He nodded. “Thursday, and I haven’t seen her since.”

Damek started pacing, cursing with each step. He said something in another language before addressing Kline again. “Man, you gotta believe me. It was all good. I had her scared. I don’t know what happened. You’re sure she went to the police, not that they questioned her at the bank, got her talking?”

Kline shook his head. “They talked to her that day, like they talked to everybody after the robbery. She went home, and from what I’ve gathered, nothing was unusual until Thursday morning, when she met with another woman. Then Sabrina went to the police and talked. I don’t know what she told them, though.”

“Nobody’s come to me or my men. They haven’t discovered us.”

“When you were planning things, you watched her, right? She didn’t talk to anybody else, didn’t go to the police then?”

“We tailed her, and no, she didn’t go to the police. When I met with her again, I asked her if she talked to them, and she denied it.”

“You believed her?” Kline asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Of course. We wouldn’t have worked with her if I was suspicious.”

“Any idea where she might’ve gone after she talked to them on Thursday?”

“You checked with her friends?”

“Yes.”

Kline’s people had already talked with the friends they knew about, and none of them had any idea where she was. His people were still working on that angle, and Kline was confident they would find Sabrina. He only wished it would happen faster. Kline drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Tell me what Sabrina was like during the robbery,” he said.

“I wasn’t paying that much attention to the people, but she acted scared, just like everyone else.”

“What happened with Rico?”

Damek grunted. “I told you before, he was trying to play the superhero, and my man hit him once. It was no big deal.”

“Any chance he and Sabrina talked, or that she told anyone else about her involvement with you?”

“No.” Damek scrunched up his face, thinking. Then he shook his head emphatically. “No way. She did a pretty good job of acting scared, but she wasn’t running her mouth. At least when I was around the hostages.”

“Who else did she interact with?” Kline asked.

Damek stared at the sky as if picturing the scene. “Nobody that I saw.”

“Was anyone else acting odd?”

“Nothing like that, but another woman tried to talk to one of my guys. She said he didn’t want to get anyone hurt, and my guy told her to shut up.”

“Did he describe her?”

Damek took a second, then said, “Longer hair, lighter-colored, like blond.”

“Tall or short? Fat or thin? Eye color?”

Damek snickered. “Hell, I don’t know what color her eyes were. I was too focused elsewhere. But she was thinner, and looked fit.” He thought some more. “She seemed calm throughout the robbery, though. One of my guys said she tried to help after he hit Rico, and he told her to shut up again.”

Kline thought about his description of the woman. Was this the same woman Sabrina’s neighbor had seen the morning she’d gone to the police? He couldn’t be sure, and he kept peppering Damek with questions, trying to get more information about the woman.

The man finally threw up his hands. “Man, I know you want me to tell you more, but I can’t. You know how a bank robbery goes. There’s a lot of running around, everything happening fast. We had to make sure we did everything right.”

Technically, Kline didn’t know how one went. He’d committed a lot of crimes, but a robbery and hostage-taking at a bank wasn’t among them. He got the gist of what Damek was saying, though. And he had paid the man more for his expertise in the robbery then for attention to every detail of the hostages.

“You’re sure you didn’t miss anything else at the bank? No one else acted suspiciously, as if they knew something they shouldn’t have, or that Sabrina was involved?”

Damek shook his head. “No, or I would’ve taken care of it. And I would’ve told you.” He again muttered in his native tongue. “I can’t believe Sabrina turned. She seemed the perfect mark, the best person to work with us.”

“You and your men need to be careful. You need to stay low. Now more than ever.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Damek said. “We weren’t doing anything anyway, and we certainly won’t now.” He grimaced. “What are you going to do about Sabrina?”

Kline thought about that. “I have to find her, and then I’m not sure.”

“If you want her gone, we can take care of it.”

Kline had already considered that. It would take quite a sum of money to get Damek to get rid of the bank employee, and it might be the best thing to do. Kline couldn’t afford to get directly involved in that murder. It would make sense to have Damek kill her, though. If he did, and the police ever came back to him, it would look as if he was eliminating someone who could tie him to the robbery.

Before that, though, Kline wanted to talk to Sabrina himself. There were some things he couldn’t trust to others, and he wanted to hear what she had to say. He would be thorough with her in a way that no one else would be.

But he had to find her first.

The two men stood in silence for a long while, and then Kline spoke.

“There’s nothing else you need to tell me?”

“No,” Damek said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, like I told you I would. You know me.”

Kline did. On the one hand, he hated having to drill the man as he’d just done. Then again, he hadn’t expected Sabrina to turn, either. That changed everything.

“Be careful,” Kline said.

He stepped away from the vehicle as Damek slid behind the wheel and headed down the road. When the car was just a speck on the horizon, Kline walked slowly to his rental and drove off in the other direction.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

When Lydia walked outside, her driver was standing by the back door of the SUV, the engine running. As she approached, Jo opened the door with a smile.

Lydia still felt on edge, and she knew she looked it. Upstairs, she’d touched up her makeup, but she couldn’t hide the paleness of her skin, the worry lines flaring from the corners of her eyes. Large sunglasses covered that now, but there was only so much she could do. She got into the back seat and waited for Jo to get behind the wheel. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Where to?” Jo asked politely.

Lydia had been thinking about that. She wanted to go someplace where no one would know her, where Kline and his people wouldn’t expect her to be. She glanced out the window to the house—she wanted to be far away from here.

“There’s a bar called Remington’s, in Irving.” She glanced at her phone and told Jo the address. “Go there.”