The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(76)

Nobody tried to stop us. All the same, I held my breath until we’d passed them.

“I-80’s gonna be locked up tighter than Fort Knox,” I said. “You’re sure you can get this thing through a checkpoint?”

“Our press credentials are immaculate,” Bentley said. “As is the vehicle registration. Paolo does exceptional work.”

Aberdeen was thirty miles south, a sleepy little burg that more or less existed to give the prison staff a place to live and buy groceries. It was all trailer parks, churches, and bars with blue neon lights advertising longneck bottles of Budweiser long into the night. We navigated along a string of back roads, while I squinted at faded street signs.

“Up here,” I said. “I think this is my stop.”

Bentley handed me a grocery bag from Vons. A couple of plastic water bottles nestled inside, along with three slim energy bars in bright orange foil.

“It’s not the gourmet meal you should have for a proper homecoming,” he said, “but it’ll tide you over.”

“Not home yet.” I hauled open the side door as the van rolled to a stop. “But I’ll be there soon. Just have one last loose end to tie up.”

Caitlin rose, and her fingers trailed down my shoulder.

“Be swift,” she said.

“I will. And while I’m gone, do me a favor: get in touch with Pixie. We’ll need her tech toys for this job. Tell her it’s for Jennifer. Pix was a little freaked out in Chicago, and I don’t think I earned any favors when I made her go home before we went after Damien Ecko, but I don’t think she’ll refuse if she knows Jen’s in danger.”

I squeezed the doorframe, wincing as a sharp wave of nausea hit me. It passed as suddenly as it arrived.

“Dan?” Corman asked, eyeing my grimace.

“And get Doc Savoy on standby,” I said. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. Just…better safe than sorry, right?”

They pretended to believe me, which was nice. I jumped out and scurried into the shadows, disappearing into the bushes behind a quiet ranch house.





41.




The sun rose over the sleepy streets of Aberdeen, warm light washing away the sirens and the chaos of the long and terrible night. Sitting behind an old walnut-stained desk in the back room of his house, Warden Lancaster sipped from a mug of coffee that read “World’s Greatest Grandpa” on the side and pecked at his keyboard.

“Working from home today?” I asked, casually leaning against the doorframe.

He jumped. One hand shot under the desk.

“Looking for this?”

I showed him the long-barreled revolver in my hand. His fingers pulled out slow from under his desk, away from the empty holster.

“Now, now, son,” he said, holding up his hands, “let’s not do anything rash here. We can work this out.”

“Can we?” I strolled toward him, keeping the gun aimed at his chest. “After what you did to me, do you really think we can ‘work this out’? Because if you’ve got any ideas, I’d love to hear ’em. You must figure I want something. If I was just here to kill you, I’d have done it hours ago.”

He blinked. “H-hours ago?”

“It’s all about the great quandary. The reason nobody’s ever escaped the Iceberg. Desert’s a natural barrier, and by the time anybody passes through Aberdeen, the highway patrol will already be on high alert and have I-80 barricaded in both directions. Everyone told me you can’t get out that way.”

I loomed over him, wearing a grim smile.

“So I didn’t. The way to defeat a roadblock isn’t to sneak through it; it’s to outlast it. All I had to do was let myself into your house—the last place anybody would be looking for me—and wait until morning. Now? Roadblock’s gone. I can just drive on out of here.”

“You were…here?”

“I was hiding under your bed. All night long,” I told him. “Listening to you snore. You sleep like an innocent man, Warden. Me? I didn’t sleep at all.”

Lancaster shrank into his high-backed leather chair.

“Look, son, I…I know you must be upset—”

“Upset? You forced me to kill a man.”

“You killed plenty,” he snapped, the fear on his face turning into an angry, pinched scowl. “You killed plenty of men before you came into my prison, and you killed plenty on your way out. You’re a murderer, Faust, plain and simple. What’s one more body on the pile, huh?”

I felt my finger tighten against the trigger. I had to take a deep breath and force it to unclench.

“I never killed anybody who didn’t deserve it,” I told him.

Lancaster snorted. “And who decides that? You? Who died and made you God? If you get to decide who lives and who dies, so do I. You’re no different from me.”

I paced the floor in front of his desk. I didn’t want to think about it. Maybe I was afraid that if I thought about it too much, he might start making sense.

“Look.” He reached for his inside pocket. I spun, sticking the gun in his face, and he froze. “Easy, easy now! This is something you’ll want to see.”

His fingers trembled as he tugged out a business card, resting it gingerly on the desk between us. Gold-leaf letters in neat cursive swirled over creamy-white parchment. “Weishaupt and Associates,” it read, “Attorneys at Law.”