20
Sam
“T
hey're not in the car,” Major Collins announces to our team as well as the other agencies.
Camera ready, deputy chief can't mask his shock. “How in the hell?”
“Clearly the current carried them out,” I state the obvious and then turn back to my crew. “All right. You know what to do. We're going due south in the direction of the current. This news does not rule out the possibility that our fugitives are deceased but if there's a chance that they climbed out, we need to know where.”
“Well. Hold on now, little lady,” Carter snaps. “This is still my district and my team trumps yours.”
My head snaps back in his direction. Behind me, Greg groans. “I'm sorry. What was that?” My fierce look is enough for him to backtrackâsort of.
“I don't mean any disrespect. I'm just saying how it is. If your
boy
is out here, I aim to catch him. No New York city slickers know these parts like my guys do. You're more than welcome to join in, but I'll be the one issuing the orders.”
“All due respect, chief, but this is hardly time for us to engage in a pissing contest.”
“Hold on now. That's not what's happening, I'm just telling you what is what.” He cuts another look toward the bank of cameras. This is definitely his moment to shine and he's hell bent to take advantage of it.
Frankly, there's not a damn thing I can do about it. This mid-south cowboy outranks me and as long as we're in his territory, he's well within his right to seize the investigation from me. In my fourteen years in the department, I've never seen it done. All departments offer their assistance when a fugitive crosses into their districts, but usually the case remains with the initial department conducting the search.
“Do we have a problem?” he asks, grinning.
Forced to eat a healthy chuck of humble pie in front of my team, I force on my same tired-ass smile. “No problem at all.” Marching away, I have no intention of taking orders from this country peacock. He's the main reason we weren't searching last night. The proud man was so convinced Banks and Robinson were still in that car.
“Join in with the search,” I tell my five-man crew. “But if you see anything first, you come to me.” I make sure to make eye contact with each of them. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Got it,” they confirm in unison.
As they branch off to blend in with the sheriff's department, the FBI, and the local US Marshals, I scoop out my cell and place a call to my own boss. I give him a brief update and he's equally struck by the Tennessee's district deputy chief's call, but makes the formal call for our team not rocking the boat.
Less than an hour later, while Carter is giving his umpteenth interview to the press, muddy footprints are discovered about a mile from the bridge. A clear track is visible seen leading toward a forest.
“A mile,” I mumble under my breath. A lousy mile. They now have hours on us. The hope is that they're still on foot. Plus, after being in that freezing water, and last night's weather will also play in our favor. I'll get my man and Deputy Chief Carter can get his glory.
21
Johnnie
I
can't turn back now. That shit is clear. The thing is I keep waiting for this huge wave of regret to wash over me, but so far, all I feel is relief. Relief that I've finally admitted the truth to Harlemâand to myself. If somehow I do survive this shit, I'll probably be thrown into an insane asylum instead of jail.
Still, it's the risk that I'm willing to take because, at the end of the day, I've felt more alive with Harlem in the last twenty-four hours than I've felt in the entire five years that he'd been locked down in prison. I love him. I forgive him. I want to be with him for however long fate allows.
Rumbling down the back roads in this loud, rusty half-century-old pickup truck, I'm huddled up under Harlem on a long single seat, at peace. The gray clouds have parted and there's hardly a soul on the road. I don't have any idea exactly where we are going and what we're supposed to do once we get there. I don't think that Harlem knows either, because he's so quiet.
An hour later, the quiet worries me. Could he be having second thoughts? Is he concerned that I will slow him down? Somehow I have to assure him that won't happen. Now that I'm in this, I'm in it for the long haul. Or he's thinking about that man's face from the news. The other escaped prisoner.
Isaiah Kane.
If memory serves me correct, he's the man Harlem was busted with on the arms dealing charge. They were tried separately so I didn't pay too much attention to the other trial. But I'm pretty sure I'm right about that detail. Did they plan all of this together? If so, why was Harlem so upset?
I want to ask the big questions, but at the same time, I want him to willingly tell me what's going on. I want him to trust me.
By noon we've coasted out of Tennessee and shot through Alabama.
“We're almost there,” Harlem says, breaking the silence.
“Okay.” I curl my head up at him. “Where is that?” We both know that I'm really asking him to officially put his trust in me. That's a giant leap for our relationship. I love him
despite
that there is a huge part of his life that I've never seen or been a part of.
“We're going to pick up some money that I have stashed away for retirement,” he confesses. “Money that I'd stacked from a few heists some years back.”
