Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (12 page)

Laura let out an incredulous giggle as he pinched up a fold of her pajamas and pretended to pin a medal over her chest.

“There you go,” he said. “Don’t lose it. God only knows where mine are now.”

She sniffled, but her tears had stopped. “Okay. Here’s the truth. Dad isn’t an actor. He’s a con man.”

Roy wasn’t shocked, but he was surprised: a little bit at George’s secret, but more because he couldn’t imagine why Laura would think it would make him hate her. “I’d never hold stuff anyone’s parents did against them. What sort of jerk do you think I am?”

“And also I used to help him out,” Laura confessed, lowering her gaze. “When I was a teenager.”

“I did a lot of stupid things when I was a teenager, too,” Roy said. “And I was probably more to blame, considering that you had a bad role model and I had a good one.”

“What did
you
do?”

“I drank a lot, I got in fights, I borrowed Mom’s car without asking and totaled it, I ran around with this half-assed street gang.” He had to laugh at Laura’s astonished expression. “Come on, did you think I was a boy scout? A big part of why my mom supported me joining the Marines was that she hoped it would straighten me out.”

“Well, it obviously worked.” A dark flush stained Laura’s cheeks. “Now you’re Captain America. Aren’t you going to judge me?”

“Nah. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Lots of my friends did worse.”

Laura sat there biting her lip, looking exactly as miserable as she had when she started. She’d worried that he’d judge her, he hadn’t judged her, and yet…

“What are you not telling me?” Roy inquired.

“You’re going to hate me,” she said again. “I—I kind of want to extend the moment while you don’t hate me yet, even though now that you know it’s coming, you already probably… pre-hate me.”

“Laura, this is nuts. Just tell me. It can’t possibly be as bad you think.”

“Okay, fine!” Her voice rose, but Roy thought her anger was directed more at herself than at him. “I’m a con artist. It’s true that I helped Dad when I was a teenager, but then I went on to my own
life of crime
.”

Laura spat out the last phrase with bitter sarcasm, then sat back and watched Roy, obviously expecting him to be shocked and horrified.

He’d have been shocked, maybe, if she’d dropped it on him with no build-up and no context. But in his neighborhood, the boys whose parents were cops and firefighters often grew up to do something along those lines, and the boys whose parents were car thieves and drug dealers tended to follow in those tracks as well. Roy didn’t have much in common with his boyhood friends any more, but he’d hardly refuse to have a beer with the old gang just because some of them had graduated to real gangs.

“Exactly what sort of crimes are we talking about?” Roy asked. “Cheating widows and orphans out of their life savings?”

“No, of course not!” Laura’s horror was clearly sincere. “I’ve never in my life taken money off anyone who couldn’t afford to lose it, and neither has Dad. The cons I run only work if the person being conned thinks they’re ripping
me
off. I don’t cheat widows and orphans, I cheat wealthy assholes who legally cheat widows and orphans.”

“‘Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen,’” quoted Roy.

He was trying not to smile, since it was such a big deal to her, but all he felt was relief that her not-so-dark secret wasn’t anything terrible after all.

“What’s that?” Laura said.

“It’s from an old folk song my mom used to sing, ‘Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.’ He robbed rich bankers who were foreclosing on poor people, and gave the money back to the starving farmers. Do you donate any of your life of crime money to the widows and orphans?”

“You’re laughing at me,” Laura accused him, but she didn’t sound angry.

“Well, do you?”

Sounding a little embarrassed, Laura said, “Not widows and orphans specifically. I funnel some of it into homeless shelters and battered women’s shelters and no-kill animal rescue places.”

“That’s sweet.”

“You
are
laughing.”

“No, I swear!” Roy protested. “Well—okay, I am a little. You built it up so much, I thought you were going to say you had the corpses of fifty male hitchhikers rotting under the floorboards.”

Laura made a face. “Ew. Anyway, I’ve gone straight. I got lonely, I guess. I wanted to tell people my real name, and what I really do for a living. I’ve spent the last year as a perfectly respectable bank teller. Dad thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

Roy spread his hands. “Well, then. It’s all behind you now.”

“But I lied to you.”

