The Gone Dead Train (37 page)

Shaken, Billy stepped back as Nurse Teri came through the door and brushed past him.

In the hallway, he quickly reviewed his notes to make sure he'd gotten it all down. From the look of things, he might not get another chance to speak to Pryce. He checked for a text. Frankie was waiting for him in the lobby. He took the elevator down.

She was leaning against the wall across from the bank of elevators, arms crossed over her chest. She straightened when she saw him. “Dominique called. She wants us to pick her up.”

“Where is she?”

“The library.”

“The library?”

“Come on. I'm parked out front.” She talked as they wove through the crowded hallway. “Dominique forgot to pack her good knives last night. She called this young Jamaican guy she trusts and asked him to bring them to the library after the ceremony.”

“Why call you?”

“She got wind that Garrett knows she stole Augie's stuff. She's frightened. She wants immunity for trying to fence the watches, and she wants protection from Garrett. In exchange she'll testify about Garrett asking her to scare Red and Little Man with the curses, and that Augie's stolen property came from his house.”

“That works,” he said. “How did she know Garrett was on to her?”

They walked past an on-duty cop. Frankie lowered her voice. “Dunsford came in and read my statement about the evidence. I gather he phoned Garrett and questioned him about Dominique and the evidence box. The guy manning the shelter's reception desk must have told Garrett that Dominique had run off last night.

“It looks like Garrett put two and two together, because he sent his goons to rough up the kitchen help. They wanted to know where Dominique was hiding. When they didn't get an answer, they went into a rage and swore Dominique would get what she deserves.”

“How could she know this?” he asked.

“The Jamaican guy called her back and told her.”

“But the bodyguards could've beaten the crap out of him and found out about the meeting at the library.”

Frankie pushed open the front entrance door. “I told Dominique that, but she wouldn't listen. That's why we're in a hurry.”

T
hey took off in the Jeep, weaving in and out of heavy traffic. “Tell me what happened at the ground-breaking,” Frankie said.

He described the confrontation, then ran through a short version of Pryce's story.

“We had it right except for the most important thing—the kid in the photograph,” he concluded. “I'm convinced Red approached Garrett and demanded money for the photo of Carter. Garrett sent Dominique to scare them out of town. When they died, Garrett must have felt safe.

“Now here's a piece of the puzzle I witnessed without realizing it. At the funeral home, Augie must have told Garrett about the manuscript. I walked in as he was showing Garrett the photo of himself as a kid talking to Grant. Garrett had kept the secret buried all this time, but now he knew a journalist was digging into the story and that he'd be exposed as an informant right along with Carter. The world would know he played a part in his brother's murder. He'd be held in contempt or, even worse, pitied, something his ego couldn't tolerate.”

Frankie shook her head. “The guilt must have eaten him up. Damn it,” she shouted. She slammed on the brakes, and hit the horn.

The old pickup in front of them had skidded to a stop to avoid running a yellow light. Tires behind them screeched. Billy looked back to see a Mazda inches from their bumper.

Frankie smacked the steering wheel. “We're stuck. This is a long light.”

He pointed at the library's large parking lot on the right. “Take it easy, we're almost there.”

Half a block up stood the ultramodern, glass-and-steel library. Fronting the library was a plaza with five monolithic pillars, twelve feet tall, each with words and symbols etched in their sides, meant to represent printing rollers. Two laid on the ground. Three stood on end.

Frankie blew out a breath. “Dominique said she'd be waiting in the ladies' room just inside the door. I'll go in after her. You switch to the backseat. When we come out, I'll put her in the back where you can keep an eye on her while I drive. She's so nervous, she might try to jump out at a light.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He nodded at the library. “Look at that third pillar. There's a woman standing near it—black dress, same colored bandanna as the one she had on in the bus station. That's Dominique.”

Frankie craned her neck. “And the short guy walking across the plaza with the box—that's her friend. She's lost her mind. Why go outside when she's terrified Garrett will find her?”

“I guarantee the bodyguards scared her friend into flushing her out in the open. Look at that.”

