Jo nodded. “That would be a better fate than having those men after you.”
“Are you wearing a wire?”
She stood up, shaking her head. “No.” She lifted up her shirt so Sabrina could see that nothing was taped underneath, and then she emptied her pockets for good measure. “It’s just me.”
“Who are you?”
Jo sat back down. “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” She didn’t ask for a surname, and Jo didn’t offer it. Sabrina stared at her, and Jo went on. “I need to keep a low profile, but I can’t tell you why. What happened yesterday was more than a routine robbery, and I need to know about those men.”
“You’re scared of them, too.”
It took Jo a moment to answer. “Yes,” she finally said, still not willing to tell Sabrina why. “I have to know who they are, and one way or the other, I’m going to find out.”
Sabrina continued to hem and haw, her lips trembling. Jo thought she might even start crying. But the woman gathered herself together and seemed to make a decision, seemed to realize Jo was telling the truth. She didn’t have many options, and she chose the same one Jo would have in her position.
“A man approached me a couple of weeks ago, saying he wanted information about the bank. I was scared of him, because he knew about me and Brendan, and he knew about the debt. It was obvious he’d researched me thoroughly, and he’d been following me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I talked to him.”
Jo hadn’t seen anybody following Sabrina. If someone was still keeping tabs on her, they were good. Very good. Had they spotted her?
“Was he one of the three from the bank?” Jo asked.
She nodded. “I think it was the one with the foreign accent, although I can’t say for sure, because the men at the bank had those masks on.”
“Did he give you a name?”
She shook her head. “No. He contacted me, never the other way around. I don’t know how he had my phone number, but he did. I could give you his number, though. I memorized it.”
Jo shook her head. “It wouldn’t do any good. I’m sure it was a burner phone, and it’s probably been destroyed by now.”
Sabrina’s face fell a bit. “Anyway, we talked that one day, and he told me if I helped, they would pay me. He wanted to meet again. I tried to talk my way out of it, but he threatened me and said if I didn’t help, it would go bad for me, or for Brendan.” She snorted. “Part of me didn’t care about Brendan, but . . . I still wouldn’t want him to get hurt.” Tears leaped into her eyes. “The man also said they’d hurt my mother, or my younger brother. I was so scared, I did what he asked.”
“And then what?”
She kept glancing at the kitchen window as she talked. “He contacted me and arranged another meeting.”
“Where?”
“A parking garage in Arlington. No one was around.”
Jo had figured that would be the case. If the guy was good—and all signs pointed to that—there’d be no way to trace him.
“He showed me some pictures of my mom.” Her hands balled into fists. “He’d been following her. I didn’t know what he might do to her.”
Jo saw her predicament, but unfortunately, Sabrina had gotten into a worse situation. “What’d he want to know about the bank?” Jo asked.
“He had all kinds of questions about the layout and how things operated. He wanted to know about the safety deposit boxes, who had access to them, how all that worked. I didn’t want to tell him, but by then, I knew I was still being followed. They weren’t letting up.” She was speaking calmly, but fear filled her eyes. “I told him everything, and to show me he was living up to his end of the agreement—that’s how he phrased it—he gave me ten grand for the information I’d given him. We met a few more times, and I knew they were going to rob the bank when he told me that there’d be money at my house. He said to look on Monday when I got home, that it would be in the attic.”
She swallowed. “And it was. I was too scared to do anything with it. And they told me not to spend any of it right away.” She stared at Jo. “Where’s the money?”
“I left it,” Jo said. “I don’t want that coming back to me.”
Sabrina looked momentarily relieved. Then it seemed she realized she had much bigger problems, and she frowned. “Do you know who they are?”
“No,” Jo said. “How many safety deposit boxes are there?”
She shrugged. “At least a few hundred. I don’t know for sure.”
“What happened yesterday morning?”
Sabrina breathed heavily. “I was so scared. They told me that would be the day, but I didn’t know the exact time. I’ve been trying to act normal, but I don’t know if anyone believed me.” She looked at Jo. “You didn’t, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I had my suspicions.” Jo thought for a second. “You said they asked about some bank members?”
She nodded. “They wanted me to look up a few people who had safety deposit boxes.”
“Names?”
“David Lebow, and Jane Dinkle. And Trent Fontenot.”
Jo knew she’d heard that final surname, but she couldn’t place it in the moment. “What do you know about them?”
“They were just names to me. I looked them up, but it didn’t help me. Lebow is a businessman in town, and I never heard of Jane Dinkle. Fontenot is a journalist.”
Jo snapped her fingers, remembering where she’d heard about him. Fontenot had been the subject of a news piece on the TV at the bank the morning of the robbery.
She looked at Sabrina. “Trent Fontenot was murdered recently.”
“He was?” Sabrina’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
