Heidi couldn’t think straight.
Her head swam.
She hadn’t come here actually thinking she might die. Now her mortality was staring her in the face.
Her voice was a whisper. ‘Is that true?’
He lifted his arm, the long pistol extending, rising up faster than she was able to react. Before she could even jerk backwards he had touched the barrel to her forehead. He studied her in the lowlight, like a scientist observing a lab rat. He smiled at her distress. No joviality there. All sinister.
His head cocked to the side as he mused, ‘Money doesn’t really mean anything, does it?’
Her legs trembled. Her knees knocked together. She couldn’t help it.
‘What are you worth?’ he said in a low voice. ‘A billion? That’s what the news says.’
‘Not for much longer.’
He sighed and lowered the gun.
‘I wasn’t telling the truth, was I? Money must mean something. Or I’d be burying your body.’
She’d come close to wetting herself.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I saw the article. One of my colleagues sent it to me. Everyone will be talking about it tomorrow. You’ll be over. But for now, you have access to funds.’
She blinked hard. Didn’t know what to say. She was so grateful she couldn’t put it into words.
Maybe it was all still possible.
He said, ‘Did you bring a gun?’
She nodded.
He said, ‘Good. Keep it out of sight. We have a play to perform.’
‘What do you need from me?’
‘To stand there and look scared.’ He positioned her sideways, put the gun against the side of her head, on the flesh above her ear. She felt the metal against her skull. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard. But, deep down, you shouldn’t be scared.’
‘Why?’
He softened the touch of the gun, relenting a little. ‘Because this time I don’t mean it.’
‘You did before?’
‘I hadn’t decided what I was going to do until twenty seconds ago,’ he said. ‘And I caved. Maybe that makes me weak. That’s a question for another day. But you’ll never know how lucky you got.’
Under her breath, she muttered, ‘I will. I already do.’
62
Slater waited until the speeding cars receded into the distance, both gunning it for Bayview.
They’d flashed past his position maybe ten, fifteen seconds apart.
So King had gotten in a pursuit, but at least he was alive. Had to be. Slater doubted it was Danny pursuing Frankie.
Could be the other way round, he thought.
Frankie going after Danny.
Slater pictured King’s body, left behind out the front of the gym. The gym was owned and operated under a false name. It didn’t matter if it was a crime scene. Frankie could leave it all behind.
Slater rose up out of the ditch with renewed focus. He needed a phone, and he needed it now. Didn’t matter if his body was beat up or his joints were destroyed or his head pounded with agony. There were more important things to worry about than his own health.
King might need him.
He did everything he could to detach himself from the pain and hobbled across the road, coming to the lip of the excavated land. He eyed the flipped car, the debris scattered around it, Bobby’s body half-visible against the top of the overturned door, the way Kit lay spread-eagled, a dozen feet from the hood.
Slater’s vision swam, and he saw two of everything.
Before he could think twice he lowered himself to a crouch and began to limp gently down the slope. Dirt brushed away underfoot, and he almost slipped a couple of times. He had to strain his eyes in the semi-darkness. The soft glow from nearby streetlights wasn’t enough. The descent proved precarious, but he made it to the bottom in one piece. He dragged his bad leg behind him on the way to the car, reaching the upside-down trunk first. Somewhere in the wreckage there lay three phones — his, Bobby’s, and Kit’s. Easier to pat down their bodies than to fish around in the dark for his phone, so he rounded the trunk, beelining for Bobby.
He crouched down by the corpse and went into pockets, but most of them were already turned out, his clothing ripped and tattered from the crash. Slater felt blood between his fingers.
He found a set of keys, and a wallet, and a pocket knife.
No phone.
He swore to himself, lurched upright, peering into the gloom in search of where Kit’s body had come to rest.
It wasn’t there.
Slater’s heart crashed in his chest, a mixture of pain and shock reaching a fever pitch, and in the blink of an eye his main priority shifted. A phone was no longer important.
You need a gun.
He twisted on the spot just in time to see Kit circle around the back of the overturned car, his movement laboured by debilitating injuries.
63
Ghosting through the industrial sprawl of north San Lorenzo on foot, Alexis could hear her pulse beating in her throat.
She stuck to the shadows of Lewelling Boulevard. She headed west, parallel to the creek that ran beyond the warehouses to her left. Cars flitted by occasionally, their noise amplified behind her by the acoustics of the I-880 overpass. She used the darkness to her advantage, but the night carried equal terror. Petr could’ve been lying about using up all his men. Heidi might’ve come here with an army. Vitality+ was dead in the water. That reputation she’d been so desperate to protect was tarnished.
She might do anything.
Alexis continued along the edges of the sidewalk until she was far from the overpass, until the traffic noise had receded to stillness. She checked her phone screen, the brightness lowered to the minimum setting, and saw the coordinates of the flood control channel were directly to her left. She slipped down a laneway that weaved past giant warehouses and led her to what appeared as an impenetrable wall of foliage. It was only the shadow that seemed to solidify it, though, and the undergrowth parted as she forced her way through.
Branches scratched her arms.
Leaves slapped her face.
She ignored