He pointed at a black Cadillac coming from the opposite direction. It slowed and turned into the long driveway that fronted the library. “That's Garrett. Get us out of here,” he shouted.

Frankie racked the transmission into reverse. The Jeep's rear bumper slammed into the Mazda so hard it made enough room to clear the pickup in front. She stomped on the gas and powered into the outer lane, right into the path of a lumbering UPS truck. The truck crumpled Billy's door inward, the impact shoving the Jeep into the side of the pickup. The Mazda driver began honking furiously.

Frankie looked at him, wide eyed. “What now?”

“Leave it. We're outta here.”

She flung open the door and hit the pavement running. With his door crushed, he had to scramble behind her over the center console. They dodged traffic, both running flat out across the library parking lot packed with cars.

He could see the black Cadillac rolling up the drive, but SUVs and vans in the parking lot blocked his view of Dominique. Running hard, he passed Frankie and drew away, catching a glimpse of Dominique standing in front of one of the pillars. The short guy was handing a box to her, but her attention was on the Cadillac. It turned for her, and accelerated.

“Run,” Billy shouted at Dominique. “Get inside!”

The guy took off for the parking lot. Dominique froze. She started across the driveway, but then saw that the Caddy was coming too fast. She reversed and stumbled, the box clutched to her chest making her clumsy. She ran back across the plaza full of people toward the library.

“No, no, no,” Frankie screamed from behind Billy.

The Caddy driver jerked the wheel to change course. Parents grabbed their kids and scrambled out of the way. The car jumped the curb and headed for Dominique, the engine roaring as it struck her. The force threw her onto the hood, carrying her along, the knives flying out of the box like pickup sticks. Directly ahead of the Caddy stood the third stone pillar. The driver braked, tires squealed. A second before the Caddy struck the pillar, Dominique slid down the hood toward the front. The massive bumper smashed the stone with a sickening thud, Dominique in between.

The plaza went still as if it were drawing a breath, then the screams began. People picked up their kids and ran. One man ran toward the car and Dominique, phone already in hand, but Billy knew there was no hope in that.

The Caddy's back door sprang open. Garrett emerged. He fell to his knees, struggled up, and limped toward the library entrance, picking up speed until he disappeared through the automatic door. Billy swerved to follow Garrett just as the front passenger door opened. One of the bodyguards tumbled out, covered in air-bag dust, to lie facedown on the concrete.

“Get Garrett,” Frankie shouted, coming up fast behind him.

Now the driver's door opened. The second bodyguard lurched toward the back of the car, his hand to a nose that had been bloodied by the air bag. Billy wanted to go after Garrett, but he couldn't leave Frankie to handle both men.

“Police,” he yelled. They split, and he took the driver, who was still on his feet.

“Hands on your head,” he yelled. “On the ground, on the ground.”

The man collapsed to his knees beside the rear wheel, blood dripping from his chin, his eyes unfocused. Billy holstered his gun, pushed him on his belly and cuffed him, watching Frankie as she approached the second bodyguard. The guy had come to and was pushing himself off the ground. Billy saw a flash of metal in his right hand. Frankie saw it too and stepped in fast, clubbing him on the neck with the butt of her gun. He hit the concrete, dead weight. She kicked his gun, sent it skittering across the concrete, and cuffed his limp arms. When she backed away, her eyes were glittering, her teeth gritted.

They turned to stare at Dominique, pinned between the hood and the pillar. She was upended, her legs splayed, the trunk of her body trapped between the Caddy and stone. One arm could be seen dangling below the bumper. A stream of blood pooled beneath the Caddy's front tire. The green watchband circled her wrist.

Frankie looked back at him, cocked her head toward the library. “I've got this. Go.”

He took off across the plaza. Garrett's dash into the library had amazed him, desperation making the man agile and even more dangerous. He could be hiding anywhere in the library, in the stacks or even holding a hostage. Billy's edge was that Garrett had no idea he was coming right behind him.

The automatic door slid open. He drew his weapon and pressed along the foyer wall. Scanning the open atrium, he saw a group of people who were staring at the top of the escalators that ran to the library's second-floor mezzanine.

