The Spider Thief

by Laurence MacNaughton

  He watched her struggle to keep her composure. There was nothing he could think of to say, because she was right.

  “I spent years worrying about you, Ash, every day. Every. Single. Day.” She blinked rapidly and looked away, forcing herself to calm down again. When she met his gaze again, her eyes were red and absent any trace of mercy. “And I’m done. I am done worrying about you. I will never worry about you again.”

  He tried to swallow the hard lump in his throat. “That’s a lie.” His voice came out rough.

  “It’s the only way I can live my life, Ash.” She studied him, her breath shaking. Then she quickly got up and headed to the door.

  “Cleo, wait.” Ash got to his feet. “Think about the spider, Cleo. We’re all connected in this!”

  But she pulled the door open and darted out into the crowded hallway without looking back. Graves caught the door and stood there holding it, watching Cleo go. Then he turned his stony gaze on Ash.

  Slowly, Ash sank back down into the hard plastic chair, trying to process it all. She hated him now, he was sure of it. After all of this time, she hated him for what he was. For being the guy who ran away.

  Well, he’d come back now, and what had he done then? Screwed everything up again. And there was nowhere left to turn. No one left who cared. Andres had Mauricio, and no one could do anything about it. Ash certainly couldn’t, not while he was locked up in here.

  He had to get someone to let him out, to go after Andres. But no one hated Andres more than Cleo. Who else was there?

  It hit him then. There was one person who wanted to get his hands on Andres almost as much as Cleo did. The thought caught Ash so off-guard that he didn’t notice Graves again until the man loomed over him, hands spread wide on the scratched table.

  “Are you getting comfortable in here?” Graves said matter-of-factly. “Or are you ready to go?”

  “Oh, I’m ready to get out of here.” Ash gave him a lopsided grin, enjoying the off-balancing effect it had on Graves. “But first, don’t I get one phone call?”

  *

  Prez spread his napkin across his lap as DMT laid out the bistro takeout on his desk. The unmistakable aroma of chicken cacciatore and fresh-baked bread filled the air, making everything seem right with the world once more.

  Ash’s dog watched the proceedings with laser focus, but didn’t budge from Prez’s feet.

  Prez surveyed the plastic dishes. “You tell them vinaigrette on the side this time?”

  “Yes, Boss.” DMT set out the little cup of salad dressing and crumpled up the huge empty paper bag.

  “Last time, they drowned my food.” Prez snapped the cover off of the mixed greens. “You get something for yourself?”

  “Not hungry, Boss.”

  Prez gave him a stern look. “I told you, get some food. I know you feel bad, everything that happened. We lost some good people. But you let me worry about that. I’m goin’ to make it right.”

  DMT studied his shoes.

  “You hear me? Andres goin’ to pay.”

  DMT nodded, still not meeting his gaze.

  “Now go on, get something. Don’t come back till you do. I need you to stay sharp. You want some bread sticks?”

  DMT shook his head. “Maybe I just get some Chinese.”

  “Go on, then. Here.” Prez held up the buttered bread sticks in their red-and-white checkered wax paper. “Take these, too.” Obediently, DMT wrapped his big hands around them.

  Prez drizzled the dressing on his salad as DMT’s footsteps faded away. Then he sawed the breast of chicken cacciatore in half, put it on a plastic lid, and lowered it to the floor. Ash’s dog made wet smacking sounds as he gobbled it up.

  Prez’s private line rang. He picked it up.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Ash said. “Don’t hang up.”

  Prez took the phone away from his ear, looked at it, then brought it back. “I don’t know who you tryin’ to call. This is a wrong number.”

  “I know how to solve all of your problems. How to get back at the guy who did this.”

  Prez put his fork down and leaned back. His chair creaked. “Go on.”

  “Look, he’s in the perfect position to keep pushing you around. He knows something about you, your history, that he could reveal to the wrong people. Well-dressed people with no sense of humor. These people want to talk to me, too.”

  “I recommend you keep your mouth shut.”

