Blind Spot (13 page)

But leading the sedan onto the tarmac would only continue the cat and mouse game. To make matters worse, another spring thunderstorm was brewing on the horizon, filling the sky with dark clouds. Sam drove faster. His truck rumbled underneath him, the vibrations reminders that the engine was old and not accustomed to speed, in spite of some recent repairs. He hoped it would hang on a little longer.

The first few fat drops hit his windshield, splattering loudly with the impact and streaking out along the glass as more rain followed. A flash of lightning up ahead lit the nearly black afternoon sky. He was running out of options, and the sedan didn’t show any signs of backing off. Even though he had chosen his route, it almost felt like part of a plan—as though the sedan was purposely forcing him into the storm and making him speed up. Almost like it was a trap. What if he couldn’t get out of it? He imagined the truck spinning out of control into the thick bank of trees. He would die, and Nathan would be alone again.

Keep those hands at ten and two.

His father had always driven so cautiously, and he’d taught Sam to do the same. Why was he speeding on the night of the accident in a snowstorm?

Pushing the random thought out of his mind, Sam focused on the road ahead. His chest ached when he thought of Nathan getting the inevitable phone call.
I’m so sorry to tell you, but….

Moreover, if Sam died, no one would ever know about the mayor’s supposed mob ties. He was likely the only one on the outside who knew the truth—besides Collins—and the evidence would die with him. He doubted Collins would stick his neck out again.

Sam tried to calm his panic and consider his options. On the left a chain-link fence enclosed the abandoned airfield. On the right tall maple trees lined the road, their green leaves frothing in the rising wind of the storm. Rain started falling harder, coating the windshield in sheets. Despite being on the highest setting, Sam’s wipers were hardly doing the job. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him, and pellets of hail soon joined the rain and clattered loudly on the roof. Behind him the sedan’s driver had turned on the car’s high beams. It was gaining on him.

A turn curved sharply to the right, and Sam slammed on his brakes to make it without skidding off the road. His hands slipped on the steering wheel as the truck lost all traction, and Sam’s stomach lurched. Hydroplaning. His father had warned him about that too. Miraculously the wheels found the ground, and he made the turn without incident. But he wasn’t out of the woods. Not a hundred yards ahead of him, there were taillights in the darkness, and beyond them, a line of oncoming headlights on the other side of the road. Even through the rain, he could tell they were slow moving. He was trapped.

Fuck no.

Whipping his truck over the barely visible double yellow lines to face the traffic, he passed the car on his right and made it back to the proper lane just in time to hear the blare of a car horn from his left. The line of slow traffic continued to pass, making it impossible for Sam’s pursuer to follow him. Sam floored it.

Once he’d made it a safe distance, he took the first turn he could onto a dead-end street with a few rundown houses and flicked off his lights. A minute or so later, the silver sedan sped by on the main road. He squinted to try to make out the plates, but they weren’t legible through the rain.

What the hell had just happened?

He sucked in a quick breath and then another. He was light-headed, and his heart was pounding loudly enough in his ears to be audible above the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder. With trembling hands he felt for the gun in his holster, drew it out, and placed it on the passenger seat next to the briefcase. It didn’t do much to calm him down. He was having a panic attack.

Forcing himself to breathe deeply, he leaned his head back and took stock of the situation. Whoever had tailed him had seemed willing to run him off the road. Had they followed him to the bank? He thought again of the woman who assisted him. Had she been paid to call someone if he showed up?

Sam ran a hand over his face and through his sweat-damp hair. He was in deep, deep shit.

Then again, what else was new?

ONCE HE
made it home, he locked and bolted the apartment door from inside. He grabbed only the essentials—computer and chargers, a few changes of clothes, more ammo, and, of course, Shadow. The cat complained loudly when he stuck her in the carrier, but he appeased her with a few treats and the promise of wet food whenever they arrived at their destination. For her, a local pet hotel.

