Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

Mouser watched the train arrive to sweep them away – no way he could reach them in time. So he stopped running.

Eric had lied. He was sure they’d been the ones to lock him out of the basement. Which meant Eric died shielding them. So they must know where the money is. It was the only reasonable explanation.

He turned and headed back to his car, parked at a pay slot. A slow heat warmed his skin. His phone rang as soon as he reached the car.

‘Did you get them?’ Snow sounded tired.

‘Not all. Just Eric. Luke is with Eric’s woman. I think Eric’s told them where the money is. He wanted to save that girl something fierce.’

‘I can help. Where are you going now?’

‘Don’t you worry. I’ll be back at the motel soon. It’s going to be okay.’

‘I can meet you. I have a car.’

‘You have a car.’

‘I did not like that doctor. I borrowed her car when she came over to check on me.’ Then a hint of crossness in her voice. ‘She shouldn’t have tried to stop me.’

‘What did you do?’

‘It’s not like she was a real doctor.’

He did not feel a shudder or coldness to her announcement of murder; just a disappointment. ‘You don’t treat assets that way.’

‘She’d seen our faces.’

He didn’t want to argue with her. ‘Just find a motel. Check in. Rest. Call me later. Do not hurt anyone else.’

‘We got to stick together.’

‘Help me by doing what I’m asking. I will find them.’

‘Please, meet me somewhere.’

He couldn’t have her wandering Chicago so he told her to meet him at Navy Pier, on Lake Michigan; it was an easy landmark for her to find, with its giant Ferris wheel. He hung up. He was annoyed and it did not occur to him that being wounded, she might be frightened and afraid of being alone. He thought only of the mission. The phone rang again. It was Henry.

‘How is Snow?’

‘She’ll be okay. Eric’s dead. Luke got away. I am going to put some hurt on him. Don’t tell me not to. He deserves it. You know it, I know it.’

Henry heaved a long, broken sigh. ‘Do you have the money?’

‘No.’

‘What about Eric’s girlfriend?’

‘She’s with Luke. I believe they might have the information on where the money’s hidden.’ A misery crept into his flesh, his mouth.

‘Odd Eric would offer help, since he kidnapped Luke.’

‘They must have made an alliance.’

‘Mouser, tell me why I shouldn’t unleash the Night Road against you for failing. I have a long list here of people who might do a better job than you in finding our funds.’

‘Because admitting failure shows you don’t have control of this situation. Of their money. Which might make them all quite nervous about you running the show. You could be replaced.’ He knew from the silence that he’d scored a hit. ‘Let me and Snow finish. They have to still be in Chicago.’

The only sound Mouser could hear through the phone was a ticking of clocks.

Henry said, ‘You aren’t just failing me, but failing the entire Night Road.’

Mouser didn’t care much about what other people wanted, but the rest of the Night Road could be useful to him. ‘If they will help me – I won’t fail them.’ He decided this was the most diplomatic thing he could say.

‘Then the Night Road will help you. As long as we don’t give them details on the current difficulties. I don’t want the rest of the network to panic or to decide to leave us.’ Henry was offering a truce between them; they would not alert the rest of the network to the problems they faced.

‘I agree,’ Mouser said. ‘The first step is to find a way to track Aubrey Perrault. Maybe her car has GPS. They took off on the train but she must have a car. And we need an eye inside Eric’s bank. Trace where he moved the money, because he had to have stashed it where he could get it quickly.’

A pause. ‘Luke. He was all right?’

‘I saw him running. He appeared fine.’ He shot Snow, he wanted to say, who cares how he is?

‘You didn’t hurt him.’

‘No.’ Only because I didn’t get the chance, he thought. Henry’s concern for Luke enraged him. The mission, the mission, one could not be distracted from the mission. Henry was becoming a liability. But he remained silent.

‘Oh, how was that doctor for Snow?’ Henry asked.

‘Fine. Just fine,’ Mouser said.

The elderly man stared right at Luke. Luke glanced at the grime on the window. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the old man unfold a cell phone from a pocket, dial it, and speak into it. His calm – his certainty – was somehow more frightening than if he had produced a gun or a knife.

‘We’re almost to the next station,’ Aubrey whispered in Luke’s ear. He kept his face neutral, calm, seemingly uninterested in what the elderly man was doing.

‘He’s the kid in the paper,’ the man announced to the train. He closed the cell phone. ‘The Houston kid who killed the homeless guy.’ He tapped the paper.

‘You’re nuts,’ Aubrey said. ‘Leave my brother alone.’ She was a quick liar.

‘I called the police.’ A smugness filled his voice. ‘Killed a homeless guy,’ he said to the trio of street guys.

One of the homeless men – gaunt, fortyish – reached out and grabbed Luke’s arm.

Aubrey pulled the homeless man’s arm from Luke. ‘I said to leave him alone.’

‘Don’t let them get away.’ The elderly man raised the folded paper like an accusing finger.

They all swayed as the train braked to a stop and suddenly two of the homeless men hammered Luke into the wall. They smelled of wine and of sweat fermenting too long in wool and, as the doors whooshed open, Aubrey and Luke fell out onto the platform in a tackle of legs and arms. Luke threw a hard punch, drove into the matted beard of one of the men. His fist scraped dirty teeth and rubbery lip.

Aubrey grabbed the other man’s greasy hair with a twisting yank, started to scream for help.

The other men grabbed Luke’s arms, hauled him and slammed him into a concrete column.

‘Stop it!’ Aubrey yelled.

And now the crowd moved, three young men rallying to their defense, grabbing at the ragtag accusers. Aubrey seized Luke and they ran. They stopped running at the bottom of the stairs as a policeman hurried past them.

They vanished into the mist.

‘Where would he have hidden the money?’ Luke and Aubrey walked the streets of a quiet neighborhood, north of downtown. Aubrey kept glancing over her shoulder. Keep moving, Luke thought. ‘He worked for a bank… wherever he put the money, he was willing to die to keep it a secret.’

‘Which means he could have hidden it anywhere,’ she said. ‘But I’m guessing he stashed it in another account, probably another bank, that wouldn’t be so obviously tied to him.’ Her voice broke. And he could sense her drawing away from him.

‘I know you cared about him. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’

‘Are you?’ She studied the sidewalk. ‘He’s the reason you’re in this mess.’

‘No. He was a pawn, just like me, just like you. Even the people chasing us aren’t much more than pawns. The king on the chessboard is my stepfather. The queen is this Jane bitch. She has to be crazy, trying to extort money from terrorists.’

‘I don’t like chess and I don’t like being a pawn.’ She raised her head, looked at him with a mix of defiance and grief. ‘It makes me mad.’

‘Mad is good. Mad might help us stay alive.’

She started to walk again and he fell in step with her. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead. He was just so desperate to convince me he was on the side of right. He just kept talking about all he’d done for me, risked for me…’