THE SCOOTER WAS A TWIST-and-go. At least he wouldn’t have to learn gears on top of everything else.
Thibault steered the little machine across the parking lot, getting the feel for the handling, the accelerator. The buzzy revving bounced off the warehouse fronts; then the echoes fell away as he got out onto the industrial park’s entrance road.
The black Mercedes was up at Memorial, waiting to turn right. That was a relief—he didn’t feel like tackling a left turn right away.
As he pulled in behind, a thin line of awareness touched him from the driver of the Mercedes, bouncing off the rearview mirror. He’d heard the buzzy engine behind him.
Thibault chopped the faint thread away, then checked out the controls between the handlebars. It was simpler than he’d expected, like riding a toy. And it had almost a full tank of gas, so he didn’t have to worry about that.
The Mercedes pulled out, and Thibault turned after him.
And then they were on Memorial Drive, the scooter’s weeny engine screaming up to top volume as he tried to keep up with the more powerful Mercedes. There was a lot of traffic, all of it moving fast.
Drivers’ attentions lanced forward and darted across to other lanes to read the situation, the flickering lines crazy delicate among all the thundering machinery. It was hard work just controlling his fear as a pair of semis roared by. He felt like a rabbit in a herd of stampeding buffalo.
Thibault had stopped riding bicycles when he was ten. All those drivers almost running into him. I didn’t even see you! Where the hell did you come from? He was okay in a car; people registered the machine, not the person inside. But on a bicycle, you mostly noticed the person, not the spindly frame and wheels below them.
He’d never tried a scooter or a motorcycle. Until now it hadn’t been worth the risk. But here he was, flying along the highway, probably halfway invisible to every other driver, and with no helmet to save his braincase if someone swiped him off the road.
And all to save the druggie father of Scam’s new friend.
Would the big insulated pizza box, painted with Pizza2Go!’s garish logo, be enough to attract other drivers’ attention?
Probably not. Thibault swore and swerved into the next lane as an Escalade cut him off. Could the guy not see him, or was he just a dickhead?
At least the gangsters in the Mercedes wouldn’t spot him. All he had to do was keep the damn thing in sight. . . .
They were headed back into town. That was good, right? They weren’t going to throw Mob and Scam off a cliff, or take them out into the desert and shoot them. But wherever they were they going, what could Thibault do on his own?
He got ahead of the Escalade and changed lanes to get in right behind the Mercedes. He wished he could let Bellwether know what was happening. But the thought of pulling out a phone right now was laughable.
At last the Mercedes crossed into an exit lane and led him out of highway hell. Shivering from breeze-chilled nervous sweat, his body aching from holding rigid, Thibault followed the smooth black car through the lacework of streets and lanes up around the stadium.
Finally it slowed and pulled into an alley behind some office buildings. Thibault hesitated at the alley entrance. The Mercedes was drifting to a halt at the other end, in the shadows of the two tall buildings on either side.
Thibault switched off the scooter, kicked down the stand, swung his stiff body off. A shimmer of attention came at him from the alley, but he hacked it away, leaned back against the brick wall, and peered around the corner.
The Mercedes’ trunk popped open, but Thibault could see nothing but blackness inside. The three guys were out of the car—wow, they were all muscle, their cheap suits straining to hold them in.
The bald one went to the trunk, flipped it wide open, reached in, and lifted out . . . a familiar duffel bag.
Thibault shut his eyes and beat the back of his head gently against the brick.
“You idiot!” he whispered. “You useless, impatient, stupid . . .”
He pulled out his phone. There were seven messages from Riley that he hadn’t heard through the scooter’s buzzing. He ignored them and dialed her.
“Anon! You okay?”
“You tried to tell me, didn’t you? There were two black Mercedes.”
“Yep. And you followed the money, right?”
“They just unloaded it. Did you see where they took Scam and Mob?”
“The other car was headed back toward town when I lost their vision. They were right behind you for a second—almost hit you! Then the pizza guy came out and started freaking out.”
