Jeff Abbott - No Rest for the Dead

A woman with boyishly close-cropped hair stared back at him, eyes wide and terrified, mouth falling open. “What the-”

Nunn held the punch he’d been about to throw. “I’m sorry, I thought-”

“Help!”

Shit .

He turned. Throughout the lobby, people were frozen. Staring. Nunn looked from one to the next. Behind the desk, Claire had a phone in one hand and was looking at him as she spoke. Calling the police?

A sudden sharp pain and a quick jerk of the world. He heard the slap after he felt it. The blond woman. She was winding up for another. He caught her arm. “Lady, listen-”

“Hey. Buddy. Back off.” The doorman, starting this way. Nunn looked around, saw that the lobby was back in motion, most of them coming toward him. The elevator on the near wall had opened, and the man inside hesitated, the scene not what he’d expected.

Nunn whirled from person to person. Everyone was staring at him. He had a flash of school-yard paranoia, the feeling of being singled out. “I’m a police officer,” he said, using his cop voice. “Everyone calm down.”

It was enough to freeze people. In that silence, across the span of marble and wealth, framed by gilded metal doors, Nunn saw them. Time seemed to stop.

Then, as Nunn pushed himself into motion, two things happened.

The elevator doors began to close.

And behind them, a stranger with Christopher Thomas’s eyes winked at him.

Well. That hadbeen bracing. Peter must have given him up. Something to deal with later.

The moment the elevator doors opened on the parking garage, Christopher set off at a jog, dragging his suitcases behind, the wheels skittering and bouncing. The light was yellow and soulless. The Colt was heavy in his pocket.

Christopher didn’t know a great deal about cars, but beauty he knew, and his rented Aston Martin DB9 was beautiful. The woman who’d shown it had blathered about horsepower and V-12 engines and rack-and-pinion steering, and he’d just smiled and nodded and imagined bending her over the hood of it, fucking her with the engine throbbing beneath.

He beeped open the car, threw in the suitcases. Quickly now, quickly. Poor, broken Jon Nunn would be on his way. He cranked the engine, shifted into first, and sped toward the exit. The tires clung to the pavement. The car hummed with power. Christopher rounded the corner, turned up the ramp. All he had to do was get clear of the hotel. Let the ex-cop try to catch him in this-

Jon Nunn stood at the top, framed against the purple mist of a San Francisco night, a gun in one hand.

The car wassilver and expensive and hurtling toward him.

His arm moved on its own, the gun lifting as though it were immune to gravity. Decades of habit had him sighting down it, his left hand coming over to steady the automatic, finger sliding inside the trigger guard as the car bore down.

You can do this. Just aim and squeeze and aim and squeeze. You’ll hit him, and then his car will hit you, and the two of you will go out together, and maybe that’s how it’s meant to be .

He locked eyes with the man behind the wheel. A man who believed he was above everything. Who wrecked the lives of those around him with a solipsistic abandon.

No. A tie isn’t good enough. You need to beat him. For Sarah. For Rosemary .

For yourself .

He dove aside. The car was huge and breathing hot as it blew past. He hit the ground on his shoulder, managed to hold on to the gun. Brakes squealed as Thomas fought against his own velocity. The Aston Martin slid sideways, skidded, knocked trash cans like dominoes. Then the transmission ground, an ugly sound, and the car lurched forward.

Nunn was on his feet and running for the Mercedes.

He hauled himself in, tossed the gun on the seat, started up the car, and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The valet stood frozen as the Mercedes smashed through a brass luggage cart, sending designer bags flying. A horn screamed from behind. Nunn ignored it, yanked the wheel back to fight the fishtail. Ahead of him, Thomas streaked between two cars.

Now what?

The Aston Martin was probably faster than the Mercedes Nunn had stolen.

Then find another way .

Union Square was a shopping district, the lanes wide, the intersections marked in clean paint and smooth pavement. Logos blurred outside his windows, Urban Outfitters and Apple and Diesel. The sidewalks were almost as wide as the-

Wait a second, think about this before you-

Nunn jumped the curb, took the Mercedes up on the sidewalk. Beat out a warning on his horn without taking his foot off the gas. Late shoppers stared with cow eyes. Rich women clutched bags that held his month’s salary. A longhair in a dashiki leaped aside, yelling curses. Nunn gritted his teeth and rode the edge, made it to the corner, blasted off the sidewalk, spinning the car as he went, south on Fourth now. Ahead, the Aston Martin wove between cars, the traffic slowing it. Until he got a clean run, Christopher Thomas’s expensive toy wasn’t going to help him much.

So he’ll be going for a clean run. You need to beat him there .

But how?

As he crossed Mission, he saw the answer.

When Christopher hadseen the ex-cop at the top of the garage ramp, he’d thought for a moment it was all over. Artie’s body was flopped on the floor of a hotel room with his fingerprints all over it-no explaining that. But good old Jon Nunn remained as predictable as he had been when he’d worked the case. Instead of coming with an army of police, he was here alone on some sort of revenge mission. Still underestimating Christopher, still not realizing whom he was playing against. No, it didn’t matter that he’d let Nunn live. The man wouldn’t be a concern. Christopher just had to get a little space. Then to the Oakland airport, where a private jet waited, creamy leather upholstery and chilled champagne and a phone to begin arranging his final disappearance.

A Volkswagen Beetle stopped dead in front of him for no discernible reason. Christopher jerked the wheel, managed to squeeze the Aston Martin between the Beetle and a utility truck parked halfway up the curb. Stupid sheep with their stupid little cars. Ridiculous vehicle. He had to get some space. But where? The next street was Howard, five or six lanes running one way the wrong way, and after that another slow block…

There comes a moment in the work of any painter when he stops thinking and begins to operate on instinct. When he goes with his impulses. It’s the thing that turns a good artist into a great one.

Christopher turned left onto Howard, found himself staring at staggered headlights like accusing eyes. His heart beat harder, and he was conscious of the feel of the steering wheel in his palm, of the cool of the air-conditioning. A movie theater rushed by his side window. He swerved to miss a delivery truck. Let’s see that son of a bitch keep up with this . He smiled, wove the Aston Martin to one side, then the other, the howl of horns almost symphonic. Yerba Buena Gardens on his left, trees and tourists, and-

No. It couldn’t be.

Those lights smearing across the park, weaving between the trees, getting larger, they couldn’t be-

Nunn squinted outthe window, concentration whitening his knuckles. Driving right through Yerba goddamn Buena, he must be losing it, it was crazy, he could hurt someone-

How’s this for not passively letting things happen around you?

Someone shrieked. His headlights caught nightmare images, young lovers leaping aside, a juggler staring as his bowling pins plummeted, a family pushing a stroller, Fuck , Nunn swung hard the other way, an oak forty feet tall, he pulled back, the side of the Mercedes scraping against the trunk, the side mirror snapping off with a pop, and then sidewalk, the tires gripping hard- What now, Jon? -and the staircase opening up like an answered curse; he grit his teeth and held down the horn and hurtled down the steps and saw the Aston Martin tear by, Christopher Thomas’s eyes no longer arrogant and certain.