Aurora(43)

“Don’t worry about your sister. I’ve got her.”

Thom nodded, but he was distracted. Chloe had come out of the complex and was in a huddled conversation with Jimmy, who was half turned away from him, speaking to her in low tones. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, forcing a smile. What the fuck was this? Was he comforting her?

He decided he didn’t care and turned back to Brady perfunctorily. “Have a good drive.” He turned to go.

“Just need one more thing, Mr. Banning.”

Thom turned back, annoyed.

“The money?” Brady asked.



Thom and Jimmy went down to the vault on their own, leaving Brady to wait up top. The strong room was in the lowermost level of the silo, beyond two sets of multiple-key locking doors. Like a safety-deposit box, the main vault needed two authorized keys to be opened, and an additional key for each of the four antechambers beyond that. Thom trusted Jimmy more than anyone else, but he still had given him access to only the first of the cash storage antechambers. The architect’s design had been such that the presence of an additional room wasn’t revealed until one was fully inside the previous room.

There was no corridor; it was a series of interconnected chambers. Thom’s theory had been that, once someone entered the first room and made a ballpark estimate of the amount of cash inside—in the case of the outer room, that number was $1 million, in twenties and hundreds—if they knew the number of additional rooms, simple math would reveal the total amount of the horde. And when big numbers got out, big trouble often followed.

But by limiting knowledge of the additional rooms, Thom figured he could keep a lid on things. The amount of cash in each of the five chambers was a million greater than the one previous, and the grand total, $15 million in U.S. dollars, was known only to Thom. His biggest threat, he figured, was from the security guards who had transported the money in the first place, but since he had never moved more than $2 million at a time and no guard ever made the trip twice, there was no way that total could be arrived at by anyone but him.

It took a few minutes for Thom and Jimmy to load $250,000 in twenties into the small blue duffel bag. In total, the money weighed just over twenty-seven pounds. While they moved the packets methodically from the boxes into the bag, Thom tried his best to speak casually.

“Everything OK with Chloe?”

“Chloe? Sure, why?”

“Saw you talking to her outside is all. She seemed upset.”

Jimmy waved a hand. “Oh, she’s just being Chloe. You know Chloe.”

Thom nodded. “Oh, sure.” He kept loading the bag, daring a look up at Jimmy.

What he wanted to say was “Yeah, I know Chloe. How well do you know Chloe?” What he actually said was nothing. Feeling jealous of attention paid to any young, attractive woman in his orbit was a habit he had been trying to break. He decided to drop it.

But with uncomfortable subjects apparently now on the table, Jimmy cleared his throat.

“So it seems Dr. Bordwell is leaving us,” he said as casually as he could muster.

Thom looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

Jimmy kept working, moving the packets of twenties from the silver box to the blue duffel bag. “A problem with his father. Apparently, he had a heart, uh, episode just before the power went out. Probably stress-related. Dr. Bordwell got worried when he couldn’t contact him for a few days, so he, uh, went back to Provo.”

“You mean he left?”

“Yes, sir. Oh nine hundred this morning.”

“So he isn’t leaving, Jimmy. Our dentist has already left.”

“Right. That’s what I meant. Dr. Bordwell has left.”

“And what the fuck am I supposed to do if I get an abscess?” Thom asked. He caught himself and rephrased. “If one of the kids gets an abscess? Or Ann-Sophie? Or you, Jimmy. What are we supposed to do, die?”

“Well, sir, he did give his apologies, and he said he’d be more than happy to come back in the event of an emergency,” Jimmy offered. The truth was, David Bordwell had hated the place on sight and wondered how the hell he’d ever made this hellish deal with the devil. He’d spent a couple nights in the hole in the earth that had been reserved for him, luxuriously appointed though it was, and decided no fortune was worth living like a mole for a year. He’d left without explanation. Jimmy had made up the sick father to cushion the blow for Thom, to give it an aura of respectability that might contain the boss’s reaction. It wasn’t working.

“Come back?” Thom said, incredulous. “Oh, sure, we’ll just drop him a text or send an e-mail or call him up, except, oh, no, we won’t because there’s no fucking power.”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He went back to counting the cash, moving his hands back and forth, filling the duffel bag. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Anyway, with him leaving, I started thinking. His apartment is empty now, nobody’s using it, shame for it to go to waste—”

Thom winced, bracing himself.

“So I thought this might be a good moment for me to bring up my cousin Mike’s situation.”

Thom closed his eyes. What was the matter with everyone?

“No more new people,” he snapped.





16.





Aurora