You're Next (35 page)

William and Dodge sat in the musty kitchen of the clapboard house, flipping desperately through the list of foster homes in
California and the neighboring states. They had narrowed the list considerably but still had a mile of addresses. Boss Man
had been breathing down their necks, so William and Dodge had forgone sleep for two nights running. After last night’s heist,
Boss Man’s impatience had turned to fury. William had been calling in favor after favor from various patrolmen in various
departments, crossing names off the list with a bloody red marker. He had cops spreading out through four states, checking
in on foster homes, looking for new faces.

The kitchen was so far gone that months ago he and Dodge had given up any pretense of trying to clean it. Grease spattered
the wall above the stove, dust clouded the windows, spills of salt dotted the floor like mini pyramids. And yet somehow they
managed, cleaning out a coffee cup or a plate at a time before returning it to the dirty dishes mounded in the sink or stacked
along the counters. Perched anomalously atop the long-broken microwave was a fax machine, a few dead flies caught in the paper
feed.

Dodge sat across from William, reading a graphic novel and sipping deliberately from a glass of hot tea. In the soft light,
his features looked even more indistinct, the edges of his nose blurred into his cheeks as if smoothed out with a putty knife.
Now and then he absentmindedly rubbed the broad pad of his
thumb against his forefinger, giving off a rasp. That was how he showed impatience when he was itching to use his hands.

William had just plugged in his cell phone to recharge when it trilled. The movement of Dodge’s thumb paused.

William checked the caller-ID screen, then picked up and asked, ‘You got him for us?’

‘Those bastards at Susanville PD aren’t going to turn Shepherd White over to us.’ Boss Man’s voice was tense and driving.
‘In fact, he was released nearly three hours ago.’

‘Released?’ Rattled, William sat on a waist-high stack of brittle newspapers. ‘Dodge prepped the cellar already. Where the
hell was Graham?’

‘Dead,’ Boss Man said.

‘Graham’s dead,’ William repeated for Dodge’s sake.

Dodge looked up, sipped his tea, and lowered his gaze again to the comic. His thumb resumed the gentle scratching motion.

‘He’d gone offline, so I had Sac PD send over a car to take a look,’ Boss Man continued. ‘Shot in his bed.’

William realized what he’d heard in Boss Man’s voice that had made him so uneasy. Something he’d never heard in it before.
Desperation. William breathed out through his nose, scratched his cheek, quelled the rush of concern in his chest. ‘It’ll
be okay.’

‘Oh? You’ve handled this before, have you? You’ve dealt with state officials when they come knocking? You know how to pull
strings inside a murder investigation of the goddamned director of an agency?’ His breaths filled the receiver. ‘Don’t tell
me what’ll be fine.
I
say when it’ll be fine.’

‘Yessir.’

‘Now, fortunately we still have plenty of friends. I’m sitting across from one of Graham’s chiefs right now. It seems Graham
sent us a little gift from beyond the grave. Our soon-to-be partner here has been monitoring a particular individual’s activity.
Once he caught word of Graham’s death, he came here to deliver
the news personally.’ A heightened pause. ‘He managed to back-trace a signal.’

William shot a breath of relief, then said, past the phone to Dodge, ‘We have an address.’

Dodge set down the graphic novel, smoothed his hands across the cover, and rose.

‘The name is a familiar one,’ Boss Man said.

William flipped over a piece of paper and held the bloodred point of the marker at the ready. He felt his lips stick to his
teeth and realized he was grinning in anticipation.

‘Go get answers,’ Boss Man said. ‘Any way you can.’

The photo negatives – aside from the top one in the stack, which had disintegrated in Mike’s hands – had emerged from the
water surprisingly intact. They had stuck together at first, which actually served to protect the ones in the middle. Mike
had been eager to deliver them, but Shep had forced him to let them lie for a time after drying so the floodlights could bake
out any hidden moisture. Now it was a few minutes past midnight, and Mike sat alone with Two-Hawks in a sealed room behind
the fill bank at the Shasta Springs Band of Miwok Casino, where jackpots were paid out. The table between them was stainless
steel, and a matching cart in the corner held a money-counting machine, an accountant’s calculator, a heavy phone, and a Polaroid
instant camera. This was a room that changed the course of people’s fortunes, and tonight, Mike prayed, would be no exception.

Shep was waiting nearby, parked on an unlit road, prepared to unleash hell if Two-Hawks failed to deliver what he’d promised.
On the way over, Shep and Mike had stopped to make an addition to the growing stash hidden behind their motel room’s heating
vent – the Deer Creek tribe genealogy report. Back in the dank warehouse, with the footlights warming his shoulders, Mike
had stared down in wonderment at his family tree, that official scalloped seal marking the top of the wet page. All those
names and dates, the entanglements and forks, a history in which he was embedded. When he saw the place reserved for his own
name,
Michael Trainor
, amid the vast and intertwined lineage, he had felt
too overwhelmed to speak. But hours later, once the water had dried, leaving the pages stiff, it had struck him that the
words were only ink on paper, that he’d already had a place in the world. The only path to reclaiming it ran through the man
sitting opposite him now.

