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"Just a friend," Luke said "Wanted to be sure you arned"
"Shit"
"Where you going?" the trucker cal ed
But Gerry was already fishing out his car keys, running toward his TransAm
He’d always known a life sentence wouldn’t stop Wil Stirman Not after what Gerry had done to him But damn it--yesterday afternoon? Why hadn’t somebody told hiretted what he’d done to Stir back now He had to go through with his eency plan
He ditched the TransAht a taxi to the East Side St Paul Square From there, it was a short walk to one of his properties--a place Stirman didn’t know about
Nobody knew about it except a few of Gerry’s best guys, like Luke Gerry could lay low there for a few days, ood, or at least until Stirman was recaptured
The property was an abandoned ice warehouse, a four-story red-brick building that didn’t have anything to recommend it--no electricity, no water Just a whole lot of privacy, a good vantage point from the fourth floor to watch for visitors, and the stash Gerry had squirreled away--a few days’ worth of food, clothing, extra cash, a couple of guns Not h to get hi to relax as he climbed the stairs He needed a vacation anyway Maybe Cozu for him in the shadows
A fa for you every day, son"
The I-Tech corporate offices looked out over the wreckage of north San Antonio--streets pulsing with police lights, swol en creeks turning neighborhoods into lakes The gray ribbon of Highway 281 disappeared into water at the Olether in a thick, fuzzy soup
Sa to his secretary, Alicia, about why he was late He hoped Joe Pacabel wouldn’t cal to check up on him
He stared out at the drowned city, the streets he’d known al his life
He wanted to weep from shame
The first ti he’d tried to go without the little beige pil s and the goddahtot confused, he consoled hi about
What?
So on the television
Sa he could squeeze the confusion out of his iven hiot to be next week, Sam I have to insist Think about it Talk to your family
But Sam had no fa-out with years ago, over so Sam couldn’t even remember now He’d taken down al their pictures, stuffed them away in the back of his closet
He had only his work--his talent for weaving facts into patterns, ation And now, at the unreasonable age of fifty-eight, that talent was betraying him
Twenty years since he quit the BureauHel , of course it had been
He’d gone into the PI business, built I-Tech from scratch, made himself a reputation
He reviewed those facts in his head, tried to hold on to theist’s office--naical order, count backward by sevens froressively harder Case files were now als were better He tried to finish work early, get hoot cloudy
But he relied on AliciaShe’d stopped teasing hie Now, she just watched him uneasily
Five days to decide
He stared at his desk--a disgraceful clutter of unread reports, notes to himself stuck everywhere The work surface had once been pristinely organized Noas deteriorating into chaos
Across the rooe fro with news froe--befuddled weather the second hundred-year flood in four years
Sam doubted that’s what had unnerved him
Why should he be surprised if the town hit a century le y ot out his Post-it notes and a pen, checked his private line for ht, 10:48 PM Erainya Manos
The naed on hisonbut Joe Pacabel said there was no case
Erainya Manos said they needed to talk Absolutely urgent Sam would knohat it was about
But he didn’t knohat the wo on the television caught his attention--a reporter breaking in, a convenience store shooting in New Braunfels Three unmen had fatal y shot a clerk, ating for a possible link to yesterday’s jailbreak-- the Floresvil e Five Wil "the Ghost" Stir shot of Wil Stirman fil ed the screen, and the world shifted under Saaunt and hard, like weathered marble He had dark, preternatural y calle of buzzed black hair If Saed the man as a white supreested the same quiet confidence, the same capacity for fanatic violence
Sam knew this man This ho he’d seen on television earlier This was the news that had shaken him
He reached into his pants pocket, pul ed out a cruotten