Luke and John—he must have been one of the men I’d heard in the house—were loading suitcases into a car. It and the SUV were the only two vehicles here. It was cold enough to keep the others inside.
“Careful with that,” John told Luke.
“Why? It’s just a fucking briefcase.”
“Full of money.”
“Shit,” was all Luke said.
“Put the suitcase on top of it,” John instructed.
My phone vibrated. I ignored it.
Wondered if the bombs would go off when she didn’t hear from me.
“How much more we got?” Luke asked.
“Two more small cases. Some gold to add to the money. As soon as they’re ready.”
They turned and went into the house. My phone stopped vibrating.
Either do it or run like hell out of here.
I picked up the two bombs. As quickly as I could, I edged through the trees and underbrush to the driveway. Crouching low I ducked behind the SUV, using it to block me from the house.
One bomb went under its back tire.
I duck-walked to the car, placing the second bomb under its same tire.
The low sun was behind me. I would be hard to see in the glare. On my knees I leaned around to the trunk.
Somehow I doubted I was going to get paid for all the work I’d done for them.
I pushed the suitcase off the attaché with the money. They were lazy, thinking no one else was around. Why lock something if you’re going to open it again soon?
From my position, it was a long reach, but I was able to flip open both the catches on the briefcase. It contained piles and piles of money.
I snatched four bundles and stuffed them in my pockets.
I sidled back into the trees, moving in a low crouch until I thought I was far enough away from the house to be hidden by the underbrush.
Then I flat-out sprinted as quickly as I could, running along the overgrown trees, jumping tangled vines, heading madly for the unlocked gate.
My phone vibrated again just as I was at the gate.
This time I answered it.
“Yeah?” I said, then holding the mouthpiece away so she wouldn’t hear my heavy breathing.
“Where are you?”
“Almost there. Sorry it took so long. It’s been slow with some parade and big festival in town. Cops everywhere. I had to be careful about answering my phone.” I covered the phone mic with my hand to take another breath.
“Are you near the festival grounds yet?”
“Close, another block. Then two more to the bank. Maybe you should be on your way to pick me up.”
“Soon. I promise, soon.”
I quietly let myself out of the gate. I didn’t want her to hear a squeak.
The phone went dead.
I crossed to where I’d put the chain, hastily taking it back to the gate. I wrapped the chain around the iron bars, doing what I could to make it difficult to reach through the gate and get to the lock.
Once the lock clicked shut, I again ran, just remembering to grab my overnight bag out of the brush. I crossed the narrow lane, then climbed the hill on the other side of the road to get my bearings. Off in the distance I could see the Hudson River. The train station would be right next to it.
I continued along the hill. Cutting through the trees slowed me down, but I didn’t want to be close to a road for fear part of the gang might drive by.
I punched in the number for Emily Harris.
She answered on the first ring.
“Just listen,” I said. I gave her directions to the house, the streets I paid such attention to. “There are a bunch of men there who are about to get away. And a few women. In a minute or two you’re going to have plenty of reason to go in and raid the house.”
“What’s going on? Where are you?” She had to hear my heavy breathing, the sloshing through fallen leaves.
“Someday I’ll explain. There’s no time now.”
My phone buzzed. Another call. “Someday,” I echoed. “You were right, there are no female ICE. agents involved.”
I hung up and answered what I knew had to be Ashley’s call.
“I’m right across from the festival now. Still going slowly,” I said, looking down at the house. The hill was high enough I could see over the brick wall. In the summer the trees would block the view, but the bare branches of winter revealed the unkempt lawn and faded bricks. I kept walking, looking back over my shoulder.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Micky, thank you so much for everything you’re done for me. It’s,” then very softly, “you deserve the kind of woman I wish I was.”
I heard a note of longing in her voice. It told me that some of it had been real. It also told me she knew what was about to happen.
“Yep, almost there,” I lied. But I wasn’t lying; we were almost there, just not the destination they intended.
I kept the phone open, hoping at the last minute she’d yell at me to get out of the truck, to run.
Instead she said, “Good-bye, Micky.”
“I’ll see you again in a half hour,” I replied.
She hung up. Those were her final words.
The world erupted, a roar followed by louder roars, gold and flame leaping to the sky. A huge blaze at the main gate, smaller ones near the house. I swear I saw bills floating in air, wafting over the ruins of the cars.
I powered down my phone and starting jogging down the other side of the hill.
Chapter Twenty-five
Going between a slow jog and a fast walk, I made it to the train station in about twenty minutes. It was rush hour, so the trains came at frequent intervals.
One was just pulling into the station as I bought my ticket back into the city. I paid with cash from my wallet, not the stacks now hidden at the bottom of my bag.
I put my phone in there as well, leaving it safely off. Otherwise I might call Emily and ask if they’d raided the place yet. Or Ashley and scream every vile name I could think of at her.
Silence was better, safer.
