Money Run (14 page)

He peered over the edge of the landing. He couldn't see anything, but he heard the distant clacking of shoes against concrete. Someone was down there. Sounded like just the one person.

Peachey hadn't seen any civilians in a while – he was under the impression that everyone had been evacuated or confined to their offices or something. Probably under orders from the phoney TRA officers. So if someone was out and about, and it wasn't one of de Totth's comrades, then it was probably Hammond Buckland.

Peachey pulled out the Beretta as he rose to his feet without a sound. Completing his mission, and quickly, seemed to be his one chance of getting out of this mess alive. Up to now, he had wanted to kill Buckland for the money. For the prestige. For the revenge. But not any more.

Now, he thought, it's him or me.

He crept down the stairs.

Detective Wright paced the corridors. He'd given his team set paths to follow in their search for the driver of the car, but he liked to go his own way. He tried to picture the apartments as the driver would have seen them, putting himself in the man or woman's situation.

If I'd just driven a two million dollar car through the window of a hundred grand per year apartment, he asked himself, where would I be?

The walking felt too random. If he found anything this way, it would be by accident. He returned to the ruined apartment and stood in the doorway, looking out.

Okay. I've just stumbled out of the wreckage. I'm unhurt, but presumably dazed. I don't want to be trapped.

I head towards the lifts.

Wright started walking again. But I don't take the lifts, he thought. There was no one on their way down when we were on our way up. Why? And where do I go instead?

I'm scared, he thought. I've been shot at, I've been in a car crash. And I think someone's still after me. So when I see that the lift is coming up, my first reaction is to turn and run.

So. Three possibilities to add to the profile of the driver. One: I've been unconscious, and I don't know for how long, so I think it's plausible that the shooter from the HBS roof is already here. Two: the shooter is part of a group who are out to get me, so my instinct is to avoid everyone. Three: I'm irrational, either because of a head wound from the crash or a pre-existing condition.

Wright started walking away from the lifts, hurrying like the driver probably had. I'd be looking for another way down, he thought. Another lift, or a stairwell. But the lift takes, what? Fifteen seconds to get from the ground floor to here with no stops? So I don't have long. Which means I either sprint down to the end of this corridor – it's possible – or I duck into one of these other apartments.

Wright braced himself to kick open the door. Then he stopped. The chances of the driver having a key card to one of these apartments was practically zero. And the likelihood of him or her being able to hack the lock in under fifteen seconds and with no tools was negligible. The locks hadn't been broken, either; therefore the driver wasn't in any of the apartments.

“This is Wright,” he said into his radio. “I'm revising your orders. No need to check any apartment that has been electronically locked.”

“
Couldn't the driver have locked them from the inside?
” Caswell crackled.

“Not without getting inside first,” Wright said. “These doors close themselves, and the locks engage automatically.” He smiled. This would narrow their search considerably.

Wright's eyes were drawn to the janitor's closet door. It had no lock. It was large enough to fit a person, but small enough to make a good hiding place. Far enough away from the lifts to feel safe, but close enough to stumble inside within the fifteen-second margin.

Wright pressed his ear against the door. No sound inside.

He stepped back. Took a deep breath. Then charged, shoulder-first, against the door.

It snapped open, and Wright stepped back immediately, just in case someone jumped out at him.

No one did.

The closet was empty.

Wright stepped inside, just to be sure. He'd seen suspects conceal themselves in smaller spaces than this. But there was no one hidden behind the buckets. No one lying on shelves above. No one behind the door.

Disappointed but determined, he closed the door and kept pacing.

Ash didn't dare poke her head out the door to see how far away the detective was. By listening, she could tell that he was over by the janitor's closet, but she couldn't tell which way he was facing. If he was turned towards the lifts, and she peeped out the door of the apartment she was in, he would see her. And she'd be busted.

