Find You First

by Linwood Barclay

  Nicky, still speaking so that she could be heard, “Tell me again what a DNA agreement is?”

  “Not DNA,” Chloe said. “NDA. Nondisclosure agreement. We sign it, they pay us, and we agree never to be tattletales.”

  “But what if we told anyway?”

  “They could sue us and we’d have to give the money back and maybe even more. And we’d have to hire lawyers to fight it for us and we’d be in debt up to our assholes.”

  “Even if holding us here is against the law?”

  Chloe shrugged. “You really want to challenge this? If it gets us out of here? You don’t want enough money to have you set for life? Because believe me, they’re going to have to pay up to keep us quiet.”

  They believed their performance was Oscar-worthy.

  “Fine,” Nicky said. “If all I got to do is sign something, I’ll do it. How much money you think they’ll give us?”

  Chloe shrugged. “Thousands, I bet. This Pritkin guy’s loaded, right?”

  “Uh, look around,” Nicky said. “He’s got more money than—”

  Knock knock.

  Chloe got off the bed. Nicky stopped her pacing two feet from the door.

  Chloe felt the glass shard digging into her palm as she delicately closed her hand around it. The slightest squeeze and she’d start to draw blood.

  Nicky was doing the same. They exchanged a quick glance.

  Here we go.

  The door began to open.

  Sixty-One

  New York, NY

  On the first part of their trip into Manhattan, as the sun was setting, Dorian had asked to sit in the back with Miles. Gold was put up front next to Charise.

  Dorian, her voice low, said to Miles, “What’s going on with you? You’ve been acting funny. Freezing me out.”

  “We can talk about it when this is over,” Miles said. “This isn’t the time.”

  “No,” she said. “Now.”

  Miles wouldn’t look at her. He faced his window. Dorian went to place her hand on his arm, but held back. The realization had set in.

  “I’ll pay it back,” she said.

  Miles, still avoiding eye contact, said, “It’s not about the money. Keep the money. I don’t care about that.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Heather called me, after the FBI meeting.”

  Dorian struggled to hold back tears.

  “Maybe you could just tell me why,” he said.

  “I thought … I deserved it,” Dorian said.

  Miles slowly turned and looked at her. “That’s probably true. You did deserve it. I know you probably feel I’ve taken you for granted, but that’s not true. I’ve always been grateful for your help. I couldn’t have had a better assistant.”

  Dorian did not miss the had. “You should have come to me, made your case. I’d like to think I’d have listened. But the trust is gone.”

  She wiped away a tear on her cheek. “I could get out right now. Uber back.”

  Miles shook his head. “No. Let’s see this through.”

  Dorian asked Charise to pull over next chance she had so that she could switch seats with Gold.

  Charise drove them into Manhattan by way of the Triborough Bridge. As they crossed, Gold, in a rare moment of detachment from the crisis at hand, said, “The formal name for this bridge is the Robert F. Kennedy. It’s actually three bridges, and it was built in 1936.” He turned to look at Miles, who was sitting next to him in the back seat, and asked, “Did you know that?”

  “No,” Miles said flatly. “I did not.”

  “Did you know that every three and a half days, someone tries to jump off the George Washington Bridge?”

  This time, Miles turned and looked at him. “I didn’t know that, either.”

  “Maybe,” Gold said quietly, and in total seriousness, “Charise could give me a lift there when this is over.”

  “One thing at a time,” Miles said.

  Shortly after they’d gotten off the bridge and headed south on the FDR, the traffic had slowed, and by the time they were passing 118th Street, it was down to a crawl.

  “If it’s still bad at 106th I’ll get off there and work my way down,” Charise said.

  She’d been glancing repeatedly in her rearview mirror, and Dorian had noticed a worried expression on her face.

  “Everything okay?” Dorian asked quietly.

  “I think it’s nothing,” Charise said. “Feel like I’ve had the same car behind me for a long time. But I don’t know. It’s dark. I could be wrong.”

  Dorian turned, tried to see out the back window. “How could you even tell?”

  “Different kind of headlights. Used to be they were all round. Nowadays, every manufacturer has its own style.” She glanced again. “Okay, I don’t see them. Maybe I’m just paranoid.”

  The car moved, inch by agonizing inch, until Charise was able to edge the car over to the right and get to the 106th Street exit. But she was not the only one who’d chosen that route as a way to escape the FDR.

  “Shit,” Dorian said.

  Charise started laying on the horn. It didn’t get anyone to move out of her way, but it made her feel better.

  “Call them again,” Miles said to Gold. “Tell them you’re in the neighborhood. That you have to see Chloe.”

  Gold protested. “I already tried once. Roberta—”

  Miles exploded. “Try again.” He handed Gold the phone. Gold entered the number and waited.

  “It just keeps ringing,” he said. “Hang on.” Someone was picking up. “Hello, it’s Dr. Gold. Roberta, is that—”

  Gold lowered the phone. “She hung up.”

  “Christ.”

  “How about this?” Dorian said, turning around in the seat to face them. Miles looked at her but said nothing. “Call the fire department.”

  “Say again?” said Charise.

