by Mason Cross
“Trenton Gage,” she finished.
“You asked me about that name the other day.”
“I did, and I promise I’ll fill you in as soon as I can.”
“Be careful, Sarah.”
“I owe you one, thank you.”
She called Blake as soon as she had hung up, and related what Kubler had told her to Blake. He sounded like he was taking notes.
“So she dumped it in Flagstaff,” Sarah said. “Makes sense. Like you said, she wouldn’t want to risk going all the way in a hot car. But how’s she going to get to Vegas? She can’t fly, not with the diamonds.”
“Best way would be to take a bus,” Blake said. “But I don’t think she did that.”
Sarah shook her head. “Bus would be too slow, and it’s late. I don’t even think there’s a direct route; you’d have to go via Phoenix, maybe even L.A.”
“Too slow,” Blake agreed. “And if she wants to meet this guy at noon tomorrow, she can’t just get a room in Flagstaff. I think she would want to get another car instead.”
“And how do we track that down?”
“Leave it with me,” Blake said. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She started to put her phone back in her pocket and then remembered about the notification she had heard and looked at the screen again. It was a missed call, from Costigane.
She stared at the number for a while. He knew something, all right—why else would he keep pestering her? Now she knew how a Columbo villain must feel. She was really skirting the line now, putting herself at risk. Maybe she should forget about trying to shield Carol from the law: she had made her own bed. As she was making her mind up, the phone rang again. Costigane’s number.
“Hello?”
“I thought you were going to call me as soon as you got back into town.”
Sarah’s blood froze and she turned around slowly, eyeing the crowd at arrivals.
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Getting warmer, Sarah. A little to your left.”
Her eyes moved to that position and she saw him, standing by the exit, holding the phone up like a signal and staring right at her. Costigane was taller than she had pictured him. In his mid-fifties with graying hair, wearing a sport coat over a light blue shirt with a dark blue tie, loosened slightly. His eyes were all business.
52
LAS VEGAS MCCARRAN AIRPORT FRIDAY, 00:17
Sarah cut the call off and waited for Costigane to come to her. The gimlet-eyed cop weaved through the onward flow of passengers and stopped a couple of steps in front of her.
“Why did you lie to me about where you were?”
Sarah looked down at the phone in her hand and realized the true reason for his calling earlier in the night. He had used cell phone data to triangulate her position. He had known she was at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, not in Los Angeles. From there it would have been simplicity itself to work out which flight she was taking and when it arrived in Las Vegas. Didn’t you need a warrant for that kind of thing? Would Costigane have been able to show just cause? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, she wasn’t about to make an official complaint right now.
She shook her head, pissed at herself as much as him. “Why did you do that?”
“Because this is serious. There’s one dead man already, and if you’re sheltering a suspect ...”
“I’m not,” Sarah said. “Listen, I know Ca ... I know Rebecca didn’t kill her husband, but I think she’s in danger.”
Costigane paused long enough to absorb this. “I think you need to tell me what you know.”
A mild panic seized Sarah. If she let Costigane take her downtown, she would lose her chance to find Carol. Her only other option was to give Carol up; explain about the diamonds and the meeting with the fence. But that would mean she would be arrested. Cleared of murder, perhaps, but possession of stolen goods from a high yield heist wouldn’t exactly carry an insignificant sentence. Blake was still hours away. She had no one to turn to, nowhere to go. Unless ...
“Okay,” she said. “But let me make a call, first?”
“To Rebecca?”
“To my mother. I need to tell her I’m going to be late.”
Costigane looked around, eyeing the potential exits, and sighed. “Okay, but be quick.”
Sarah turned away from him and dialed information. She kept her voice low and asked for the number of the airport.
“McCarran International, how may I help you?”
Sarah kept her voice low. “Can you transfer me to airport security please?”
The operator asked her to wait a second. There was a click and a male voice answered.
“Security.”
“Hi, I’m in your arrivals area right now and there’s a man threatening me. He won’t let me leave. Is there any chance ...”
“What does he look like, ma’am? Where are you exactly?”
Sarah gave the man Costigane’s description and location and told them to hurry. When they hung up, she kept the phone to her ear and kept talking. From out of the corner of her eye she saw Costigane grow impatient and approach her.
“I know, mom, but I promise I won’t ... No, it’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.”
“Time’s up. Come on,” Costigane said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the exit.
Sarah mouthed, “One second,” smiling apologetically. She could see two burly guards in short-sleeve shirts and chinos approaching them now. They would be here in another ten seconds. She turned and took a step away from Costigane. Just as she had hoped, he put a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on." It couldn’t have been better timed for Sarah.
She raised her voice and cried out, “Don’t hurt me!”
The two guards saw the physical contact, the edge of frustration in the man’s voice and the fear in the woman’s, and acted immediately. The bigger of the two grabbed Costigane’s wrist and lifted it firmly from Sarah’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir, is there a problem here?”
As Costigane turned around to see who was there, Sarah moved. It all depended on how long it took them to verify Costigane’s credentials. She heard him say he was a cop, she heard the first one say, “Sure you are.”
