Running the Risk Read online

  Running the Risk

  Lesley Choyce

  orca soundings

  For Aidan

  Copyright © 2009 Lesley Choyce

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Choyce, Lesley, 1951-

  Running the risk / written by Lesley Choyce.

  (Orca soundings)

  ISBN 978-1-55469-026-8 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55469-025-1 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings

  PS8555.H668 R84 2009 jC813’.54 C2009-900273-6

  Summary: After being the victim of an armed robbery, Sean goes in

  search of more danger.

  First published in the United States, 2009

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009920381

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing

  programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada

  through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada

  Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC

  Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, STN. B PO Box 468

  VICTORIA, BC CANADA CUSTER, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

  12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

  Chapter One

  The gunmen arrived at Burger Heaven shortly after midnight on Friday. I was on the frontline, taking orders along with Lacey and Cam. It was like a dream at first. The place had been quiet except for some workmen laughing over their French fries, and a couple of slightly drunk kids from school goofing around at a table by the windows.

  And then the door opened and two guys with ski masks on walked in nervously. One walked straight to me. The other went to Lacey. As they approached, the guns came up. Lacey, Cam and I froze. The room suddenly went dead quiet except for the sound of hamburgers sizzling in the back and the buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights. I’d never even noticed the hum of the fluorescent lights before.

  The guy with the gun pointed at Lacey spoke first. “Open it, girl.”

  Lacey froze.

  “I said open it.”

  The guy with the gun on me said nothing. I was looking at Lacey. And then at Cam. There was a panic button on the floor beneath each register. A silent alarm. You triggered it and the cops would know we were in trouble. I saw Cam looking down at the floor.

  But something told me that right here, right now, hitting that button would be the wrong thing to do. These two guys were nervous. I was looking my gunman right in the eyes. I knew there was something there. These guys were whacked on something. Anything could make them freak. The guns were real. Everything was real.

  And that’s when it kicked in.

  This feeling of calm.

  “Be cool,” I said to the guy pointing the gun at Lacey. Then I looked at the guy with the gun on me. I stared straight into his eyes, and then I looked at the barrel of the gun like it was no big deal.

  “I’m going to push this key and the drawer will open,” I said. “Okay?”

  My gunman nodded. I pushed the key, and the drawer opened. I saw one of the workmen get up. At first I thought he was going to try to do something. And I didn’t want that.

  But I was wrong. First he and then his buddy got up and slipped out the front door. Lacey’s gunman turned and aimed in their direction. He pulled the trigger and the shot was deafening. “Shit,” was all he said. The bullet must have hit the ceiling because no glass shattered. He turned back quickly and pushed the gun into Lacey’s face.

  “Here,” I said, cleaning all the bills out of my register and handing them across the counter. “Now I’ll get you the rest,” I said.

  “Yeah,” my gunman said.

  I walked to Lacey and made sure it was obvious what I was doing. I hit the key, the drawer opened and I offered over more bills.

  Then I walked over to Cam’s station and did the same. It was only money. Nothing to die for, that’s for sure. It was all clear as day in my head.

  The two gunmen stuffed the money into their coat pockets, turned and ran. As soon as they were out the door and away from the parking lot, I hit the silent alarm.

  Lacey began to cry and Cam said the stupidest thing in the world. “Why’d you give them the money?”

  “You all right, Lacey?” I asked.

  “No, Sean,” she said, “I’m not all right.”

  “What were you thinking?” Cam asked. Somehow he wasn’t getting it.

  The kids at the table were standing up now. “I don’t freaking believe it,” one of them said and then puked on the floor.

  Riley and Jeanette, who’d been listening from the food-prep area, came up to the counter now.

  “Is everyone all right?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, we’re all alive anyway,” I said.

  “Did you see what this jerk did?” Cam said, pointing at me.

  “Yeah,” Jeanette said. “I saw what he did. He saved you from getting killed.”

  Cam looked mad. He looked at me like it was all my fault.

  The kids at the table out front were helping their buddy who had just barfed on the floor get himself together. Then they headed for the door. I probably should have asked them to stay until the cops came, but I didn’t. I understood they wanted to get the hell out of here. I knew who they were, so I didn’t bother to ask them to stay. The police could find them for information if they needed to.

  Jeanette was holding Lacey.

  Cam was blathering. “This isn’t worth it,” he said. “I’m quitting this stupid job. Now.” He walked around the counter and kicked over a chair. Then he left. I didn’t ask him to stay either.

  When the police arrived, two officers in bulletproof vests pushed open the glass door and walked in, guns raised. I watched their eyes as they looked at us and then scanned Burger Heaven. I noticed the buzz of the lights again.

  “They’re gone,” I said.

