Secrets by Jane A. Adams Page A

convinced he knew what was right and what was wrong and Molly had believed whatever Edward said … even when she didn’t.
    She closed her eyes and recalled that young man coming up the stairs, gun in hand, pausing on her landing. It was his breathing that had warned her, told her he was unprepared for this. She could hear the tension in his chest as he drew the air into his lungs. It was that which had told her and she’d felt so insulted that they’d sent a mere beginner, an
amateur
, after
her
. Just because I’m old, Molly had thought, doesn’t mean I’m bloody helpless.
    She remembered how she’d squared her shoulders and cast aside the now useless phone. Dimly, she could hear the woman calling her name, but Molly had tuned her out, knowing she’d only have seconds to act and that she had to get it right, sirens from the approaching cars cutting through the night, approaching far too fast, now. The help she had summoned arriving both too early and too late.
    Molly opened her eyes and stretched, unwilling, for the moment, to think about what had come next, not because it bothered her but because she had to keep her story straight.
    â€˜You think only about your legend,’ Edward had told her. ‘Replay your legend until it becomes the truth. Nothing else, no other thought, no uncertainty. Make
your
truth
the
truth. There can be nothing else.’
    â€˜Nothing else,’ Molly said softly. ‘I never lie.’

ELEVEN
    T he television report was vague, Bill thought, but then the whole event had been a bit vague. He’d finally got home for lunch, leaving the police still there, attended now by his colleagues on the day shift.
    News from the hospital had not been good. Tony was in intensive care, his wife had called Sheila twice, but there was nothing new to tell. He’d come through an operation and they were worried about pressure on the brain, that was all she could say.
    â€˜She doesn’t blame you,’ Sheila had told Bill. ‘There’s nothing you could have done. Bill, it could just as easily have been you.’
    They’d watched the television news obsessively all day, wondering if reporters would come knocking at their door and hoping not. There were reporters at the warehouse and at the hospital, but the police liaison officer they’d spoken to seemed to think the fuss would die down soon enough.
    â€˜So far as the media know, a security man was attacked during a robbery,’ she’d told them. ‘Bill, I know that’s not the whole truth, but the investigation won’t be helped by a lot of speculation. You understand that? We don’t want whoever did this to know exactly what we know. We want to keep them off balance, so we’re only releasing certain facts.’
    He’d nodded, not sure he agreed, but well, what could he do. He’d had to tell Sheila, though, about the men in the van and his efforts to get them out and the police arriving and then that awful moment of realization, that all this was just a decoy, some elaborate plot to get the warehouse clear for some strange kind of robbery.
    â€˜It’s not right,’ Sheila said, echoing Bill’s thoughts. ‘They’ve not said anything about those poor men in the van. I mean, they could be dead and we wouldn’t know. What about their families? It’s getting like a police state, them telling us what we can’t say.’
    â€˜It’s not like that, Sheila, love. They just want to be able to investigate without falling over reporters, I suppose. Like the policewoman said, they want to keep the criminals in the dark too.’
    Sheila was obviously not convinced and to be truthful, neither was Bill. He’d seen that van, seen how elaborate and strange the events had been and he knew, he just felt it in his water, that this was much bigger than they could guess and likely bigger than the police could guess either.
    Several