Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (Finlay Donovan, #3)(98)

Instead, he leaned against it, a set of keys dangling from his hand. They didn’t belong to the Cadillac. “I think you might have lost these the other night.”

My heart stopped as I stared at the keys to the training cruiser. The scar on his mouth made it hard to read his expression. “Where did you find them?” I asked.

“Get in,” he said, snapping my door open.

I glanced into the back seat at Vero as I ducked slowly into his car, wondering if she’d seen our exchange. Charlie got in and started the engine, leaving it in park as he let the car warm. He drummed the steering wheel as he stared out the windshield. I braced myself for an interrogation about why we’d stolen the car and what we’d been doing at the Westovers’ that night. About how long I’d been lying to Nick and what, if anything, Charlie expected me to do about that.

“We need to talk about that money in your suitcase,” he said, adjusting his rearview mirror to look at Vero.

Her eyes leapt to his reflection. “What money?”

“The two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your suitcase that came from Feliks Zhirov.”

I resisted the urge to look at her.

“That money was from Feliks?” I heard myself ask.

Charlie gave a thoughtful nod. “It was delivered to your room after that incident with Joey in the gym the other night. Guess he assumed EasyClean was handled, and it was time to pay up.”

“But I don’t work for Feliks.”

Charlie slung his arm over the seat back and pierced us with a stare. “Everyone in this car works for Feliks. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The butt of Charlie’s Magnum stuck out of the opening in his coat. My mouth went dry. Wade was right. You could tell a lot about a person by the size of their gun and how they chose to carry it.

“What exactly do you do for Feliks?” I asked.

“I liaise with the department. Keep my eyes open, look for opportunities, eliminate risks … I guess you could think of me as a human resources manager.”

Vero cleared her throat softly. “These resources you manage … are they usually alive or dead?”

“Let’s hope you two don’t have to find out.” I didn’t like how grim his answer sounded. As if the task had already been laid out in front of him and he didn’t want to acknowledge it yet. “Feliks was under no obligation to pay you that incentive money Kat discussed with you. The payment I left in your room was a token from Feliks, an investment in the future of your working relationship. It was also a gesture of trust, and you broke it. Feliks wasn’t pleased to hear that Joey’s still alive.”

“But Joey wasn’t EasyClean,” Vero argued.

“Doesn’t matter,” Charlie said frankly. “Finlay lied to Feliks, and now he wants his money back, so I’m going to take that suitcase off your hands and there isn’t going to be any more bickering about it.”

“Joey was right about you,” I said, angry at myself for not acknowledging the clues that had been there all along: Charlie’s moral flexibility, his desire to keep volunteering even after he’d retired, his close personal relationship with Nick. And then there had been that mysterious file in Joey’s locked office drawer. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d known something was off. An enemy of my enemy is my friend, Vero had joked a week ago. But Joey Balafonte hadn’t been my enemy. He’d been Feliks’s. And that didn’t bode well for Vero and me now.

“Doesn’t matter what Joey thinks,” Charlie said. “Joey Balafonte is a dead man walking. He got lucky last night and so did you.” He tapped the steering wheel, thinking. “I’ll wait until Feliks has had some time to cool down. When the dust settles, I’ll do my best to convince him you’re still an asset, but I think it would be wise for the two of you to disappear for a while.”

Vero and I locked eyes over the seat back as Charlie put the car in gear. “I’m going to text Nick later and tell him I drove you home. Where do you want me to take you?” he asked.

I looked down at my hands. At my clothes. At Vero. Where could we go? That fire hadn’t just been an accident or a distraction. Feliks had intended for us to burn. There was nowhere we could possibly run where Feliks couldn’t touch us.

“Not home,” Vero said. “Take us to my cousin’s garage.”





CHAPTER 38


It was a little before seven A.M. when Charlie dropped us off in front of Ramón’s garage. We unloaded my suitcase out of Charlie’s back seat. He didn’t bother to shut off the engine or say good-bye, and we watched as he drove off with Vero’s suitcase in his trunk.

“All my hoodies are in that bag.” Smears of soot framed her scowl, and her hair was a nest of snarls.

“Not all of them,” I reminded her. We’d had to put some of her clothes in my suitcase to make room for the money in hers. She kicked the asphalt as Charlie’s Cadillac disappeared from sight.

Her drenched sneakers made squelching sounds as she dumped her fire blanket in a trash can beside the door to the garage. “When Sylvia finally pays you, we’re using your advance to buy me shoes.”

I glanced down at myself. We both looked like we’d been spit from a volcano.

“Should we be here?” I asked as she unlocked the gate to the salvage yard. I set my suitcase down beside it.