  The guns came down and the cops moved forward.

  “Anyone hurt?” one of them asked. Two more policemen came in the door.

  “No,” I said. “I think we’re okay.”

  “Do you know which way they went?”

  I shook my head no.

  One of the policemen saw the bullet hole in the ceiling. “You guys had a close call,” he said. “That wasn’t a cap gun.”

  It was about then that I noticed something about the way I was feeling. My heart was still pumping so loud I could hear it in my ears, and my breathing was a bit ragged.

  But the weird part was that I was feeling great. And I’d been feeling this way from the moment the robber put the gun up to my face.

  Chapter Two

  We told the story to the police and I got a ride home in a police car and went to bed. I didn’t bother to wake my parents. They would get the news from the paper in the morning.

  I didn’t sleep much. Adrenaline, I guess. I kept wondering why I had kept my cool. And why I had been absolutely certain there was only one thing to do. I knew that if Cam had tried to hit that alarm while the robbers were there, somebody would have been killed. At the time I was operating on pure instinct—and adrenaline, of course.

  Afterward, lying in bed, the rational part of my brain was thinking, Yeah, those guys could have fired their guns at any moment. Anything could have happened.

  I was fuzzy-headed in the morning and tired. All the adrenaline had worn off, I suppose.

  My father woke me up. He was dressed for work at the casino. The newspaper was in his hand. “Why didn’t you wake us?”

  “Nobody got hurt. It turned out fine.”

  My mother was in my bedroom now too. “Sean, you could have...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I could have but I wasn’t,” I said. “What time is it?”

  My parents looked puzzled. “I think you need to stay home today,” my father said. “You need to rest.”

  “I don’t feel like resting.”

  “We tried to tell you that job could be dangerous,” my mother said.

  “It wasn’t like I was looking for trouble.”

  But I had asked for the late shift, for both Friday and Saturday night. I could have worked during the day on Sunday or even from four to ten in the evening. But I had convinced my parents everything would be okay. And I loved the fact that all kinds of weird crap happened late at night. I even liked the walk home on the dark streets. Had I been secretly hoping for something like this to happen?

  “Well, you’re not going back there to work,” my father said.

  “I don’t want to quit.”

  “We’ll find you another job.”

  “Yeah, right. Like at the casino, I suppose.” This was a sore spot. My father had lost his job with the insurance company and had taken on an administration job at the casino. He’d always told me he didn’t approve of gambling, and then he hired on to a place that was solely dependent on taking suckers’mo
ney when the odds were stacked way too high against them.

  “You know you’re too young. They can’t hire you.”

  “Be reasonable,” my mother said. “Besides, you don’t need to work.”

  “I need to do something,” I said. Because of last night, because of the way I felt, I’d had my first taste of some other world. It was almost like I’d been sleeping most of my life. Whatever I’d felt last night, I wanted to feel again.

  “I’ll fix you some breakfast,” my mother said.

  “And then I’ll take you down to the police station,” my father said. “They called. They want to ask some more questions.”

  “Don’t you have to work today?” I asked. “You always work on Saturday.”

  “After I read the paper, I decided to take the day off.”

  My father drove me to the police station. We passed by Burger Heaven. It was closed, with yellow police tape around it. There were a few police cars in the lot, and I figured an investigation of some sort was underway.

  I sat in a room with a man who introduced himself as Detective Solway. He insisted my father wait outside.

  Solway said, “The officer on the scene said you were remarkably calm about the whole thing.”

  “Not really,” I said. “It scared the crap out of me.”

  “But the other workers said you kept your cool. One even said that you acted like you knew this was going to happen.”

  “That idiot, Cam. If he had moved to push the silent alarm, he would have been dead.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Those guys were antsy.”

  “So you just opened all three drawers and gave them what they wanted.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was the rational thing to do.”

  Detective Solway just stared at me.

  “Do you think I actually had something to do with the robbery?” I was surprised, of course. But in an odd way I was almost flattered. No one had ever accused me of anything seriously bad. Because I’d never really done anything seriously bad. Because I didn’t take chances.

  Solway shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. We already did a background check. Your high school principal said you must be a good kid because he had never even heard of you, couldn’t put a face to the name.”

  “It’s a big high school.”

  “Yeah, but troublemakers stand out. And you didn’t. B average, the records say. Not bad.”

  “More like B minus these days. I’ve been slipping.”

  “Could be the late-night job.”

  “What are the odds of a scene like last night happening again? At Burger Heaven, I mean.”

  “Not that great. Once a place gets hit, we keep a closer eye on it, and the bad guys know that.”

  “Any leads?”

  “A couple. Could you identify either of the men if you saw them?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “A lot of people are pretty shaken up after an event like that.”