“Poor guy. Should I come pick you up?”
“I’m already in a cab. I updated Bellwether. We’re meeting back in town to try to figure out what to do next.”
“I guess I’ll catch up with you there, then?”
“I guess. But you might want to, uh, liberate a certain duffel bag on your way here? Maybe we can get them to try this again from the top—and not screw us this time.”
“Good idea.”
“But Anon?” Riley’s voice softened. “If you have to choose between getting the thirty grand and coming back in one piece . . .”
“I hear you. I’ll be careful.”
“Make sure you are,” she said.
CHAPTER 72
SCAM
ETHAN HAD BEEN ROLLING AROUND in the trunk of a car for God only knew how long. Then he’d been hauled up countless flights of stairs by thugs who thought it was funny every time he tripped or staggered. His knee throbbed from where he’d fallen on it—the exact same spot twice. Then he’d been shoved against a rough concrete pole.
And all this with a bag over his head that smelled of diesel and grease. He hoped it was diesel and grease, anyhow, and not the panic-breathed saliva of the last guy the Bagrovs had kidnapped.
Right now they were tying his hands behind him with enough rope to harness two ships.
Ethan released his voice. It was easy. He wanted to be free. He’d never wanted anything so badly.
“Misha!” the voice said through the bag. “You don’t want to do this.”
The bag was pulled from his head. It was dark, wherever they were.
“I’m sorry, my friend.” Misha sounded genuinely sad. “But Mr. Bagrov—”
“Alexei’s never gonna take care of you, Misha. Look what he did with our deal!”
The voice went on talking, but Ethan was barely listening. He was looking around the large, empty room they’d been brought to. Like a hotel conference room, but dusty and abandoned-looking, missing furniture and light fixtures. Just four thugs with flashlights.
A bank of windows had a view onto the setting sun, and Ethan was sure he could hear something outside. A megaphone, maybe? He couldn’t make out the words. The speech ended, and distant music started.
Across from Ethan was another man, also tied up. His head lifted and caught a beam of flashlight.
Whoa. It was Jerry Laszlo. Probably.
His face was bloodied and bruised. Blood had dried into the gray whiskers on his cheeks, and dripped all over his dark shirt. Blood caked his nose so hard he was breathing through his mouth.
“You’re right, my friend, we had a deal,” Misha was saying mournfully. “But Jerry here made us all very angry. And whatever you were pulling at that bank, Mr. Bagrov didn’t find it amusing.”
“Your deal was with me, not Laszlo!” the voice said. “Are you a man of honor?”
“I am, my friend. But I am also a loyal man, and orders are orders.”
Ethan stopped listening to the conversation. Kelsie had come stumbling into the room, a greasy bag over her head too. Two of the gangsters sat her down and tied her to a pole a few yards away.
When the bag came off, she looked scared. Ethan felt his heart lurch as her fear pulsed through the room.
“Ethan?” she said, blinking. “Where are we?”
He shook his head.
“No” came a cracked, thin voice from across the room.
/> Kelsie turned. “Dad? Oh my God! What have they done to you?”
Jerry looked at them glassily, like he couldn’t quite see that far through his blackened eyes. “Kelsie?”
Jerry tried to say more, but he was wheezing and coughing so hard he couldn’t get it out. That was probably for the best, Ethan figured.
After everything they’d been through, Kelsie was finally reunited with her dad. But not in any kind of way she would’ve hoped.
Kelsie was talking softly to her father, pulling at the ropes that bound her to the concrete pole.
Ethan turned back to Misha. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this scared. Not even a road trip with the Craig had scared him like being tied to a pole in an empty building by a bunch of treacherous gangsters.
Based on what they’d already done to Jerry, whatever happened next was going to be bad.
The voice felt his fear, his rank desire to escape from this place, and turned it into words. “Misha! You listen to me. Alexei is a psycho. You really going to let him abandon a couple of kids? Here of all places?”