My heart leaps at the word
heist
, but I remain calm on the outside.
“I messed up. I planned for retirement, but never for getting caught. I didn't set a nest egg aside that would easily be accessible to my grandmother and my little girl. All this time I've been locked down, she's been slowly losing everything, trying to take care of Tyler and her healthcare needs.”
Surprised, I pull back. “You said that she needed surgery?”
Harlem's profile hardens as he tries to man up and control his emotions. “She has a heart condition. With these damn hospitals, money talks and bullshit walks.”
“So this doesn't have anything to do with Isaiah Kane? You're just trying to get money to your little girl?”
Within a snap, Harlem's sadness is replaced with anger. “Actually, this has everything to do with Isaiah.”
Now I'm really confused.
“He's going after
my
money.”
I open my mouth to ask another question when understanding suddenly slams into me. “Oh.”
Harlem continues. “Someone pulls some strings to get him scheduled for an early release. When word spread through the prison grapevine, I knew exactly what was next in his plans. He owes a lot of money to a lot of peopleâa lot of dangerous people.”
“But aren't you two friends?”
“We
used
to be friends. But I'm certain that he's willing to throw me and mine under the bus in order for him to keep breathing. He spent and gambled away all of his money and now he believes that he is entitled to my piece of the pie as well.”
“Wow. I guess it's not true what they say. There's no honor among thieves.”
His laugh surprises both of us. When the laughter fades, he says, “It is what it is.” He looks over at me. “Are you sure you're still down for all this?”
“Positive.”
22
Sam
“D
amn it! We missed them.” It takes everything I have not to lash out at everyone, especially the current idiot-in-charge Carter. He still seems to be operating under the illusion that he and his team are still in the game. The fugitives' muddy footprints led a straight path to an isolated residence embedded in the woods. There's little doubt that they broke and entered the house, but we have no idea how long they stayed.
It doesn't look like they disturbed much or they were good at cleaning up behind themselves. It doesn't take much to find the name of the homeowners. Tracking them down is a much harder trick. They could be anywhere, up to and including on vacation. Until then, we have no idea what was taken.
“We need to put an APB out on all the vehicles registered to the homeowner,” I tell an annoyed Carter.
“What if the owners are driving their vehicles? We'll scare them half to death when the dragnet picks them up.”
“And maybe we'll pick up our fugitivesâor maybe we'll pick up both. Are we sure that Banks and Robinson aren't holding them prisoner?” The look on his face reads that the possibility hadn't occurred to him. Probably for the millionth time that day, I wonder how in the hell this man obtained his position in the agency.
I don't know whether Banks would have taken hostages, but I've been trained to never rule out any and all possibilities.
Grudgingly, Carter orders the APBs while my small team huddles off together.
“What do you think?” Max asks.
“I think Banks and his girl are long gone, probably even out of the state.”
Greg nods. “I still hedge my bets that they're headed to Mexico.”
I nod. “Still a possibility. But Mexico has a big damn border.”
“Maybe he's aware of the government's drastic budget cuts and knows a lot of the smaller towns can't afford expensive roadblocks and dragnets.”
“Anything is possible.” Even if Banks is headed to Mexico, our investigation won't stop there. What a lot of crooks don't know is that it never does. The US Marshals have international field offices in Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. While it's ideal to recapture a fugitive within a forty-eight-hour sweet spot, the agency has had cases that have lasted decades. The point being that, eventually, we always get our man. Harlem Banks will be no exception.
“Get me the team that's working the Isaiah Kane case,” I tell Renee while possibilities toss around in my head.
Greg smiles. “I was just thinking about him, too.”
“Their runs are related,” I say. “At the same time, there's definitely no love lost between the men.”
“So maybe it's a race?” Frank contributes. “They're trying to get to something first.”
I nod; this line of thought feels like the right track. “Maybe we need to take another look at both of their files. What are the cases that put the men on the other agency's radar?”
Renee jumps back into the mix. “The FBI is adamant that both men were members of an international cyber crime ring. Apparently, they were cyber hacking banks before it was cool.”
“Gone are the days of smash and grab, huh?”
“Apparently. You know the FBI recently had a case where a cyber hacking ring had looted forty-five million in a hit that spanned twenty-six countries. There were over thirty-thousand-something transactions done within a matter of ten hours. Let that sink in. No mask. No weapons. Clean.”
“And all federally insured,” I say.
“Nothing like robbing the government.” I suck in a deep, cleansing breath. “So where does that leave us?”
