Rimes spreads her palms.
“Why co-operate?” Kinawa says.
“To save the life of my brother.”
“You called the ranch, had Coburn tell you where Anthony was. Then went out there to get him.”
“They were going to give the order to have him killed.”
Janice Rimes leans back in her chair, head cocked to one side.
“Unless I cooperated—that was what they said.”
“You show up,” Rimes says. “And Anthony goes with you, just like that?”
Lauren stares at the edge of the desk, a muscle working in the side of her jaw. “He knows...”
“He knows what?”
“That when it's time to run he has to run. Just run. No second guessing, no second chances.”
McBride speaks; “You picked up Anthony, then the three of you drove down the hill.”
Lauren nods.
“And the vehicle crashed?”
Agent Rimes winds a black ringlet of hair around her finger.
“The kidnapper escaped with your brother and Officer Cook,” McBride says, “from the Parks Service.”
“You know something?” Janice Rimes says. “There’s a bunch of folk in the Chicago FBI office think you arranged that accident in Fisherville. They think you organized it yourself.”
Lauren turns her face to stare at her.
Rimes shrugs.
“I organized it?” Lauren says.
“You got off the train at McCook—maybe that was deliberate, too.”
Whicher sees the lick of flame building behind Lauren’s eyes.
Inspector McBride smoothes his mustache, eyes clouded.
“I got all night, honey,” Rimes says.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
Whicher leans forward in his seat. “Are we likely to be staying here tonight?” He looks at McBride. “In Rapid City?”
“We can't get anyplace else, till the storm clears.”
“Do we know when that all could be?”
Kinawa answers; “The weather radar shows clear air tomorrow. Cold but clear, no snow.”
“I want my brother found,” Lauren says.
“We're searching for the Ford Explorer,” Kinawa says. “All law enforcement units have been alerted.”
Inspector McBride shakes his head. “All of this is supposed to be need-to-know only.”
“They could be out of state already,” Kinawa says. “Fifty miles from the last known sighting, at Elk Lake, and you're into Wyoming.”
Rimes nods.
“Head north a hundred miles, you're in Montana.”
“We don't know if they’re still using that same vehicle,” Whicher says.
“Nothing’s reported stolen or taken,” Kinawa says. “If anybody reports anything, we'll move right on it.”
Lauren stares across the desk at the inspector. “Find my brother. You have to find Anthony.”
“How about if they’re still in the woods?” Whicher says. “Somewhere up in all of those hills?”
“You think we can search out in this?” Kinawa answers.
The marshal stands. “We need someplace to stay. I haven't slept in two nights, neither has she.” He angles his head toward Lauren.
“You need to be moving again in the morning,” McBride says.
“Do we have to stay here? In a goddamn office?”
“You find Anthony,” Lauren says, “or you can forget about me as a witness. I'll retract every statement. I’ll refuse to testify.”
The three men study Lauren, in silence.
“Then they’ll send you to a federal prison, honey,” Agent Rimes says. “You'll go away for the rest of your life.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The downtown hotel is from the nineteen-thirties—eleven floors, a view right across the snow-bound city.
The top floor is sealed off, no public access—uniform officers at the elevator door. The hotel is the highest building on the street, nobody can snipe down into it. Inspector McBride has a master room off the main corridor, Whicher occupying another, larger suite of rooms with Lauren DeLuca.
Food is coming. Hot food. The marshal thinks of eating, thinks of taking a shower, of laying on a bed for the first time in forty-eight hours. He thinks of sleep.
Opening up a set of sliding glass doors, he steps outside onto a roof-top terrace. Snow is frozen hard, the air clear, stinging.
Out beyond the city, on a ridge of hills, lights wink red on a distant antenna. Down the wide boulevard, the bars and restaurants are open, it's not yet late.
Skaters glide on an ice-rink in the main square. He thinks of Lauren—if she refused to co-operate, she'd be taken to Chicago in wrist and leg irons. She’d be put on trial herself. He watches the ice-skaters moving in and out of the lights, circling, spinning. A crowd mills among the food stands. The faint beat of music drifts in the air.
Kinawa offered Rimes as a substitute for Whicher, as close protection. Inspector McBride refused—Lauren was his witness, till they delivered her to the Chicago court.
The marshal swirls a shot of whiskey in a cut-glass tumbler.
At the rear of the terrace, he hears movement.
Lauren steps out.
“Don't come up to the front,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
The sound of a passing vehicle rises from the street.
Whicher peers over the terrace rail—a city truck salting the road.
He turns back, looks at her.
Her hair is loose, freshly washed from a long bath. Fine blond strands move in the light breeze.
“You can be protected, Lauren.”
She stands, in his coat, head angled, her features poised.
“But you can't back out.”
She tilts her head at the night sky, at stars arching into an ink black dark.
“You cut a deal with the DA in Chicago. They’ll have enough to nail you, you'll be in a prison the rest of your life. You'll never get out.”
She stares across the tops of the buildings.