Ash was in the apartment the police had broken into while searching for the car. When she'd been inside the janitor's closet and had heard their footsteps march towards the lifts, she had opened the closet door a crack, planning to run and find a better hiding place. But she hadn't been able to leave; one guy, who she assumed was the detective, was still in the destroyed apartment. He was staring thoughtfully at the wreckage, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Ash had waited. After a long, tense minute, the detective had left the apartment and started walking along the corridor. He followed his team towards the lifts, and Ash, knowing that at least two of the cops had been instructed to search this floor and would therefore be back soon, had fled from the closet.

She had moved towards the apartment with the car in it. She needed to steal the keys so they couldn't be tested for fingerprints. She had never been printed, so her prints couldn't lead the police directly to her, and as far as she knew her prints had never been found at any of her other jobs. So there wasn't much risk of her getting caught right away. But if the cops got her fingerprints from the keys, and she was ever fingerprinted in the future – whether it was for a job interview or after an arrest – she would be instantly linked to the Veyron. And she had no idea how she could convincingly talk her way out of that situation.

Of course, Ash knew that there was very little chance of her living long enough to have a job interview or get arrested. From what Benjamin had told her about anthrax, she was as good as dead. But there was a slim possibility that she would make it out of this building, be able to break into the TRA truck, and find the drugs she needed to survive. She had to cling to that chance. And if things worked out that way, she didn't want to go to jail. So she needed those keys.

When she had arrived in the doorway of the crash-site apartment, she had discovered that a photographer was still in there. He had been facing away from her, so she'd been able to duck back outside without being spotted. But now she was in the middle of the corridor, in plain view. Exposed. And the search team would return at any moment. She could actually see the back of the detective as he studied the lift.

Thinking quickly, Ash had ducked through the other doorway the cops had broken open. With any luck, their search would not include locked rooms they had opened themselves. She was still there now, back pressed against the wall, listening for any movement outside.

Standing in this apartment was slightly surreal, because it looked exactly as the other one must have before the Veyron plunged through the window. Luxuriously furnished, with a plump four-poster bed and a crisp television. The table in the kitchen was cold and black. The light fittings on the walls looked like smooth plastic ice-cream cones with light melting down the sides.

Although she knew it made no sense, she kept glancing out the window, expecting a car to fly in through it. Like she'd somehow travelled back in time, and was standing in the ruined apartment right before she'd ruined it.

She wished she could close the door – she felt so vulnerable with it open. But the police had kicked it open, jamming the automatic closing mechanism. They would become suspicious if they saw it had shut itself. Particularly the detective. He was smart. Way smarter than Ash was comfortable with.

She heard the detective close the janitor's closet door. Then he started coming back her way.

Ash retreated into the bedroom of the apartment, willing him not to come any closer.

His footsteps grew louder. A muffled, careful metronome.

Ash pulled the sheets on the bed to one side so that the edge hung to the floor on the side nearest the window. She lay down between the bed and the sofa, took a deep breath, and held it.

She heard the faded rustle of carpet depressed by a shoe. Then nothing. Then the rustle again.

The detective was in the apartment.

The bathroom door creaked open. Ash prayed he would step inside, so she could sneak out past him. Then she could hide in the janitor's closet again. No way would he check in there twice.

But no. He had opened the door, but wasn't walking through it. He hadn't even switched on the light.

He knows I'm here, Ash thought, hairs rising on the back of her neck. He
wants
me to make a break for it.

The detective stepped towards the bed. Ash heard his knees crack as he crouched to look under it. The sheet she had pulled aside was screening her from his view. Her vision was glittering from the lack of oxygen. Her lungs felt like they were filled with tennis balls.

The detective stood up. Ash slowly and silently rolled underneath the bed, pushing the sheet aside with care, then letting it hang back where it had been. The detective walked around to the other side of the bed. Ash imagined him staring at the space she had occupied a moment ago.

There was a grinding sound as he pushed the couch aside, apparently checking if anyone was behind it. Ash crept out from under the other side of the bed. She crawled slowly across the floor, resisting the temptation to turn around and see if the detective had seen her, and slipped through the open bathroom door. Her heart was pounding.

