Don't Look for Me

by Mason Cross

  DON’T

  LOOK

  FOR ME

  A NOVEL

  MASON CROSS

  To Ava – keep writing

  Dear Reader,

  I’m really excited to share my latest book with you. If you’re not familiar with Carter Blake, then this is a great place to start. I’ve so enjoyed building his character and seeing it develop over the series. He’s come a long way from his days working for Winterlong (my last book, The Time to Kill, will give you an idea of what I mean by that ...) and he’s taking a break from his career as man-hunter. But the break doesn’t last long. When he recognises that the woman he once loved is in danger, there’s no question about what he will do – he has to go after her.

  In the book, you’ll see Blake trying to find someone who doesn’t want to be found, discovering that there’s more to the case than meets the eye. So far, so familiar. But while, in the past, Blake has been a coldly efficient professional, doing what he does and not getting too invested in his targets, in this book, he’s emotionally involved, big time. The mystery in Don’t Look For Me isn’t a whodunit. It’s the characters themselves Blake learns more than he bargained for about his former love, Carol, and even about himself. I had a lot of fun taking Blake way out of his comfort zone and putting him in some situations he’s ill-equipped to handle.

  If you’re new to Carter Blake, I hope you go back and read the earlier novels – they are all out in paperback now. You can read each book as a standalone, but there are little rewards and Easter eggs for regular visitors to the series. And I’d love to hear when you find these. Or just what you thought of the books. If you want to get in touch you can go via my website, or tweet me @MasonCrossBooks. Or you could sign up for my Readers Club (http://masoncross.net/readers-club) and hear straightaway when a new Carter Blake book hits the shelves, as well as getting access to exclusives and competitions. You can opt out at any time, and I promise not to send you endless amounts of spam. You’ll only hear from me when I have something interesting to say.

  Thanks for reading. Carter Blake will be back soon, and I hope you will too.

  Mason Cross

  PROLOGUE

  NEW YORK CITY, 2010

  You have to disappear.

  Carol Langford took one last look around the small apartment. It had been four days since she had last spoken to its owner. Four days since the phone call, after Senator John Carlson and his wife had been murdered.

  She remembered the terrible quality of the line. Not surprising, when she discovered that he was calling her from seven thousand miles away. She remembered how the static couldn’t mask the pain in his voice: physical, as well as the other kind. He was hurting. Trying and failing to hide it.

  She thought about how he hadn’t really answered any of her questions. But that was standard, of course. What was he doing over there? What did he have to do with the death ... no, the assassination of her boss? Who exactly was it that she had to fear so much?

  Who the hell was he, really?

  No. The conversation had been one-way, as usual. Don’t go near the office. Go to this address. Lose your phone.

  You have to disappear.

  Four days. She had left the apartment only once in that time, to buy bottles of water and some toiletries from the CVS two blocks away. After hours of watching rolling news coverage of the assassination, going outside had been a terrifying experience. She was constantly on edge, flinching when she caught the eye of someone smoking in a doorway, or when one of the other pedestrians veered a little too close to her on the sidewalk. On reaching the store, she immediately averted her eyes from the rack of newspapers, but not before she saw the senator’s face smiling back from every one of the front pages. Almost as an afterthought, she had picked up a pack of Revlon black hair dye.

  Four days of confinement to this tiny apartment, with its window looking out on a brick wall. Four days of ordering takeout with the cheap cell phone he had left, paying with cash from the bundle in the closet. There were so many other preparations: IDs in three different names, cash in different currencies, a set of car keys. The gun.

  Who did that? What kind of person maintains an apartment ready for when they need to disappear? She had had four days to ponder that question now, and she kept coming back to one conclusion: she didn’t know what kind of person did that. And that meant she really didn’t know him, period. All she really knew was that he was involved, somehow. He had called to warn her, so perhaps that meant he hadn’t known exactly what was going to happen to the senator. But he was a part of it—that much was certain.

