Bait (18 page)

Then the clock had struck midnight. Like Cinderella at the ball, she was left with no choice but to flee.

She'd come so far. Was she really going to just let it all go?

Slowing, she turned right into the parking lot of a QuikStop just beyond the plant. Through its windows she could see a couple of customers inside the store, and there was an old Chrysler at the gas pump. She pulled up to another of the pumps and stopped the car.

Then she just sat there, hands tight around the steering wheel, staring out through the windshield at the glowing Brehmer's sign.

 

“WELL?” SAM growled into the phone. He, Wynne, and Gardner were in the air now, about a third of the way into the three-hour flight to St. Louis. They had been experiencing varying degrees of turbulence since they'd taken off, and right at that moment the small chartered plane was bouncing all over the sky. Gardner, in the seat facing Sam, was wrapped in a blue blanket and slumped against the fuselage, fast asleep. Beside her, Wynne was sprawled in his seat as if he didn't have a bone left in his body. He was pale and slack-jawed, his parted lips faintly purple from his gum—hopefully discarded before he went to sleep—which Sam could still smell. Only a gleam from beneath nearly closed lids told Sam that the ringing phone had roused him—unlike Gardner—from oblivion.

“We think she took a taxi to the mall,” Gomez said on the other end. “Looks like she went shopping.”

“Shopping?”
Sam repeated, momentarily dumbfounded. Then he frowned. How likely was that? “Directly from the airport? Without picking up her car?”

“This cab driver says he gave a woman matching her description a ride to the mall,” Gomez repeated doggedly.

“So she's at the mall.”

“Well ...” There was something in Gomez's tone that told Sam that the other shoe was getting ready to drop. “The thing is, the mall's closed now and she doesn't seem to be there. Actually, uh, we can't seem to locate her anywhere. I'm thinking maybe she, uh, met some friends at the mall and went somewhere with them.”

Breathe.
“Find out.”

“I'm trying. I've got Hendricks with me now, and we're doing everything we can to locate her.”

Deep breath. Deep, calming breath.
“Do more. Put out an APB if you have to. I want her found.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yessir.”

And on the heels of that verbal salute, Sam broke the connection.

“Fucking new guy still fucking up, huh?” Wynne asked. As far as Sam could tell, the only muscles he'd moved were connected to his eyelids. His eyes were open now, and he was looking at Sam.

“Yeah.” The plane pitched. Sam's fingers curled instinctively around the arms of his seat. Outside the windows, the night was black. No stars, no moon. Just—nothing. A void. “You know, that guy isn't going to just let her walk away. He's going to kill her if he can.”

He tried to keep the tension he was feeling out of his voice. He knew himself well enough to know that if it hadn't been for the turbulence, he would have been up, pacing the cabin.

“You think he's already going after her again? Or is he out there somewhere, planning a hit on this Walter?”

“I don't think he has to plan a hit on Walter. I think he knows exactly where Walter is, and can hit him any time he wants. The others, too. They were all planned in advance. This chase thing he has us doing is a game to him. He likes to drive us crazy trying to figure it out, then do the hit right before we close in. He's taunting us, letting us know he's smarter than us.”

“Sick son of a bitch.” But Wynne said it lazily. This case wasn't getting to Wynne the way it was to him, Sam realized. Of course, the phone calls weren't directed at Wynne. And now, there was Maddie Fitzgerald. “You think he's having fun with it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “But we'll get him. He's already made one mistake. And one mistake is all it takes.”

“Leaving Maddie Fitzgerald alive.”

“That's the one.”

“So you think he's in St. Louis.”

If the bastard was already in St. Louis, and Maddie Fitzgerald was missing, things weren't looking good. The idea that she was out there, unprotected and possibly in danger, while he was stuck in this tiny cabin, miles above the earth, made Sam nuts.

“Depends on how he's getting around. If he's driving, which I think he is, it's possible. But even if he isn't in St. Louis yet, he will be. Soon. I'm as sure of it as I am my own name. There's no way he can be sure she can't identify him.”

Wynne looked at him. “Think it's fair to abandon Walter to his fate while we mount guard over her?”

The plane dropped a couple hundred feet, and Sam's grip on the seat arms tightened until his knuckles turned white. Wynne the Placid never even moved.

“You ever hear the saying about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush? Maddie Fitzgerald is our bird in the hand. We don't know where Walter is, and chances are we're not going to figure it out in time to save him. We do know where she is. And we can assume the UNSUB's off-balance, because he hadn't figured on having to get to St. Louis to take care of a mistake. This is probably our best chance to catch him, and the best way to save Walter, whoever the hell he is, and anyone else who might have made the sick bastard's hit parade. What we do is put a tail on Maddie Fitzgerald, and wait. He'll show up. Always supposing he hasn't already gotten to her, that is.”

Sam's insides twisted at the thought. Since this case had started, they'd been too late five times already. If it turned out to be six, and the next victim was Maddie Fitzgerald, he knew he'd be haunted by her honey-colored eyes for the rest of his life.

 

THE SMELL of gasoline was slow to dissipate in the muggy air. Topping off her tank, Maddie thought she could almost see the vapors as a diaphanous, glistening film, rising hazily beneath the harsh light. Returning the nozzle to its niche, she screwed her gas cap back on and headed for the cash register. She paid for the gas, walked back to her car, and got in.

The Brehmer's sign still glowed orange in the distance.

A sharp tap on the window made her jump so high that she almost banged her head on the roof. Her heart was hitting about a thousand beats per minute by the time she realized that the man on the other side of the glass was the same man she had paid for the gas.

Cautiously, she rolled the window down a few inches.

“Forgot your change,” he said, handing over a couple of limp bills and some coins.

