You're Next

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 alone. 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.’