On it sat two small video screens and a large computer monitor.

Three men wearing black pants and black jackets, lettered on the back with the word POLICE, huddled around the screens. Michelle was also in black pants, but instead of a police jacket she had on a black windbreaker over a white shirt.

“This is Jack, Mitch, and Finn,” Michelle said, pointing at each of the officers. Jessica looked them over. Jack was an older guy with a neat, greying mustache and sharp blue eyes. The self-confident air about him told her instantly that he was the guy in charge. Mitch looked to be about Michelle’s age, and he could have been a movie star. He was tall with close-cropped dark hair and a chiseled jaw line covered with a few days’ worth of stubble. Finn was clearly the rookie. He didn’t look much older than they were, and he had the same goofy, dumb jock expression that she always wanted to wipe off of Nick and Connor’s faces. “This is my niece Jessica, and her friends Ariel and Gretchen. They’ve been briefed on protocol,” she assured them. “They won’t get in the way.”

Yeah, we’ve been briefed
, Jessica thought. Michelle’s instructions had been to say nothing and to touch nothing.
These guys are doing me a favor
, she’d told them.
They’re squeezing this in before the real bust they have to do on Monday night. So don’t screw it up
.

“Is he inside?” Jessica asked in a quiet voice.

“He got there at two forty-five on the dot,” Michelle answered. “Went right into the bank and asked to be taken to his safe deposit box.”

Gretchen’s mouth fell open. “How do you know? Do you have someone on the inside?”

Michelle smiled mischievously. “Mitch gave me a button with a pinhole camera in it. I replaced one of the buttons on Rob’s shirt collar with it last night. We can see everything he’s seeing.”

Jessica leaned in to look at the video monitor. “I don’t see anything but static.”

Jack leaned back in his chair and stroked his mustache
with two fingers. “Unfortunately, the safe deposit box room is underground, and it’s heavily insulated. We can’t get a signal from there. But as soon as he comes back to ground level we’ll pick him up again.”

Ariel sighed. “So we have no idea if he has the anklet.”

Mitch whirled around to look at Ariel. “What anklet?” he asked. He turned to Michelle. “I thought we were looking for money,” he said to her.

Ariel’s eyes got huge as she realized her mistake. Michelle had been very clear with them.
Don’t say anything about the murder or the anklet. All they think we’re doing is stopping Rob before he transfers his money to Nick
.

“We are,” Michelle said, gritting her teeth. But before she could go on, Jack was calling them back to the video screen.

“He’s back!” he hissed.

Jessica held her breath. In silence, she and the others watched the backside of a bank officer as he pushed open a metal door and held it open. The camera seemed to pass through the door, then past half a dozen people. It was disconcerting, watching it like this, a disembodied eye floating along. The exterior door to the bank pushed open, and there on the screen was the street, trees, some cars passing by. The camera stopped moving.

“He’s waiting,” said Mitch.

Finn had gone up to the driver’s seat. He peered through a pair of binoculars. “He’s still carrying the bag,” he informed them. “Whatever he took out of the box is in there. He didn’t come out with anything different.” Jessica climbed into the passenger seat next to him. She could make out a person standing on the corner, but from that distance she couldn’t see his face. Jack handed her the binoculars. “Here, take a look.”

She held them up and squinted through the holes. There was Rob, as sharp and crisp as if he were standing two inches in front of her. He was holding a small duffle bag—she’d seen him carry his things in it to the Club before—and he was wearing an open blue button-down with a white T-shirt underneath. Jessica quickly tilted the binoculars so she could see his feet. Grey Jack Purcells stuck out from the hem of his jeans. His ankles were concealed. She handed the binoculars back to Finn.

“Here comes our guy,” he announced a few moments later.

Sure enough, Jessica saw Nick rounding the corner, approaching the spot where Rob was standing. She went back to the other end of the van to watch him on the monitor.

Nick was about half a foot taller than Rob; when Rob looked up at him, the bottom half of Nick’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hey, man,” Nick said.

“Hey. Thanks for coming.”

Nick frowned. “Don’t pretend that I’m here because I want to be. This isn’t a favor.”

“Whatever, dude,” Rob answered. “I was trying to be friendly, but we can do it this way if that’s what you want.”

“Can we just get this over with?”

“Yeah, sure. Come on.” The camera began to move in the opposite direction from the bank.

“Where are you going?” Nick asked. “The door’s over here.”

The camera stopped. “We’re going in through the back,” Rob said. “I don’t want the security cameras to get us on video together. You know, just in case.”

Nick’s chin bobbed up and down. “All right.” He paused. “There’s a back door to the bank?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

“Yeah, just follow me.”

Jack jumped up from his seat at the table. “They’re on the move!” he shouted. “The transfer’s about to happen!”

Everyone looked at Michelle. “What do you want to do?” Mitch asked her. “We can go in now, but if the money’s not in the bag we don’t get him. Or we can watch, but then we run the risk of losing him if we move in too late.” He lowered his voice and looked intently at Michelle. “We can’t engage in a chase, because that would mean calling for backup. This isn’t an authorized operation. This is a favor.”

