“No. There’s nothing reasonable about it. You gave them Layton’s things, they had what they wanted, there was no reason to—”
He stopped, frowning, and she saw his gaze turn inward. After a minute it was her turn to say, “What?”
“You gave him a suitcase,” he said slowly, “but I carried two pieces upstairs.”
“A suitcase was all Layton brought in—” Now she stopped and stared at him with dawning horror. “The shaving kit! I couldn’t get it in the suitcase because of the shoes. I forgot about it.”
“I would have noticed if there weren’t any shaving things in the suitcase. So whatever it is they want, they must think you still have it.”
All the pieces snapped into place, and suddenly everything made sense. Tears stung her eyes, dripped down her cheeks. Seven people had died because she forgot to give Mellor a damn shaving kit. She was both furious and devastated, because if he’d bothered to pick up the phone and call, she’d have mailed the damn thing to him. Hell, she’d have sent it express!
A cool, decisive look entered Cal’s eyes. They lay awake talking for another hour while he formulated his plan. Cate didn’t like it; she argued and begged that they go back together, but this time he was impervious. He held her and kissed her, but he didn’t change his mind.
“I have a better angle on them now,” he said. “You were worried about me going into the water; now I won’t have to. Well, except for crossing the stream. I won’t have to stay in it.” That slightly distant look remained in his eyes, and she knew he was mentally working out the details, weighing the odds, developing a strategy.
Finally, worn out. she slept, and woke at dawn to Cal making love to her. He loved her long and carefully, holding back as if he couldn’t bear to let the moment end. She was sore, but if the pleasure was mixed with discomfort, she didn’t care. Terrified that she might lose him so soon after finding him, she held on tight and prayed.
Over fifteen hundred miles away, Jeffrey Layton stood at the sink in a ratty motel room in Chicago and shaved with a disposable razor. He was in a shitty mood. This should have worked. He’d been certain it would work. But this was the eleventh clay, and Mill the money he’d demanded from Bandini wasn’t in his numbered account.
He’d told Bandini he had fourteen days to transfer the money, but Layton had never intended to wait that long. He knew Bandini would be doing everything possible to hunt him down, and he had no intention of helping the odds in Bandini’s favor. Before he’d ever started down this road, he had decided that ten days was it. If he didn’t have the money in ten days, he wasn’t going to get it.
Okay. He wasn’t going to get it.
He had deliberately left a trail to Podunk, Idaho, calculating how long it would take for someone to trace his credit card charges there. His intention had always been to drive back to Chicago and hide in plain sight, in the one city in which Bandini would never think to look for him, effectively hiding right under his nose. He still had no idea whether the nonlocal he’d heard in the dining room at the B and B was someone Bandini had hired, but that wasn’t a risk he’d been prepared to take. The accent had been totally different, that was certain, with a sort of fake heartiness that he’d been able to tell the locals despised. Rather than risk being seen, or alerting the guy with the opening and closing of the front door, Layton had elected to leave the cheap stuff he’d bought behind in the B and B, climb out the window with the flash drive in his pocket, and get out while he could.
He’d ditched the Idaho plates and replaced them with Wyoming plates; then, when he’d gotten back to Illinois, he drove around until he found a vehicle identical to the rental he was driving and replaced the Wyoming plates with ones from Illinois.
He’d paid for this sorry room in cash, giving a fake name, used only drive-through burger joints for his food or had Chinese delivered, and every day he’d checked his account with his BlackBerry.
It wasn’t going to happen. The tenth day had been yesterday. He should have gone to the FBI then, but he’d decided to wait the full day. Today he’d teach Salazar Bandini he should have paid more attention when Jeffrey Layton told him something.
It never pays to dis the man who does the books.
He had his story all worked out, what he’d tell the FBI. When he’d found the hidden files he’d been alarmed, especially when he saw the names there. He’d downloaded the files to a flash drive, but Bandini had found out, and since then lavton had been running for his life. He’d finally shaken Bandini’s men off his tail, and he was certain the FBI would be very interested in what was on the flash drive. They might wonder why he hadn’t simply picked up a telephone and asked to be taken in, but he had an answer for that: he’d heard Bandini had a source in the FBI, and he couldn’t be certain that whoever arrived to pick him up wasn’t the source. He had actually heard that, so he wasn’t lying. He’d figured that if he turned over the flash drive in front of several agents, that would prevent the evidence—and him—from disappearing.
Not that he didn’t plan to disappear anyway. They’d probably figure Bandini had gotten to him. He didn’t care, didn’t care if they needed him to give a deposition or anything like that. What they did with the information on the flash drive was up to them; Layton figured they could get a conviction on several counts even without his testimony.
Not his problem.
He would love to be a fly on the wall and watch Bandini go down, but he had to protect himself. He had his spot all picked out. He had his new identity set up. Life would be good—not as good as it could have been if Bandini had come through with the money, but good enough.
Alter shaving, he dressed in one of his suits, very precisely chosen for the middle-of-the-road, nonentity persona they projected.
They were good suits, but not expensive. Tasteful, but not stylish. Those suits allowed him to blend in, to become almost invisible. He hated them.
At precisely’ ten o’clock he checked out of the motel and drove to the local FBI office on Dearborn. He should have known better; he should have taken a taxi, so he didn’t have to look for parking. He hated looking for parking: it was such a waste of time. He drove around for several minutes, looking, passing by several parking lots with “open” signs because they were farther away than he liked. He didn’t want to park so far away that the walk would make him sweaty, because that wasn’t the impression he wanted to give. Wait, maybe it was. Maybe sweating was a good idea. Maybe that would make him look nervous.
Yes. That was a good idea. With that in mind, he look the next parking opportunity that presented itself.
He had a two-block walk to the Dirksen Building, where the FBI was located. The warm, humid September air brought out an immediate sweat. Then he had to go through security, then reception proved a roadblock. By the time he got what he wanted, which was at least two special agents from the racketeering division or whatever they called it, he had almost stopped sweating, and he was annoyed. All that effort, and the effect was lost.
He took the flash drive out of his pocket, held it up to show them what it was, then tossed it to the nearest agent. “Salazar Bandini’s private books,” he said brusquely. “Enjoy.”
There were about seven inches of snow on the ground, but the weather had cleared and the air was like crystal. To the right they could see the far mountains and part of Trail Stop’s paramecium shape. The snow line was about a thousand feet down; the valley was still snow-free.
Cate had given up trying to convince Cal to return with her. His reasoning was sound. The snow and ice had changed everything. The trip they had estimated would take them four days would now take at least six, and that was if they had no trouble along the way. They couldn’t take any route that would go over rock because of the ice. The ice might or might not melt; they didn’t know the weather forecast. And if the weather warmed and the ice and snow did melt, it would cause another problem.