by Tom Barber
The bandaging Dr Tejwani had taped over the bullet-hole was keeping any new bloodstain from soaking through to her new shirt. Kat thought that was a good sign and was clinging to it optimistically. She’d been patched up, the surgeon having got the bullet out, and Nicky seemed to think she was stable, but she didn’t feel any better than she had before.
In fact, she felt slightly worse.
She didn’t tell him though; he had enough to worry about. They were getting closer to the Canadian border, but as they moved back onto the main road, Kat looked down at the bag beside her. They could just keep going, but the money and jewelry hadn’t been what she’d needed so badly from the heist. This wasn’t hers, the other box was.
And wherever they were, she knew it was almost certain because of the three initials engraved on that inner deposit box she so desperately wanted, that these Loughlin brothers would have realized that too.
THIRTY EIGHT
‘She what?’ Archer said anxiously an hour later, riding shotgun in a PA State trooper’s car as they headed east through Chautauqua County. ‘How badly?’
‘She’s been taken to hospital,’ Lieutenant Richie from Cleveland PD told him over the phone. ‘Banged up pretty bad. Like I said, she fell out of her hotel window and landed on a car below. If it hadn’t been there and an awning hadn’t broken her fall, she’d probably be dead.’
‘There’s an obvious question here.’
‘Her room was torn to shreds by gunfire. Someone sure as hell wanted her gone. Amount of spent cartridges left behind says automatic weapons and probably more than one shooter.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Could it’ve been the Loughlins?’
‘Impossible, I just engaged with them here,’ Archer replied, imagining Marquez so desperate she’d jumped out of the hotel window, and trying to work out who could’ve been responsible. ‘They’re in New York State right now, not Ohio.’
‘Lupinetti?’
‘He was here too. Had Lis gone anywhere?’
‘I don’t know. When she wakes up, we’re gonna ask.’ As Archer killed the call, the trooper’s cruiser sped on through the New York county with two others behind. In normal times, crossing into a neighboring state as troopers on patrol from another was prohibited, but their pursuit of the Loughlins and the threat level being so high had already been accepted as justification. They were heading for where a report had been received of another abandoned vehicle the brothers had been seen hijacking earlier. ‘Who saw them taking this car?’ Archer asked, having missed further information coming through on the radio when he was on the phone to Richie.
‘Guy passing by on a motorbike recognized them from the news. They were getting into an SUV, holding the driver at gunpoint. He pulled over once he was clear and called 911. One of the local deputies got a hit on the tag from an APB. Local resident, female, no criminal history.’
‘Lupinetti?’
‘No sign. Police are looking for him back in PA in case he went in the other direction. But when the APB scored a location the brothers were nowhere in sight. The vehicle had been dumped and they were probably long gone.’
The Pennsylvania trooper’s vehicle took a turn-off to their left and arrived in a parking lot where the car had been found twenty minutes ago. Other law enforcement were already there and a chopper was circling overhead. As the PA troopers in the three vehicles pulled up, got out and caught up on the situation with their NY State counterparts, Archer immediately walked towards the abandoned SUV, seeing law-enforcement were working two K-9s around the area, looking to pick up a scent but with no apparent luck.
‘Must’ve jacked another vehicle,’ the PA State trooper who’d given Archer a lift here said.
‘Or someone picked them up.’ Archer’s eyes were still on the gray SUV. He walked forward but was stopped by a local deputy before the NYPD detective showed him his badge. ‘Been on the Loughlins and Frank Lupinetti since they broke out of Gatlin in Virginia,’ Archer explained.
The deputy looked shaken and Archer’s eyes shifted to the car.
‘The driver?’ he asked.
‘She’s inside.’ The deputy offered no further resistance and stepped aside as Archer approached the vehicle.
