Stay the Night Read Online Free Page A

after he exhaled, sweet and heavy.
    â€œYou,” the one called Rob said to him, “stay where you are and do nothing.” He lowered the bow, replacing the arrow in the quiver hanging from his hip and slinging the weapon over his shoulder and across his torso before he walked over to the cluster of hostages.
    DeLuca would have gone after him right then, but for some reason his legs wouldn’t move. Or didn’t want to move. The longer he stood there, however, the more sense it made. Rob, whoever he was, had it right: He needed to stay where he was and do nothing.
    â€œIs she unconscious?” Rob asked Joe, who nodded. He checked the guard’s shoulder, and then gently removed the scarf from the manager’s throat and wrapped it like a bandage around her head. “If she rouses, my friend, keep her still and quiet. Help should arrive momentarily.”
    DeLuca barely heard him. He remained in place and studied the bank’s entrance doors. They were still locked, and the heavy oak desk remained in place. How had they gotten inside? Had they been hiding in the back? Then he saw the vault door standing open, and through it could see that some of the safety-deposit boxes had been pulled out. They’d been in the vault, robbing it—that’s why he hadn’t seen them.
    They couldn’t be here for the same thing. He’d assured the Italian: No one else but the feds in Chicago knew about moving the goods to Atlanta for the sting operation.
    â€œHey, you. Rob.” DeLuca waited until the pretty purple eyes focused on his face. “You guys looking to score?”
    Rob said nothing, but wrapped his hand around one curved end of the wooden bow as if to pull it from his shoulder.
    Sweat made the inside of the ski mask cling to DeLuca’s face. The last thing he wanted to do was to make Rob angry or upset. “If you are, maybe we could join forces. Split the take three ways.”
    â€œVery generous,” Rob said at last, “but I think not. The authorities have this building surrounded.”
    â€œNot yet.” DeLuca heard a rusty sound come from his own throat, and felt the corners of his mouth stretch around the chuckle. “No one tripped the alarm.”
    â€œNo one had to.” Rob turned his attention to the teller still clutching the gym bag. “Come away from there now, dear girl.”
    â€œSure.” The brunette’s expression relaxed as she released her grip on the gym bag, smiled, and walked around the corner toward Rob as if greeting a favorite customer. “You know, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œLike amethysts,” the old woman on the floor said, and sighed with pleasure as she sat up. Dye transferred from her gnarled hand to her cheek as she pressed it there in the old-fashioned gesture of a dazzled girl. “Paul Newman had eyes like that.”
    â€œNah, Newman’s were washed-out blue,” Joe said as he propped the unconscious manager on his lap and cradled her bandaged head with his good arm. “His are more like Liz Taylor’s.” Embarrassment turned the guard’s cheeks dark red and his voice gruff. “Ya know. If Liz were a guy.”
    Rob went over to the front entrance doors and pushed aside the heavy desk as if it were made of cardboard.
    â€œPlease don’t do that,” DeLuca called out, afraid now. “You don’t want to let the cops in.”
    â€œOn the contrary.” Rob released the dead bolt. “I phoned them from the vault.”
    He’d called the cops on him? DeLuca couldn’t believe it. “Why would you do that?”
    Rob didn’t look at him as he studied the parking lot. “Because you’ve injured the innocent, you fool.”
    The insult made DeLuca’s chest tighten, and tears of self-pity burned his eyes and clogged his nose. Rob didn’t like him. Rob, who had risked his life to save all these poor