Rules of Survival(53)

“You better not be bullshitting me,” Deeds said as we pulled into the First National Bank of Everett. “That Jaffe guy don’t care if you’re dead or alive when he gets you, and I got a nasty temper.”

I’d directed him to Everett, a small town a little over five hours away. He had a lead foot, so it hadn’t taken us nearly as long as I’d hoped—but it looked like it’d been enough.

“I promise it’s there—but we can’t get it right now,” I responded, eyeing him through the metal grate that separated the front and back seats. Most hunters had them, along with active child-safe locks on the back doors. Protection against rowdy marks looking to make a last-minute escape attempt.

Deeds twisted in his seat to glare at me. His face turned bright red—one hell of an accomplishment considering his orangey skin tone—and his eyeballs kind of bulged. If the guy wasn’t careful, he’d drop dead of a heart attack before he hit fifty—unless skin cancer got him first. “Why the hell not?”

I nodded to the building, where a woman in a dark suit was ushering one last group of people from the bank.

“Goddammit!” he yelled. He ripped off his seat belt and stumbled from the car, cursing the entire time. We watched him race across the lot and try to sidestep the woman and slip inside the building. She shut him down.

They started arguing, but the woman stayed firmly planted in front of the door and kept shaking her head. A heated, colorful exchange followed—at least on Deeds’s part. He waved his hands around and stomped his feet like a child. Every once in a while I’d catch a word or two from across the lot. After a few minutes of this, the woman ducked back into the building and locked the door with a smug smile on her face.

“There’s no money, is there?” Shaun said as he yanked up on the door handle. As I’d expected, it didn’t budge. He sighed and settled back in his seat to watch Deeds yell at the woman through the door. Every so often he’d slam his fist against the glass. This only made the woman smile more.

“Oh, there’s money—just not a million dollars’ worth. I told you, Mom kept some cash in all her boxes. We never knew where we’d end up from one day to the next. It was her way of covering all the bases.”

“So what are you planning to tell him when he sees it’s not there?”

“We just need to make sure we’re gone long before morning,” I said as Deeds gave up and stalked back to the car.

Shaun nodded, a look of admiration in his eyes. “That’s why you had him drive all the way here. So the bank would be closed.”

“Don’t gush,” I said, grinning. “I know I’m brilliant.”

“Couldn’t sweet-talk her into letting you in, huh?” Shaun said with a snicker as Deeds yanked open the door and dropped into the driver’s seat. He started the engine with a violent jerk. “I guess you need to work on your routine.”

“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” he demanded. “Looks like we’re all stuck with one another for the night. We’ll be back here first thing in the morning when they open.” He stomped on the gas pedal and zipped the car from the lot.

We didn’t drive far. A block or two from the bank, tops. Deeds swung the vehicle into an end spot at the edge of the Everett Motel’s dingy lot, then slipped from the car in silence, presumably to get a room.

There was garbage everywhere. Scattered fast-food wrappers and black plastic trash bags—one of which he tripped over on his way to the registration booth. If the parking lot was this bad, I didn’t even want to know what was waiting for us inside. I had a strong stomach for most things, but bugs squicked me out. One roach and I was going to lose it.

As soon as his attention was occupied, Shaun tilted back and brought both feet up to kick at the grate separating the front and back seats. “If I can get into the front, I can hot-wire this rust bucket.” But the grate wouldn’t budge. “This is obviously not our moment.”

“It’ll come,” I said, hoping it sounded more convincing to him than it did me. “I mean, he’s gotta sleep, right?”

Shaun slumped against his door. Nope. He wasn’t buying it, either. “In theory, yeah. But Grayson Deeds is known for his unethical methods. The sooner we put distance between us and this *, the better.”

“Unethical methods?” I wriggled my wrist, rattling the shackle chains. “You mean there are ethical methods?”

Shaun’s cheeks flushed. “Well, no… But, for example, there was this blue-collar embezzler a year or so ago that Deeds tracked down. James Mendez. The guy was slippery. Pat tried tracking him, but he kept missing him. Mendez had been running for two years. Dude was a major flight risk. Deeds nabbed him in Dakota and drove almost an entire state with Mendez strapped to the roof of the car before cops pulled him over.”

That wasn’t unethical. That was just plan insanity. “Why?”

Shaun shrugged. “How much energy would you have to put into escaping, if you’d just driven nearly one hundred miles going seventy strapped to the roof of someone’s car?”

I inclined my head toward the building, a new kind of fear blooming in the pit of my stomach. “He’s coming back.”

Shaun caught my gaze and held it, hazel eyes so intense I found myself holding my breath. “Just be careful. Don’t say anything to set him off. He’s crazy.”