Lethal(41)

“Do you think this Bookkeeper is a public official?”

“Could be. Maybe not. I was hoping to learn his identity on Sunday night,” he said tightly. “Because something big is brewing. I’ve just caught whiffs of it, but I think The Bookkeeper is courting a new client. Scary people with zero tolerance for screw-ups.”

Again she massaged her forehead. “I refuse to believe that Eddie was involved in anything relating to this. I can’t believe it of Sam Marset, either.”

“Marset was in it strictly for the money. He was a fat cat who profited off vices, but he wasn’t violent. If somebody crossed him, he ruined them. Usually financially. Or caught them with their pants down in a hotel room and blackmailed them. Like that. He was of the mind that the flyblown body of a thirteen-year-old boy being found in a ditch was bad for business.

“And that was only one of the grievances Marset was holding against The Bookkeeper. He demanded that they sit down together, hash out their differences, clear the air. The Bookkeeper agreed.”

“But pulled a double-cross.”

“To put it mildly. Instead of The Bookkeeper, it was the Hawkins twins who showed up. Before Marset could even voice his outrage over the switcheroo, Fred popped him. Doral had an automatic rifle. He opened fire on the others, taking out my foreman first. The instant I saw them at the door, I smelled a rat and slipped behind some crates, but I knew they’d seen me. When the others were down, they came after me.”

He approached a railroad crossing, but didn’t let it slow him down. The car bounced over it. “I’d taken the precaution of carrying a pistol to work that night, along with my extra cell phone. I left one phone behind on purpose. That’ll throw them off. They’ll chase their tails tracking down the calls on it.

“Anyway, I made it out of the warehouse alive and got to an abandoned building. One of the twins searched it, but I hid in the crawl space until he left. Then I hightailed it toward the river, bent on eventually getting to you before they caught up to me.” He looked over at her. “You more or less know the rest.”

“So what now? Where are we going?”

“I have no idea.”

She turned her head so quickly, her neck popped. “What?”

“I didn’t plan that far ahead. Actually, I didn’t count on living through that first night. I figured I’d either be killed by an overanxious officer or by someone on The Bookkeeper’s payroll.” He glanced over his shoulder into the backseat. “I sure didn’t count on having a woman and kid in tow.”

“Well, I’m sorry for the inconvenience we’ve imposed,” Honor said. “You can drop us at Stan’s house and go on about your business.”

He gave a short laugh. “Don’t you get it? Haven’t you been listening? If Doral Hawkins or The Bookkeeper think you know something that could help convict them, your life’s not worth spit.”

“I do understand. Stan will protect us until—”

“Stan, the man in the one-for-all-and-all-for-one photo with your late husband and the Hawkins twins? That Stan?”

“Surely, you don’t think—”

“Why not?”

“Stan’s a former Marine.”

“So am I. Look how I turned out.”

He’d made his point. She hesitated, then said staunchly, “My father-in-law would protect Emily and me with his dying breath.”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet. Until I do, you stay with me and contact nobody.”

Before she could say more, they heard the wail of sirens. Within seconds, two police cars appeared where the road met the horizon. They were approaching and closing quickly.

“Doral must have found his brother’s corpse.”

Though his muscles contracted with tension and he gripped the steering wheel of the stolen car tighter, Coburn maintained his speed and kept his eyes straight ahead. The squad cars screamed past at a high rate of speed.

“Police car,” the kid chirped. “Mommy, police car.”

“I see it, sweetheart.” Honor threw a smile back at her, then came around to him again. “Emily will need food. A place to sleep. We can’t just keep driving around in a stolen car, dodging the police. What are you going to do with us?”

“I’m about to find out.”

He checked the clock in the car’s dashboard and saw that it would be past nine on the East Coast. He took the next turn off the main road. The blacktop soon gave way to gravel and gravel to rutted dirt, and the road finally came to a dead end at a stagnant creek covered with duckweed.

He had three phones. Fred’s. Beyond that one last call to his brother, the call log had been empty. But since Fred used that phone for illegal purposes, Coburn hadn’t expected to find The Bookkeeper’s number highlighted. All the same, he would keep the phone. For safe measure, he removed the battery.

They couldn’t use Honor’s cell because the authorities could locate it using triangulation. He took the battery from it too.

Which left Coburn’s burner, the disposable he’d bought months earlier but had never used until yesterday. He turned it on, saw that he was getting a cell signal, and punched in a number with the hope that today his call would be answered.

“Who are you calling?” Honor asked.