  “Traumatized?”

  “Yeah, traumatized. But you seem to be rather cocky about it all.”

  I figured that Solway detected that something was different about me. Being questioned like this had almost brought the adrenaline buzz back. And I liked that. I was a different person from the one who had gone to work last night. And even the principal of my school—my huge high school—now knew who I was.

  “We’re done,” Solway said.

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, keep in mind you were lucky. You could have been killed.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  I didn’t answer him. I hadn’t realized it, but I had been smiling all through the interview. And I didn’t know why.

  Chapter Three

  I have always been pretty ordinary. No one expected too much of me. I was an only child, and my parents were pretty overprotective. When I rode a bike, I wore a helmet. When I skateboarded—not for long—I had the helmet, plus the pads for knees and elbows. My parents pretty much drove me anywhere I needed to go.

  School was easy and I didn’t have to try that hard. I’d had a couple of girlfriends but they were more like friends than girlfriends. At sixteen I was a virgin, and it was not a big deal to me. Sure, I was horny sometimes, but actually having sex with a girl seemed so... well, complicated, that I wondered if it was worth it. And there were stds to worry about and possible pregnancy and even AIDS.

  Are you starting to get the picture?

  The job at Burger Heaven was an out-there thing for me. My father tried to convince me not to take it and said he’d up my allowance. My mother said I should concentrate on school and my “social life.”

  “What social life?” I had countered.

  And then I was in line at Burger Heaven one day and saw the sign for help wanted. The kids who worked there seemed to be kind of a team. They acted as if they liked each other, and I could see they helped each other out. I mean, I know what people think about working at burger joints. Not too glamorous, for sure. Crummy pay. Not a heck of a lot of excitement. Stupid uniforms. Free greasy food that would give you pimples.

  But I asked for a form, filled it out and got a job. Hey, they were desperate. They would have hired anyone with arms and legs. And like I said, I could have worked an easier shift. But I wanted the night thing. I was just tired of taking the easy route, the safe route, with everything. I wanted the night shift.

  And got it. My parents were not happy.

  It was exciting in a way. Staying up late. Weirdos coming in stoned or drunk. Hookers showed up sometimes. And creepy people who looked like they were dangerous. Sometimes the customers were rude. Sometimes they were funny. Sometimes downright friendly. Aside from the students who came in, most of these customers were unlike anyone I knew. These were the people my parents had been protecting me from all my life.

  The day after the robbery, my boss, Ernesto, called to say I shouldn’t come back to work for a week. “You’re on what we call stress leave,” he said over the phone. “It’s a company policy.”

  “Like if you work for the airline and survive a plane crash?” I asked.

  “Something like that. It’s a mental-health thing.”

  “But I don’t feel stressed. I could come back to work tonight.”

  “No. Don’t worry. You’ll get paid anyway.”

  But I wasn’t worrying about the pay. I wanted to be back at work.

  “We’re going to stay closed for a couple of days anyway and then reopen. Cam quit and so did Lacey. If you feel like doing the same, I’d understand.”

  “No. It’s okay, really. I’ll be back in a week.”

  “Suit yourself. And, hey, thanks for being cool through the whole thing. Seems like you kept your head.”

  “Yeah.”

  I hung up and relived the whole experience one more time. And then suddenly I felt the walls closing in around me. I started to feel really antsy. I had to get out of there.

  My cell phone rang as I was leaving the house.

  “Sean? It’s me, Jeanette.” She had never called me before.

  “Did Ernesto call you?” she asked.

  “Yep. You on stress leave too?” I said.

  “Yes. And I can use it. I’m not sure I want to go back after that. Do you?”

  “Yeah, I do. Isn’t that funny?”

  “A little. But then, you acted different from the rest of us.”

  “I did what I had to do,” I said.

  I couldn’t exactly figure out why she was calling me or even how she got my cell phone number. But I pictured her in my mind. Long dark hair, usually under one of those stupid net caps at work, and kind of sexy.

  “Want to go get a coffee?” I asked. “I’m just leaving my house and heading out.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Meet you at Tim Hortons on Queen Street. In thirty minutes.”

  “See you there,” I said as I closed the phone. I was surprised that I had been so forward.

  Chapter Four

  On the way to Tim Hortons, I did something strange. I closed my eyes and kept them closed as I walked.

  I used to do this when I was a kid—in an open field, with no one around, with nothing to bump into. And I’d count the seconds. When I got to thirty, something would make me open my eyes. I knew I wasn’t going to bump into anything. I knew I wasn’t going to fall off a cliff. At worst I’d trip and fall down on the grass. But I couldn’t get past thirty. Thirty seconds with my eyes closed seemed like a long time. Some primitive part of my brain always forced my eyes open.