Costigane turned back and saw that she was already halfway to the exit.
“Stop right there,” he yelled, and started after her. The bigger of the two guards grabbed his shoulder.
Sarah didn’t look back. She bolted for the exit. She ignored the taxi stand at arrivals, crossed over to the multi-level parking structure, and descended down the stairwell to the basement, where she knew the secondary taxi stand was. By now the security men would have checked Costigane’s badge, and all three of them would be coming after her. This was probably going to involve some unpleasant explanations, but she could worry about that later, once they had found Carol.
She got in the back of the taxi and told him to drive. She couldn’t go home now, so she would have to find somewhere to lie low until the morning. She almost forgot about her phone. She took it out and switched it off. Blake would just have to catch up with her tomorrow at noon on Wilston Street, like everyone else.
53
I drove through the night, knowing Carol was ahead of me, but knowing there was nothing I could do about narrowing down her location until morning. From Phoenix it was a straight route north and west on US-93. I guessed Sarah would be tucked up in bed by now.
If Carol was aiming to get to Vegas tonight, she would be almost there by this time. If she was keeping the noon rendezvous, she couldn’t afford to wait around. I had a few ideas to find out where she had gone, but nothing I could do at this time of night.
I stopped for gas at a place that was the first sign of life on the highway I had seen for about an hour. I bought two cups of coffee and took a break from sitting behind the wheel. I splayed the map over the hood of the Ford. To give Sarah a head start, we had gone via Phoenix. Carol wouldn’t have had to make that detour. She w
ould simply have taken the most direct route to Vegas, which would take her through Flagstaff and Holbrook, and a few other small towns. The gas station had slow and expensive wifi. I paid for a half hour and looked up some numbers: hotels and pawnbrokers and used car lots on the direct route. In fifteen minutes, I was back on the road with a list of phone numbers, feeling about as refreshed as I was going to get.
I hoped we could find Carol and talk to her. I hoped we could do it before someone else did.
54
The clock on the dash told Gage it was 2:19 a.m. as he reached the outskirts of Flagstaff. After Gage had baited the hook with Freel’s wife, Walter had given him an address in Las Vegas and a time to be there. He had plenty of time to make the rendezvous. The old man’s pickup truck looked battered on the outside, but it was running fine. It had almost a full tank of gas now, too, so Gage wouldn’t have to stop for a while.
The buzz from the bourbon had long since worn off, and there had been no other forms of pain relief in the glove box. Rooting around in there, Gage found a photograph of the old guy with two young boys he assumed were his grandkids. They would probably miss him, grow up wondering why he had been taken from them. Too bad, that was life. That made him think about Jake, and if Courtney would even tell the kid if something happen to Gage. And that made him think about Carol’s little nest egg. Two million in diamonds. That was retail value, of course, but he knew a fence in San Antonio who could give him a good return. Good enough to start planning for the future, maybe even putting down some roots.
The area on his face where Carol had hit him with the brick stung. He touched a finger to it. She had suckered him. She had been convincing with the kept-in-the-dark wife act, all right. He wondered what she would have done if Blake hadn’t shown up and distracted him at a crucial moment. He doubted she had anything specific planned, other than being ready to take advantage of any distraction that arose. He couldn’t help admire her a little.
It wouldn’t stop him from killing her when he found her.
Step one was to talk to Walter, and that meant going all the way back to Las Vegas. That was okay. Gage had a funny feeling that Carol would be headed to Sin City too.
55
LAS VEGAS FRIDAY, 02:35
Sarah told the driver to drop her a couple of miles from the airport, just in case someone had seen her and taken down the license plate of the taxi. She wasn’t sure how much trouble she would be in for running from the police, but she just had to hope she could find Carol before Costigane did, or worse, before Gage did. She walked a couple of blocks and hailed another taxi telling him to drop off at the edge of the Strip. She went into a burger joint and sat at the back, with a view of the door. She ate slowly and nursed a bottomless coffee until the place closed and she ventured back out on the street.
Sarah hadn’t been out in the city at this time of night for years. She recalled the last time with an effort. Date night with Edward, their fifth anniversary. Dinner and a luxury room at the Bellagio. Edward had lingered a little too long on the tables at the casino downstairs, of course, but that aside it had been a fun evening.
She had always liked the lights of the Strip, even though she affected a native’s cool disdain for the garish display of neon. Tonight, they seemed too bright. The millions of flashing lights in all directions assaulted her senses, made her wonder what the glare was hiding. She kept her eyes on the street as she tried to stay close to the knots of people still walking the sidewalks in search of booze and further good times. Every time a police car passed she hunched her shoulders and put her head down. One of them seemed to linger longer. She didn’t dare look to see if it was her they were staring at. Eventually, it moved off and she sighed in relief, raising her eyes once again.
She couldn’t go back home, that was obvious. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow, once they had found Carol. Then, having seen this through, she could go to Detective Costigane, try to explain, and accept the consequences. She wasn’t certain she had committed any crime, but she assumed tricking and running from a police detective was frowned upon at the least. She sighed. You sure made my week interesting, neighbor.
