Visitations (11 page)

The people ahead of her in the line moved forward. Rebecca was next. The bank’s doors opened, and a woman in her twenties walked over to stand behind Rebecca, removing her hat and blowing into her cupped palms.

Rebecca glanced back at her husband, confusion starting to turn to anger.

What the hell is this game? Why not come in, out of the cold and wait with me?

She gestured for him to come in and join her.

He lifted his right hand out of his pocket and touched the window, palm open. He waited a few seconds and then smacked the window.

Rebecca jumped. The woman behind her looked up.

“You okay?”

Rebecca looked at her and pointed at her husband. “That didn’t startle you? When he smacked the window?”

The young woman looked over at the bank’s window and then back at Rebecca.

“Who smacked the window? What are you talking about?”

Her stomach dropped. An eerie, almost theatrical feeling coursed through her, as if she was in a movie and none of this was real.

She looked out at her husband again.

His right hand came away from the glass and he beckoned for her to join him.
Come outside
, he motioned. After a few seconds, he waved his hand faster, now struggling to keep his head straight. He looked like he was having an epileptic seizure on the sidewalk.

Rebecca made the decision to step out of line and leave the bank. She placed the earmuffs back on her head, the gloves on her hands, and tightened the scarf. She had to put an end to this insanity. She could always come back in after talking to him. He couldn’t stand out there, waving like a madman. She didn’t want to acknowledge that the woman in line behind her couldn’t see him - that was not something she was ready to accept.

She hit the inner doors and started through them as two burly men entered. It struck her as odd because they were both wearing matching green long-sleeved turtlenecks with no coats.

One of the men knocked into her, causing Rebecca to stumble into the wall.

“Hey,” she said, recovering her balance.

She couldn’t believe people could be so rude. They ignored her, continued into the bank, and shut the doors. She heard the click as the thumb lock snapped in place.

Why would they lock the doors?

She headed for the outside with bigger questions on her mind. The cold hit her immediately. She hopped down the few steps, being mindful of any ice buildup, and spun around the edge of the building to face Mark.

The sidewalk was empty.

He was gone again.

Her eyes had been off him no more than five seconds. It was impossible, but he’d vanished. Again. It was not only ridiculous, it was getting stupid. Now she was pissed off.

The comment by the woman in the bank, suggesting that she hadn’t been able to see Mark at the window, came back to her.

She shook it off and moved to stand where her husband had stood not half a minute before.

Firecrackers started going off.

Then she heard screaming.

She slowly turned and looked through the bank window. What she saw, chilled her more than the icy cold that tried to permeate her clothing.

The two men who had bumped into her on their way in the bank were holding guns. She could see the woman who’d been standing in line behind her, crouched down on her knees on the cold tiled floor.

In that moment, one of the gunmen grabbed the woman’s hair and shouted something. Rebecca could hear the woman scream. The man placed a weapon to the edge of the woman’s head. It looked like the other gunman was trying to convince the teller to do something.

Then the gun exploded in the gunman’s hand. The woman’s hair puffed up on the opposite side of her head, her eyes opening wide, then slowly shutting, as she slumped down and crumpled to the floor.

Without realizing she was doing it, or the danger involved, Rebecca began screaming. The gunman turned and looked at her. He swiveled his gun in her direction.

Rebecca turned, and made to run, but slipped on the snow and fell. The second she made contact with the snow-covered sidewalk, the glass above her shattered as two bullets broke through it. It amazed her that she had the clarity of mind to even count the two pops from the weapon.

With everything she had, Rebecca crawled. She cleared the base of the window, got to her feet and ran three steps to the edge of the building, where she turned behind the brick wall, and dove for the snow bank the plow had left behind after cleaning the parking lot.

No other bullets followed her.

Fearful that they would give chase, Rebecca got up, headed for the alleyway behind the bank, and hopped a fence to disappear down the street on another block.

A police siren wailed in the distance.

When her cell phone rang, she jumped and almost slipped again. Why didn’t she think to call the police herself?

Panicking, she reached into her pocket for her cell phone.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded hesitant, broken.

“My name is Doctor Manning. I’m on staff at Liberty Memorial. I would like to speak with Rebecca Saffren please.”

“This is, I mean, I’m Rebecca.”

The cold had come back in. Her body performed an all-body shiver that worked on her voice.

“I’m sorry to tell you this over the phone, but your husband has been in an accident.”

“What? Is he, all right?” Then another thought occurred to her. “He’s not dead, is he?” She slowed down, turned a corner and continued walking at a quick pace, her joints stiffening as she went. Her left knee had taken most of the fall in front of the bank. In the cold, it ached enough to make her limp.
 

“Oh no, he’s not dead. We wouldn’t tell you something like that over the phone, Mrs. Saffren. He came in four hours ago. He was in a car accident this morning. Your husband’s a lucky man. His injuries aren’t that bad considering what happened to the car. His right arm is broken and he suffered a good sized hit on the head. He’s been unconscious since we brought him in. It was only two minutes ago that he woke up and told us that he wanted to speak to you. He supplied your cell number since it wasn’t with his identification. He’s asking if you could come to the hospital. It’s strange though.”