The marshal leans against the rail. He lets out a breath that mists around him.
“Find my brother.”
“I'm not here to find your brother.”
She closes her eyes.
Whicher studies her. He takes a pull at the whiskey, cut-glass rim like a sliver of ice against his lips. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I don't think he’s hurt.”
She half-turns toward him.
“You’re still alive, Lauren. How come? How come you're standing here right now?”
Confusion is in her face. He takes another sip of whiskey.
“If somebody wanted you dead, you'd be dead already. At Fisherville. It didn't happen. Then again at McCook.”
Her blue eyes roam his face. She shudders.
Whicher pulls the brim of the Resistol an inch lower on his head.
He turns to look down on the street below, at the city truck rumbling on to an intersection.
“We were followed from Denver to McCook,” he says. “They could have hit you anywhere along the route. If the Chicago mob wanted you dead before the trial, they’d have done it. Same goes for Anthony...”
She takes a step forward, closer to him.
“It happens,” he says. “Happens every day of the week.” He takes out the Ruger revolver from the shoulder-holster. “Somebody pulls a gun, shoots somebody. Why not just do it up at the lake?” He moves off the rail, stands facing her in the dark. “They want you alive. You and Anthony both.” He stares at the side of the gun, balancing it, puts it back in the holster.
She steps close to him, closes her hand around his, on the glass. Stands silent. Eyes holding him.
He lets her roll the tumbler from his grip.
She takes a sip. “Can we go inside?”
She settles the glass against her chest, takes a pace back, slides open the glazed door.
Warm air rushes from the room.
<
br /> He takes off the Resistol, follows her to the threshold of the suite.
At a polished oak cabinet, she takes a second tumbler, pours another measure.
“How come folk all have so many doubts about you, Lauren?”
She holds up the glass.
“I want to know what there is to know.”
“Then you’d better come in. And close the door.”
The room is well heated, the lighting dimmed low. Lauren settles in a vintage, rolled-arm couch.
Whicher crosses to the cabinet, takes the bottle, pours himself another measure.
A knock sounds at the door.
The marshal sets down the glass. “Who is it?”
“Room service,” a muffled voice. “Sir, we have your food order.”
The marshal takes out the Ruger, thumbs back the hammer.
Lauren watches as he opens the door.
In the small, outer lobby, a uniformed city cop stands with a night clerk. The clerk wheels a food trolley into the room. It’s loaded with covered dishes, crisp table-linen. He sets out the food on an antique dresser. “Omelettes, French Toast, buttermilk pancakes. Two turkey clubs. And coffee in the flask.”
Whicher holsters the revolver. “Much obliged.”
The clerk dips his head, steps out of the suite.
The marshal locks the door behind him. “They’re never going to let it go,” he says.
Lauren pushes up from the couch.
“What is it you have that they all want?”
She takes a plate of pancakes and French Toast. Holds out her glass.
“You want coffee?”
“No.”
Whicher fills her glass from the bottle of whiskey, knocks back his own drink, sets it down. He takes an omelette and a sandwich. Sits with her at a table, away from the window.
“There's money all over,” she says.
The marshal cuts into the omelette, takes a forkful. “Money you set up?”
“Hidden accounts.”
“But you have to be there? To get it out.”
She nods, slices into a piece of French Toast.
“Answer me this,” he says. “If you could disappear—if you could walk out of this room right now, with Anthony, tonight; the two of you? You have enough for that? Do you have enough hidden away?”
“Maybe I wouldn't.” She takes a bite of the food.
He eyes her.
“Maybe I wouldn’t leave the room.”
The marshal looks away. “The only reason they have for wanting y'all alive is the money you stole. The money you took for you and Anthony.”
She studies on him.
“They want it all back,” he says. “Before they’re finished with you. They get a hold of you, they’ll go to work on you. On both of you. Till one of you breaks.”
She picks the whiskey tumbler off the dining table, holds it in front of her, hands very still.
He sees the yellow-white skin tight over her knuckles.
“I asked you who you were calling from that waiting room in McCook?”
She nods. “I have a single living grandparent.”
“Who?”
“My mom's mom.”
“Why call her?”
“Because I'm scared.”
The marshal lets the words sit. Continues eating.
Lauren takes a sip of her drink. “She lives on the west coast. She moved to San Francisco years ago, we keep in touch the best we can.”
“And now you’re scared?”
Her eyes cut away. “I'm supposed to testify against an organized crime family. I’m in a federal trial. I'm scared to die, I'm scared for Anthony.”
“What did you say to her. To your grandmother?”
“I told her...that I love her. And that I don't know what's going to happen anymore.”
Whicher stands under the steaming-hot shower in the bathroom, water pummeling his skin. Eyes closed, he lets the rush of sound fill his ears. Heat oozes, spreading, untying knots of muscle down his spine, stripping away the lack of sleep, the days in the grip of cold.
Officer Cook’s duty vehicle. If they couldn’t find it, couldn’t find Anthony, couldn’t find the man who took Lauren from the train—she’d retract.