Two-Hawks raised each negative to the light and squinted up at it, his dark eyes moist. Wrinkles fanned through his cheeks.
His tribe would keep their federal recognition, certainly, but it was clear that the images meant much more to him. He was
soaking them in one at a time, and Mike’s patience had grown thin enough to put a fist through.

‘Thank you,’ Two-Hawks said. ‘These are amazing. I’ve dreamed about that settlement since I was a young boy. Did you see?’
He offered a fragile negative across the table, but Mike just stared at him.

Two-Hawks’s expression of wonder was replaced by sheep-ishness. He rode his rolling chair over to the cart and murmured something
into the phone. A few minutes later, Blackie entered and set down a safe-deposit box on the table in front of Mike.

Though the room was cool, Mike felt sweat roll down his sides, tickling his ribs. He lifted the lid. What struck him first
was how empty the box was – some papers sliding in the long metal case.

On top were surveillance photographs – Brian McAvoy with Dodge and William. Multiple meetings, each photo sporting a different
time stamp. Mike looked up at Two-Hawks, unimpressed.

Two-Hawks said, ‘Our man smuggled out the material beneath.’

Mike lifted the final few photos to reveal a stack of photocopies – cramped handwriting and figures filling lined pages.

A ledger.

Mike’s heart quickened.

Two-Hawks’s finger appeared beneath Mike’s downturned face, one manicured nail tapping. ‘These represent payments
issued through McAvoy’s personal slush account. Yes, that is McAvoy’s handwriting. He must not have wanted digital files’
– a note of irony – ‘as they’re too easy to copy.’

‘Your inside man?’ Mike said. ‘You said he’s an accountant?’

‘Ted Rogers. A specialist in offshore bookkeeping. McAvoy brought him in to expedite the cash flow between offshore entities.
In the process Mr Rogers needed to clean up some wires that had gone astray between accounts. So he was given limited access
to this ledger. The recipients are identified by bank-account number – see there? You can probably guess who the most frequent
fliers are.’

‘Rick Graham,’ Mike said faintly. ‘Roger Drake. William Burrell.’

‘And, if you reach back far enough, Leonard Burrell. I guess he’s—’

‘William’s uncle.’

Mike riffled through the pages, the scrape on the underside of his arm throbbing. The dates trailed back through the decades.
Next to certain payments were lengthy numbers without commas or dashes. Mike counted and recounted; each number had nine digits.

Mike said, ‘Are those what I think they are?’

‘Social Security numbers.’

Mike tried to swallow but found his mouth too dry to carry it off. ‘Belonging to?’

‘Your mother. Your father. Those brothers who wouldn’t sell their land. A councilwoman in the way of a zoning law. A high
roller who couldn’t make good on a seven-figure marker. These payments are issued and the people corresponding to those Social
Security numbers go missing a day or two later. To a one.’

Seeing it laid out so brazenly was sickening. Dollar and cents, human lives.

‘Which ones . . .’ Mike wet his lips. ‘Which ones belonged to my parents?’

Two-Hawks pointed out the entries. Mike ran a finger across the dates. Stared at the Social Security numbers. Just John. Danielle
Trainor. Two-Hawks cleared his throat, and Mike realized he’d zoned out for a time.

He flipped to the end of the photocopies, but the dates ended about a week before Dodge and William had stepped from the shadows
into his life. The thought of the actual ledger still out there, sitting in some safe or locked drawer, chilled him. He knew
what would be written there now in the same strained penmanship – his own Social Security number, and that of his daughter.

His eye caught on the last big payment. It had no corresponding Social Security number. ‘What do you think that was?’

Two-Hawks bunched his lips, his stare dropping to the table. ‘One of Ted Rogers’s last acts was transferring the money to
pay for his own murder.’ He flipped back a page, pointed to two more entries. ‘And the murder of his wife.’

The fact rang around the room for a moment or two.

‘A few days went by, no sign of any of them. Cops were called, found the house empty. No trace of anything aside from a missing
couch cushion from Ted’s study. Dodge and William never leave a body behind.’ Two-Hawks rubbed his eyes. ‘Clearly, McAvoy
had caught wind of
something
. For obvious reasons he left the Social Security numbers off the ledger, since Ted would have recognized . . .’ He slumped
back in his chair, a cheek clamped between his teeth, his eyes gone moist. Mike understood now the man’s quick anger last
night when Shep had pressed him on the topic of his inside man.

The scenario in the Rogerses’ house was too close to the nightmares that had been playing out in Mike’s head for the past
two weeks. He averted his eyes. In the bottom of the safe-deposit box was a final stack of photocopied papers. He reached
for them.

The top pages bore shadows where the originals had been folded like letters. Each had a handwritten date, one of the Social
Security numbers from the ledger, and a code of some sort. Midway through the stack, they switched to fax format, the codes
scrawled in the middle of the page, the time stamp printed neatly across the top.