He stepped into the atrium, barrel pointed skyward. “Police,” he said, just loud enough for the bystanders to hear.

They turned. He put his finger to his lips. “Where's the man who ran in?”

A woman pointed to the escalator. “He just went up.”

“Is he armed?”

“He might be,” the man closest to him said. “He wrestled with a security guard at the top.”

A woman's scream rang out from somewhere on the mezzanine. The people in the atrium scattered as Billy bounded up the escalator steps, crouching as he reached the top. He scanned the space then quickly took cover behind a book cart.

Except for a few people peeking out from among the stacks, the mezzanine appeared to be empty. Directly across from the escalator, a woman stood up from behind the information desk, her hands pressed to her mouth. On the floor in front of the desk, a uniformed guard lay sprawled with one knee rising up.

Billy waved to get the woman's attention. “Police. Where did the man go?” he whispered.

She pointed toward a metal door on the back wall twenty feet behind her.

He moved to kneel beside the guard, a man in his sixties. Blood leaked from a gash in his scalp. Billy looked up at the woman behind the desk.

“Where does that door lead?”

“It's the old wing—a hallway with a meeting room and two storage rooms. It ends in a balcony. No one works back there.”

He was familiar with the balcony she was talking about. He could see the back of the library from the barge.

“Call 911,” he said. “Tell dispatch there are additional injuries at the scene.”

The guard opened his eyes and looked around. “Where's that old fucker?”

“Down the hall,” Billy said.

“He got my gun, a .357.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Empty chamber, and one bullet. I'm not here to shoot up the place.” The guard was shaken, groggy.

“Are you sure about the bullets?” he asked.

The guard nodded.

He squeezed the man's arm and ran to the metal door through which Garrett had just disappeared. Garrett would never allow himself to be locked up for murder. Billy wanted to catch the son of a bitch, but if the guard was right, going after Garrett meant risking one shot in order to take him alive.

He cracked open the door to peer around the frame. The hall ran straight back about seventy-five feet, with tall windows on the left and three doors on the right. At the end of the hall, an exterior door was just swinging shut, which meant Garrett was now standing outside, two stories up on a balcony about six feet wide with a waist-high railing. Below him was a steep, grassy slope held in place by a fifteen-foot-high retaining wall. At the base of the wall ran the train tracks, then the road, then the river.

Billy made a split-second decision. He pushed through the door and sprinted toward the first meeting room on the right. Ten feet into the hall he saw a flash of sunlight as the balcony door swung open. Garrett limped inside, the guard's gun tucked in his waistband. Momentum carried him three steps before he saw Billy coming.

“Drop it,” Billy shouted, pointing his SIG at Garrett. Garrett's eyes flared with recognition.

He could shoot Garrett, but under these circumstances, he'd have a hard time proving it wasn't a revenge kill. It was a gamble, but he raced the last few steps to the meeting room doorway. As he cleared the opening, he heard the click of the .357's empty chamber. He hit the floor and rolled. A second later a slug caromed off the door frame, exploding the wood into splinters. He came up on the far side of a conference table, his weapon trained on the opening. If Garrett came through that door, he was a dead man. Billy waited, breathing hard in the silence. He heard footsteps going back down the hall. Then the exterior door slammed shut. Garrett was on the balcony again.

Billy raced for the exterior door, factoring in the possibility that the guard had been confused about the number of bullets loaded. He'd have to sucker Garrett into taking another shot to find out. He stopped at the door, brought up his knee, placed his foot on the door's panic bar, and shoved as hard as he could. The door crashed into the outside wall. He crouched, his SIG before him, and peered around the frame.

Garrett was in the corner, wild eyed, standing with his back against the railing. His face was bleached white, and he was mumbling, the muzzle of the .357 pressed to his temple.

“I'm sorry, Robert, sorry, Robert, sorry, Robert.” Garrett closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
Click
. He pulled again. Another dry click. Garrett looked at Billy with huge, empty eyes.