The woman had been left lying across the backseat, her wrists bound, and Archer saw the brothers had learned from their mistake with the laundry truck driver back in Virginia; her throat had been slit from ear to ear, but that wasn’t the darkest aspect. Her distended stomach showed she’d been about seven to eight months pregnant and there were clear signs that she’d been sexually assaulted before the brothers left, her torn underwear dumped in the footwell, blood covering the seats. They may have been in a hurry, but either one or both of them had still found time.
Two more of the PA troopers had just joined him and fell silent as they looked in at the Loughlins’ latest victim. Not just one life taken, but two. What had happened to Marquez, then this, and once again law-enforcement had lost the trail of the two brothers and Lupinetti; the situation was also looking even more challenging, now it appeared the three men had split up.
The deputy who’d let Archer approach the car walked around to the other side of the vehicle. ‘She’s not all. Come check this out.’
Archer and the troopers joined him and saw six words in large letters had been written across the side of the gray SUV, a can of red spray paint left dumped in the dirt beside a series of footprints. The lettering had run down in the afternoon heat, almost as if it had been written in blood.
‘They tagged it?’ one of the PA troopers said. ‘Like a calling card?’
‘They haven’t done that anywhere else,’ Archer replied. ‘And these words don’t make sense.’
‘Next.’ Less than forty miles from the clearing with the graffiti-strewn SUV and dead pregnant woman inside, Nicky stepped up to a counter at a Mexican takeout joint. The customer in front had just collected their food and left which meant it was the prison escapee’s turn. ‘Afternoon sir, can I take your order?’ a teenager in the restaurant’s uniform asked.
‘I’ll take three steak burritos with everything, two bags of chips and two bottles of water,’ Nicky said. He could’ve stopped at a gas station or somewhere else to get food, but Kat wasn’t going to start recovering on pretzels, Chex Mix or beef jerky.
‘That’s everything?’
Nicky nodded; he paid using the remainder of his sixty four dollars, and then stepped to one side as the workers in back started prepping his order. Once it was done and bagged up, he was just heading for the exit with the food when in a moment of sudden panic, he saw two police officers heading right for the door on the other side. He’d seen them too late to turn back and pretend he’d forgotten something, but then fate intervened in the shape of a young woman wearing a t-shirt which looked to be two sizes too small. She’d just exited a Dunkin’ Donuts with a friend to their left, meaning neither cop paid the escaped convict approaching them any attention, so Nicky was able to walk right past unnoticed.
The two cops had parked six spaces away from Nicky. He got back into Barry’s Audi, the man in the driver’s seat with his hands taped low to the wheel, the keys in Nicky’s pocket and Kat with the gun trained out of sight on their hostage, or so Barry had been told. Nicky had also stopped at a grocery store along the strip-mall before going into the Mexican takeout spot, using one of the $100 bills from the holdall to buy what he needed, and put the shopping in the back beside Kat with the burritos, chips and water. Minus a bullet and with two working lungs again, she was breathing better but her face was still white as paper, the blanket Nicky had draped up to her chest concealing the gun which was resting on her lap, the money bag still on the floor by her feet.
The two cops were now at the counter inside the Mexican place, and looking in the side mirror, Nicky saw one glance over in their direction, but realized he was getting a last look at the girl who was getting into a car on their right, not paying any attention to the two wan
ted fugitives and hostage inside the Audi also parked in the lot. The car hadn’t been stolen so he relaxed slightly, knowing there was no reason for the cops to be looking for it.
‘Keep going east,’ Nicky said, passing the keys back to Barry before cutting his hands free with the Leatherman multi-tool, having used a fresh roll of tape.
After they drove on for another thirty minutes, using minor roads to avoid any unreported potential roadblocks, Nicky noticed an old farmhouse with boarded up windows set well back from the road, a large barn to its right.
‘Take this turn,’ he ordered. ‘Park up behind the barn.’
Barry did as he was told, Nicky taking the keys again once they’d stopped. With Kat keeping the handgun on Barry, Nicky got out of the car and walked towards the barn. He pulled open the doors to find empty pens and dusty rails, some old beer cans in the grass beside it. The place looked as if it had been abandoned for a while; he returned to the vehicle.