She stopped and leaned against the building beside her, trying to catch her breath, shivering more than she thought was possible. “Wh, what’s, str… strange?”

“He said he needs to know if you made it out of the bank yet. I’m not sure what that means.”

Rebecca could hear that the sirens in the distance were much closer.

She told the doctor she was on her way and snapped her phone shut.

As fast as the conditions allowed, she rushed to her car, convinced Mark had saved her life somehow. She still couldn’t account for how she’d seen him in the street if he’d been in the hospital all morning, but deep down inside she knew he had come for her.

Somehow
, he showed up.

It was her turn to show up for him.

#

Parking at the hospital proved easy to find. She had found the drive over to be calming. There was a moment on the way that she thought she’d have to pull over to throw up, but didn’t. She’d never seen anyone killed before.

Rebecca entered the hospital by the emergency doors, and - after asking for her husband - was given directions.

Five minutes of meandering through the labyrinthine halls of the medical building brought her to a ward where she found Mark sitting up in bed behind a curtained off area.

The moment she saw him, she took in his injuries, and the cast on his broken arm. “Oh, Mark,” she walked over, leaned up close, and kissed his forehead. “What happened?”

He blinked and looked up at her, his eyes watering. “I had this dream. I saw you. In the bank. You were going to be killed. I felt it. I wanted you out of that bank so bad that I bet everything I owned on convincing you to join me on my side of the window where you’d be safe. Does any of that make sense?”

Rebecca wiped at the tears that started running down her face. All the calm she had gathered on the way to the hospital was lost.

She realized that she hadn’t taken her gloves off yet. She removed them, loosened her scarf and yanked her earmuffs off backwards so they could rest on the back of her neck.

A commotion was taking place two beds down but neither one of them could see what was happening as the curtains blocked them.

“I saw the whole thing. It was horrible,” she said.

“What did you see?” Mark asked as he used his good hand to wipe her face.

“These men walked in and…” Rebecca broke down. Since seeing Mark in the street, and then being shot at, her nerves were frayed. Now safe in his arms, she fell apart.

He held her as best he could with his one unbroken arm.

“It’s okay, let it out. You’re safe now. You’re with me. It’s okay.”

More noise interrupted them from the bed to Mark’s right. The curtain was bumped a few times as the doctors attempted to work on what sounded like an unruly patient.

Rebecca opened her purse and pulled out a Kleenex. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. After taking a deep, calming breath, she started talking again.

She told him about seeing him in the street and how she had followed. Then in the bank, and how strange it was that the woman beside her couldn’t see him at the bank’s window. She had to pause at the part where the woman was shot in front of her and how that would’ve been her if she had remained in the bank.

Mark could tell there was more, so he prompted her.

Rebecca looked him in the eye when she said they shot at her, and how she fell by accident, which probably saved her life. Moments after getting away from the area, her phone had rung. It was the hospital.

“That’s it,” she said.

“I don’t know what happened or why it happened. Everything you describe, I saw in my head. I didn’t know I was here until I woke up and asked them to call you. I needed to know if you made it out in time.”

“I did, Mark, I did.”

The commotion next door grew in intensity. A man yelled at the doctor to get out of his face.

“Move aside!” Rebecca heard the man shout. She looked at Mark and then at the curtain separating their small areas.

Fingers wrapped around the edge of the curtain.

Before she knew what was happening, the curtain was yanked back violently and she was looking into the face of the bank robber who’d shot the woman in line.

He took them in and smiled at Rebecca.

“Your cell phone rang, did it?” he asked, almost breathing the words out through his teeth.

Rebecca gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth.

He lifted his head off his pillow and made to stand, but stopped halfway. The pain was evident on his face.

“I was trying to do my banking,” he continued. “I’m an innocent bystander. I was shot in the leg. Although,” he looked around, and comfortable that no one could hear him, continued. “You are the only person who could fuck with my story. So now, we have a problem. What are you going to do? What am
I
going to do?”

He smiled, even though Rebecca could see the pain caused him great discomfort.

Mark looked up at Rebecca and then back at the wounded bank robber.

“She’s going to tell the police what she saw and you will spend a considerable time in prison thinking about…”

Rebecca cut him off. “Mark, no. I think we’re in a unique position to help this man. By doing so, we can help each other.”

He turned so fast to look at her, he grunted. “Shit, that hurt. What are you talking about?”

“Trust me,” Rebecca said, not taking her eyes off the robber.

He smiled from his bed and leaned his head back down, never taking his eyes off her. “I’m happy you can see things my way.”

“What are you doing?” Mark asked.

She let go of her husband and started around his bed. For a brief second she vanished past the curtain and appeared again on the bank robber’s side.

“Tell us what to do. We don’t want trouble.”

“That’s what I was banking on. Ha, get it?” He paused to look between them. His voice lowered, he said, “Forget it. Look, I won’t threaten to kill you, or say that I can use your chart to get your name and find you and then kill you. I won’t go into how easy it would be to silence this little problem I now find myself having. No, I won’t do that. I want to be polite. I would like to ask that you give your word that you won’t say or do anything to harm me, and I won’t harm you. We go our separate ways. All’s good that ends good.”

“It’s ‘well’.”