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Their only lead rested in Davey’s hands and every minute till daybreak seemed like an eternity.

Sam glanced over at Zack. He looked like a burned scarecrow, his boxers barely clinging to narrow, bony hips. For the first time, Sam noticed several misshapen patches of skin around his lower back. They were smooth like burn scars but ghostly white against his black skin, as though he had tried to wash himself in bleach.

Zack released a heavy sigh and turned to stretch
his limbs. His back cracked audibly as he reached for the ceiling before bending at the waist to touch his toes. His movements exposed more splashes of white skin across his stomach and running down his legs.

‘It’s a condition called vitiligo,’ Zack explained. ‘It destroys the pigment of the skin.’

‘Sorry,’ Sam said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to stare.’

Zack stroked his stomach. ‘I used to fret over it: applying body make-up every day and praying that it wouldn’t spread to a more visible area.’ He sighed again. ‘In India they call it white leprosy – charming, huh?’ Zack paused for effect. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not catching. Besides, you’re so damn pale, you wouldn’t know you had it.’

Sam attempted a smile, but it fell flat. His mind was preoccupied with other, more troubling, thoughts.

‘I stopped using the make-up,’ Zack continued softly. ‘Jasmine always told me it wasn’t important, that skin was skin. It took this . . .’ his voice broke ‘. . . this fucking tragedy to make me see how right she was.’

An uncomfortable silence filled the room before Sam changed the subject. ‘Do you trust Davey?’

Zack wiped at his eyes. ‘I don’t know him well enough. Why?’

‘I’ve been sitting here thinking that he has no good reason to trust me any more. He has his yearbook back, so why let me near his programmes?’

‘You’re right. If something was that precious to me and you set it alight, I wouldn’t let you near it again.’

Sam leapt to his feet. ‘Get dressed. We have to find him before he disappears.’

78

In the car, Detective Preston finished his coffee and crushed the paper cup in his hand before dropping it at his feet.

Hogan made a disapproving clucking noise with his tongue.

Preston ignored him. ‘Did you hear anything back on that camera we recovered?’

‘Not much,’ Hogan said. ‘Like I suspected, there wasn’t a hard drive inside to store images. It was just a drone sending its data to either a relay station or a nearby computer. Some of the components were unusual, though, so our guys are searching to see where it was manufactured. They tell me it’s definitely not American.’

‘Is anything electronic made in America these days?’ Preston asked.

Hogan shrugged. ‘I doubt it. I hear those darn Texans hate anything small, and it’s tough to be competitive when your MP3 players are the size of toasters.’

‘We don’t have the hands for it.’ Preston held up a pair of massive hands, each finger the size of a plump ballpark frank.

Before Hogan could make a quip, the radio squawked. ‘Hey, cowboy. Got a message for you.’

Preston snapped up the handset. ‘Let me guess, darlin’. You’ve made buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and you need to know if I’m on my way.’

Darlene’s cackle scared the static off the airwaves. ‘You wish, cowboy. No, I’ve got a big, strong, pretty-as-chocolate-silk-pie officer here who has info on your BOLO.’

‘Jeep?’ Hogan asked.

‘On the Jeep, Darlene?’ Preston asked into the handset.

‘Uh-uh. Mercedes. He talked to the driver.’

Hogan pressed his foot on the accelerator and made a sharp left-hand turn.

‘Keep him there, darlin’. We’re comin’ in for a chat.’

79

When Zack and Sam arrived under the Burnside Bridge, the place looked deserted except for two skinny dogs fighting over a yellow bone. The bone didn’t look worth the fight, but maybe, Sam thought, he had just never been that desperate.

In the light of day, the village was nothing more than a dirt path littered with empty cardboard boxes and discarded scraps of wood. A damp wind fuelled by dark clouds blew across the river.

Sam peered into the ironworks, scanning for any stragglers.

‘Over there.’ Zack pointed to a lump on the ground near a smouldering trash barrel.

