Meg Gardiner - The Nightmare Thief

Lark threw herself onto a seat and grabbed a seat belt. She wrapped her arm through the shoulder strap and gripped it like a vine. The Hummer shuddered. The left front wheel caught the lip of the hill. Friedrich jerked the wheel, fighting, foot still to the floor. Jo saw Autumn’s eyes gleaming with fright.

From the driver’s compartment came grunts and shouts. The gun boomed again. Then again. Glass shattered and Friedrich’s hands dropped from the wheel.

The Hummer straightened momentarily and tilted. The light turned in the sky, shadow overtaking the window.

“Oh my God,” Autumn said.

Then everything went sideways, fast. Jo hit whoever was next to her. She cried out. She saw Gabe, arms around the headrest, gripping Von’s head. He let go, grabbed a seat belt, and braced himself. He snapped the buckle and grabbed for Lark.

The front of the Hummer angled down, sliding, fast. Through the window Jo saw the slope, covered with trees and boulders.

They flipped.

The Hummer capsized, hard. The roof of the car hit the slope with a crunching sound. The windows shattered. People flew around the interior of the limo. Jo hung on to the shoulder strap of her seat belt like a commuter in a subway car that had just been kicked into a tumble cycle. The gorge steepened, and upside down, they slid forward down the slope. Jo saw light, shadow, felt the roof crushing. Dust blew through the shattered windows. She saw boulders and the silver glint of water at the bottom of the gorge. Her mind went firework white. They were going down, all the way.

Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Meg Gardiner Copyright About the Publisher

Evan Delaney paused at the foot of the marble staircase. She wanted to look meek and inconspicuous. Luckily, in the vaulted echo chamber of San Francisco City Hall, that wasn’t hard. City Hall looked like the U.S. Capitol, but gaudier. It had a gilded dome. It flashed a little leg. She backed against the banister and watched the man in the pin-striped suit descend the stairs toward her.

The word ambush had a lovely ring to it. It was full of hope.

The man came down the stairs slowly, his white hair bouffanting like a televangelist’s. He was surrounded by minions. He was a mortgage banker who had been testifying before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He had also been a client of the dead lawyer Phelps Wylie, and he was her last hope for an interview.

He drew near. She stepped out from the banister.

“Mr. Higgins, I have some questions about Phelps Wylie,” she said.

The minions rushed to block her, like a flannel wall. She persisted, batting them away as if they were Brooks Brothers moths.

“Mr. Higgins, do you have any comment on your lawyer’s death?”

He swept past her, down the stairs, into the cavernous foyer, and out the door.

She followed him to the street. Higgins climbed into a waiting car and zoomed away. The car disappeared into traffic, followed by the minion swarm.

Ambush? Strikeout. None of Wylie’s clients wanted to speak to her. Only a few had even bothered to give her a no-comment. The rest had deflected her calls. Higgins had been her final shot.

Maybe it was time to go home. She turned and headed for the parking garage. She could already hear her credit card, shrieking in pain. And then her phone beeped.

It was a text message from Jo. She slowed. No—it was three messages. She opened the first, and stopped.

I found Wylie’s 2nd cell. He was carjacked. Drove to Sierras under DURESS.

Evan’s lips parted.

Wylie recorded conversation during drive. 2nd person in car. FORCED HIM.

“Oh my God.”

More to come.

She opened the second message. It included Wylie’s cell phone number and forwarded his call list. Data corrupted , Jo warned, and, indeed, Recent Calls turned up as incomplete phone numbers. But most had the first seven digits, including area codes.

Jo’s third message included the log-in information for her voice-mail service.

Sent Wylie’s recording to my voice mail. Log in and listen. Must take cell to Tuolumne sheriff s in Sonora. Will call when get better signal.

She smiled at her phone. “Oh, Jo. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Pulse racing, she tried to phone Jo back. She got a recording. The number you are calling is out of range. Please try again later.

A misty wind gusted. She found a seat on a nearby bench and, with trepidation, called Jo’s voice mail and logged in.

She heard Wylie’s voice. “Where are we going?”

A chill inched up her back. She closed her eyes, and listened to Wylie’s desperate attempt to save himself and to leave a trail of evidence behind.

A new voice entered the conversation. “Shut up.”

It was a creepy reply from across Wylie’s car, swaddled in engine noise. The hairs on her arms stood up.

“—punishment.”

She couldn’t tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman. But its tone, flat and imperative, frightened her.

The recording ended. She opened her eyes, stunned. Jo had sent her a message in a bottle—from a dead man. Wylie had tried to tell people what was happening to him, even as he was being driven into the mountains to his death. He must have feared what lay up the road. But he kept talking.

She slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed to a Starbucks across from the Civic Center Plaza. On a legal pad she cross-referenced the corrupted data from Wylie’s Recent Calls list. Different portions of each number had been lost, almost like a glass of milk had spilled across the screen. But she quickly saw that Wylie had called only a few numbers from the second cell phone. And he had received calls from only a handful of numbers. By cross-referencing, in most cases, she could assemble the entire number.

None of them belonged to Wylie’s clients, friends, or family.

She went online, pulled up a crisscross directory, and tried to put names to the numbers she had pieced together. No luck.

Time to cold-call.

She got out her phone and dialed the first number on the list. The number rang three times, paused, and rang again with a new tone, as though the call were being forwarded. A woman picked up.

“Ragnarok Investments.”

The voice was brusque, sharp. Impatient.

Evan paused. Was Wylie using the second cell phone for sex or for bad business? “I’m calling about the charity drive—for Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow church.”

The Ragnarok woman hung up.

Evan stared at the phone. Now, wasn’t that interesting. She turned to her computer and typed Ragnarok.

Chapter 13 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Meg Gardiner Copyright About the Publisher