She remembered the names in the notebook. How many places had Carol lived? How many times had she left in the middle of the night? The notebook dated back long before the Ellison heist, probably long before Carol had met Freel. She had been running for years. Sarah shivered at that thought, though the night was warm. How had she coped? Sarah had felt like a fugitive for a matter of hours, ever since she had switched taxis a mile from the airport and the reality of her situation dawned on her. Years of this would be impossible to bear. What did that do to a person?
Easy, she realized. It would make them look for an escape route. Even one that meant risking your life.
She took a turn off the Strip and ventured down a side street; the contrast jarring. When the lights are this bright, it only means the shadows are deeper.
Fewer pedestrians here. The next neon she saw was a vacancy sign outside a dingy-looking hotel.
A huge, bald man in a sweat-stained white shirt was on the desk. He looked up as she entered. It wasn’t the Bellagio.
“Evening.”
“I’d like a room, please.”
The bald man didn’t change his expression. “Fifty.”
Sarah reached automatically for her credit card, before remembering that wouldn’t fly. She had used almost all of her cash on cab fares and dinner. The bald man was waiting expectantly.
“I forgot my purse, but perhaps I could leave something as collateral? I can pay you back tomorrow.”
His eyes moved to the Cartier watch on her wrist. She hesitated. The only other thing of value she had was her cell phone, and she couldn’t risk that being switched on. She sighed, slipped the watch off, and slid it across the desk, knowing it was the last time she would see it. Time flies, no use wasting any of it on regret.
The bald guy took it, looking like he couldn’t believe his luck. He picked up a pen and held it poised over the registration book.
“Name?”
“Lara Croft,” she said coldly.
“Whatever you say, ma’am.”
56
LAS VEGAS FRIDAY, 08:12
Wilston Street, the address of Freel’s contact, was deserted when I got to it just after eight o’clock in the morning. It would be hours before Carol showed up, if she was going to. I parked a few blocks away and got out, pacing up and down to work some of the aches out of my limbs. I spent a minute doing that and breathing fresh air, and then I checked my phone again. No new messages. I tried Sarah first, because she hadn’t called since she had landed. Her phone appeared to be switched off. I could call her back later, after I tried some of the other numbers on the list I had made.
The news that Carol had dumped the Chrysler in Flagstaff had been promising, because it indicated her direction of travel was north, as we had guessed. As I had told Sarah, I thought it was unlikely that Carol would stick around in Flagstaff after getting rid of Gage’s car—she would want to keep the noon rendezvous in Vegas. Either way, if my initial hunch didn’t pan out, I could start calling hotels within reach of the location the car had been found. They wouldn’t give out personal information about a guest at the drop of a hat, of course, but there are always ways around that.
Pawnbrokers first, because, as I’d pointed out to Sarah, buying a car or a bus ticket with a diamond tends to attract attention. Carol’s purse was back at the house in Quarter, so she had whatever change was in her pockets and the diamonds. She was in a hurry, and people in a hurry are more predictable. There were four pawn shops in Flagstaff, three of which were open to midnight. I struck out on the first two. The third picked up on the first ring.
“Dunlop’s, how may I help you?”
I launched into my story, which I had honed carefully over the previous two calls.
“Hi, I wonder if you can help me,” I began. “My name’s Thomas, Roy Thomas.”
“Okay ...�
� a little wariness in the voice. The same tone that had greeted this opener the first two times. I guess when you’re in this line of work, you start to become a little wary of requests for help.
“This is, uh ...” I hesitated. Just long enough to sell it, not long enough for him to interject. “This is a little embarrassing. I just found out that my wife may have hocked some of her jewelry.”
“Okay.” The wariness was gone now. The guy on the other end of the phone already had a good idea of where this was going, and that it was nothing to worry about. Just a standard business transaction. But, out of good manners, he let me tell it my own way.
“I got laid off last month,” I said, injecting just the right note of embarrassment into my voice. “She was worried about money I guess, I mean we both were, and she thought this would help with the bills.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, the good news is I got a new job yesterday, and things are looking up.”
“Well that’s good to hear.”
“Thank you. So, as you’ll have guessed already, I’m trying to track it down so I can buy it back.”
“Not a problem, as long as this was in the last thirty days. What was your wife’s—”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “She doesn’t know that I know. So I don’t know which store she went to. She may even have used another name.”
The guy made a sensitive noise, to show that he understood such a scenario was theoretically possible.
I told him that she would have come in last night, and started to describe her. I stopped myself just before I told him Carol had blonde hair, realizing that I was describing her as she had been six years ago. I had got about halfway through the description before he cut in.
“Sure, she was in last night.”
“She was?”
“If it’s the same lady, yes. She sold us a couple of diamonds, said they came from a pair of earrings ...” he tailed off as he consulted some kind of log. I didn’t hear keys tapping, so maybe it was an old-fashioned ledger. When he spoke again I could tell from the tentative tone that he was about to quote me double the usual commission. “You’re looking at four and a half grand, all in.”