Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

What now?

He had one choice, and he had to get there before Snow and Mouser. Eric Lindoe. He had to find him.

Luke did not know Chicago well and he was unsure how to reach Eric’s bank. He got off at a station downtown. He wandered into a bookstore and used the coffee bar’s internet connection to find Eric’s business address at the private bank. It was on LaSalle Avenue, in the Financial District.

Ten minutes later, he stood outside Eric’s office in the fading sunlight. A news vendor nearby had a radio playing, and Luke drifted close enough to hear a report of a police shooting. An officer and a civilian down.

Only two. Chris was for sure dead. Which meant that he had only winged Snow, and she had slipped away. Every inch of his skin went cold. He kept seeing the officer’s face, a man just doing his job, and now dead for it. He pulled out the cheap cell phone he’d bought in Braintree, called 9-1-1, gave the operator a brief, precise description of Snow and Mouser as the shooters. Then he dismantled the phone, dropping its guts into the trash.

I’ll make them pay for you, officer, Luke thought.

Luke’s stomach rumbled. He bought a mustard-smeared hot dog and an apple juice from a street vendor and he ate the food without tasting it. Three bites into the dog, Eric Lindoe – kidnapper and murderer – hurried out of the high-windowed glass lobby of the skyscraper, glanced at his watch, and walked away. He wore a long coat, a cap pulled low over his face, dark glasses, and a look of utter guilt.

Luke followed him.

Eric Lindoe stepped onto the third car of a Brown Line train. Staying well back, Luke stepped onto the fourth car, nestled close to the doors. He hoped that at each stop he could step out to see if Eric disembarked.

The first stop Luke eased out a foot onto the platform, pretending to make way for departing passengers, holding the door. He got a couple of thank-yous, which was more attention than he liked.

Eric stayed on the car. So did Luke.

More stops; the train headed north. He felt like the doorman. The woman next to him had a smartphone; she was reading CNN’s news feed on it. Luke glanced at it over her shoulder. All bad news but worse than usual. An explosion in Canada had ruptured and shut down an oil pipeline. A recall of a million pounds of ground beef from a plant in Tennessee after several people in twelve states got sick yesterday with E. coli; a note sent to the local paper claimed the poisoning had been on purpose, an attack on the American food system. Authorities said they had no proof, yet, of malicious intent. A young actress of note was in rehab. The ‘Houston hobo’ shooting, with its unexpected tie to a Washington power player’s son, remained unsolved. A Chicago police officer and a bystander had been shot and killed an hour ago in Wicker Park.

His story.

The woman kept her back to him but she sensed his uncomfortable closeness and he saw her back stiffen. He moved away, locked his gaze to the floor. The police would dig into Chris’s mess of a life, and find that Chris sent money to buy a bus ticket, and the authorities would figure out the recipient was Luke. Chris’s mother would not remember her son’s cruelties, but rather Luke’s face. And Chris and the officer lay dead together in an alley.

He could not let Eric slip through his fingers. He had to force him to tell the truth.

Because, Luke knew, his life was gone. Destroyed, mangled in a way that could not be set right again. If he had self-destructed – turned away from a woman he loved, become a drunk, lost himself in work and neglected the rest of his life – then the fracturing of his life would have been easier to accept. But this? He had no idea why he had been destroyed. No idea why a man who called him son had used him and betrayed him so deeply. He had no trail to follow except Eric. If he lost Eric now, in the crowd, or because someone recognized him and grabbed him, he was finished.

The train stopped at the Armitage station. Eric rushed out, surrounded by a pool of other commuters, from the third car.

He would have to walk past Luke to reach the ground exit.

Luke hung back and followed, letting Eric storm a good ten feet ahead of him. The flock of commuters marched from the elevated platform to a metal stairway. Eric headed down and Luke risked drawing closer – only five people separating him from his kidnapper. If Eric glanced over his shoulder he would see Luke.

Eric reached Armitage Avenue, went through the exit gate. Luke stopped behind a pillar and waited, watched Eric hesitate – and then Eric crossed the street, under the elevated rails, dismissing the jeer of annoyed car honks with a polite, gentlemanly wave of his hand.

Luke followed, staying on the opposite side of Armitage, trying to keep him in view, trying not to be noticed. Thin trees stood on his side of the street and he tried to stay close to them, not be noticed, feeling vulnerable as he tracked Eric.

Lincoln Park – banners on the streetlights announced the neighborhood’s name – was a well-heeled neighborhood, high on charm factor. Storefronts, nice retail and restaurants, with apartments and offices on the higher floors. Eric turned into a small candy shop. Luke fought the urge to stop. He walked on, risking a single glance back. No Eric. Luke stopped at the end of the block. He felt horribly conspicuous just standing there. Five minutes passed. He walked back another half-block toward the candy store, paused to study the posted menu on an Italian bistro. When he dared a glance over his shoulder he saw Eric six steps out from the candy store – thank God I didn’t cross the street, Luke thought – heading on his original course. A bag of candies in his hand. Eric walked, glancing down at his phone, tapping out a number with his thumb. Luke let him pass his position, careful to keep his back turned toward Eric.

When Luke turned back, Eric was gone, as though the street had swallowed him whole.

Panic clutched Luke’s chest. He scanned the street again. Eric was tall. He couldn’t have vanished off the street.

Luke scanned the storefronts. A wine store, a small bookshop, women’s clothing boutiques, a fancy kids’ clothing store. Eric could have gone into any of them. He could be watching Luke from any of them.

Luke retreated into the doorway of a small bar. He could hear the thrum of music. He checked his watch. Two men moved past Luke, laughing, and opened the bar door, letting a blast of sound, a jangle of folksy guitars, and laughter rise from inside.

Eric stepped out of the wine shop. A neat paper bag in his hands. He didn’t glance over at Luke; he was fifteen feet ahead of him and across the street.

Candy and wine. Luke wondered if Eric was going to spend an evening with Aubrey. Had he just stepped back into his normal life after murder and kidnapping?

Luke walked slowly, trying to keep a few cars in the diagonal angle between him and Eric. He crossed the street, dodging traffic. He gained on Eric, hurrying now, not running.

He got up five feet behind him, but he couldn’t grab him on the street. People would notice. And maybe he still had the gun he kept at Luke’s throat and ribs.

Eric spoke into his phone. ‘Yeah, a large vegetarian, thin crust. Yeah. For Crosby, Grace.’

Grace Crosby. Luke remembered the name; the young blogger who had raised the alarm that Aubrey was missing; it was the clue that had led him to Chicago.

Eric turned into a side street and Luke dropped back, let Eric walk ahead. He had gotten too close. A gaggle of young women, early twenties, loud, laughing, stylish and they knew it – walked between him and Eric and he used them as camouflage crossing the street. The women peeled away, heading down Armitage toward an Italian restaurant.