“You had your reasons. I don’t hold it against DJ that he never told me he was a werewolf.”

“You’re so… so… reasonable!” Laura burst out, sounding almost irritated. “Why aren’t you outraged?”

“Because it’s not that outrageous?” Roy suggested. “I told you, I’m hard to shock. Are people usually more judgmental?”

Laura shot him an incredulous glance. “There is no usually. I’ve never told anyone.”

That surprised Roy more than anything she’d said so far. He had his own stories and secrets that he’d only ever shared with one or two people: DJ, a girlfriend, the chaplain, his mother. But he couldn’t imagine keeping virtually his entire life a secret from everyone.

“Literally, no one?” Roy was sure there had to be some exception. “Not even a serious boyfriend? What about your best friend?”

Laura’s gaze fell away. “No boyfriend’s ever been
that
serious, and I don’t have best friends. Dad knows, of course. But he already knew. You’re the only person I’ve ever told this to.”

Roy was stunned. “I’m honored. What made you pick me?”

“I’m tired of lying,” Laura sounded weary to the bone, like she’d been in combat for months on end. “I wanted to try trusting someone, for once. You seem trustworthy. Honest and upright and all that. Though that probably means you’ll decide I’m a terrible person after all.”

“No, I won’t,” Roy said firmly. “You have got to get that Captain America crap out of your head. Don’t put me on a pedestal. I’m a human being with flaws, just like you. I’ve done things I regret, and I’ve done things I’m ashamed of, and I’ve seen other people do things you can’t even imagine. So you’ve committed some not-that-terrible crimes. At least you never killed anyone.”

The silence that fell was heavy as an iron bar across his chest. Laura’s scent went from lemons to acid, burning the back of his throat. Now he realized something that had been nagging at the back of his mind ever since she’d confessed: no one has screaming nightmares over non-violent property crimes.

The obvious question stuck in Roy’s throat. Her silence was already an answer; all he was missing were the details.

He thought again of his blood soaking into the sand, and the distant impact of DJ’s hand. DJ had saved his life, but the price had been the end of Roy’s career—the end of his entire life as it had been before. From the pain in Laura’s face, she might as well have been bleeding to death. Roy had torn open her wounds, and there was no going back from there.

“Still so sure that you’re not going to hate me?” Laura asked bitterly.

The only thing Roy could give her was honesty. “I can’t know what I’m going to think until you tell me what happened. But I’ve killed people too. You want to know the
real
military secret? ‘Enemy’ doesn’t always mean ‘bad guy.’ Sometimes it means, ‘that guy on the other side who’s doing his job, like I’m doing my job.’ Does that make you hate me?”

“No. That’s different.” But Laura’s gaze flickered toward the pillow, where he’d stashed the pistol.

“Anyway, whatever you did…” Roy tapped his own chest, where he had pinned the imaginary medal on Laura’s. “You’ve still got your medal for courage under fire.”

What she said was the last thing he expected: “I already have a real one.”

Chapter Nine: Laura

Laura’s Story: The Choice

The whole week had been stormy and cold, and it was raining again that day. Traffic is always terrible in LA when the weather’s bad. It doesn’t rain enough for people to get used to it, and everyone always seems shocked and appalled when it’s wet out. The cars were all crawling along the freeway, like they were scared they’d skid if they went over five miles per hour.

Everyone who came into the bank had umbrellas or raincoats or heavy coats, so I didn’t take any special notice of two men in trench coats. I’m sure that’s why they picked that day to rob the place.

I wasn’t even looking at them. I’d just opened the cash drawer to cash a customer’s check. I had a hundred dollars in twenties in my hand.

A man yelled, “Everybody freeze!”

I looked up, and the guys in the trench coats were holding these huge black guns—machine guns? Assault rifles? I’m sure you’d have known exactly what they were. But they were obviously the kind of guns that could kill everyone in the bank in seconds.

I froze. Some people were screaming. The man yelled, “Shut up, or I’ll kill you!” They shut up.

“And don’t call the cops or lock the vault,” he added.

I was scared and shocked, of course. But then this weird calm came over me. I felt like I could think very clearly. I didn’t move, but I took a good look at the men with the guns, and the customers, and where everyone was. No one was near the doors, so there was no chance of anyone running outside.