  “I will,” Ash said. “Just get me out of here.”

  Laughter bubbled up inside Prez and burst out, over and over, leaving him gasping for breath. “Aw, that is a good one, man. That is a good one. You almost had me going there.”

  “I know you’ve got connections.”

  “Well, hell. Yeah, I got connections. For sure. But you have any idea what you asking? You don’t, do you?” Prez waited. “No, you just some smooth-talking white boy thinks he can smile his way out of anything. Got news for you, son.”

  “Look, don’t start thinking I’ve got anything left to lose, here. I lost my brother, my car, my dog—”

  “You startin’ to sound like a bad country song.” Prez looked at the dog, who put his head down on his paws, worried brown eyes ticking this way and that. “Don’t worry ‘bout your dog none. He’s fine.”

  On the phone, Ash let out a long breath. “I can get Andres out in the open,” Ash said after a moment. “I know what he wants, and I know where it is. I can set it up so that you get him out of your life forever.”

  Despite himself, Prez wanted what Ash was offering. But the idea that he could actually deliver, that was crazy.

  Prez shook his head. “Give me one good reason I ought to believe you.”

  “Because he has my brother. I want to get to him even worse than you do.”

  “That ain’t enough, man. I can’t help you.”

  “If you don’t, he will always have a hold on you. You will have to hide from him for the rest of your life. He can take away everything you have. And he will. You know he will.”

  Prez stared at the food laid out in front of him. Between the dishes, there was a deep scratch in the desktop that hadn’t been there before. How long did he have before Andres came back and wanted something else? If even the Sweeper couldn’t find Andres, how would he ever be free of him?

  “You got a plan?” Prez said finally.

  “Yeah. But I’m a little stuck, where I am.”

  Prez hesitated, feeling like he was standing at the edge of a cliff. One false move, and he was done for. “I know where you at. Be cool.” He hung up quickly and settled back in his chair, studying the phone.

  The place was silent, except for the sound of Ash’s dog licking its chops. Prez looked down. The dog whined at him.

  “Least somebody around here got a appetite,” he said, sawing off another piece of chicken.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Frozen

  Cleo stood motionless in the hot air that blanketed the rooftop, hugging her arms around herself. She could feel the frosty touch of her own fingers through the fabric of her shirt.

  Behind her, on the rooftop bench, low voices chatted. The stench of cigarette smoke choked the air. Below her, the endless crawl of downtown traffic slid past. Cars and trucks stayed inside the orderly lines painted on the street. They lined up nose to tail, going where they were supposed to go.

  Following the rules, just like she wasn’t.

  She came up here sometimes to clear her head. But this time, it wasn’t working. The sun burned down on her, failing to warm her skin. She felt frozen inside, like the core of her being was encased in ice, held in suspended animation for the promise of a better future. She felt like she was kneeling down on a frozen lake, wiping at the surface, trying to peer down through the cloudy ice at the body trapped within.

  Only, the body inside the ice was her.

  She knew what she’d seen after the car crash. It wasn’t just her imagination, this spider looming over her entire life. Wrapping up every
thing in its web, entangling her until her own life was suffocating her.

  For whatever reason, Andres worshiped that gold spider. He wasn’t your average drug kingpin. She’d tried to make that clear to Snyder more than once. Andres was dedicated to a cause. He believed in what he was doing. Really, truly believed. And he’d kill anyone who tried to stop him.

  Including her dad. Including her, if she gave him the chance.

  Andres on the loose, and a giant spider looming over her subconscious. She was no psychologist, but she had a pretty good idea they were connected.

  Out over the city skyline, a pinpoint of movement caught her eye. She watched it slide across the horizon, then take on a familiar shape as it turned: a chevron of dark and light feathers.

  A hawk.

  It was a rare sight this far from the mountains, its wings spread, turned up at the tips. It moved in a search pattern, looking for prey, circling one area and studying it before it moved on to the next.

  Methodical. Patient. Watchful.