  “We say we just drove by the address and saw flames coming out the window. That should buy us some time. They’re not going to try anything with the fire department on their front step.”

  Charise said, “I like it.”

  Miles, with some reluctance, said, “Me too.” He took Gold’s phone back from him.

  “Hey, not from my phone,” he protested. “They’ll have a record. I’ll be charged with making a false report.”

  Miles gave him an incredulous look. “That’s what you’re worried about?” He made the call.

  Sixty-Two

  New York, NY

  The door opened an inch, but no farther.

  Before Nicky could think about grabbing the knob from the inside and yanking the door wide open, she saw, in the sliver of an opening, a man standing there. The one who’d visited earlier with the NDA proposal. The one with part of his finger missing.

  “Stand back,” he told her. When Nicky moved away no more than a foot, Rhys said, “More.”

  Nicky gave Chloe a surrendering, hopeless look. She did as she was told and took several steps back. The door opened wide and Rhys stepped in, followed by a second man. They closed the door behind them.

  Click.

  Nicky and Chloe thought, Shit.

  Chloe had not counted on there being two people. Two men. The guy with the tiny pinkie was formidable enough on his own, but this second dude was just as big and as menacing looking, even if he was in a suit and tie, trying to look all lawyerly.

  “You girls ready?” Rhys asked. “Sooner we get this done, sooner you’ll have your money and you can get back to your regular lives.”

  “Who are you?” Nicky asked the other man.

  Rhys provided an introduction. “This is my associate, Broderick. He’s drafted the paperwork you’ll be signing.”

  Chloe asked, “Why couldn’t you bring the papers here? Then we could just walk out the front door and be done with this dump.”

  Rhys nodded understandingly. “Of course, I can see how you might feel that way, but there’s quite a lot to sign, and the checks are at the of
fice. That’s the way it’s done.”

  “Oh,” said Chloe. “Okay, then.”

  The glass shards were getting damp with sweat in her and Nicky’s hands. If either of the men had noticed they were keeping their right hands closed, they’d given no indication.

  “Is there anything we have to bring?” Chloe asked.

  Rhys grinned. “I’m guessing you didn’t have a chance to pack before you got here.”

  “No shit,” Chloe said.

  “Can I come back and get my stuff later?” Nicky asked the men.

  “Sure,” said Broderick.

  Chloe said, “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Rhys said.

  “Sirens.”

  Rhys shrugged. “You must not spend much time in New York.”

  But the sirens were getting more intense. They were getting closer. The two men traded concerned glances. Someone rapped on the door. Rhys walked over and opened it an inch.

  The man from the stairs could be heard saying, “Sit tight. Something’s going on.”

  The door closed. Rhys turned and smiled.

  “We’re going to wait for an all clear.”

  “What’s going on?” Chloe asked.

  Rhys said, “Shut up.”

  Roberta had the brownstone door open before the first firefighter had mounted the steps. The street, totally choked off with FDNY emergency vehicles, was ablaze with pulsing red lights from two pumpers and a ladder truck. For good measure, there were two cars from the NYPD.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, descending the front steps and meeting a helmeted fireman decked out in full regalia.

  “We have a report of a fire at this address,” he said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “There’s no fire here. Not so much as a slice of burnt toast.”

  The fireman tipped his head back, scanned the brownstone from top to bottom. “Someone called it in, said there were flames visible from the street.”

  “Do you see any flames?” Roberta asked.

  “We need to come in and check,” he said.

  “That’s not necessary,” Roberta insisted.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stepping around her and heading for the door.

  “Honestly!” Roberta said, chasing after him. “Everything’s fine!”

  She’d left the front door ajar, so all he had to do was give it a push. She caught up to him in the lobby.

  The fireman was greeted by Jeremy Pritkin descending the stairs. He smiled broadly and extended a hand.

  “Well!” he said. “Isn’t this a surprise!”

  The fireman stopped, did a double take. It was clear he recognized Pritkin. There wasn’t a person in New York who wouldn’t have.

  “We had a call,” he said.

  “I’ve no doubt,” Jeremy said. “Seems we’re the target of some harassment. Been getting calls all day. Had twenty pizzas delivered to the house an hour ago that we did not order. Had a bomb threat on my cell, which I know you probably think should worry me, but I get these sorts of things all the time. I’m guessing it has something to do with what I said on Anderson Cooper the other night. Got a few of the crazies fired up. And now, you’re here. I am so sorry you had to be dragged into whatever nuisance campaign is being directed against me. I’ve already got a call into the chief of police to see if he can assign someone to get to the bottom of it.”

  The fireman nodded. “That’s a shame, Mr. Pritkin. Okay then. Well, ordinarily we’d do a walk-through, but it sounds like everything’s okay here. You have a good evening.”

  As he turned, Pritkin walked with him, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “It’s an outrage, you guys wasting your time here when there could be a real fire going on somewhere else. It’s unconscionable.”

  “Happens all the time,” he said. As he stepped outside, he gave Pritkin and Roberta a wave. “Take care now.”

  “Thank you!” they said in unison.

  And as they went back into the brownstone, Pritkin whispered to Roberta, “Something’s wrong.”