Greg is on a roll. “That leaves us with two thieves that were busted for weapons, but I don't remember anything about any money being recovered. If these guys are such successful thievesâwhere's the money?”
The puzzle pieces finally click together in my head. Harlem has a sick daughter and cash-strapped grandmother. “They stashed the money.”
Frank smiles. “The last one there is a rotten egg.”
23
Harlem
F
or the past five miles my eyes have been more on the truck's gas gauge than the winding road in front of me. Our last fill-up was in Jackson, Mississippi. We're practically running on fumes with nothing but cotton balls in our pockets. That's not completely true. There's the gun I lifted from that house. An old-fashioned gas station robbery is not out of the realm of possibility, but I'm nervous about how that's going to go down with my newly transformed good-girl-gone-bad-sister sitting at my side.
I'm worried that she has romanticized what life on the run is really going to be like. If and when I'm able to get money to Nana Gloria for Tyler's surgery, I will have to walk out of their lives forever. The thought of that shit is tearing me up. Can Johnnie really do the same? She has a larger and closer family than I do and throwing all that away is going to come back and bite herâus. Even though I know that she may be making the biggest mistake of her life, I don't want to let her go, either.
“There's a gas station,” Johnnie says, pointing. She must've been watching the gas hand, too.
It's show time.
We coast into the station and when I shift the truck into park, the engine cuts off. We're out of gas. Sighing, I glance over at Johnnie. “You know what we gotta do, don't you?” I reach over into the car door and pull out the handgun.
Her brows dip together. “We're out of money?”
Nodding, I take a quick look around. There's only one other car pulled up at another pump. “I'm going to need you to stay calm while I go inside and get the clerk to turn on the pump. You pump the gas and keep the car running. You think you can handle that?”
She hesitates.
“It's either that or we walk the rest of the way.”
Johnnie's gaze lowers to the gun. “Are you going to hurt anybody?”
“Not if I can help it,” I answer. She's got to know that this is also a test on whether she's really made for this life.
She looks around the gas station, too.
“Johnnie? Can you do this?”
Without looking at me, she offers up another solution. “What if we just change cars?”
“What?”
Johnnie gestures toward the car at the other pump.
I follow her line of vision and noticed for the first time that the owner has the pump going into the gas tank, the driver side door is open, and he's busily cleaning the front windows.
“It's probably a lot easier to overpower him than to hold up the clerk,” she says as if she's wondering aloud.
She's right.
I glance back down at her. “I'm impressed.”
“Don't be, yet. We haven't pulled it off.” Quickly, Johnnie slides across the leather seat and hops out of the truck before I get my door open.
By the time I hop out, the guy has stopped washing the windows and is removing the pump from the gas tank.
Johnnie distracts him.
“Excuse me, sir. Do you know what time it is?”
The guy takes one look at Johnnie and starts smiling. “Uh, sure.” He hangs up the pump and glances at his watch. Before he can tell her the time, I've made my way around the other side to press the gun into his back.
“Okay. Let me tell you how this is going to go down.”
Johnnie hops into the car's front seat and turns over the engine.
“Hey. That's my car,” the guy whines.
“Yeah. And if you want to keep breathing, you'll shut the hell up.” I press the gun harder into his back. “Understand? Don't make a sound until we pull off.”
The man nods.
“Good. Don't make me shoot you.” I step back, but keep the gun leveled at him.
The dude glances back at me over his shoulder.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I bark.
Seeing that the gun is real, he quickly snaps his head back around. “Nothing, man. Nothing. Please, don't shoot.”
The gun stays trained on him until I hop inside the passenger door. I'm barely inside before Johnnie jams on the accelerator.
“Ohmigod. I just stole a car,” she announces, astounded.
“Yeah. I know. I was there.” I laugh.
“Holy shit.” Johnnie cracks up laughing. “I can't believe it. Nobody is ever going to believe it.”
“Well. They will if those security cameras were working back there.”
“There were cameras?”
“It's the twenty-first century. There are cameras everywhere.”
Her laughter fades after that, but her eyes remain wide and her hands seem to tighten on the steering wheel.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Uhm, hmm,” she says, her voice pitched a bit high.
I watch her for a few minutes while she absorbs her new reality. When she catches me, she flashes a smile. “I'm fine.”
I remain dubious.
“Really,” Johnnie insists. “My criminal cherry has been officially popped.”
That broke the ice. “That's one way of putting it.”
“Now. Since I'm the one behind the wheel, where to, Clyde?”
“Texas, Bonnie. Where else?”