  Everything she knew about hawks, her dad had taught her. He loved them, and she had loved watching them with him. A pang of longing shot through her, brought stinging tears to her eyes. The hawk banked, wings spread wide, and even at this distance she could see its muddy brick-colored tail feathers, fringed with white. A red-tailed hawk, his favorite.

  A gust of wind picked up, blowing the stale air off the rooftop, drying the tears at the corners of her eyes. The hawk rode the wind, hanging motionless in the air, its wings wavering ever so slightly.

  “I’ll get him,” she whispered to the wind. “I will get Andres. I will.”

  Then the wind died, and the hawk circled away across the city. Her skin warmed in the sunlight as she watched the hawk dwindle to a speck, then finally vanish from sight.

  *

  All three of the Secret Service agents wore black suits. Cleo wasn’t sure why that surprised her. Maybe it just seemed too cliché. The other thing she didn’t expect was how polite they were. Not pleasant, not likable, but precise, as if courtesy could be reduced to scientific principles and applied as efficiently as possible. They didn’t smile, even once.

  At the head of the conference table, Agent Hollis unlocked her black attaché case with two separate keys, unsnapped the steel latches, and took out two hundred-dollar bills in plastic bags.

  “This one on your left is taken from the briefcase you collected. The one on your right is a genuine uncirculated bill of the same series.”

  Cleo leaned closer and squinted, but she couldn’t see a difference.

  “Very impressive, Agent Hollis,” Snyder said, putting just a bit of emphasis on the “Agent” part. “But I’m not sure why you’re telling us this. Counterfeiting falls under Secret Service purview.”

  Hollis’s neutral expression didn’t change. “It’s imperative that you grasp the capabilities of the individual we’re trying to locate. Once you understand that, everything will become clear.”

  Snyder steepled her fingers. “Okay. Hit me.”

  “First, notice the security thread.” Hollis brought a hairbrush-sized device out of her black case and clicked it on. Ultraviolet light spilled across the table. A thin red line glowed through the genuine bill. “Security threads fluoresce. Red for hundreds, yellow for fifties, green for twenties.” She waved the black light over the fake hundred. It stayed dark. “What you’re looking at is the only evidence available to the naked eye that this is, in fact, counterfeit.” She clicked the light off.

  “So then it doesn’t have a security thread,” Cleo said.

  Hollis slid the fake bill over to her. “Have a look. Go on.”

  Carefully, Cleo picked it up and held it up to the light. Graves leaned in close for a look. She could clearly see a dark line through it. “I see something.”

  “Exactly. And if you compare the thread against the real one, in normal light, you won’t see a difference. It does contain a thread, albeit not an authentic one. Still, the fact that our counterfeiter inserted a thread into the paper puts his skills at a high-functioning level. Far above your average hack with an inkjet printer.”

  Cleo slid the fake hundred back across the table. “So they got that strip in there somehow. Did they make their own paper?”

  “Not exactly.” Hollis held the bill out to them edge-on. “This is actually two sheets of very thin paper glued together, with the strip sandwiched in between.”

  “So you’re saying these fakes are good,” Graves said.

  “Very good. Possibly the best I’ve seen outside of North Korea.”

  “And what do those look like?” Snyder said. “The North Korean bills.”

  “Like this.” Without expression, Hollis held up the authentic hundred. “North Korean counterfeits are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. They use some of the same technology that we do to print our own bills. Mostly they supply the Russian mafia and overseas black markets. Our suspect in this case works domestically. And he is self-educated. Notice this.” She pointed at the metallic green 100 in the lower right corner. “Genuine bills are printed with a proprietary color-shifting ink. At one angle, the print looks black. Hold it another way, it looks green. Whoever made this bill found a way to imitate that.”

  Snyder lowered her steepled fingers. “He duplicated the ink?”

  “No. That’s what the North Koreans did, in a state-of-the-art laboratory. Our suspect used automotive paint. Specifically, a GM color, possibly Chevrolet. Ironically enough, it looks the same to the naked eye.”