Sam turned to see the wind had lifted the edge of a black trash bag to expose a pair of brown leather shoes. The legs sticking out of the shoes were wrapped in newspaper socks beneath a pair of baggy, mud-coloured suit pants.

Sam approached and lightly kicked the sole of one shoe. ‘Hey! You awake?’

An indecipherable grumble was the reply.

Sam kicked the shoe again, and then sprang backwards as the owner spun with unexpected speed, his hand clutching a broken bottle. The ragged edge of glass missed Sam’s legs by less than an inch.

Sam backed away. ‘We don’t want any trouble. We just need to know where everybody went.’

The man rose to his feet, his face forming a fierce scowl. His visage was made even more menacing by a ragged scar that ran from forehead to chin, crossing one eye. The empty socket locked on to Sam’s face, daring him to look away.

‘What time?’ The man’s voice was the snap of a rabid dog.

‘Just gone eight,’ Sam said.

‘Breakfast.’

The man began to walk away, dropping the broken bottle as he went. He didn’t seem to care that it shattered on the same ground where he might find himself sleeping that night.

Sam called after him, ‘Where’s breakfast?’

The man reached the stairs that led to the bridge deck. He turned slowly, spat on the ground and jabbed his thumb at the river. ‘Westside,’ he growled.

Sam looked over at Zack. ‘You get the car. I’ll follow Grumpy on foot.’

Sam followed Grumpy across the bridge. Pedestrians and cyclists gave the homeless man a wide berth as he snarled at every passer-by.

On the west side of the river, he continued up Burnside Street until he came to Third Avenue, and then turned north. Sam glanced behind him, saw the Mercedes crossing the bridge a block behind, and waved to get Zack’s attention before continuing on to Third.

The border between Chinatown and Old Town was packed with over a hundred homeless waiting in line for a free pancake breakfast on one side of the street and a sack lunch prepared by the Union Gospel Mission on the other.

As he waited for Zack, Sam watched Grumpy growl his way to the front of the line and get served a plate of pancakes.

When Zack pulled up, Sam slid into the passenger seat.

‘You spot him?’ Zack asked.

Sam shook his head. ‘He’s not in the line-up for pancakes, but there’s a huge crowd filtering through the Mission. Let’s wait.’

It only took ten minutes before Davey appeared at the Mission door. The prized yearbook was under his arm and he was so busy digging through the contents of his brown-bag lunch he didn’t look at the street.

Zack glanced at Sam. ‘Now what?’

‘He doesn’t have his backpack,’ Sam noted. ‘He wouldn’t leave it alone for long.’ He glanced
around at the jostling mob. ‘We’ll follow in the car until we can park. Then continue on foot.’

Zack drove slowly out of the congestion of desperate, unwashed bodies.

80

Davey led them further north before cutting back towards the river. This forced Sam and Zack to leave the car on the edge of Chinatown. Davey turned north again as he passed Steel Bridge and headed for Broadway.

Zack wrapped his suit jacket around himself to cut the chilly, morning breeze. ‘He seems to be enjoying himself.’

‘I guess for him this is a good day,’ Sam said. ‘He’s got food in his belly, his yearbook back and it’s not rain—’ Sam stopped as the first drops of rain began to fall.

‘It’s just a sprinkle,’ Zack said hopefully.

The clouds thundered and split open at Zack’s words and large droplets began to fall.

Sam picked up the pace. ‘We can’t lose him. Come on.’

Davey sloshed through the rain at a half jog, oblivious to the company on his tail. Just before Broadway Bridge, he turned west across the park
and headed in the direction of the rail yard. Zack and Sam kept close behind, the rain masking their footsteps.

Just before Davey reached an imposing concrete wall that marked the rear boundary of the Amtrak yards, Sam pulled Zack behind a small hillock and crouched down.

‘What are you doing?’ Zack’s teeth began to chatter.

‘It’s fenced on either side,’ Sam pointed out. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’

Davey stopped at the wall, bent over to catch his breath, and looked around. Sam kept perfectly still, letting the rain dissolve his silhouette.