She’d take the fall, so long as Anthony was alive; retract her evidence to protect her brother.
Time to do the right thing.
But if Anthony was dead, who knew what she'd do? He lets the warm water run into his mouth, after the whiskey.
For now she was holding out. One phone call could change all that. Losing Anthony would be like losing her own child—a twenty-year age gap between the two of them, she must have practically raised him.
He takes a last lungful of heated steam. Turns off the water, grabs a freshly laundered towel.
Stepping out onto the heated floor in the bathroom, he dries himself, runs a hand over his clean-shaved face.
He steps into his suit pants, fastens the Glock around his waist. Listens for a moment—no sound is coming from the apartment.
He towels his hair, grabs his shirt, carries it out of the bathroom.
She's in the lounge, standing—cut-glass tumbler trailing from her hand.
He glances around the room. “Everything alright?”
Her eyes come up on his.
The suite is silent, only a faint hum reaches him, heated air moving in the ventilator ducts.
She takes a step in the turned-down lights. Another. He sees the rise and fall at her throat.
Inches from him, breathing shallow, her body arcs, he feels her mouth on his, her arms around his neck.
She pulls him to her, tongue cold from the ice in her glass, mouth warm, traced with alcohol.
Her hands are on his back, fingers pressing into his still-wet skin.
He holds her, feels a surge—a charge run the length of his body.
Mouth on hers, he breathes. Lets his mind run blank. Puts his hands to either side of her face.
He pulls away.
Her eyes swim in his, suffused with heat.
He rests his forehead against hers, separating, inch by inch. Thinks of trying to speak, trying to tell her something.
She presses her face into his shoulder.
He stares at the cold, glass pane of window across the room—blackness beyond it, her body soft against him, molded. A sinking feeling sweeping over him. His eyes blur as he pushes his face against the side of her head. He tries to think of nothing. Nothing. Not loneliness, not the emptiness. The well of silent hours.
He closes his eyes. “I don't know what to tell you.” His voice hoarse, thick in his throat.
“Just hold me.”
He strokes her hair.
She’s still now, finally. Tears wet on his bare skin. Breathing over and over.
“Just hold me, just hold me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the orange glow of sunrise, Lars Karsten turns the corner of the city block, light streaking between the buildings, blading the snow-bound streets.
The mini-mart opens at eight. Supplies are coming in, a load of groceries if the truck can make it through.
He guesses the delivery should be there mid-morning, with the weather. He thinks of the pressed cardboard and packaging waste at the back of the store. Left out in the snow the night before, it’d need moving before the truck made it in.
He skirts a low wall, reaches the rear lot—entirely covered now, amorphous, under a blanket of white.
A panel van from a neighboring store is in there. Plus one other vehicle that wasn't there when they closed for the night. It’s tucked in behind the panel van, right up next to the dumpsters. The recycling cage is behind it, the vehicle’s blocking the damn thing in.
Karsten crosses the lot, stares at it—an SUV, covered in a foot of snow.
He runs the edge of a boot along the frozen white powder masking the license plate. Walking down the side of the vehicle, he clears snow from the door.
In decals,
he can read the words U.S. PARK RANGER.
He steps back. Reaches in his coat for his cell.
Five minutes pass before the police cruiser pulls in at the curb.
A uniformed officer is at the wheel—a woman beside him, dressed in plain clothes.
The woman climbs out first, takes a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her mountain fleece jacket. She sparks one up. “You the manager?”
“Lars Karsten.”
“It was you that called?”
The man nods. “Yes, I did.”
The woman sticks the cigarette in the side of her mouth, runs a hand through her black, ringlet hair.
She steps forward.
The uniform cop gets out of the car, walks around the hood.
“I just got here,” Karsten says. “I need to open up the store.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the mini-mart. “That thing’s blocking access to the loading bay.”
“Right,” the woman says.
“I took a look, saw it belonged to the Parks Service.”
“You think it's been here all night?” The woman eyes the piled up snow on the ground.
“I guess,” says Karsten.
“My name is Agent Rimes. With the city FBI. Did you touch anything?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you touch the vehicle yet?”
“All I did was move a little snow off of it.”
“Good,” she says.
“What the heck's it doing here?” Karsten says.
The woman nods. “That’s mainly the question.”
Belaski tries the rear tail-lift of the Yukon—it’s frozen. He can't get it to shift.
He clears snow from the back windshield, peers inside, into the trunk space; big enough.
He steps away, crosses back to the motel, opens up the room. Nothing is left in there from the night before. He checks a last time, feels for the gun in his coat pocket, the suppressor unscrewed.
He pulls the door closed. Fastens the parka up to his neck.
Walking out, he leaves the lot, leaves the motel forecourt.
The snow-packed sidewalk follows the highway straight out of town—its surface a mix of salt and snow and dirt, but vehicles are on it, moving slow.
Breakfast, he thinks. Plenty of it. The diner from last night would be open now. He leans into a whipsaw wind.
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