He was back on the road again in fifteen minutes. He deposited Shadow at the Furry Friends Hotel and Day Care Facility, left his truck in a grocery store parking lot, and called for a ride to take him to a cheap motel across town. There was no sign of the silver sedan or any indication he was being followed. Sam checked in under a false name, paid the front desk attendant with cash, and was sure to lock the door behind him and leave his gun on the side table next to the bed, where he could reach it easily.

The room was a dingy affair with stained yellow wallpaper and an orange shag carpet that was matted and dark in places. He didn’t want to know with what. It was the kind of place you rented for sex or cleaning up after a murder. Nathan would have hated it.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not the Ritz,” Sam muttered to himself. “Try to stay calm.”

He called Nathan, but it went straight to voice mail. Nathan’s deep, smooth voice made Sam’s chest twinge.

Hello. You’ve reached Nathan Walker. Please leave a message, and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.

“It’s me,” Sam said after the beep. “I need to talk to you. It’s an emergency.” He threw down the phone and booted up his computer. He had to find out what was on the flash drive so he knew what he was up against.

He clicked open the first file.

There were several photos from what looked like surveillance video of an intimate gathering. A slightly slimmer Mayor White sat at a table with a man wearing a black suit. He had close-cropped white hair. Both of them held cigars, and they were smiling. Sam didn’t recognize the white-haired man, but he’d bet money he was a Voronkov. Another man stood behind them, slightly apart and to the left, and Sam would have remembered his face anywhere. He seemed to be watching the proceedings with interest. Sam zoomed in.

It was the guy who killed Emma Walker and almost killed him. Bernhardt Hoff.

BY NIGHTTIME
Sam had gone through all of the files, and he was livid. While some were more incriminating than others, taken together they were enough to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mayor White and the former deputy mayor—now Mayor Rick Morgan—had been taking regular bribes from the Voronkovs over the years. The files revealed a trail of corruption that brought new insight to recent events. The mayor had known about and directly benefitted from the Voronkov’s former arrangement with the PD and the Feldman Foundation. While the Voronkovs sent their drugs by land and sea through Stonebridge, to destinations in the north, and laundered their money through the Feldman Foundation, they gave the PD a cut to keep quiet.

The mayor’s “tough on crime” reputation was an illusion, based on his strategy of going after small-time dealers and their customers, rather than focusing on the big money. Sam had once considered Chief Sheldon a friend, and he was enraged to discover that he had played right into the mob’s hands for financial gain. He was less surprised to find out that White had been involved all along. But how, even with Collins’s assistance, had he seemed to keep his hands clean?

Why didn’t Sheldon expose the mayor and his cronies during the trial? He and his staff took the entirety of the blame. Bernhardt Hoff was a made man, as well as a torpedo—a hired gun—but he hadn’t ratted out his bosses during the trial either—even for a lesser sentence. He probably knew what thanks awaited that sort of betrayal. Maybe Sheldon kept quiet out of fear for his life.

But since the trial and conviction, the city had been lulled into a false sense of complacency, and that naïveté had allowed the same corruption to flourish under a different guise. Mayor White’s Streets Clean policy was appeasement at its worst. There was even a recording, secretly obtained by Collins, which consisted of a very stoned mayor boasting about how stupid the people of Stonebridge were to buy into “that load of crap.”

If the mayor were still alive, Sam would have kicked his substantial ass.

He flipped his computer shut with disgust. He couldn’t look at the mayor’s self-satisfied grin anymore. Whatever the case, in the last few months, the tide had turned against Mayor White. Maybe the fallout from the Halloween bombing and arsons had made him a liability, or maybe his increased drug use had signed his death warrant.

It seemed probable at least someone in the PD knew what was going on. Because the mayor had appointed her, Chief Howard was the most likely suspect. And either one of the Voronkovs or someone on White’s staff had killed him. Rick Morgan? It made sense. He had the most to gain.

Or maybe not.

One item—an e-mail from the mayor to Collins—pointed the finger in another direction entirely. White suspected his wife was having an affair, but he didn’t know with whom. So the entire mob connection
could
be unrelated, and the mayor’s death attributed to the cold-hearted calculation of two people who wanted him out of the way for personal reasons.