“Oh. Thanks.” Rolling up the window, she dropped the change in the console, stuffed the bills in her pocket, and started the car. Her pulse was still racing as she pulled out of the QuikStop. Her hands shook and she was freezing cold again, jittery, basically one big nerve.

It had taken only that tap on the window to make her realize just how vulnerable she was. The hit could happen anytime, anywhere.

No matter how hard she ran.

If they'd found her once, they could find her again.

She drove past Brehmer's, heading for the expressway, but she didn't even notice the glowing sign because the truth of her situation, now that she had been awakened to it, pulsated through her brain in its own huge neon orange letters.

Now that they knew she was alive, they would never stop coming after her.

Sooner or later, they would find her. And she would die.

Boom.
Just like that.

Blindly, she drove right past the expressway ramp.

Unless she beat them at their own game. Unless she got over the paralyzing terror that had haunted her for seven years. Unless she fought back.

She was not defenseless. She had a weapon. The only question was, did she have the guts—the smarts—to use it? And survive?

The bright warning of a red light stopped her. Glancing around, she realized that the expressway entrance was a good three blocks behind her, that she was waiting at an intersection with a gang of up-to-no-good toughs eyeing her from the corner, that the dark storefronts sported iron bars and the only other vehicle in sight was pulled over at the next corner with a miniskirted hooker leaning through the window.

Not that any of that scared her particularly. She knew this part of town, knew East St. Louis, knew all the East St. Louises out there. They were in her blood. She'd grown up in a succession of them, each rougher than the first.

But she had gotten out, made herself over, become
somebody.
She was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, for God's sake. How funny—how cool—was that?

She pulled into the parking lot just past where the hooker was now sliding into the car, turned around, and headed back toward the QuikStop. She would park there, make a couple of phone calls.

It was called taking back her life.

Then, maybe, if the gods were kind and the heavens smiled and her luck was just a little bit good, she would be going home.

Or maybe not.

ELEVEN

Saturday, August 16

 

 

By the time the taxi dropped her off at the airport, it was nearly five a.m. Pulling her little black suitcase behind her, Maddie headed for long-term parking, so tired that just putting one foot in front of the other required a serious effort. But she felt better. Not good, but better.
Safer.

She thought she'd managed to call off the dogs.

The number was seared into her brain. She had called it often enough, years ago. The phone was still operational, still answered in the same way.

“A-One Plastics.”

The company didn't really exist, of course. Or, rather, it did, but only as a front for the real operation: a loansharking outfit with ties to the Mob. She'd asked for Bob Johnson, and had been answered by a couple of heartbeats' worth of dead silence.

Then the man on the other end of the phone had asked sharply, “Who's this?”

His voice had bristled with paranoia.

Identifying herself, Maddie had almost smiled. She was still scared to death of them, of what they could do; she knew her life hinged on how this phone call turned out; but still, it felt almost good to carry the war into the enemy's camp at last.

The man had denied any knowledge of Bob Johnson, but had asked her to leave a number where she could be reached.

Not very many minutes later, her cell phone had rung, just as she had known it would.

“This is Bob Johnson,” the voice said. Maddie thought she recognized it, but she couldn't be sure. It had been a long time ago. And, after all, Bob Johnson was a code, not a man. For all she knew, maybe more than one person answered to it. Or maybe the person answering to it had changed. “Who is this again?”

Maddie identified herself for a second time, and the pause with which her name was greeted told her that he recognized it.

“Where are you, babe?” he asked finally.

That was so blatant that Maddie laughed.

“Like I'm going to tell you,” she said, then glanced nervously around the lighted parking lot to make sure that they had not already managed to track her to this out-of-the-way QuikStop. The Chrysler had been replaced by a red Dodge Neon. Its owner, a black man in a blue mechanic's uniform, was busy pumping gas. She nestled the small silver phone closer to her face. “Remember all those ‘errands' you guys had my father run? He kept things from them. Evidence. Enough to put quite a few people away for a long time. I'm just calling to tell you that if anything happens to me, if I die younger than eighty in any place other than my bed, letters are going to be mailed, giving certain locations where certain things are hidden, and that evidence is going to start popping up all over the place like a bad rash, and a lot of people are going to go down.”

This time the silence wasn't as long.

“You know what happens to little girls who make big threats?” The voice had turned ugly. “Things that aren't so nice.”

Maddie laughed again, the sound as brittle as she felt. “You mean, like somebody sending a hit man to knock me off? Oh, wait, somebody's already done that. But he messed up, and I'm still here. And I mean to stay that way. Look, I don't want any trouble. I just want to live my life in peace. So I'm trying to come up with something here that works out for all of us. Nobody bothers me, and I don't bother anybody. That evidence never sees the light of day.”

“What kind of evidence are we talking about?”

Maddie thought fast. “You want an example? Okay. My father was there the night that Ted Cicero was whacked. The guy who did it threw the gun away afterwards. Later, my father went back and got the gun.” She paused for effect. “I can't be sure, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that there are fingerprints all over it.”

The sound of an indrawn breath told her that she'd scored. She remembered well the night her father had come back from witnessing the hit on Ted Cicero. He'd gotten drunk and cried, and told her everything, to her horror.

“Where is it?” he asked, rasping now.

“I want to be let alone,” she said, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “If I even think there's a hit man in my vicinity, I'm going to give the gun—and everything else my father kept—to the FBI. They've already been in touch with me, you know. Looking for your hit man. I don't want to, but if I have to choose between getting whacked and going to the feds, I pick the feds.”

She could hear him breathing hard. “If I recall right, you got a history with the feds yourself.”

“So don't make me choose.”