  Too late, she had realized how far her focus on career had taken her from a normal life, even before the man with inquisitive green eyes had walked into the foyer of Carlson’s building all those weeks ago. Her parents were both gone. There had never been any siblings. Friends and acquaintances had gradually melted away since college, until the only people she ever talked to were work people. She wished there was somebody she could call. But then, even if there was, could she be sure she wouldn’t be putting them in mortal danger?

  She had avoided coming to the decision at first. She had forced herself to try to think rationally, to wait for the anger to burn off. But it hadn’t; it had only intensified. It was only in the last hour that she had made up her mind. That last time they talked would be the last time they would ever talk. She had thought she loved him. Now? She wasn’t sure what she thought. But it didn’t matter anymore.

  She took the last two bottles of water from the refrigerator and walked over to the coffee table where the canvas backpack was sitting. The pack was almost full. She put the bottles of water on top of the bundled-up shirts, which were stuffed on top of the nearly five thousand dollars in cash from the closet. One last time she wondered about taking the gun, and one last time she decided that it would be more of a burden than a benefit, given she had no firearms permit and no real idea of how to use it. She wondered if that would have to change. She zipped the pack closed and lifted it to the ground.

  In two strides, she crossed the floor to the breakfast counter that marked the boundary between the living room and the galley kitchen, and sat down on the wooden stool. There were only three items on the counter: a pen, a sheet of notepaper, and an envelope.

  Over the last four days, Carol had written a hundred letters to him in her mind. The message changed each time she went over it. Sometimes it was a few lines, sometimes several pages. There was so much she wanted to say. But now, sitting in front of the paper with pen in hand for the first time, her very last act in this apartment, it all seemed to become very simple.

  She took a breath and wrote the message. Four words. She breathed out.

  She folded the notepaper in half and placed it in the envelope. She put on her coat and hat, slung the pack over her shoulders, and walked out of the door, closing it behind her without looking back. She walked down the six flights of stairs and through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk. She glanced quickly up and down the street, uneasy after four days of confinement. The people rushed past in each direction, paying her no heed.

  It was as though she wasn’t there.

  PRESENT DAY

  1

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  Over a hundred degrees today, easy. The noon sun beat down relentlessly and radiated back up from the pitted concrete beneath his feet. It felt like being slowly microwaved. Trenton Gage peered into the darkness in front of him and decided that Laurence Farnam had unwittingly done him a favor when he picked this place to hide from what was coming.

  He forced himself to linger outside of the mouth of the tunnel for a little longer, surveying the road and ensuring that there were no prying eyes watching where he was going. Without thinking about i
t, he touched a finger to the thin, crescent-shaped scar on his cheek. The scar, a souvenir of the last time he had gotten careless, always itched in the heat. When he had satisfied himself that there were no onlookers. Gage took his sunglasses off, narrowing his eyes against the glare as he approached the entrance. Although the storm drain was more than wide and tall enough for him, he paused a little before he went fully inside. A big man’s natural caution on approaching a confined space.

  As he stepped across the shade line, the temperature plummeted blissfully. It grew cooler still with every step, as the tunnel grew darker. The respite from the heat was so welcome that he almost didn’t mind the smell. A heady mixture of damp and decay, with an undertone of excrement.

  The main tunnel was a large rectangle, slightly curved at the corners: ten feet wide by eight feet high; the walls were molded concrete. He knew that this stretch was a mere fraction of the whole system: a network of tunnels that branched and spread beneath the city above like the roots of a great oak. In an ideal world, he would have a map, but that resource would have been difficult to procure at short notice. People weren’t supposed to be down here. He supposed he was probably violating some trespassing laws, but he knew he was far from the only one. Tourists are sometimes surprised that Las Vegas seems to have fewer rough sleepers in evidence on the streets when compared to other major American or European cities. They’re there, of course, probably in greater numbers, if anything. But during the long daylight hours of unremitting heat, they go underground.