Misha checked his watch with his flashlight. “We must go now. Sorry, kid. I liked you.”
Ethan swallowed. Liked? Liked? That was past tense!
He took a deep breath and let his voice loose. His good old, faithful, reliable best friend, the voice.
“You can’t leave us here to die!”
Oh, crap. The voice knew what they were planning. It always knew the score.
“Ethan?” Kelsie said. “What’s happening?”
The voice didn’t answer her. It was still working on Misha.
“Did your father raise you like this? Is this what he meant when he told you about honor? Doing something like this to a couple of teenagers?”
Misha looked sickened, which didn’t make Ethan feel any better.
There was a sound from Jerry then, a kind of wet, gurgling cough. “Don’t leave my little girl here. Please. What did she ever do to you?”
Ethan turned to Misha in one last, desperate attempt to understand what was going on. He tried to use his real voice, just to ask Misha how they were going to die.
But his real voice wouldn’t work at all. He was too freaking scared.
“Dad,” Kelsie said softly. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
And then Ethan realized what he really wanted—for Kelsie to live. Even if he didn’t make it himself. Which was totally unexpected and really kind of selfless. Man, what a stupid time to realize he felt this way about her.
He summoned every shred of the voice, the all-knowing, uncaring voice. The voice like a perverse genie always trying to please him. He wanted money, the voice got him money. He wanted girls to talk to him, it said the right thing to hold their interest. And now all he wanted was for Kelsie to be okay.
“Think of your little cousin. Think of Natalia! Kelsie’s only a few months older than her! You can’t do this.”
Misha took a step back. It was working.
“Think of someone leaving Nata tied up in a place like this, with only a few hours left. Think of her crushed inside a mountain of concrete and steel, smeared out of existence, turned to pink jelly!”
As Ethan realized what it was saying, the voice sputtered out. It couldn’t talk for one simple reason—Ethan was so afraid that he could no longer breathe.
Kelsie blinked. “What did you just say?”
“The Parker-Hamilton,” Ethan squeaked. “The building we’re in is that building—the one they’re blowing up! The Parker-Hamilton!”
Misha nodded sadly.
Ethan tried to summon the voice to tell Misha whatever it would take to release them. He opened his mouth a couple times but nothing came out.
The voice knew nothing would change Misha’s mind.
“Misha,” Ethan said at last, in his own squeaking, pants-pissing, weasely tones. “Please?”
“I’m very sorry, my friend.” Misha reached over and squeezed Ethan’s shoulder.
Which was when Ethan got really, really mad. He hadn’t been this angry since last summer, cornered by the Zeroes in Bellwether’s show-off rich-guy home theater.
After everything he’d been through, the Craig and the bank robbery and the cops and the reunion with the Zeroes and the avoiding his mom and finally this. This. Dumped in a building that was set to explode. By a guy who wouldn’t stop calling him my friend.
For a moment he didn’t care whether he lived or died. All he felt was rage.
And that’s when his voice, the voice of no consequence, really let loose.
CHAPTER 73
SCAM
“YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT YOUR SONS, Misha. They’re gonna be bigger men than you.” The voice sounded like a snarl now. It was done wheedling. Now it was rounding for the kill.
“What?” Misha paled.
“Alexei will promote them one day, and those two brats you helped bring into the world will topple you. They already hate you. You’ve known it since the moment Petya was born. He will supplant you one day!”
Ethan didn’t know what “supplant” meant, but if the expression on Misha’s face was any guide, it was a pretty gruesome thing.
“How do you know all this?” the man said.
The voice didn’t answer, just kept on going. “Petya and Len are going to shoot you in the street and leave your body in a Dumpster. Just like you saw in that dream!”
Misha looked about ready to wet himself. “What are you, a demon?”
“Of course I am!” the voice cried out. “How else could I see into your soul? Glad you’ve finally realized, Misha.”
The voice sputtered, and Ethan realized that for a moment he almost felt sorry for the guy. But he reminded himself that his life was at stake—hell, Kelsie’s life was at stake—and his anger soared to new heights.
