Forever and Always Read Free Page A

remains quiet, why don’t you show me where the office is so you can open the safe.”
    â€œI can’t. I don’t work in the bank. I was only here this morning to talk to my husband about a personal matter.”
    The man turned to Norman. “Give her the combination.”
    â€œI will not,” Norman said. “A safe wouldn’t be a bit of use if half the people in town knew how to open it.”
    The man struck Norman with his pistol. “Give her the combination.”
    â€œNo.”
    The man struck Norman again before turning his gun on Horace. “You, open the safe.”
    Horace stammered so badly Cassie answered for him. “He doesn’t know the combination. Nobody does except Mr. Spencer.”
    The robber whipped around to face Norman. “This is your last chance. Open the safe or I’ll shoot you.”
    â€œIf you kill me, you’ll never learn the combination.”
    â€œI don’t plan to kill you, just shoot you inch by inch until you come to your senses.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Norman,” Sibyl pleaded, “open the safe. The money’s not worth getting shot.”
    â€œListen to your wife,” the man said. “She’s a sensible woman.”
    â€œI haven’t listened to a woman since my mother died,” Norman declared, “and I don’t mean to start now.”
    Sibyl didn’t know much about holdups, but she had the feeling the robbers had been forced to spend more time inside the bank than they had planned. The longer they stayed, the more likely something would go wrong. The leader was getting angry and nervous. Still, she was shocked when he shot Norman in the leg.
    â€œYou’ve got five seconds to open that safe before I put a bullet in your other leg.”
    Norman was never sick, and he’d never been injured. He had never shown sympathy for others, often making light of their pain or discomfort. Now that he was injured, he was seeing things in a very different light. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
    â€œI’ll shoot your wife!” the robber screamed. “I’ll shoot your teller and that pretty blond if you don’t open that safe now!”
    Norman was oblivious to anything outside his pain. The robbers weren’t going to get anything out of him.
    â€œShoot the teller,” the leader yelled at the robber holding the bag of cash.

Two
    Sibyl gasped as one robber pointed his gun at Horace, and the other turned back on Norman. The sound of pistol shots was deafening. She expect to see Horace fall, mortally wounded. Instead, the robber crumpled into a heap. A second explosion, following so close on the first that it sounded like an echo, sent the robber who’d shot Norman to the ground. In the confusion, Cassie managed to break away from her captor. A third gunshot sent him into the next world after his fellow thieves. The remaining robber grabbed Sibyl to use as a shield.
    Everything had happened so fast, it took a moment for Sibyl to realize three robbers were dead, and that a stranger with a gun in his hand was standing just inside the bank door. Cassie and Horace were staring at him with riveted gazes, their eyes wide from shock.
    No one had seen or heard the man enter the bank. He was tall and thin, his face so bloated his eyes seemed to stare at them out of deep wells. Sibyl was certain she’d never seen him before. It would have been impossible to forget such a face. At the moment, however, she didn’t have time to wonder who he might be. She was standing between two guns, one held by the stranger and one by the outlaw. She could be the next one to die.
    â€œLet her go,” the stranger said. “You can have the cash.”
    â€œI’m not a fool. If I let her go, you’ll shoot me.”
    â€œI’ll shoot you if you don’t.”
    â€œDon’t do anything foolish,” the man growled at Sibyl.
    Sibyl could tell