One of the bank robbers was in his early twenties, if that. He still had acne. He looked jittery, like he might get nervous and pull the trigger by accident. But I wasn’t afraid of him personally, just of his weapon, if that makes any sense.

The other was in his late thirties or early forties, a craggy-faced man with very pale blue eyes. That guy scared me. He was the kind of man you never want to con, because he’ll come after you with a blowtorch. And now he was holding us all hostage.

There’s a button we have under our counters that we’re supposed to hit if we get robbed. It calls the police and locks down the vault. The company that makes the security system has to send a representative with a special key to open the vault.

I had one hand under the counter, so I could have hit the button. I decided not to. I wanted that blue-eyed man to take the money and get out of there. The bank was insured anyway.

He pointed at one of the tellers, Ana, and said, “You! Show me—”

The young man spun around and pointed at another teller. Mike. He’d been hired recently; I didn’t know him too well.

The younger robber said, “Gregor, that teller hit the button!”

Mike said, “No, I didn’t!”

The older man—Gregor—just looked at Mike with those icy pale eyes. Then he said, “All of you tellers, come out.”

Here’s the thing: the tellers were all behind bullet-proof glass. Any of us could have ducked down under the counters, and we’d have been totally safe. But we’d all frozen in shock, and the customers weren’t protected. Neither were a handful of other employees who’d been in their offices or out on the floor.

Gregor said, “Come out, or I’ll kill every employee who’s not behind the glass.”

We looked at each other. Then we got up. Ana opened the door, and we all came out and stood in the middle of the floor.

The young man yelled, “The cops are pulling up right now!”

I have no idea how he knew, because I hadn’t heard anything.

Gregor said, “Warn them, Jesse.”

The young guy, Jesse, ran to the door and shouted, “Any cop comes in here or throws in a flash-bang grenade, and we kill everyone inside! We have a bomb!”

That’s when I noticed this big duffel bag on the floor. I didn’t know if it actually was a bomb, but they didn’t even need one: they could kill us all in seconds with their guns alone. My hand was starting to ache from holding those bills, but I didn’t move. I didn’t want to attract their attention.

The phone by me rang, and I jumped about a foot in the air. So did most of the customers. But Gregor didn’t seem surprised. He walked right up and held out his hand. I passed it over to him, wondering what he’d do if it was someone who wanted to open an account.

But given what he said, it was the police.

Gregor said, “We have a bomb. We have machine guns. If you break in, we’ll kill everyone in the building before you can stop us. But if everyone cooperates, everyone lives. Except for this idiot here, who already disobeyed orders.”

He put down the receiver without hanging it up, and took a gun out of a holster he had on his belt. He and the other robber had three guns each, the machine guns and two handguns in holsters.

And… he shot Mike in the head. Just like that. Like it was nothing.

People started screaming again. Gregor yelled at them to shut up again, and they did.

It was like a nightmare. I’d been in plenty of situations that could have gotten violent, but didn’t. I’ve had people threaten me a couple times. A guy I was conning pulled a gun on me once. But I’ve always been able to talk things down, and I’d never seriously feared for my life before. And I’d never seen anyone get killed before.

Gregor got back on the phone with the cops. He told them he wanted the vault opened, a helicopter to take them to the airport, and a plane waiting to take them out of the country. Then he made some more threats and hung up.

I knew it was going to end with a lot more people dead. There was no way they were giving him a helicopter. Sooner or later, the police would storm the building, and then Gregor would set off the bomb, if it was a bomb, or shoot up the room.

But like I said, I’ve always been able to talk things down. The two most important elements to a con are thinking on your feet and reading people. If you understand people, then you know what they’ll believe and what they want.

I thought maybe I could use that to get us all out alive.

I had the sense that Jesse was doing whatever Gregor said and wouldn’t be that ruthless on his own. But my read on Gregor was that he was definitely willing to kill us all. Beyond that, well, I knew that they wanted to get into the vault.

I put Mike out of my mind. I put the guns and the maybe-a-bomb and the cops out of my mind. The third thing a con artist needs is absolute confidence that people will buy what you’re selling them.