  A map would have been an asset, certainly, but he had something better: a guide. Or at least, he did if Meyer had been on the level. Gage would be very disappointed if Meyer failed to deliver. He would be sure to make that disappointment clear.

  He paused and surveyed the dank surroundings. The last target he had hunted had been a hedge fund manager, tracked across four states and eventually cornered in a plush hotel room in Dallas. Aside from the obvious differences between that job and this, Gage’s usual maxim held true: the best way to find someone was to let someone else show you the way.

  There was a small trickle of water along the dead center of the tunnel. In one of Vegas’s occasional flash floods, it would be a lot wetter down here, but the system was big enough to cope with the worst. As Gage got farther from the entrance, the darkness gradually exceeded his eyes’ ability to compensate, and he switched on the Maglite in his left hand, illuminating the stretch ahead. He heard a squeal from up ahead, beyond the field of the beam, and saw two tiny pinpoints of reflected light which vanished immediately as the rodent turned tail and fled deeper into the darkness.

  Gage shined the beam of the flashlight around and immediately saw some graffiti on the wall, sprayed in red. Ever Been Unlucky, the graffiti asked. At least, Gage assumed it was a question, despite the absence of a question mark. Gage didn’t believe in luck. It was another point to add to the long list of reasons he didn’t belong in Sin City. He turned the flashlight beam back to the ground and illuminated some man-made tumbleweed: sheets of newspaper, porno flyers, an empty bottle of Seagram’s, a single sneaker.

  Gage kept walking, listening to the echo of his footsteps and the muted hum of the traffic above him. In five minutes, he estimated he had covered around a quarter-mile. He was probably beneath the Beltway. Sure enough, just as Meyer had said, he found a triangle sprayed on the wall in yellow. His contact would be nearby.

  “Hey, Stretch,” the voice came from the shadows ahead, as if in response to Gage’s thought.

  Gage turned his flashlight in the direction of the sound and saw a black man in his mid-twenties approaching. He was thin and wiry. His clothes were too big, and they looked as though they had been on him for a decade.

  “Kevin, right?” Gage responded. “Meyer sent me.”

  Kevin nodded after a moment’s hesitation, and looked him over appraisingly. “You got a name?”

  Gage shook his head and fixed him with a stare. “Nope.”

  Kevin’s lips broke into a wide grin. “Shi-it,” he elongated the word over a second or two. “Well, I know you ain’t a cop. The cops don’t come in this far. You know what they say, right?”

  “What’s that, Kevin?”

  “What goes on under Vegas, stays under Vegas.” Kevin broke into a cackle that bounced off the concrete walls and echoed into the dark. Gage wondered how many times he had shoehorned that line into conversation.

  Tiring of the exchange, he produced the hundred-dollar bill, holding it between his middle and index fingers. Kevin’s laughter cut out abruptly and his eyes widened. His hand reached out for the bill and Gage pulled it back.

  “Show me, first.”

  Kevin looked momentarily disappointed, and then shrugged. “Whatever you say, Stretch.”

  Kevin led him deeper into the tunnel until they came upon the opening of one of the smaller tunnels that branched off. He paused at the mouth of the tunnel, his expression serious.

  “I’m gonna bring him out. Can’t take you in among the community, if you know what I mean.”

  Gage knew exactly what he meant. Kevin wasn’t in any way conflicted about selling out one of his neighbors, but he didn’t want anybody else to see him do it. His eyes moved to Gage’s hand, where he held the hundred, and Gage could see him think better of asking for an advance ahead of delivery.

  “White dude. Nice clothes. Doesn’t belong down here. That’s who I’m bringing. Okay?”

  Gage didn’t suppose there could be too many people down here who would fit Farnam’s description. “Bring him out here, and you get paid.”

  Kevin nodded and disappeared into the tunnel. Gage moved back from the edge so that he could not be seen by anyone approaching from within. A minute passed. Five. He was patient. He didn’t doubt for a second that Kevin would be back. The look in his eyes when he saw the hundred had been a guarantee of sorts. Eventually, he heard the low murmur of voices. Kevin’s voice, and that of another male. They were getting closer.

