I should have given up years ago.
CHAPTER 52
ALEX YAWNS, STRETCHES, AND OPENS HER EYES. The hotel room is dark, but sunlight is peeking in through a crack in the drapes, illuminating the stacks of money laid out on the floor in thousand-dollar piles.
There are eighty-seven of them.
Alex smiles her half smile at the sight of it. She’d been hoping for at least forty thousand. That’s the number quoted in the e-mail exchanges. The number she needs to start her new life.
Truth told, Alex had no idea how much money armored trucks carried around. Long gone are the days of cash payrolls, and bank transfers are made electronically with the press of a button. But she assumed with the constant stocking of ATMs and currency exchanges, and the cash flow generated by the shopping on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, money was probably being hauled every day.
She assumed right.
Alex rolls out of bed, uses the washroom, then flips on CNN. The Chicago bombing is still the main story. Alex’s scarred mug shot is shown, her hair shorter and black. They also mention the armored car robbery, but her name isn’t brought up in connection with that, just that the robber is tall, muscular, with dark red hair. The driver’s description. He managed to ID her hair color beneath a hood, but for some reason didn’t realize she was a woman. Fear does funny things to memory.
Alex changed her hair last night, stopping at a drugstore and buying some bleach. She’s now a perky blonde.
Eighty-seven grand can make even a stone-cold killer downright perky.
Now it’s time to get out of town, disappear. Yesterday, things had been too hot. Alex narrowly missed a roadblock before getting back to the hotel. It should be safer to move today. But first, one last thing to deal with.
Jack.
Alex dials, ready to offer the lieutenant her condolences. The victims’ names haven’t been released yet, but her fat partner is surely one of them. The roofing nails were a special touch, a nod to one of Jack’s high-profile cases Alex read about while in Heathrow. Icing on the irony cake.
But Jack doesn’t answer. A man does. A man Alex can’t stand.
“Hiya, freak show. How’s the psycho business?”
“Where’s Jack, Harry?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you, because you’re crazy and your face looks like a slice of country-style ham. If your nose was a side of hash browns you’d have a line of fat people chasing you with forks.”
Alex frowns, uncomfortably aware that only half of the muscles are working. “Put Jack on.”
“That’s a negative, ham-face. She’s done playing with you. But I’m not. I’m coming for your loony ass. In fact, I’m knocking on your door right…about…now.”
Against all common sense, Alex focuses on her hotel door.
“Gotcha, sucker.”
Alex grits her teeth. “If you don’t put Jack on-”
“Blow me. I’m walking up to your door right now. You ready? Here I come. Almost there. And heeeeeere’s Harry!”
Again, Alex stares at her door, annoyed that she’s buying into this stupid game.
“Gotcha again! Die paranoid, you bitch.”
Harry hangs up. Alex fights the urge to open the door and check the hallway. It’s ludicrous. Harry has no way to find her. She’s in the hotel under a false name. There’s no way to trace the cell phone daisy chain.
Right?
But Harry-goddamn Harry-sounded so sure of himself. When Alex first met him, she thought he was dumber than a crate of melons. And while she never really amended that initial impression, she doesn’t want to underestimate the irritating little bastard. Her plan was to lure Jack to a secluded location and grab her. But now Alex just feels the need to get the hell out of Chicago. The sooner, the better.
She starts stuffing everything into her duffel bag, including the empty canvas money satchels. It’s heavy, unwieldy, the zipper threatening to burst. Alex slings it onto her shoulder, heads for the door, remembers that her face is exposed, and creates a makeshift babushka out of a white pillowcase. It looks ridiculous, but better to be remembered as eccentric than scarred.
The hallway is clear, the stairwell is clear, the lobby is clear, and the parking lot is clear, except for some idiot in a Winnebago blocking the exit. Alex chucks the duffel bag in back, starts the Prius, and drives up over the curb to get past the RV moron, and wonders where to head next.
Wisconsin is out of the question. She’s almost as pop u lar with cops there as she is in Chicago. She also left a trail in Iowa, and going back now would be unwise. Michigan is a possibility. Plenty of privacy in the woods. A secluded farm would work too.
A farm.
Actually, for a final showdown, Alex’s old homestead would be a perfect place. Private, out of the way, easy to set up. And she’d get a thrill out of seeing their farm one last time.
Alex heads for I-90, and Gary, Indiana.
Soon, this will all be over. Alex isn’t sure what she wants to do next. The possibilities are limitless. Hell, she could even get a regular job, become a respectable citizen. Perhaps even join a police force somewhere. Wearing that cop uniform was a lot of fun.
It’s cold enough outside for Alex to switch on the heat, but that makes the smell from the backseat more pronounced. She opens the windows to compensate, and wonders if she should stop for deodorizer. Or at least something to cover the corpse, other than the blanket currently performing the task. Alex reaches around, tugs down a corner, and catches a quick glimpse out of her back window.
That damn Winnebago is following her.
Adrenaline jolts her. Maybe it isn’t the same one. There have to be dozens of them on the road, and they probably all look similar.
She glances at her rearview, trying to see the driver. He’s too far back, and his windows have a light tint to them, making it hard to see inside.
That clinches it. The RV back at the hotel had tinted windows too.
Could it be the Feds? They’re known for doing stakeouts in vans and trucks. But a Winnebago seems too conspicuous, too elaborate, even for the FBI. This thing is the size of a bus. No one would be stupid enough to use a recreational vehicle for surveillance, except maybe…
Harry McGlade.
“Is that you, Harry, you pain in the ass? Let’s find out.”
Alex turns at the next light, taking Touhy Avenue around the airport, then turning onto South Mount Prospect Road. This is noman’s-land, acres and acres of undesirable property, too close to O’Hare to be habitable. Many have tried, as evidenced by the crumbling and torn-down buildings in these empty lots, but the sound must have been too much for even the factories to endure.
Alex hangs a sharp, fast right onto Old Higgins Road, the Prius cornering bravely, and then a quick left into an abandoned lot, weeds poking up through the cracked asphalt. She jams the car into park, hops out palming her Cheetah stun gun, and sprints back to the ditch near the entrance to crouch in the tall grass.
The Winnebago slows down as it nears, crawling by the lot, the driver obviously spotting the Prius. Alex runs up behind the vehicle, grabbing onto the rear ladder, pulling herself up as it rolls past. The rungs are round, sturdy, easy to hold. The RV comes to a stop, and Alex climbs up the back side and onto the roof. As expected, there’s a hatch. She slides over to it on her hands and knees, the slight noise she makes lost in the overhead roar of jet engines. Happily, the hatch is open a few inches, probably for air circulation. Alex lifts it up and slithers forward on her belly.
The smell is awful, a cross between a zoo and a truck stop toilet. Definitely Harry. Alex swings inside and drops onto the sofa. A scream, to her left, and she spins around, Cheetah poised and ready to strike.
It’s a monkey, in a cage. And the scream isn’t directed at her. It’s directed at what appears to be a damp sweater, which he’s earnestly humping.