Jack was acting on a gut feeling that wasn’t his own, but he trusted Andie and Theo, and the fact that they were of the same mind about Shada’s infidelity was enough for him.
“Don’t be a fool, Vince. Don’t let Chuck use you.”
“Use me to do what?”
“To strong-arm Shada Mays into helping Chuck get away with the murder of Jamal Wakefield.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” said Jack. “Are you or are you not meeting with-”
Jack stopped cold, nearly flattening a woman who had rounded the corner from the opposite direction. She, too, was frozen in her tracks-and their eyes locked.
“Jack, please,” Vince said over the phone, but Jack wasn’t listening. Images flashed in his mind-photographs he’d seen of Shada Mays before her disappearance. And he knew.
“Shada?” he said.
She didn’t answer, and before Jack could say another word-before he could even react-she turned and ran.
“Shada, wait!”
Jack sprinted after her, trying his best to keep up. Two minutes into the chase, Jack was digging for a gear he didn’t have. She was pulling away, a blur of buildings flying by as the distance expanded between them.
“Shada!” he called out.
She never looked back, never broke stride. Jack hadn’t logged a five-minute mile since high school, and Shada was bettering that pace on a wet sidewalk. He pulled up at a zebra crossing, exhausted and fighting to catch his breath. The mist was turning to rain. Hunched over, hands on his knees, Jack looked up and watched Shada disappear into the old neighborhood. He wasn’t surprised in the least that a woman on the run could run like the wind.
Jack was still catching his breath when a taxi pulled up at the curb. The rear window rolled down, and he spotted Vince in the backseat.
“Get in,” Vince said.
Jack turned and walked the other way. The cab came up slowly beside him, matching Jack’s walking pace. Vince spoke through the open window.
“I made a mistake,” said Vince.
Jack didn’t answer. The cab pulled ahead with a quick burst of speed, and then it stopped at the corner. Vince got out, and the cab pulled away. He waited for Jack, who had no intention of stopping. In fact, Jack already had his smart phone in hand, searching the Web for return flights to Miami.
“I’m sorry,” said Vince.
Jack stopped. It wasn’t every day that a criminal defense lawyer got a heartfelt apology from a cop, and Jack found himself unable to ignore it. He put his phone away.
“You should have told me you were meeting with Shada Mays.”
“You’re right, I should have,” said Vince.
“It was beyond a mistake. Meeting with Shada Mays was the most important thing that could have possibly come out of this trip. You not only excluded me, but you flat-out lied to my face. There is absolutely no way for me to trust you anymore.”
“Let me try to explain.”
“Forget it,” said Jack. “I never trusted Chuck, and you may not be a murderer, but now I don’t trust you, either.”
“Chuck didn’t kill anyone.”
“Obviously, he didn’t kill Shada. But like I said: I have serious questions about what happened to Jamal. I should have listened to my fiancee and never come on this trip.”
“Does your fiancee seriously think that Shada was sleeping with Jamal?”
Jack was silent.
Vince shook his head, scoffing at the thought. “Look, Chuck and Shada didn’t have a perfect marriage. But Shada loved McKenna. She was not the kind of mother who would bed her teenage daughter’s first love.”
Vince was making sense, and it surprised Jack that Andie hadn’t thought of that. Or maybe the whole theory that Chuck killed Jamal in a love-triangle homicide was more posturing on her part to keep Jack from going to London.
“You did the right thing by coming,” said Vince. “Let me talk to Chuck and see what he can do to make this right.”
Jack stopped. He’d come this far, and now he had leverage. The next nonstop to Miami was not until Wednesday morning anyway. “All right, here’s one way to make amends. Chuck can tell me all about Project Round Up.”
“Exactly what do you think you can learn from Project Round Up?”
Jack remembered that Jamal had been working with Chuck on Project Round Up before he’d gone missing. “My bet is that it will tell me how Jamal ended up in a detention center, and why Chuck never really believed that Jamal killed his daughter.”
Jack studied his expression. Those were two huge pieces of the puzzle, but it was hard to read a man who lived behind dark sunglasses.
“It might even tell me what Shada has been doing in London for the past two and a half years,” said Jack.
He was fishing, and for Jack, the trust had indeed worn thin. But it spoke volumes that Vince didn’t deny any of the importance that Jack attached to Project Round Up.
“All right,” said Vince. “Let’s see if Chuck thinks you’ve earned your way into Project Round Up.”
Chapter Fifty-two
Shada ran all the way to her front step. Even then, she didn’t really stop. She pushed open the door, raced through the flat, and headed out the back.
Trusting Chuck had been a huge mistake. She wasn’t sure how he had found her online, but he was in the personal information business, and it had never been Shada’s intention to let her husband face charges for murdering a woman who wasn’t dead. A promise was a promise, and she had tried to keep hers by agreeing to meet with Vince Paulo at the Carpenter’s Arms. Instead, Chuck had sent a lawyer. Jamal’s lawyer. The lawyer for the monster who had murdered their daughter.
How could you, Chuck?
It was just over a mile to her flat from Cheshire Street, but she had taken the long route around Weavers Fields to lose Swyteck. Shada had set a school record for the 10K back in the Bahamas, and with her adrenaline pumping, she was barely winded. It was unlikely that a forty-year-old lawyer had kept up with her, but she wasn’t going to hang around her place to wait and find out. She ran down the alley, down the old brick streets of Vyner, past the picnic tables outside the Victory pub, past the whitewashed buildings spray-painted with gang graffiti. Smash the Reds. She remembered that one. She was getting close. She was running so fast that she slipped at the corner, but she caught her balance, ran inside the apartment building, and gobbled up two steps at a time to the second floor.
Her hand was shaking as she aimed her key at the lock. Even though it was crazy to think that Swyteck was closing in on her, Shada felt the need to hide, and no one would ever find her here. At least, no one had found her in the last two years.
The door squeaked as she opened it, which made her cringe. It was the middle of the afternoon-he always slept in the afternoons-and he would be furious if she woke him. She closed the door with extra care and set the deadbolt as quietly as she could, but the apartment was quiet as a tomb, and merely turning the lock sounded like a shotgun shucking.
“Maysoon, is that you?” he said, grumbling.
Funny, but the only time her new name gave her pause was when she heard the angry voice of the man who