  Kevin emerged first, locked eyes with Gage and stepped out of the way. He was followed by a slightly pudgy white guy with dark blond hair. Gage recognized Larry Farnam from his DMV picture. Farnam wore a gray athletic t-shirt, expensive-looking jeans, and maroon Chuck Taylors. All were the worse for wear, but everything fit him and together seemed to form a considered sartorial choice. He had pulled these clothes from a drawer or a suitcase at the same time, not from a selection of Dumpsters over several months. Gage could see what Kevin had meant. Relative to the other residents of Down Here, the newness and expensiveness of Farnam’s clothes stuck out a mile.

  The guy stopped when he saw Gage, glanced at Kevin, confusion on his face.

  “What—”

  Gage was already on him, gripping his hands on his shoulders and pulling him out of the opening with the ease of a parent whisking a toddler away from a busy road. Gage slammed him against the tunnel wall.

  “Yo, Stretch ...”

  Gage turned around to Kevin. Kevin flinched back at his stare, but Gage took one hand from Farnam, easily restraining him with the other, and dug in his pocket for Kevin’s hundred. He didn’t have to tell him to beat it. Kevin snatched the bill from his hand and vanished into the smaller tunnel.

  Farnam was already begging before Gage had turned back to him. “Look, man, tell Granger he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

  Gage was unmoved. He was here to do a job, and that job did not entail negotiation.

  “I can’t help you,” he said.

  Farnam evidently saw a premonition of his future in Gage’s eyes, because he started hyperventilating. “Come on, man, we can talk about this. I’ll do anything, I’ll give you anything.”

  Gage looked him up and down, from his stained t-shirt to his mud-streaked sneakers.

  “What have you got?”

  Farnam started to speak a couple of times, realized he had nothing to give, and ended up just blinking stupidly.

  Out of force of habit, Gage looked around, thou
gh he knew there was no human being within a hundred yards, and no one who would care within a mile. Ordinarily, he would have used a gun. He wouldn’t even need a silencer down here. But Granger’s instructions had been very specific.

  He braced his left hand against Farnam’s throat, increasing the pressure so he couldn’t talk, and his squeals became almost inaudible. Then he reached for the knife, pulled it free of its sheath, drew his arm back, and drove it into Farnam’s sternum with force.

  Farnam bucked and struggled. Gage pulled the knife back and stuck him another three times in succession. Then he released his arm and Farnam dropped to the floor of the tunnel like a sack of wet sand.

  Gage stood back and surveyed his work. Farnam’s body shuddered for a few moments, and then went still. Gage wiped the blade down on the back of his shirt and replaced it in the sheath. He kicked the body over so that the stab wounds were facing up. The blood was nice and obvious against the light gray of the t-shirt. He took his cell phone out and snapped three quick pictures.

  As soon as he got clear of the tunnels and picked up a signal again, he would email the pictures to Granger, and the money would be in his account within twenty minutes. Not bad for a morning’s work.

  2

  GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA

  It was the longest I had stayed in one place for years.

  After spending the spring and summer drifting between different towns on the East Coast, I had decided to head south when the snow came in. Grand Isle fit the bill perfectly: a small town on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, and about as far south as I could get without having to swim. I had planned to stay for a few weeks when I had arrived in early November, but the temperate climate had been hard to resist, so I decided to stay put until the New Year. While I was still within the technical limits of that decision, it was now early June and I had yet to make a move. The problem was, the Gulf Coast just kept getting more pleasant as the year advanced. I kept expecting to get tired of waking up to blue skies and beaches, and peace and quiet, but it never happened. I read books, I went for long runs, I ate good food in a different place every night. I did everything I could to not go looking for trouble, and for the most part, I was doing a good job. Right up until the moment I pulled my used Ford into Vansen’s Auto Shop.