Far Gone by Laura Griffin Page A

back room, and Elizabeth sighed. This was going to be a long day. She’d been in Del Rio an hour already and had made virtually no progress. First, there had been a glitch with the security camera. Next, the traumatized teller had jumped up in the middle of the interview to rush into the bathroom and get sick. And then for an added challenge, the evidence response team had arrived late. They’d gone right to work, though. Both technicians were now crouched beside the bank’s glass doors, dusting for fingerprints.
    Elizabeth watched in surprise as a man ducked under the yellow tape and strode into the lobby.
    Jon North.
    She almost didn’t recognize him in the border-agent gear. But there was no mistaking his face as he peeled off his shades and looked around. His gaze found her, and he moved in like a guided missile.
    “How’d you get here?” she blurted.
    “CBP guys gave me a ride to Laughlin.”
    She blinked at him. Laughlin Air Force Base was just a few miles away, which meant his “ride” had been a helicopter.
    Of course. Because plenty of agents could just snap their fingers and conjure up a chopper on short notice.
    “What do we have?” he asked.
    “Well, it’s a pretty straightforward robbery. A low take, too. Frankly, I’m surprised you heard about it.”
    He glanced at his watch, and she noticed his bare ring finger. It wasn’t the first time. Jon North was single, smart, and impressively ripped. There wasn’t a woman in the San Antonio field office who hadn’t noticed him—Elizabeth probably more than most. She had an annoying weakness for alpha types.
    She cleared her throat. “So . . . did someone call you or . . . ?”
    “Jane called Jimmy Torres,” he said, as if that explained what he was doing here. “I assume since they sent you out that it’s connected to the one from November?”
    She was getting the picture now. Maybe. The three similar bank robberies had occurred back in the fall, right before North and Torres were sent out to West Texas on some undercover assignment. The case was pretty hush-hush, but she’d heard through the grapevine that they were reopening the investigation of a judge who had died under suspicious circumstances.
    Although what that had to do with this bank heist, she didn’t have a clue.
    But what did she know? She’d been on the job barely two years. She hadn’t had time to achieve rising-superstar status like Jon North had.
    He was staring at her now, waiting.
    “Looks like a connection to the other ones, yeah,” she said. “Maxwell wanted us to check it out. I’m waiting on the surveillance footage.”
    She motioned toward the back of the bank, where her colleague from San Antonio was trying to get access to the security video.
    “Based on what we’ve got so far, it seems like the same MO,” she said. “Man walks in during the early afternoon, totally nondescript, draws no attention to himself. He waits in line for a female teller, passes her a typed note, and then stands there quietly as she counts out a few thousand dollars and hands it over.”
    “Where’s the note?”
    “The evidence tech already packed it up, but I’ve got a copy.” She reached for the file she had spread out on someone’s desk.
    North read the note, which instructed the teller not to alert anyone, not to sound any alarms, but simply to hand over the specified amount of money. In all the cases, the tellers had complied, because that was what they’d been trained to do. Banks were insured. No sense in employees risking their safety over money that wasn’t even theirs.
    “Six thousand dollars.” North handed back the note. “Same as last time.”
    “I know.”
    “What about the video?”
    She led him into the back room and was relieved to see that her partner had managed to get something up on the computer screen. He glanced up when they walked in.
    “Security firm finally sent this over,” he said.
    She and North leaned in to get a view of the screen.