  Upstairs, Rhys had one arm wrapped tightly around Chloe, his other hand clamped tightly over her mouth. Broderick had a similar hold on Nicky.

  Their arms were pinioned in their grips. The pieces of glass were still in their hands, but there was nothing they could do with them. Chloe tried to tamp down the panic she was feeling. If these men took this to the next step, if they gagged them and tied their hands, not only would the glass shards prove useless, the rest of their plan would go out the window.

  “Just be very, very quiet now,” Rhys whispered into Chloe’s ear. “Soon as we get the all clear, we can carry on with our business.”

  If Chloe had had any doubt before, lawyers did not manhandle you and put their hands over your mouth.

  Killers did.

  There was another knock at the door. From the other side, a voice that was clearly Roberta’s said, “We’re good. You ready?”

  “A minute!” Rhys shouted. He relaxed his grip on Chloe, took his hand from her mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “We don’t need anything interfering with you getting out of here. No sense having to answer a lot of unnecessary questions.”

  Act like you believe them, Chloe told herself. Play along.

  “Okay,” she said. “But that wasn’t nice.”

  “Yeah,” Nicky chimed in once Broderick released her.

  Chloe looked at her fellow prisoner and something caught her eye.

  Blood.

  There was blood dripping from Nicky’s right hand.

  Sixty-Three

  New York, NY

  Charise figured the quickest route to the Pritkin address was to head south on Park, then take a left onto Seventieth, a one-way street running east. The brownstone was in the block between Park and Lexington. She was betting by the time they got there, the street would be clogged with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, assuming the bogus call to 911 from Gold’s phone worked as they’d hoped it would.

  “Whatever they’re up to, they’re not going to be able to do it with the FDNY and the NYPD on their doorstep,” Miles said hopefully.

  Charise said, “And when we get there?”

  Miles said, “We tell whoever’s there—the police, the fire department—we have reason to believe someone’s being held against their will inside. They’ll have to listen to us.” He looked at Gold. “What do you think?”

  Gold, the picture of defeat, said, “I don’t know anymore.”

  “Okay, only a few more blocks,” Charise said encouragingly. “Passing Seventy-Second. We got a green light ahead.”

  Miles looked out his window, mesmerized by the dizzying display of lights. He’d always loved New York, had never failed to enjoy the excitement of driving into the city. Never, until now. All he felt now was anxiety.

  We’re coming, Chloe. We’re almost there.

  “One block to go,” Charise said. “I’m not … seeing any fire trucks or anything.”

  They had reached Seventieth Street. Charise steered the limo hard left, waiting for a break in traffic.

  “It didn’t work,” Gold said, peering down the street. “There’s no fire trucks.”

  Miles said, “Shit. What now?”

  Charise said, “What if we—”

  And that was when the Volvo SUV rammed full speed into the driver’s side of the limo.

  Sixty-Four

  New York, NY

  Caroline Cookson was delusional enough when she drove away from her house that she still believed she could make this right.

  Sure, the odds were against her. Her husband had caught her in an affair. And he’d found out about how she had used their daughter, Samantha, in a fantastical scheme to get her brother-in-law’s money. And no question, these decisions were hard to defend.

  But it wasn’t as though she’d broken any actual laws, was it? Affairs weren’t illegal. Okay, maybe conspiring to get money from Travis Roben was on the wrong side of the law, but the plan had no
t been carried out. Broderick had pretty much vanished—she’d tried to reach him but her ALLCAPS texts had gone undelivered and she had no idea where he really lived—so he wasn’t going to tell the police what she’d done. And Samantha certainly wasn’t going to testify.

  After all, Caroline was her mother.

  And when you got right down to it, the real victim here was Caroline herself.

  Maybe if Gilbert had been a better husband, a more attentive husband, a more imaginative husband, a husband more sensitive to her needs, then she wouldn’t have found herself looking for excitement elsewhere. And maybe if he had been a more persuasive brother, he wouldn’t have found himself shut out of Miles’s good fortune, except for that stupid Porsche.

  Miles, she believed, was the key to making things right.

  She would talk to him. She could confess her sins. She would throw herself at his mercy. Talk to Gilbert, she would say. Make him understand that what I did was as much for him as it was for myself.

  Butter him up, if need be. Tell Miles he was a brilliant man, but she also knew he was a compassionate man, that he was capable of forgiveness.

  Yes, yes, that might work.

  So when she drove away from her home—she would get back there, she would—she found herself driving to Miles’s place.

  She was almost there when she saw the limo pull out of his property and onto the road. She saw him in the back seat, up against the driver’s-side window.

  If she were to have a chance to talk to Miles, she would have to follow him. And she kept on that limo’s tail, all the way into Manhattan. Along the way she kept asking herself, Where the hell is he going? When will he ever get there?

  At one point, going into the city, the limo made a short, unexpected stop. Long enough for a front-seat passenger to trade seats with one in the back. Before Caroline could decide whether to act on the opportunity, the limo was on the move.

  More than once, she considered whether to abort. Take the next exit and head back to New Haven. She was starting to feel the way she did when she’d call an airline and be placed on hold.