True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(24)

It only proved to him how much he deserved all of that money.





CHAPTER TWENTY

Seattle, Washington. July 19. 2:20 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

“Your cast is falling apart,” Margo said as they walked out of the kitchen. “Come with me.”

Ian looked at his right arm. The cast was crumbling, riddled with gashes from the knife, and barely hanging together. Some of the gauze underneath the plaster was bloodstained where the assassin’s knife had pierced his skin. He didn’t think any of the cuts were very deep, but even if they were, the cast would probably be an adequate bandage. He based that on the medical knowledge he’d gained from watching Dr. Dick Van Dyke on Diagnosis: Murder.

She led him to the laundry room, which was the size of a one-bedroom apartment and fitted with the same custom cabinetry as the kitchen. In addition to a high-end washer and dryer, there was also a steam press, an ironing station, a sewing station, and other equipment that Ian assumed was for dry cleaning. There was a center island for folding laundry, with a wide roll of tissue paper on a dispenser at one end.

Margo sat him down at a stool at the island, opened one of the nearby cabinets, and pulled out a roll of duct tape and a pair of scissors.

“How many people live in this house?” Ian asked.

She sat down next to him and began wrapping silver duct tape tightly around his cast. “Just the two of them. Eight people, tops, when their kids, their spouses, and the grandchildren stay over.”

Ian shook his head. “They could start a business out of this room, doing laundry for the entire neighborhood.”

“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “Some people don’t know what to do with all of their money.”

“Now that you mention it, we need money.”

“I need money,” she said. “You’re loaded.”

“I’m rich but I don’t carry around wads of cash. I use plastic for everything. I’ve only got about two hundred dollars on me. What have you got?”

“Ten bucks.”

“We need more.”

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “That ten bucks is nearly all of my liquid assets.”

“We aren’t going to get very far without money. But we can’t use our credit cards or go to an ATM or they’ll know exactly where we are. We also can’t go to family or friends. The CIA will be watching them all.”

“So what are we going to do?” she said. “Steal stuff from here and hock it?”

Ian shook his head. “Pawn shops have surveillance cameras and the CIA is probably watching the pawn shops, too.”

“They can’t watch everything.”

“They can come pretty close,” Ian said. “And they probably have experts who are trying to anticipate our next move, based on their experience and detailed psychological assessments of us that they’re putting together using everything they’re learning about us from our school records, medical records, social media, tax returns, you name it.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Yes, I am but does it sound credible to you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then let’s assume I’m right,” Ian said. “Everybody has some loose cash in their house so there must be some here. We have to find it.”

“I’ll start looking for the money.” She cut off the tape with scissors and patted the last strip down on his now silver cast. “You need to take a shower and change your clothes.”

“We don’t have time for that,” he said.

“You can’t go out in public reeking of whiskey and BO in soiled clothes you’ve been wearing for two days.”

“I don’t smell that bad,” he said.

“You also look like a mass murderer,” she said. “Anybody who sees you will scream and call the police.”

“Because my hair is a little messy and I haven’t shaved? It’s the grunge look. It started right here in Seattle, where mass murderer Ted Bundy killed a bunch of women and he looked like a lawyer.”

“That’s true,” she said. “But your clothes are spattered with blood and that never creates a positive first impression.”

Ian looked down at himself, saw the red spots, and remembered the moist sound the poker made going into the assassin’s stomach. He shivered.

“Okay, you have a point.”

“Take off your shirt,” she said.

He did as he was told, working his cast back through the right sleeve. It wasn’t easy getting shirts on and off with his arm bent at a ninety-degree angle and encased in plaster . . . and now duct tape, too.

Margo went to another cabinet and pulled out two Hefty trash bags. She stuffed his stained shirt into one of the bags and pulled the other one over his cast, then used the duct tape to tape it closed at his shoulder.

“Now you can shower,” she said. “Take the bag off when you’re done.”

“You’ve had experience with this.”

“I broke both of my arms when I was a kid,” she said. “I sucked at soccer.”

“Soccer is played with your feet.”

“Not the way I played,” she said.



Ian went up to the master bathroom, which was about a thousand square feet of marble and had a steam shower for two and a Jacuzzi for six that was fed by a waterfall. He undressed, stuffed his underwear, pants, and socks in the Hefty bag, and took a shower at the hottest temperature he could stand.