“You think a few hundred tons of rubble will stop me from haunting you into the grave, my friend ? If you don’t let all three of us leave right now, I’m going to save your sons the effort of killing you and drag you straight to hell.”
Misha dropped his flashlight. It rolled at his feet, sending huge shadows lumbering across the walls. The other gangsters were also rooted to the spot, dumbfounded and incapacitated by the voice’s demonic spewing.
Tears were streaming down Misha’s face.
Okay, that wasn’t normal. No way could the voice do that to a bunch of grown men. Plus, the voice was usually a one-on-one deal.
Then Ethan felt it, the fear moving through the room, echoing down the empty and abandoned corridors, across the dusty carpets. The entire empty hotel groaned with terror.
He glanced at Kelsie, who looked wide-eyed and horrified. Of course—she was helping him. Like with the crowd on Ivy Street. Only instead of throwing money, she was letting her own terror redouble the voice’s hellish ranting.
Kelsie nodded back, urging him on.
“Right!” Ethan turned toward the huddle of men by the door. “Who else wants to mess with this demon? And who wants to live?”
The men looked terrified. Ethan felt the voice bubbling away in his larynx, itching to get out. But a sharp, piercing shrilling stung through the room first.
One of the thugs pulled a phone from his jacket pocket. “It’s Alexei. Wants us back there.”
A little snap went through Misha. “Alexei would kill me if I let you go. And not just me. My whole family, little Natalia too.”
“You think I can’t come for Natalia?” the voice roared.
Misha thought for a moment, then said, “My cousin has never wronged you. And I think you are a demon of honor.”
And he walked out the door. Misha was gone. The thugs were gone. And all the flashlights were gone. The only light that remained was the hard streaks of sunset from the windows.
“Crap,” Ethan said. One badly timed phone call had ruined everything.
Kelsie’s voice came from the gloom. “Did he just call your voice a demon of honor?”
“I know, rig
ht?”
The three of them were silent, except for Jerry’s labored breathing. Ethan listened to the sounds outside. The music stopped, and he heard a crowd laughing and cheering. They were waiting for the fireworks to start. For the big finale that would be the Parker-Hamilton blowing up.
The occasional rolling floodlight lit the side of the building
“Can you hear that crowd, Kelsie?”
“I can feel it. They’re pretty excited.”
Ethan straightened, the ropes around his wrists tightening. “So make them do something. Like storm the building!”
Kelsie shook her head. “They’re too far away to feel me. And I doubt they’ll be coming any closer. This place is wired with explosives.”
She looked up above her head. On the pillar above her was a big orange package labeled C4.
Wow. They really were going to be pink jelly. Pink mist, more like.
They were quiet for a while, until Jerry spoke up. “Kid?”
“My name’s Ethan,” he said quietly. “Ethan who screwed up your robbery and blew thirty grand trying to ransom you. My friends were supposed to help us, but they didn’t show. Maybe they got scared. Maybe they thought I deserved what I got. I guess I have zero friends left.”
“Ethan?” Jerry said.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Thank you for trying to save me. But you shouldn’t have brought my little girl along.”
“That wasn’t my idea!” Ethan banged his head back against the concrete pole. It hurt.
“You’re not helping, Dad,” Kelsie said.
“This sucks,” Ethan said, struggling against the ropes around his wrists. “I just wanted a ride home!”
“Ethan, you’re not helping either.”
“But that’s all I wanted. Then the Craig’s money fell into my lap, so I wound up in that stupid bank.” Ethan was rambling; he knew it himself. “But I just wanted to get home before my mom grounded me. I can’t believe I never talked to my mom!”
“At least you scared the crap out of Misha,” Kelsie said.
Ethan stared at her, wondering how she could be so calm. Maybe channeling all that terror through the room had left her numb.
He wished it had done the same for him. He was feeling every moment of this. Plus his head still hurt from banging it on the column.