Michelle nodded. “I know.” She hesitated for a split second. “I’m going in. Myself.”

Mitch stepped forward to block her. “I don’t advise that.”

She sighed and pushed him out of the way. “He’s my husband. He’s not a gang member. I just want to confront him. If I need backup, I’ll signal for you. Okay?”

The three men looked at each other, talking it over silently with their eyes. They all nodded.

“All right,” Mitch agreed. He grinned. “But remember, you have to say it casually. Work it into the conversation. If you just shout it out he’ll know something’s up. Do you remember the signal word?”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “Thumbelina.”

The officers all burst out laughing. Jessica snickered as she tried to imagine Michelle casually working that word into a confrontation with Rob. She looked at Mitch again; he was still grinning at Michelle. “Don’t get in some big fight, though,” Mitch warned. “We don’t have time for a lover’s quarrel. We need to be in place for tonight in an hour.”

“Don’t worry,” Michelle answered. “You need to have love for there to be a lover’s quarrel.”

Jessica realized suddenly that Michelle and Mitch were flirting with each other. For a second, she wondered how
long that had been going on. But then she reminded herself that Rob was a murderer and that Michelle should be flirting with whomever she wanted. Without any further discussion, Michelle slid open the door to the van and jumped out. Mitch slid it shut again behind her.

“Your aunt’s a cool lady,” he said to Jessica.

“Yeah,” Jessica responded. “I know.”

The camera bobbed along
the alleyway behind the bank. Neither Nick nor Rob had said a word since they’d started walking, but as they approached the solid, steel door at the bank of the bank, Nick spoke up in a worried voice. “Um, I don’t think anyone’s getting in that way,” he said.

“Is this kid stupid, or what?” Mitch wondered aloud.

“He’s not stupid,” Ariel replied defensively. “He’s confused. Rob told him they were transferring the money inside the bank.”

Mitch turned around to look at her. “And you know that how?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Ariel admitted. “He told me.”

Jessica cleared her throat. “Now is probably not the best time to bring this up, but um … Ariel? You can probably do better than Nick for a boyfriend.”

“Hey,” Jack interrupted. “Look at this. What the hell is he doing?”

Jessica’s eyes flashed back to the screen. Nick’s back was pushed up against the wall, and Rob had reached out with his right hand and had grabbed the back of Nick’s head.

“Dude, what the hell?” Nick asked. He put his palm out and tried to push Rob away from him, but Rob grabbed it with his other hand and held it down by Nick’s side.

“This will only take a second,” Rob breathed. He pushed Nick’s head forward. The underside of Rob’s chin appeared on
the screen. Nick struggled to get free, turning his face from side to side as Rob moved closer. “Hold still!” Rob commanded.

“Is he trying to kiss him?” Finn asked, incredulous.

“Oh, my God,” Gretchen whispered.

“We should go in,” Jack said, standing up. “Where the hell is Michelle?”

On the screen, Rob had finally succeeded in getting his mouth on top of Nick’s, muffling his screams.

“Wait,” Mitch instructed, holding up one finger without taking his eyes off the screen.

“This kid’s getting molested,” Jack pleaded. “We have to go in.”

“Just give her ten more seconds,” Mitch insisted firmly. Jack looked at his watch, his eyes fixed on the second hand.

Rob exhaled loudly into Nick’s mouth. His fingers dug into the back of Nick’s head.

“Five seconds,” Jack warned.

Rob exhaled again.

“It’s not going to work, Rob,” came Michelle’s voice off screen.

Rob turned his head toward her voice, giving Nick the opportunity to shove him off of him. The camera jolted as Rob stumbled; he must have fallen to the ground because Michelle suddenly appeared to be hovering above the camera.

“Are you okay?” she asked Nick.

Nick spit three times and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Stay away from me!” he shouted at Rob. “Dude, you tell my coach about the parties, and I’ll tell everyone you’re a pedophile! How’s that for blackmail, asshole?”

Rob sputtered. “I’m not—I was just …”

“Nick, you should go,” Michelle told him. “I’ll deal with him.”

Suddenly, Rob’s right leg stretched out, filling up the screen. The duffle bag had fallen to the ground a few inches away, and he pointed his foot, looping the front of his sneaker though the handle of the bag and sliding it toward him. The hem of his jean rolled up. There, around his ankle, was a thin gold chain attached to an amber disc.

“There it is!” Jessica cried out, pointing at the anklet on the screen.

Gretchen started to cry quietly in the corner of the van.

Jack looked at the screen, then at Gretchen. “What is that?” he asked her.

She dabbed at her eyes with her index fingers. “It’s proof,” she answered. “Proof that he murdered my mother.”

Jack, Finn, and Mitch exchanged glances. “What’s going on here, girls?” Jack demanded.

“I’m getting the distinct feeling that we weren’t told the whole story,” Mitch said tersely.

But before they had a chance to exchange glances of their own, the camera bobbed again. “No!” Rob shouted to Nick. “Don’t you go anywhere!”

On the screen, they had a visual of Michelle’s waist and the right half of Nick’s torso, slightly behind her.