I had made a fool of myself. This was the year of bad decisions, wrong choices, dead ends. Ashley West was a shimmering mirage, playing the perfect woman because I desperately wanted someone to reflect me as I wanted to be, not as I was. Emily or even Desiree would have been better choices, but they were real people, Emily with her distrust, Desiree with her past, honest enough to show me their flaws, honest enough to not make promises from desires.
I suddenly had a stabbing longing for Cordelia.
Bid time return, call back yesterday.
But I couldn’t. Time is relentless, the past unchanging. I couldn’t go back and fix what had been broken.
I was on a train with no real destination. I’d go back to New York, of course, but I had no purpose there. My mother lived in the city, but I was too broken and ashamed to want to see her and her partner and confess my reason for being here—I followed a woman who lied to me. Time might give me the will to talk about what had happened, how deluded I’d been, going from destroying a love of long term to lurch into a fantasy affair.
That left me on a train in the night with no answers for the morning.
Still, we arrived in Grand Central and I had to go somewhere. I wandered down Forty-second Street until I found a hotel that would let me pay in cash. I made up a story about trying to get away from an abusive partner and not wanting to use a credit card that he could trace. It helped to pay up front. The money came from the bundles at the bottom of my bag.
After that I found a liquor store and bought the best Scotch they had. I also picked up something to eat. I wasn’t hungry now, but I would be eventually.
Then I went back to the hotel room and cried into my Scotch. It seemed the fitting end to the day.
The next morning I woke with a hangover, no surprise.
It was a beautiful clear winter day. I hadn’t been blown into scraps of flesh nor burned alive. The explosives in the truck had been used agains
t those who would have killed innocent people with them. There were things to be thankful for. Breakfast and coffee also helped.
I also had sixty thousand dollars in cash. I carefully checked a number of the bills; they seemed real, and I couldn’t see any way they were marked except for a fifty that read “gay money.”
I went shopping, buying new clothes and the suitcase to carry them in. I bought some really nice tea, stuffed five thousand into one of the tea boxes, wrapped it in several layers, and addressed it to Bianca at her Tulane Avenue address. Thanks for the tea, maybe this will help you get started in business was the note I put inside. I didn’t include my name or a return address. I also bought a new tablet to use instead of my phone. I didn’t get an account but would use it when I could find wireless Internet. I wanted to be as hard to find as possible.
It’s not as easy to spend money as it looks. I went to two different banks and set up checking accounts of just under ten thousand dollars, to avoid them being reported to the IRS. I lied to both and said I’d been very lucky in Vegas.
In the afternoon I chanced turning on my phone. Emily had called five times. Ashley hadn’t tried once. I quickly turned it back off.
The explosions and subsequent arrests made the news, front page (below the fold) even in the New York Times. The article said a number of people had been arrested. I saw John’s picture and those of several others, the kingpins, but nothing on Ashley. My guess had been right; the FBI had identified their main operating location, and they had hurriedly relocated to the property I’d seen. They were packing up to leave there and spread to the four winds, plane tickets already in hand.
They had to know I’d been the one to screw up their plans. Between the FBI and the crooks, if any had escaped, it wasn’t a good idea for me to hang around.
I spun the globe and picked a place to run off to.
Melbourne, Australia, sounded like about the right distance. I wanted a city big enough to disappear into, and I was lazy enough to want some place where they spoke English. My French is poor and more Cajun than anything in Paris.
It was stolen money—or money that came from the wrong places, so I didn’t care how quickly it went.
I found a travel agent—how I love the density of New York—and booked my flight for the following day. I splurged on business class. I managed to pay in cash by claiming I’d gotten it in a divorce settlement and I didn’t want to put it in a bank, otherwise he might try to get it. He was a cheap bastard—my fictional boyfriend / husband was coming in handy.
I wasn’t truly fooling myself; I knew the travel was a distraction, motion to keep me going through the days. But the exigencies of arranging everything, getting a visa, easy enough for Americans, gathering enough clothes and toiletries to get me through for a while. Emailing Chanse and Scotty to see if they could take on any pressing cases while I was away. All the activity kept me busy, away from my demons. And the Scotch.
I felt I could legitimately keep the money I would have earned had Ashley paid for everything she said she would pay for. The rest needed to be burned in spending, to get it out of my pocket and into other people’s, one who would use it to buy school clothes for their kids or a new stove.
My phone stayed off, in the bottom of my suitcase.
This time I took a cab out to JFK to catch my late-night plane out of here. I’d change planes in Hong Kong, then on to Melbourne. I got there a little after ten p.m. My plane left at one thirty a.m. This time of night was a slow point at the airport. I got through security more quickly than I expected and headed for my gate.
I was browsing the latest bestsellers in a newsstand when I caught sight of a glint of red hair.
A green coat.
I followed her. She was walking quickly, in a hurry. I hastened to catch up, to be sure it wasn’t my imagination playing tricks.
It was the same purse; I recognized it.
I waited until she passed the stores with the few people around in them before speeding up enough to catch her.