Grateful for the shift in attention, Two-Hawks said, ‘I guess those were tucked in the back of the ledger. Each date corresponds
with a payment and someone’s disappearance. I figure it’s confirmation that the job was . . . completed. On these later ones,
the “sent to” phone number on the header? That’s McAvoy’s personal fax line. But we couldn’t figure out what those codes mean.’

Mike glanced at a few of them.
FRVRYNG. MSTHNG
.
LALADY
.

Text messages? Nicknames?

The sealed room was making him claustrophobic. He was eager to get out and start formulating a plan with Shep and Hank for
how to obliterate McAvoy and his men. Gathering up the papers, he slid them into the large gray envelope that Two-Hawks had
provided.

He stood, leaning a hand on the table to steady himself. Two-Hawks gripped his arm in support. They headed to the back corridor,
Mike continuing on ahead alone.

He reached the far door and shoved it open, the night air sweeping through his clothes, tightening his skin. He looked back.
Two-Hawks was still there down the hall, standing in half shadow. He raised an arm, his palm out like that Indian healer from
the painting.

Mike stepped out into the cold.

‘You need a body.’ Hank’s voice over the line sounded hoarse and weak.

Cell phone pressed to his cheek, Mike sat shuddering in the passenger seat of the Pinto, Shep looking on. They were parked
outside an all-night diner down the hill from Two-Hawks’s casino, the gray envelope heavy across Mike’s thighs.

‘
What
?’ Mike said.

‘Why do you think McAvoy makes those people
disappear
?’ Hank said. ‘No body, no murder case. All that shit you got, damning as it looks, remains circumstantial. But a body, a
body
opens everything up.’

Mike was yelling: ‘You’re telling me that
all this
—’

‘Look, there’s no question this evidence changes the playing field. It’s way too big for McAvoy to cover up anymore. He’ll
be stained – the payments to Graham a
lone
. Once this gets out, it’ll drive a wedge between McAvoy and the law-enforcement community. You’re gonna have whole agencies
scrambling to distance themselves from the guy. It’s all about appearances. And with that genealogy report, you can make a
claim on the casino and put the asshole out of business. Dodge and William will be investigated and watched, and I can’t imagine
that the cops won’t find something that’ll stick. But you asked if this
hangs
McAvoy, and no, it doesn’t hang him. A
body
would hang him.’

Exasperated, Mike pressed his temple to the icy window. A young couple in a vintage Mercedes coupe parked beside them and
climbed out, so Mike resisted the urge to shout again. ‘What do I do?’ he asked quietly.

‘You’ve done enough,’ Hank said. ‘We get a lawyer, leak some evidence, negotiate who you turn yourself in to. I’m thinking
FBI. There’s plenty you gotta answer for, too, Rick Graham’s body being foremost. But we can get you in the system now. Check
on Annabel. Get your daughter back, safe.’

Mike’s head was tilted forward into the warm air blowing from the vents, his hand pinching his eyes.

‘You’ve been out in the cold a long time,’ Hank said. ‘It’s time to come in.’

Tears were falling through Mike’s hand, tapping the gray folder. He managed to get the words out. ‘How long? Until I can get
Kat?’

‘We’ll get our footing with this as quickly as we can. A few days?’

‘No. By tomorrow night.’

‘Then let’s get started.’

Mike swallowed hard. ‘All right. I’m coming to you. We make copies of all this. Put them in different locations. Figure out
a game plan, slow and smart.’

Hank agreed, and they signed off.

Mike tilted back his head and blew out a shaky breath. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’ Another breath, this one less wobbly. ‘Let’s
hit the motel room, pick up the cash, the flash drive, and the genealogy report.’

‘Motel’s the opposite direction,’ Shep said. ‘I’ll go, meet you there.’

‘We only have one car,’ Mike said.

Shep scowled at him, disappointed, clearly, by Mike’s lack of imagination. Shep got out, swinging the door shut behind him.
In ten seconds he was into the vintage Mercedes; in forty the engine roared to life.

He offered Mike a two-finger salute as he pulled out.

Mike slid across into the driver’s seat and drove off.

The freeway, at this hour, was quiet. A few miles down the road, a lightning bolt of hope shot through the vise of Mike’s
chest, nearly splitting him in half. He steered off onto the shoulder, stumbled a brief ways into the brush, and bent over,
hands on his knees, catching his breath. For so long he hadn’t dared to let himself hope, and the sensation of it ripped through
his bloodstream, a drug he’d lost tolerance for. He fought off thoughts of Annabel’s touch, her hands intertwined in his against
the bedsheets. The heft of Kat when he picked her up, that smooth cheek against his.

Not a husband. Not a father. Not yet
.

The air was sharp and tinged with sagebrush, the wet dirt sticking to the bottoms of his shoes. He heaved twice, bringing
nothing up, then returned to the car. He’d left the door open, the soft dome light spilling over the headrests. He buckled
back in, put his hands on the wheel, and set off toward Hank.

As he exited the freeway, the Batphone vibrated in his pocket. He fumbled it out and open. ‘Yeah?’

‘I have to put through a call.’ Shep’s voice sounded weird.

‘What? Who?’

There was some background noise and then an electronic click.

Annabel said, ‘Hello?’