  Cleo pointed at the counterfeit bill. “So what you’re saying is that you could spend this bill just about anywhere without getting caught.”

  “Even at a bank.”

  Graves leaned back in his chair, exhaling. He met Cleo’s gaze and raised his eyebrows, as if to say: Look what your guy got himself into.

  Hollis leaned forward, her eyes showing a glint of hunger. “The Secret Service is extremely interested in finding this individual.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to help,” Snyder said. “As soon as we take Andres down and prosecute him, we’ll turn him over to you.”

  “Let me make this perfectly clear,” Hollis said. “This is a matter of national security, and the Secret Service has jurisdiction. My office will handle the disposition of any action on Andres from this point forward. The Bureau is not to approach Andres under any circumstances.”

  Snyder sat motionless for a moment while she digested that, then nodded. “Okay.”

  “The hell with that.” The words erupted from Cleo before she could stop them. “What does that mean, we are not to approach him?”

  “My office will continue to monitor him as a person of interest, but we cannot risk disrupting any lead to our unknown counterfeiter. Not for any reason.”

  Cleo stared. “The man is a murderer. He has a hostage, right now, as we speak.”

  Hollis put her tools and hundred-dollar bills away with machine-like precision, saying nothing.

  Snyder cleared her throat. “All we have to go on is Ash’s word. And frankly, that’s not credible.”

  “So you’re just going to let Andres walk?” The words sounded so unreal, Cleo could barely get them out. She turned to Graves, wordlessly pleading for backup.

  Graves leaned in. “With all due respect—”

  “That’s all, Graves.” Snyder locked gazes with him.

  After a long moment, Graves dropped his gaze to the table and said nothing.

  Cleo stared at him in disbelief. “Graves. You have to back me up on this.”

  Snyder stood up. “Cleo, let’s talk about this outside.”

  “What? No, let’s talk right here.” Cleo stabbed the table with her finger. “Andres is a murderer, and he needs to be brought to justice. Now. Once we locate him, we need a team ready to go in and retrieve Ash’s brother, whom Andres abducted. At gunpoint.”

  Hollis snapped the latches on her case. “We have no evidence of that.”

 
; “Are you fucking kidding me?” Cleo shot to her feet. “Ash is in custody right now. He can tell you. Go ahead, ask him. I’ll wait.”

  Snyder came around the table. “Cleo—”

  To Hollis, Cleo said, “Have you even read his statement?”

  Snyder touched her gently on the arm. “Cleo, calm down.”

  Cleo jerked away. “No, I’m not going to calm the hell down until I get some answers. She can’t just walk in here and do this.”

  Snyder gave her a look that said she could, in fact, do exactly that.

  Hollis cleared her throat. “Do you think you can be objective here, Agent Garnett?” She glanced at Snyder, then back at Cleo. “I understand you were recently suspended, but even so your supervisor petitioned strongly for your inclusion in this meeting. Apparently, she thought you might have something constructive to add. I’m still waiting for that.”

  “How can you flatly deny that Andres is a killer?” Cleo said. “How can you justify coming in here and obstructing our investigation like this?”

  “There is no investigation, Garnett,” Snyder said. “It’s all you. It’s always been you.”

  Cleo fought back tears, her breath shaking in and out of her. She gripped the edge of the table, afraid to let go.

  Hollis got to her feet and picked up her attaché case. “We’re done here, except for the prisoner transfer.”

  Snyder hesitated, her gaze going from Cleo to Hollis and back. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The room settled into airless silence.

  Hollis cocked her head, like an insect, waiting.

  Snyder looked down at the tabletop. “I’ll have Agent Graves handle the transfer of custody.”

  “You can’t go along with this,” Cleo said weakly.

  Graves looked up at her at last, but she didn’t see guilt or shame in his eyes. She saw pity. As if he just couldn’t respect her anymore. And that was even worse.

  “Cleo, just . . .” For once, Snyder seemed at a loss for words. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”