When I was just behind her, when she had to have heard my footsteps, I called, “Martha! Martha Fleming!”
She turned and stared, then started to run.
I grabbed her arm.
“How did you—?” she started.
“Know your real name? I’m a detective. Finding out things is what I do.”
“You must know I didn’t want that to happen.”
“You mean you didn’t want me and scores of other people to be killed by a bomb? Really? You fooled me into thinking you did because you didn’t do a goddamn thing to stop it.”
“No, it’s not like that. I couldn’t. They would have killed me.”
“Yeah? We could have escaped at the train station.”
“They had guns.”
“That they would have used in a bunch of people ensuring their immediate arrest.”
“I hoped to get away. And you did. You saved the day.”
“You would have let me die. Maybe if it was just me for you, I would have even offered, but you wanted to make it look like a terrorist attack, killing many more people. That I can’t forgive.”
“That’s not what I wanted to happen.” She bit her lip in the little-girl fashion she had perfected.
“What did you want to happen?”
“I desperately wanted to get away from them. That’s why I asked you to come to New York. So we could get away together.”
“You should have let me in on that.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“If we’d had one less orgasm there would have been time.”
She looked down and said contritely, “I know. But…it was so good to be with you. I thought we’d have more time, but they didn’t trust me and were watching me. They must have suspected I wanted to get away. They ordered me to get you involved. I kept hoping for a miracle, some way to avoid what they were doing. But they had a gun on me the entire time.”
She was lying. I was tired of her excuses.
“What was going on in New Orleans? Why where you there?”
“We—they had hired the Guidry brothers to run their operation down there, but they were overstepping and we—John, Jack, Cara, and I were sent down to straighten things out. My role was mostly to take notes and arrange logistics.”
“Secretary to the mob. Why get the cops out to their warehouse?”
“The brothers weren’t supposed to be doing that. We wanted to send them a warning.”
“The plan was to leave me there and take the blame, right?”
“It wasn’t my plan. I didn’t know John had that in mind.”
She was good, just the right quiver in her voice, her eyes direct and holding mine. One of the best liars I’ve even encountered.
“Who killed the women? The ones dumped in the river.”
“The brothers,” she said too quickly for me to believe her.
“Why would they do that?”
“They were psychopaths. They wanted to scare the other women they had from trying to escape.”
“Were you there?” I asked.
She looked at me. “No, of course not. I…it was the brothers. They did it.”
That was all I’d get from her. John and Jack were probably the murderers, and it was meant as a threat to both the brothers and Desiree.
“Why did he attack you?”
“Payback. They weren’t going to quietly tuck in their tails and say ‘yes, sir.’ I was their message.” Then she put her hand on my face. “Micky, I know I’m a terrible person, but please know I wanted a new life with you, to start again and be someone better. That was the only reason I asked you to come up here. I was…was falling in love with you. That’s not something I let myself do. You were the one who took care of me. I so wanted that as a future…not this.”
Even though I knew she was a self-serving liar, I wanted to believe part of that was true, that somewhere in her tangle of lies, she did care for me.
“Where are you running t
o?” I asked.
“Somewhere far away. I’m not safe from the law or Jack if he finds me.”
“He got away?”
“I think so.”
“I’m supposed to just let you go?”
She looked down. “I know I have no right to ask this, but give me an hour. Give me one more chance.” She leaned forward and gently kissed me.
“All right. One more chance.”
She smiled, the radiant smile that had so bewitched me. “Thank you. I’ll never forget you.” She started down the concourse.
“I’ll never forget you either,” I called after her.
She turned and blew me a kiss.
I watched until she turned a corner and was out of sight.
I dug into the bottom of my carry on and found my phone. I turned it on and called Emily.
“Knight! Where are you?”
“Don’t ask. That’s not important. JFK in Terminal 7. The woman who called herself Ashley West and claimed to be an ICE agent is there and about to get on a plane. Her real name is Martha Fleming. She’s part of your trafficker gang.”
“Shit, Knight, for making my life easy, you’re making it hard. This is the second tip out of thin air that I’m supposed to pass on.”
“I was right on the first one.”
“True.”
“Just tell them…it’s from someone who trusts you.”
I ended the call.
One hour?
Fuck you, you lying bitch.
Chapter Twenty-six
I loved Melbourne, a friendly, fantastic city, a walkable center and streetcars that remind me of New Orleans. Great food from all around the Pacific Rim. And seafood. It was a port city, after all.
After getting here, I’d found a spot with wireless and written Emily an accounting of what I’d done. I left out taking the money but was honest about everything else, even my messy affair with the woman I still thought of as Ashley West. After enough time for her to have bounced it to the higher-ups, she’d replied that I was in the clear. I’d saved people from being burned in the French Quarter and prevented a horrible attack on innocent civilians and in such an ingenious way that it stopped the real criminals from getting away. They weren’t giving me a medal, but they weren’t going to lock me up, either.
The Shoal of Time Page 30