After a moment, Davey moved to the edge of the wall and pushed against the wire fence. The fence folded under his touch, revealing a slim gap.

Davey checked behind him once more, and then slipped through.

‘Let’s go.’ Sam darted across the last few yards of open ground.

81

Detective Preston stood with his back to the room and watched the sudden downpour. From the thirteenth floor of the Justice Center, 2,314 miles from the wide-open spaces where he grew up, the city before him was drained of all colour.

Behind him, Officer Colin Portsmith nervously drew condensation circles on the Formica tabletop with his paper coffee cup.

‘You saw the Merc yesterday morning?’ Preston repeated slowly.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And didn’t report it?’

‘I . . . I didn’t realize at the time it could be the same vehicle you were looking for. The BOLO didn’t list a licence plate and there are a ton of Mercs out there. But my partner read the reissued alert this morning and remembered the damage on the car. She thought . . . you know, that maybe . . . I, um—’

‘You talked to the driver?’ Hogan interrupted.
He sat in a chair directly across from the young officer.

Colin nodded sheepishly. ‘He looked like a businessman who’d received some bad news and went on a bender. I thought he was harmless and could use a break. I want to make it clear that my partner didn’t agree with my call.’

Preston laughed aloud and turned from the window. He looked down at the officer fondly, appreciating his loyalty. The good-looking ones were usually the worst, he had found. They were so used to receiving special treatment that they lacked an essential core of humility. This one’s parents had raised him right.

‘You don’t need to cover your partner’s ass, kid. The description we had was so generic we knew it was a long shot.’

Hogan nodded in agreement. ‘It might’ve made our job easier if you had taken a few notes, but how were you to know? Just tell us what you can.’

The officer let out a deep sigh of relief and began to describe the dishevelled black man who had vanished over breakfast.

82

After squeezing through the gap in the fence, Zack and Sam found themselves at the mouth of a musty, concrete maintenance tunnel. A second chain-link fence topped with barbed wire separated it from a complicated grid of interlocking train tracks and, in the distance, Union Station.

The entrance to the tunnel was barred by an iron gate, but the lock was broken and the gate wedged open just enough to allow an adult to get through.

Despite wishing he had brought his flashlight, Sam plunged ahead with Zack following behind.

Inside the tunnel, Sam focused on the far end, seeing the shadowy outline of another iron gate. There was no silhouette of Davey blocking the way.

‘There must be a side tunnel,’ Sam whispered. ‘Keep your eyes peeled. We don’t want to spook him.’

Sam moved forward quickly, his arms outstretched to skim either side for an opening.

Halfway along, his left foot brushed over the edge of a pit, finding nothing but air. Instinctively, Sam slammed his hands against the tunnel walls to stop his fall, but the stone was too slick with mould.

With a yelp, he fell into the darkness. His feet hit solid ground almost instantly.

‘You OK?’ Zack whispered.

‘Yeah.’ Sam stood in a chest-high hole. ‘Watch your step.’

Sam crouched down to peer along another dark tunnel. This one smelled older. Up ahead, he heard a gentle humming and saw the glow of a Coleman lamp. In front of the lamp, blocking most of its light, was a human silhouette.

Sam moved forward cautiously until he was just a short distance outside the circle of light. But then his foot caught the edge of an empty soup can, making tiny pebbles inside rattle loudly.

Davey spun and snapped up a homemade knife that was stuck in the ground at his feet. His eyes caught the light. They were wide and afraid.

‘Davey, it’s Sam!’

Davey bared his teeth and a growl escaped his throat.

‘I just want to talk.’ Sam moved forward into the light and held up his hands to show he was unarmed.

Davey’s lips slipped back over his teeth as
recognition dawned, and his body began to relax.

‘Scared the shit out of me,’ he complained.

Sam looked at the knife – a lethal shard of scrap metal, honed to a point and wrapped in black electrical tape. ‘You took a few years off me, too.’

Davey slipped the knife into his pocket. ‘What you doing down here?’

Zack arrived and peered over Sam’s shoulder.