“Their names never came up?”
He eyed her. “How could either one of them have been involved?”
“I don’t know, just asking.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “We all need to put this behind us, you know? The detective said the bank will be open tomorrow, and I already got a call from the bank district manager. He told me I could take a sick day if I want to.” His face darkened. “Man, I don’t know if I want to go back. I’ll never walk in there feeling the same way again.”
“That’s understandable,” Jo said.
They sat for a moment, the music loud, the conversations even louder. But Jo wasn’t bothered by that, and Rico didn’t seem to be either.
“Is there anything else that happened today that was unusual?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I told you everything. Will you talk to the police again?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you do, see if you can get them to believe me. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened this morning.”
Looking him over, Jo believed him. She’d been fooled by people before, but not often. Still, she tacked on, “If I find out you’re lying to me, the police will be the least of your worries.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin and pushed his plate away. “I’m telling you everything.”
She assessed him one last time, thanked him, and got up from the booth.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jo didn’t head toward the entrance. Instead, she looked around for the kitchen. Before anybody could object, she walked straight through that door like she belonged there.
Pots and pans banged around, and cooks and dishwashers hollered at each other, filling the room with competing noise. She received a few surprised looks as she hurried between two long metal tables. Spying a back exit, she headed outside before anybody said a word to her.
She jogged around the side of the building and peeked toward the front. Farther down the parking lot, the nondescript sedan was still there. A few minutes later, Rico emerged from the restaurant. He looked around, but in the fading light, he didn’t see the sedan or her. He rushed across the parking lot, and when he disappeared down the street, the sedan slowly followed. Jo waited until it vanished from view, then cut through the parking lot toward Rico’s apartment, hurrying through the alley as she’d done before. She reached his street just as he appeared, and she stayed in the shelter of the building across from his.
No one was around as he crossed to his building, went up the steps, and disappeared into his apartment. The sedan parked in a different place down the street this time, and once its headlights winked out, Jo ran around the block and approached her SUV from the opposite direction, using cars to shield her advance. She waited behind the Escape for a while to see if Rico would leave, and when he didn’t, she got behind the wheel, flipped a U-turn, and left.
She watched in the rearview mirror, but neither the sedan nor any other vehicle followed her.
Jo drove to a Walmart a mile away and parked. Pulling out her phone, she looked up Sabrina Padilla. It took only a moment to find the woman. She lived in a North Dallas neighborhood, mostly ranch-style houses on big lots, with alley access to garages. Jo spent a few more minutes taking in Sabrina’s online presence. She found a LinkedIn profile, which gave her some information. Sabrina had worked at National Bank for several years as a senior loan officer. Before that, she’d worked at another bank. She’d gone to the University of Texas and had received a degree in finance. Jo found a Facebook profile as well, but the settings were private, so she couldn’t see anything Sabrina had posted, just the profile picture. After a few more minutes of hunting, Jo gave up. She started the Escape and headed toward Sabrina’s house.
***
Thirty minutes later, Jo drove into the neighborhood. It was dark now, and quiet, with some vehicles in driveways or parked on the street, but nothing moving. Jo pulled to the curb down the block and studied Sabrina’s house. It was a quaint red-brick single story, set back from the road, with a covered porch and bushes lining the front of the house. The driveway was empty, no lights on in the house.
Jo wondered if Sabrina was still with the police. If they suspected her of being an inside person to the robbery, they could be holding her. However, Jo didn’t get the feeling that Holden believed her about the woman. Jo looked up and down the block but didn’t see any signs of surveillance personnel. After waiting a few more minutes, she got out, walked down the street, and cautiously headed up the walk to Sabrina’s door. She rang the bell and waited. It was now seven o’clock. Too early for her to be in bed, unless she’d come home exhausted and gone straight to sleep. Jo knocked, but still no answer.
The street remained empty, so she stepped off the porch and walked around the side of the house toward the back. There was a chain-link fence and a gate to the back yard. She saw no signs of people or dogs, so she let herself through.
The yard was spacious, with a detached garage at the end of the drive and a wood picnic table and benches sitting just off a small porch. Jo slipped along the back of the house and peeked through a window into a kitchen, dimly lit by a digital clock on a stove. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and she didn’t see any signs of Sabrina or anyone else. Jo quietly made her way around the other side of the house, hopping the chain-link fence and heading to the front. She hurried to the sidewalk just as a couple emerged from the house next door. They walked out toward the sidewalk, and Jo waved at them.
“Hey there.” She gestured over her shoulder. “Have you seen Sabrina?”
“I haven’t,” the woman said. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with long blond hair. Both wore wedding rings. She looked toward Sabrina’s house. “She ought to be home from work by now, unless she went out.”
“I was supposed to meet her,” Jo said.
“It’s Monday night, and she usually watches The Voice.”
“How do you know that?” her husband asked.
The woman laughed. “Sabrina and I talk.”
The man shrugged. “Yes, the two of you certainly do.”
“Maybe she got delayed. Sorry,” the woman said, giving Jo a sympathetic look.
“No problem,” Jo said.
The couple headed down the block, and Jo let some distance grow between them before she followed. Once they’d disappeared around the corner, Jo dashed to her car, then drove around the block and parked in a different place, from which she could still see Sabrina’s house. The evening was pleasant but cool, and she felt comfortable sitting in the car for a while.
Half an hour later, the couple returned from their walk and went back inside their house. Neither appeared to notice Jo. Thirty more minutes after that, a silver Lexus drove down the street. It turned into Sabrina’s driveway and pulled into the garage. Jo got out of the SUV and jogged down the street, and as she approached the house, light spilled from the living room. She hurried to the door and rang the bell. A moment later, a porch light went on and the door opened. Sabrina peered at her.
“Yes?”
Jo studied her through the screen door. She appeared stressed, her eyes narrowed, wrinkles flaring from the corners. Her lips were pursed, and there was a visible tension to her whole body.
“Sabrina?” Jo began.
Sabrina cracked open the screen door and peered at her. “What do you want? Do I—” Just as it had taken Rico a moment to recognize Jo, it was the same with Sabrina. Her jaw dropped, and she began to tremble. “What’re you doing here?” She looked into the street. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Jo replied.
Sabrina shook her head. “How do you know my last name?”
She dodged that one. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sabrina snapped. “I’m just . . . tired, and I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Did the police interview you?”
“Of course they did. They talked to everybody.”
Jo gestured toward the hallway behind her. “Could we talk for a minute?”
Sabrina shook her head. “That’s not a good idea. I already spoke with the police.”
She hazarded a guess—time to see what the woman would do. “You know more about the robbers.”
“What? That’s not true.”