‘Can you help me get her out?’ he said to Barry. Between them, they carried her into the barn before Nicky climbed the ladder to the upper level, but again all he saw was dust and cobwebs. No sign of occupancy, either human or animal. He took the chance to look through the broken window at the house the barn had belonged to, but it was clearly derelict too.
For the first time in hours, it felt as if they had a brief window to rest, regroup and consider their next move. He went back down the ladder and took the gun off Kat, then pointed at an old upturned water trough ten feet away. ‘Take a seat,’ he told Barry. The man did as ordered, then Nicky helped Kat over to one of the open pens, laying the blanket down before shifting her onto it. He collected the bag he’d bought from the grocery store and pulled out some items.
He ripped open a packet of straws and after carefully slotting one into the other, taped them together when he had enough to create a makeshift tube. He took the needle out of Kat’s pocket that he’d removed from the bike pump bought earlier at Wegmans, thinking at the time it might come in handy for this very purpose later, and taped it to one end of the straws, then secured the other to a carton of coconut water.
He walked back to Kat, tied off a piece of tape around her bicep and tapped her forearm before isolating a prominent vein. He made a small incision with the Leatherman, wiped the needle with a tissue taken from the small packet of antiseptic wipes he’d also thrown into the bag in the motel room, then slid it in carefully and taped it down. He lifted the coconut water carton and secured it on a ledge just above the needle entry point, taping it to the wood. Without a word, he then went back to fetch the take-out food bag and passed his hostage and then Kat a burrito.
Like Tejwani before him, Barry found himself staring at the young man who’d taken him hostage.
There seemed to be a lot more to this guy than he’d first assumed.
‘How’s she doing?’ Sergeant Glick of Cleveland PD asked his lieutenant over the phone. Inside the main city hospital, Richie looked in at Marquez lying on a bed next door, still in the clothes she’d pulled on quickly when she’d escaped the hotel room but now with some bandaging wrapped around her head. Half her hair was falling over it, making it look like a hairband; she had other minor injuries and he’d been told they’d had to shave part of her hair on the left side of her temple to stitch up a wound under the bandaging.
‘She’s OK. Hit the ground pretty hard, but head injuries and extremities bleed the worst. Doc says there’s no swelling on her brain or anything they’re concerned about.’
‘She’ll be hurting tomorrow. I’m looking at this drop from her window, Rich. She’s lucky that car was there.’
‘Suspects?’
‘In and out clean. Witness from the stairs said two men ran past her carrying weapons. Wearing ski-masks, going fast. They were gone before any police arrived. Left this place looking like the O.K. Corral.’
‘Hotel must have cameras.’
‘Ball caps walking in, never looked up. Came in through the basement, had a sub-machine gun hidden in a holdall each, left that way on foot. No plates we can follow.’
Richie imagined whoever had come after the female detective looking down from above and seeing her lying completely still through the torn awning with blood pooling out from her head; they’d have thought she was dead. She should’ve been. He saw Marquez notice his presence and told Glick he’d call him back.
‘You and your friend don’t have a problem getting into the thick of things, do you?’ he said to her, walking into the room.
‘Yeah, it’s known to be a habit,’ she muttered, pushing herself slightly more upright. ‘He’s better at it than me though.’
‘You doing alright?’
‘I guess.’ She closed her eyes. ‘When I went to lie down for half an hour, didn’t think it was gonna be on the sidewalk. How we doing on the manhunts?’
‘Not great. The Loughlins busted through another roadblock, left us six more bodies for their count. Four cops from Erie, PA and two college kids. Your friend almost got them at the scene, but looks like they’re in New York State now.’
‘Is Sam OK?’
