atop it and lit by floodlights against the night sky was the unmistakable marble statue of Christopher Columbus.
Shit. I was in Columbus Circle, nearly a mile from the safe house, and from whatever was heading there now to kill everyone inside.
“Send me back!” I shouted into the empty street. “Damn it, Bennett, send me back!”
Fifteen
Down the canyon of Central Park South, bookended on one side by the edge of the park and on the other by skyscrapers, the sky was already fading from black to gray. In the distance, a violent slash of pink tore at the eastern horizon.
How much time did I have left? Half an hour? Less? I cursed under my breath. Wherever he was now, Bennett obviously had no intention of sending me back to the safe house. That left me with precious little time to cover roughly a mile’s distance and get the others out of the house before it was too late. I looked at the strange burlap charm he’d given me, but I didn’t have the first clue how to make it transport me back. I stuffed it in my pants pocket. The only way I was going to get back to the safe house was on my feet.
I put my back to the impending dawn and darted across Columbus Circle, up the sidewalk to Ninth Avenue, then swung left to bolt downtown. An empty cab drifted along the street beside me, but when I tried to hail it the cab sped by, its off-duty light shimmering in the predawn gray.
I kept running, trying to outrace the rising sun and wishing Bennett had just stayed dead where he belonged. Why had he come back to warn me? He certainly didn’t owe me any favors after I’d handed him over to Underwood.
I pushed the question from my mind and tried to focus on just getting back to the safe house, but the void it left was instantly filled by more questions: Without an amulet like the one Thornton wore, how had Bennett come back from the dead? When he said I pissed off the wrong people, who did he mean? Who was coming to the house at dawn, and why couldn’t I stop them?
I barreled down empty sidewalks and through intersections, the gun in my trench coat pocket banging against my hip, and all the while the sky kept brightening. I crossed Ninth Avenue against the traffic light, barely avoided getting hit by a speeding
Farther up the block, I noticed a figure walking toward me. From a distance the man was just a shadowy silhouette, but as I drew closer his features clarified, sharpened. My heart jumped into my throat. I skidded to a halt, breathing hard.
It couldn’t be.
Tomo.
Where the hell had he come from?
I turned to run back the way I came and slammed into a wide wall of a man coming up behind me. “Whoa, where you goin’, T-Bag?” Big Joe asked with a sneer. “Been lookin’ for you.”
His fist connected with my jaw. I fell, the back of my head hitting the sidewalk and flaring with pain. I tasted blood and wiped it from the corner of my mouth. “How did you…?”
“Find you?” Big Joe finished for me. He grabbed the lapels of my trench coat and hauled me onto my feet. “Underwood’s got eyes everywhere. You know that.”
He dragged me across the sidewalk to a run-down building whose glass front door was propped open with a brick. He yanked the door open all the way and pulled me into the vestibule inside. The stench of urine was overpowering. Two homeless drunks lay curled against the walls, sleeping off the effects of the empty bottles scattered around them. Tomo followed us in, pulling his gun and using the butt to smash out the single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. Big Joe kicked the drunks awake and told them to clear out. They didn’t wait to be told twice.
Big Joe slammed my back into the wall. I groaned as pain flared through my wounds.
Tomo put his gun away, which was a relief, but the grin of sick satisfaction on his face told me not to get too comfortable. “I think it’s time to teach this piece of shit a lesson,” he said.
Big Joe brought his face up close to mine, his breath hot on my cheek. “We oughta kill you now while we have the chance.”
“We’ve been waiting for the right time ever since you wasted Ford,” Tomo added.
“And we’d do it, too, if we thought it would take,” Big Joe said. “But I know you, freakshow. You wouldn’t even have the decency to stay dead. Though that could be kind of fun, too, killing you as many times as we like. We could take turns, try out interesting and exciting new ways of making you die.”
I reached for my gun, but Big Joe grabbed my arm before I got it. “Nice try.” He twisted my arm away, took the gun out of my pocket, and put it in his own. Then he punched me in the stomach.
I doubled over, gasping. He’d knocked the air right out of my lungs. Big Joe grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled me upright again. “You’re lucky Underwood wants to see you, T-Bag. Otherwise me and Tomo could do this all day.”
I bristled at the nickname T-Bag. I’d always hated it. He knew it, too, which is why he kept using it. I spat in his face and said, “Go fuck yourself.”
He punched me again, in the kidney this time. It hurt like hell. “Keep giving me attitude and next time I’ll use a knife instead of my fists,” Big Joe said. He shook his head in disgust. “I told Underwood from the start you’d be trouble, but he didn’t listen. He shoulda found a way to bag-and-tag you the minute you iced Ford, only Underwood thought a freak like you might be useful. There’s a fuckin’ joke if I ever heard one.”
Outside, the sky kept brightening in its unstoppable march toward dawn. I thought of Bethany and the others, still asleep, not knowing what was coming. I struggled to get free, but Big Joe’s grip was like a vise. “I didn’t kill Ford,” I insisted. “Not on purpose. I can’t control it when it happens.”
“Keep talkin’, T-Bag,” he said. “Give me a reason to see if you can come back from a bullet in the brain.”
“That’ll do,” a familiar voice said from somewhere behind Big Joe.
Big Joe released me and took a step back. Tomo took a step back, too, and between them I saw Underwood standing in the vestibule doorway. He came forward until he was standing right in front of me, the overwhelming stench of Obsession for Men inundating my nostrils. He looked me up and down.
“Nice outfit,” he said. “You been shopping?”
I wiped my bleeding mouth with the back of my hand. “Underwood—”
“Where’s the box?” he said. It came out less like a question than the verbal cocking of a gun.
I saw him then for what he was, no longer blinded by the things he’d done for me. This was the true Underwood; he was a burning coal, a coiled viper ready to strike. It was why so many people were afraid of him. It was why I should have been from the start.
Through the glass door, I saw the gray murk outside grow less murky. I was running out of time. I had to get out of here fast, but there was no way Underwood was going to let that happen. He searched my face, waiting for an answer, his eyes hidden behind his black sunglasses. I had a feeling if I ever saw his eyes, they would be as empty and merciless as a shark’s.
“I don’t have it,” I told him.
“How much longer until you do?”
“I’m working on it.”
Underwood shook his head. “I asked you a question.”
“Today,” I lied. “I’ll have the box for you today. Just let me go get it. Let me do my job.”
Underwood’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “What did I say when I sent you out last night? Didn’t I tell you there was a lot riding on this? Didn’t I tell you I had a buyer waiting to dump fucking
