Detective Daniel Morley wrote the date on his deposit slip, then double-checked it against the large calendar the bank had posted on one of the columns near the customer service desk among the green pine trim and the red-and-white candy cane decorations. December 14. It had been one year since Bethany Walker had disappeared from his life. An entire year of searching and coming up empty. He was a detective—one of the best in the business, but he’d utterly failed to find her, despite his herculean efforts. She had been his fiancée but now, instead of celebrating their wedding anniversary, he was solemnly remembering the last time he’d seen her and the hurtful words he’d spoken during their argument right before she’d driven away. He should have gone after her. Now, he didn’t know if he’d ever even see her again, and the calendar before him was just one more reminder of how long she had been missing from his life.
People didn’t just disappear, and yet, Bethany seemed to have done just that. Her apartment lease had been paid in advance, but despite several evenings of surveillance, he had not seen a single person enter or leave. He’d even used his law enforcement credentials to complete a welfare check. Daniel and the landlord walked through the rooms together, but there was no sign of Bethany, or any clues as to her whereabouts. Her refrigerator was bare, and there were only a few staples left in the pantry. It was obvious that she wasn’t living there. But then where was she staying? And if she’d moved and left the Chattanooga area completely, why had she kept the lease? It was a mystery.
“Excuse me, can I please have one of those?” An older lady smiled at him as her voice brought him out of his reverie. She motioned toward the stack of deposit slips sitting in front of him, and he smiled back at her as he pushed them in her direction so they were within her reach.
“Of course. Here you go.”
The bullets from a semi-automatic machine gun slammed into the ceiling, quickly covering Daniel with dust and debris from the tiles overhead as the noise shattered the peaceful Friday morning. He instinctively crouched, taking the older woman with him and pushing her under the desk for safety. He pulled out his service 9 mm pistol, his eyes darting around the room as he assessed the situation.
“Everyone get down on the floor!” The voice was masculine and accentuated by more gunfire. Several of the customers screamed, and the fear in the room was palpable and made the air feel heavy and thick. A man in a black hoodie and jeans jumped up on the counter and started waving his rifle around. He let loose with another stream of bullets into the ceiling.
“Quiet, now! The next person who makes a noise dies!” he yelled.
The room was instantly silent, and all eyes were on the robber, awaiting his next command. The man’s face was covered by a mask that distorted his features, and he paced back and forth like a caged tiger. The mask gave away the fact that he was Caucasian and little else, and there was a grotesque smile on it that made his expression seem malevolent and evil.
The robber swung his gun toward a woman teller in a gray suit who already had tears streaming down her cheeks. She was trembling and seemed almost frozen in place. The color seemed to drain from her face once she realized the robber had focused his attention on her. “Get your hand away from the counter!” he yelled, as he fired a barrage of bullets over her head. “If you touch that silent alarm button, you’re dead.” She ducked and dropped to the floor, her body still shaking uncontrollably.
He turned back to the crowd in the lobby and immediately fired a burst toward the ceiling again. “Okay, everyone. You have five seconds to get down on the floor. Anybody still standing after five seconds will be shot. Understand? One, two...”
Daniel scanned the room. From his vantage point where he was still partially concealed by the table, he could see three other robbers. They were all wearing the same black hoodies and jeans. They even had the same masks with identical evil smiles, just like the one worn by their leader. One large muscular robber had positioned himself near the bank’s front door and had put a metal cable around the handles, effectively locking the doors and everyone inside the building while also keeping others out. This man was taller than the others and looked like he either worked out on a regular basis or, at a minimum, played a sport that kept him in excellent shape. He had disarmed the guard who had been stationed by the front door, and was motioning to him and two other men to join the rest of the hostages in the lobby of the bank.
The other two robbers were both skinnier than the man by the front door and younger, if Daniel was any judge of the way they held themselves. Maybe they were in their twenties? Their movements seemed reckless and exceedingly hyper, or they could have just been high on the adrenaline rush that came from shooting up a bank and scaring innocent people. Either way, it was obvious that they were extremely dangerous and volatile. One of the robbers approached the customers who were slower to obey, and he tossed his gun back and forth between his hands, yelling at them and forcing them into compliance. He seemed to