James Patterson - Blindside

“He went to get their car. He’s probably already outside this door, waiting.” She tilted her head toward the loading dock’s roll-up door. She had regained some of her composure.

I said, “Now you have to come with me.”

She nodded. “I know. Once I realized they really were going to kill you, I couldn’t just sit back.”

“Me and my whole family are glad you came to your senses. Now we gotta get out of here.”

“But where? Henry knows people all over the city. And I’m not sure if he owns any police. I don’t know who we can trust.”

I said, “I do.”

CHAPTER 79

CHRISTOPH PANICKED FORa moment when he snapped out of the pain-induced blackout. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He wasn’t even certain where he was or what had happened. Then it came back to him in a rush. He didn’t think he’d been unconscious for long, but it was still going to take some time to get going. Then the lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling above the loading dock came into focus.

He blinked a couple of times as he lay on his back, assessing his injuries. His head throbbed like the bass from “Smoke on the Water.” Then he moved his leg and it hurt so badly he forgot about his head.

He rose onto his hands and knees, and thought he might be sick. The splash of blood on the floor made him lift his fingers to his face. Blood was still trickling out of his nose. His beautiful, straight nose. Which was now broken. Badly. It was so flat, it felt like he just had two holes in the middle of his face.

He was startled when a new sound ripped through his brain. He was worried he might be having a seizure. Then he realized it was Ollie knocking on the steel loading dock door.

Slowly, he managed to make it to his feet. He felt his face again and thought, That son of a bitch really clobbered me . And Natalie had been part of it. The pounding resumed in his head.

Christoph stumbled over to the wall where the control for the door was at chest level. He had to lean against the wall and focus just to hit the right button. Then he heard the slow pulse of the motor pulling up the door. The rattle of the steel felt like someone running their fingernails over a chalkboard.

As the door rose at its glacial pace, Christoph tried to wipe the blood from his face. Now he noticed his eye was tender. His nose, his eye, his leg. That cop was going to suffer. So was Natalie. He needed his knife. He spotted it on the floor.

The door was finally up and the gray Volkswagen Passat sat puttering beside the loading bay.

Ollie shook his head and said, “What happened to you, brother?” He tried to hide his shock at the sight of his partner.

“It was a combination of Natalie and that cop. She ambushed me and he caught me while I was distracted.” Christoph limped over to the knife and scooped it up with no small amount of dizziness.

Ollie thought for a moment, then said, “If you want to do something to Natalie, it’s probably best we leave without talking to Henry. He still pays the bills.”

Christoph clutched the handle of the Gerber tightly. “I’m going to use my knife on both of them. Slowly.”

“Another reason we should wait to talk to Henry. I say we jump in the car and start looking for them. We’ll call Henry and tell him to do some of his computer magic and see if he can find anything. But we don’t call him until we’re already out of here. Just in case he has one of his fits and tells one of the locals to shoot us.”

Ollie ran up the short flight of steps next to the loading dock and found a rag on a workbench inside, then used it to clean up Christoph. He wiped his partner’s face like a mother cleaning up a three-year-old. Blood sloughed off the rag onto the floor.

Ollie said, “Hopefully people will think the blood on your shirt is a design.”

Christoph shoved his knife into its sheath. He was in no mood to listen to his partner. He wanted blood for blood.

They had a brief discussion about who was going to drive. Christoph wasn’t interested in debate. Finally he said, “I’m driving,” and pushed past Ollie.

The two Dutchmen got into the car and scanned the side-walks for Bennett and the girl as they drove. It was early evening and there weren’t that many people on the street.

Eventually Ollie pulled out his phone and dialed Henry. He put the phone on speaker, in case Christoph wanted to add anything.

Henry answered the phone with an impatient “What now?”

Ollie started with the touchy subject first. “Your girlfriend attacked Christoph and helped Bennett escape.”

After a long silence, Henry said, “Is Natalie still here, or are they both missing?”

“They both fled.”

“Are you certain Natalie helped him?”

“Absolutely. She hit Christoph with a board and shattered his nose.”

“Her phone is still here. Too bad. That would’ve made finding her much easier.”

Ollie said, “Sorry, Henry.”

“I’m really disappointed in you two.”

Ollie said, “So are our families.”

“Always with the smart answer.”

Ollie let the silence hang there for a moment, then said, “We’ll keep searching and let you know if we find them.”

“Let me see what I can do on this end. I’ll call out some more help since you two morons can’t seem to handle anything yourselves. If I hear anything, I’ll send you to their location.”

Ollie cut off the call. “He sounds pissed.”

Christoph said, “He always sounds pissed. That’s how crazy people sound.”

“Exactly why I’m not sure we should even waste time looking for Bennett and Natalie.”

“What? Have you lost your mind as well? Look what they did to me.”

Ollie thought for a moment. “This is still business. We need profit, not problems.”

“Then I’ll finish this alone.”

“Wait—”

“No, I’m serious. This has to get done.”

Ollie said, “All right, we’ll finish this, but then we walk away from Henry. This is getting to be a pain. I don’t care how well he pays. You get your revenge, we collect our pay and head straight back to Amsterdam.”

Christoph smiled. That’s all he wanted. A chance for some revenge.

CHAPTER 80

WITHOUT A SOULnoticing, Natalie and I had slipped back upstairs in the building to what seemed like an empty ground floor and out the front entrance. Then we ran, trying to stay off the main roads. Neither of us was hurt. Natalie squinted at the street signs, and I remembered that Christoph had knocked her glasses off.

“You can still find your way around town, right?” It went without saying that I was a tourist. Most of my travels around this town had been out to St. Laszlo’s with Fiore driving and on the floor in the back of Christoph and Ollie’s car where I couldn’t see anything.

As we trotted down an alley, I said, “Do you have any money? Anything we can use to get a ride?”

“I have a few euros, that’s it.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to help us much.” I found the euro coins in my pocket that I’d told Christoph about, which I doubted amounted to enough for a cab.

When Natalie stood on a street corner, looking for an approaching bus, I snapped at her. “Keep off the street. They’ll be looking for us.”

Natalie turned and frowned at me. “Sorry, I’ve never been on the run before. How about cutting me a little slack?” After a few moments, she said, “Where are we running to, anyway?”

“Do you know St. Laszlo’s Church?”

“Yeah, but it’s on the other side of the city. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is nicer and a lot closer.”

“I’m not going there for mass. I know someone at St. Laszlo’s who can help us.”