Ash slipped into the shower cubicle and shut the door. The glass was blurred and the tiles were dark, so she curled up on the floor. She figured she wouldn't be seen unless the door was opened.

The shower had recently been cleaned. It had an indoor swimming pool kind of scent.

Wright pushed the couch back into place. No one had been behind it. He had found no evidence whatsoever that there was anything out of the ordinary in this apartment. No one under the bed. No one behind the door. None of the usual places.

He opened the closet. It was a woman's apartment. Shoes that looked like miniature tangled-up power boards, jackets the size of handkerchiefs. A few narrow grey suits. He thought he smelled lavender. No one behind the coat rack, no one under the stack of winter garments. He stepped back out and closed the door.

There was no sign that anyone was in here other than him. Nothing was keeping him here other than the fact that if he was hiding, this is where he would be. He would have hidden in the janitor's closet when he saw the lift was coming. He would have doubled back to this apartment when he heard the floor was being searched, in the hope that it was the one place that wouldn't be checked.

Wright approached the bathroom door. He hadn't really looked in there before; he had listened, but then decided that he should check under the bed first. If he had entered the bathroom while there were still unexplored places in the bedroom, the driver could have left the apartment while his back was turned.

He stepped into the bathroom and clicked on the light. Cream tiles, a big mirror surrounded by light bulbs. Tiny soaps scattered around the bath as if a giant block of soap had shattered when someone threw it into the tub. A mop propped against the wall – someone had been cleaning recently, unless it belonged there. If it did, that meant the occupant lived alone. Exposed cleaning items were the hallmark of a solitary life.

The shower door was closed, and not quite transparent. Wright pulled it open.

There was a scream from inside, and he stepped back, astonished. A teenage girl was cowering in the corner, looking up at him through a cage of fingers. She was wearing a white blouse, blue jeans and a jacket – neither having a shower nor cleaning it. Tears were dribbling from her pine-needle coloured eyes.

“Please don't kill me,” she said.

Wright reached into his jacket for his badge. She whimpered and pressed herself against the wall.

“My name is Damien Wright,” he said. “I'm a policeman.” He held up his badge, but she was trembling as if she was trying to melt and escape down the drain.

“Please,” she said again.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said. “What's your name?”

“Ash,” she said. “Ash Redgrave.” She sniffed. “I live here with my mum.”

Wright held out his hand to help her up. She ignored it, staring at him with suspicion.

“Are you really a policeman?” she asked.

“A detective,” Wright said. “You want to tell me what you're doing here?”

“I live here,” she said. “I already said that.”

“I meant in the shower.”

After a moment, she took his hand and stood up. Her fingers were cold.

“I heard a noise,” she said. “Like a thunderclap, or an explosion. I could feel it through the wall. And I got scared, so I listened for a while, but I couldn't hear anything. So I went to the window—”

“Why wasn't your mother home?”

“She left a couple of hours ago; she works nights. Then someone broke down my door, so I ducked behind the bed, and then I heard people talking and moving, and then they broke down another door outside and then I hid in the bathroom…”

Wright led her out into the bedroom again. She stood by the bed and tugged at the sheets, straightening them. She looked nervous, confused. A hint of uncertainty. Exactly what you'd expect from a girl who'd had to hide in her bathroom while her door was broken down by police.

“Why are there people outside?” she asked. “In the street, with the roadblocks and stuff? Was that noise…you know, an explosion? Like a terrorist attack?”

Exactly what you'd expect her to assume.

Wright lunged forwards and shoved her against the wall. She yelped – not fear, but surprise. She tried to step aside as he kept coming, but he slammed a hand against the wall, trapping her between him and the bedpost. He put his forearm against her chest and held her in place.

“You're lying to me,” he said.

She looked uncomprehending and confused.

“You don't live here,” he said. “One bed, one bathroom. Expensive suits in the closet. Your mum's rich, but she makes you sleep on the couch instead of buying a bed? You don't go outside to investigate when there's an explosion next door? You don't close the door when it's kicked down? No. Only one person belongs in this apartment, and it isn't you.”