The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(40)

“That was Skinner, wasn’t it?”

The receptionist opened her mouth to deny it, but Peter was already pushing through the door to the elevator lobby. The elevator doors were just closing, too late for Peter to get a hand or a foot between them.

He turned to the stairwell, but the door was locked. An electronic reader on the wall beside it. He thought of the desk man in the lobby. Fire stairs only. Not for the public.

He ducked back into reception and plucked the woman’s access badge from her desk.

“Hey, you jerk,” she said, launching into further sophisticated language that went mercifully silent as the door closed behind him and he put the badge to the reader and the lock opened with a clack.

He dropped the badge in the lobby and took the steps three at a time, his boots slapping hard on the concrete. The sound echoed behind him, the static submerged by the adrenaline of action. Through the door to the main lobby, he turned the corner to the elevators and the lights over the door. He’d arrived right on time. But the elevator didn’t stop. The down arrow simply blinked and the number changed to LL.

Skinner was headed farther down. Probably to get his car.

The desk man looked at him and reached for the phone. Peter ducked back to the stairs, thankfully unlocked on a public level, and down two more short flights to the rear exit. People streamed out of the elevators in all directions, but he couldn’t see the white-blond hair or the money-green suit. There had to be ten parking garages within a few blocks.

A man who ran a billion-dollar hedge fund wouldn’t walk far.

Peter turned to the exit and through the doors. He was in a low covered area, for taxis and deliveries and drive-through banking. A security guard looked at him but made no move. People were walking up a long, shallow foot ramp to the street. He jogged past them into the relief of the high, darkening sky and the cold lake wind, looking left, then right.

A big parking structure with the U.S. Bank logo was at the end of the block across the street. Peter ran.

A long, dark sedan appeared at the mouth of the structure, coasting into the road, turning away. Under a streetlight Peter saw a flash of pale skin and white-blond hair through the driver’s window. Peter didn’t recognize the model of the car. He didn’t even recognize the logo on the trunk.

Then the engine gave a noisy blatt. Look at me, it said. See how special. As the car leaped down the block and out of reach. What the hell kind of car was that? The rich didn’t even buy the same cars as everyone else.

As the taillights disappeared around the corner, Peter wondered if Skinner was always this elusive, or if his secretary just had an attitude. Because the only thing that got Peter here in the first place was a stainless-steel pen with the name of a hedge fund on it.

Maybe it was just another dead end.

Peter’s stomach rumbled. He stretched his shoulders. Exercise would loosen him up. Mingus could use a run, too. He turned and walked up the hill toward his truck. At the top of a loading zone, past a car with a Zaffiro’s Pizza sign and a big telecom truck, nearly invisible in the lowering dark, stood a big black Ford SUV idling at a hydrant.

Before he could do anything, the Ford pulled into traffic with its lights off and rolled down the hill and around the corner, down the same street Skinner had taken.

“Shit.” Peter sprinted around the corner for his truck. Cars thick on the main drag at five o’clock, four lanes waiting for the signal to turn green. He couldn’t even get out of his parking spot with people in a hurry to get home.

By the time he’d cut off twenty people and nearly wrecked a city bus to get into traffic, Mingus barking like a hellhound in the back, the black Ford was gone.





20



He drove through downtown, the white spotlit U.S. Bank tower bright behind him, disappearing then reappearing in his mirrors over the heads of smaller buildings.

He slipped through the traffic, took the open side streets when he could. He dodged the lights, coasted through stop signs, and generally tried to drive how the scarred man would drive, looking for the fastest routes away.

Had the scarred man followed Peter, or was he there to follow Skinner?

After a twenty-minute tour through the small downtown without another glimpse of the black Ford, he turned toward the old neighborhoods and Dinah’s house.

The narrow streets were crowded with cars, and he drove on automatic pilot. He saw the veterans’ center building, and his foot rose off the gas as he pictured the woman with the ponytail and the paint-spattered jeans. He’d meant to stop back anyway. To ask about Jimmy.

His new phone buzzed. Only one person had the number. He swung the truck over and pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was a text message.

Too busy to talk today. Let’s catch up tomorrow. -Dinah.

Peter texted a reply. Your new doors are installed, keys under flower pot on picnic table.

Thanks! How much do I owe you?

Nothing. USMC still picking up tab. He didn’t like that he was still lying about the repairs, but there was no way he’d let her pay for it. Talk to you tomorrow.

Across the street, the veterans’ center door opened. Someone came out and looked at him. She waited for a break in the traffic, then angled across the street. It was the woman with the ponytail and the paint-spattered jeans. Different jeans today, but these were also flecked with paint. She wore a Brewers hat with her hair pulled through the opening in the back. It was a look Peter had always liked.