He smiled, amused at her concern for her colleague considering where she was right now. ‘That’s what he asked me about you. He’s good. But the brothers jacked a new car. Left it in a parking lot, looks like they got picked up by a friend or stole another.’ He clicked on the news on the TV in the room, which since the networks were covering the hunts had live footage patched in from local stations, reporting from the scene where the SUV had been found.
‘And another victim?’ she asked quietly, reading the headline.
‘Two. A woman. She was pregnant.’
Marquez’s eyes closed again. ‘Son of a bitch. What is it with these guys?’
‘We couldn’t get anything on tape of who came after you either, but looks like they knew what they were doing. You get a feel for anyone tailing you from Virginia, or since you got to town?’
She shook her head. ‘I went to go see Blair O’Mara at her home in the suburbs. This happened soon as I got back.’
‘You should’ve told me you paid her a visit. I’d have come with you.’
‘Figured you’d be busy.’ She gave him a wry look. ‘I can be pushy, but I’m having trouble seeing her ordering a hit on me. Or doing it that fast. But she mentioned a family…’ Marquez then suddenly lost concentration and searched around, looking at her nightstand. After a moment, Richie saw her face and realized what was happening, then rushed to pass her a blue plastic sick bag resting on the table. Adrenaline dumping, shock, hits to the head; as she turned away and threw up, he glanced at a nurse outside who nodded, not seeming concerned.
Richie filled a cup of water, which Marquez took and rinsed her mouth out with before the same nurse came over and offered her a Tic-Tac, which she also took. ‘Sorry. She mentioned a maid when we had a conversation,’ the NYPD detective said, picking up where she left off. ‘Used to work for the family before Kat’s father died. We track this woman down and ask her face-to-face about this family’s strange deal, could help us. I felt Blair was holding back.’
Richie was surprised. ‘It’s not connected to Lupinetti.’
‘I know, but not much we can do about him right now until another sighting comes in. I wanna know why Kat’s so desperate to get her hands on that bank deposit box. And who the hell shot up my hotel room.’ Marquez made to get off the bed, but then nausea hit her again and she went back to the sick bag, throwing up again. After she’d recovered, she rinsed her mouth once more as the nurse this time came over and passed her the whole box of Tic-Tacs instead of just one. She and Richie made eye contact and she smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe I’d better sit this one out.’
Inside the barn in New York State, Nicky, Kat and Barry were eating in silence, Kat doing her best to chew and force down a small amount of food despite her weariness, lack of hunger and the continual pain in her side. Eating was the last thing she felt like doing right now, but she knew she had to keep
her strength up.
She was just working on another bite when she noticed Nicky watching something on Barry’s phone. He bumped the volume up slightly. ‘What is it?’ Kat asked, the coconut water IV taped to her arm already improving the sunken look on her face as it slowly rehydrated her. ‘Erie?’
Nicky shook his head. Instead, the shot on the network’s website went to another live feed. Police cars and a Coroner’s vehicle in a parking lot in the same county they were currently in, Chautauqua, NY. Nicky read the headline and saw who the suspects were.
A gray SUV was taped off by police, but he read six words scrawled on the side in red spray paint:
Gimme a call
Or you’re, no friend
He put down his burrito, looking at the screen. Gimme a call or you’re, no friend. A message to their guys further north around their home area, probably. The brothers would be needing more help by now with increasing numbers of law-enforcement seeking to close in on them.
‘Could I have some wat-‘ Barry went to say.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Nicky suddenly said, but he wasn’t talking to Barry. He was staring at the screen. Then without taking his eyes off it, he got to his feet, picked up a bottle of water and passed it to Barry.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kat asked.
‘I need to make a call,’ he said to Barry. ‘That cool?’
The man looked confused for a moment. ‘Um. Sure. Go ahead.’
‘Thanks,’ Nicky said, before dialing a number and stepping outside the barn. He’d thought he’d been the one to use the Loughlins since he’d first planned to get out of Gatlin on Friday morning. But those few blood-red words had just told him how the brothers had known Kat was going to hit the bank yesterday.