Sam scratched the rough growth of stubble on his chin. He hated the idea of Chief Howard being involved. In spite of his cynicism, he wanted to believe there were good people in the world, working in public service and politics for the right reasons.

What the hell was he going to do?

He needed a plan—and fast. No doubt the driver of the silver sedan was looking for him. They knew he had the files. The smartest thing he could do was get rid of them. But who could he trust? Antonio Rivera was a possibility, but Sam didn’t have his number, and asking anyone but Nathan for it might arouse suspicion.

His phone was still silent. Sam sent another text message.

Answer your damn phone.

Then there was the errant thought he had during the car chase, about his parents’ deaths. The official report said his father had lost control of the vehicle on an icy patch of road. Sam never doubted that what happened was an accident. He hadn’t let himself even consider another cause.

But several months before, when he and Nathan were working to crack the Stonebridge arson case, his father’s former colleague, Frank Chancellor, made a troubling throwaway comment about the crash.

“Suspicious, if you ask me….”

Though Frank never elaborated, the statement struck a chord deep in Sam’s gut. For so many years, Sam had been angry with himself. And he could finally admit he was angry with his father too. He felt guilty for not being in the car with his family that night—for surviving while his brother wasted away in a coma. And he was furious with his father for being the one behind the wheel and accidentally shattering all of their lives. But what if it wasn’t an accident after all?

Nathan still hadn’t texted back. It wasn’t like him to ignore Sam’s messages, especially if they were urgent.

What if something had happened to him?

Sam wished he’d brought his collar along. More than ever he needed tangible evidence of their connection. He touched his neck and imagined it there, but the gesture only served to confirm its absence.

He needed a drink.

TEN MINUTES
later Sam found himself across the street at a dirty liquor store, asking the guy behind the plexiglass for a pint. He returned to the hotel room with the paper bag and grabbed one of the disposable coffee cups. Then he thought better of it, unscrewed the bottle, and took a swig. Why bother with the illusion that he wasn’t going to drink the whole thing?

The whiskey burned its way down his throat and warmed his empty stomach. He sat on the armchair closest to the parking lot window and peeked through the dusty blinds. With the lights out in the room, he wouldn’t be visible to anyone, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Going out to get booze was a risky move.

It was worth it. He continued to drink, and the whiskey did its job, dulling his worry over Nathan.

But what if—

Sam bolted upright in the uncomfortable chair. The whiskey swished and spilled as he set it down on the table, right next to his loaded gun. He grabbed his cell phone and scrolled for Nathan’s number.

Three rings. Four.
Don’t go to voice mail. Don’t go to voice mail—

“Hello?” asked a silky male voice. “Who is Sam, and what does he want with my Nathan?”

“Who’s this?” Sam had trouble making the “s” sounds. He tried to wrap his lips around them and failed.

“I asked first.” The voice was teasingly seductive and held a hint of a British accent. Sam’s flesh crawled as the whiskey in his otherwise-empty stomach threatened to rise.

“Simon, who is it?” It was Nathan.

“Someone called Sam. Who is he, love?”

“Give me the phone.”

Sam hung up before Nathan could get on the line. He ignored the phone when it rang again and stared straight ahead at the ugly yellow wallpaper. One portion of it had started peeling off and showed the stained concrete wall behind it.

He felt numb, so he brought the whiskey to his lips again and sipped robotically. The bottle was already half gone, and Sam was drunk. Too drunk. He knew if the person in the silver sedan found him here, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. He could barely focus and he was pretty sure he was going to puke. He couldn’t get the man’s voice out of his head. Simon. Who was he? Someone Nathan met at the club?

Sam thought back to their abbreviated conversations over the past couple of weeks. Never once had Nathan mentioned a Simon, but it certainly seemed like they were on familiar terms. He’d called Nathan “love.”
What the actual fuck?
And where was Eric?