A blue pickup truck jumped the curb from the street and cut Ralph off from the lobby drive-through. Ralph T-boned the pickup in a crunch of metal and glass and threw the Lexus into reverse. But before he could get up any steam, a black Suburban rocketed into the drive and slammed into the back of the car. Two men hopped out and gunfire erupted as they sprayed the Lexus with bullets from compact Mac-10 machine guns.

Graham stared, frozen as the man on the driver’s side of the Lexus flung open the door and yanked Ralph’s bloody body out onto the pavement. He placed the gun to Ralph’s ear and fired a single round, blasting the pavement with a crimson spray that jerked Graham to life. He bolted and threw open the door, sprinting down the hall toward the stairwell in the back, smashing it open, and setting off a fire alarm.

He leaped down the stairs, taking four or five at a time and twisting his ankle on the concrete landing. A stab of pain shot through him, but he never slowed down. He burst out the fire door and into the twilight, cutting through some parked cars and heading away from the hotel toward the railroad tracks. He clutched the.38, withdrawing it from his pocket. The pain in his ankle made him gasp and tears streamed down his face, but he never stopped.

When he reached the tracks, he heard a shout back by the hotel but never looked. His foot caught the edge of a railroad tie and spilled him to the gravel, splitting his lip on the metal rail and breaking a tooth. He scrambled to his feet, grateful for the deep shadows. The prison, its forty-foot wall capped by glass towers, loomed up ahead like a castle. When he reached the road, he peered down over the concrete bank holding the Owasco River in its course, wondering if it was deep enough to jump into and swim to freedom and deciding that it wasn’t.

He chanced a look back and his spirits soared. Only empty tracks, their shiny rails casting off the glow from nearby streetlights. He straightened, pausing a moment to catch his breath and study the length of the street that ran past the front of the prison from the center of town. He knew that in less than a mile he’d be beyond the town and lost in a labyrinth of woods and farmland of the upstate countryside. He started up the hill leading out of town, gimping along on the sidewalk, entering the shamble of homes on the bad side of town where the vacant houses, wrecked cars, and overgrown lawns offered cover of their own. His hands trembled and he jammed them into his pant pockets, one hand still gripping the gun.

A sudden shout made him look back over his shoulder. Just beyond the prison, a man had rounded the corner of Curly’s Restaurant on foot and now ran his way at a full sprint. A second figure shot out from the railroad tracks and joined the chase.

Graham turned and did his best, running like a cripple, swinging his leg in a wide arc, his ankle excruciating. He heard the zip of a bullet in the same instant that he heard the roar of the gunshot. Instinctively, he spun around and pointed Ralph’s snub-nose at the approaching shapes, firing until the pin clicked as it struck the empty casings. The men dove and rolled in opposite directions before springing into crouching positions and firing back.

Graham felt as though he’d been struck with a baseball bat in the shoulder. The impact of the bullet spun him around and the.38 clattered to the street. He kept going, so scared now that he felt a warm rush down the inside of his leg and found one corner of his brain hoping that it was pee instead of blood. At the top of the hill he saw the decrepit tavern and heard a gust of laughter burst from his throat as though it were all just a goofy dream. The next shot sent him flying forward, shattering his hip bone and making him scream. He spun off the sidewalk and into the street, slamming facedown into the gritty pavement, tasting small stones.

The whine of an engine came at him like another bullet, up the hill, tires screeching as it skidded to a stop beside him and filling the air with the smell of burned rubber. Graham covered his head, his mind fresh with the vision of the Suburban that brought Ralph to his end. He heard the door fly open and squeezed his eyes tight.

“Hurry up and get the fuck in!”

Graham blinked and raised his head. A rusty maroon Buick with a white ragtop sat belching fumes from a broken pipe. A dark figure sat in the driver’s seat, barely illuminated in the glow of the dashboard lights. Gunfire erupted again and a slug whacked the open car door beside his head.

In a surge of adrenaline, Graham scrabbled up into the car, dragging his ass in with the strength of his arms and chest. The gunfire continued, and with the door hanging open the driver mashed the gas pedal and they took off over the hill. A bullet smashed through the back glass and punched a hole in the radio, sending out a small spray of sparks. The man beside him whooped with something other than fear. The car swerved, glancing a telephone pole that slammed the wild door shut.

Graham cowered in the seat with his head covered. Still they raced on out of town and then swerving wildly down country roads until they came to a sudden stop. Graham raised his head, peeking over the seat into the empty night.

“They’re gone,” he said.

The driver chuckled softly and Graham sat back against the door, the pain in his hip and shoulder now coming back full force.

“Jesus,” Graham said, making out the features of the man in the shadows, his heart plunging. “Dwayne.”

“Never expected to see someone so repulsive and so utterly sick, did you?” Dwayne said, his smile glowing in the dashboard lights, his breath growing heavy. “That’s what you said about me, right? On TV? For everybody to hear?”

Graham turned and grabbed for the handle to his door, his fingers searching but finding only the stem of where the handle had once been. Dwayne laughed, showing him the handle before dropping it to the floor between his legs.

Graham turned to attack and saw from the corner of his eye Dwayne swinging a short length of pipe. Graham collapsed, faceup on the front seat, his eyes open and seeing, but unable to move.

“You got a pretty face,” Dwayne said softly.

70

THE WEATHER’S NICE,” Jake said. “Would you like to walk to dinner? We could go through the park.”

“That would be nice,” she said, stepping out of the network building and onto the sidewalk.

New York City bustled with the rush-hour crowd. They turned down a side street and crossed Central Park West. Jake led her through a twisting maze of paths, deep into the trees. Wrought-iron lampposts were the only thing that gave away their location. Otherwise, she could have been deep in a north Texas forest. They climbed steadily uphill and Casey listened to the twittering of various birds disturb the soft rustle of leaves. After another turn, they began to see other couples and families with small children and the woods became gardens and carefully cut shrubs until the path opened up on the stone outlook of Belvedere Castle.

They climbed the steps and stood with their hands braced atop the ramparts, looking out over the treetops and the water and the green fields in the distance.

“They found him,” Jake said. “I didn’t know when I should tell you, and I feel bad saying this, but I didn’t want to upset you before the interview. I know that sounds kind of selfish.”

Something gripped Casey’s insides.

“Graham?” she asked, feeling she’d had a hand in his disappearance, even though she hadn’t been able to think of a way other than going to Niko Todora to set things right.

“Well, not him, no,” Jake said. “Dwayne.”

“But not Robert,” she said.

Jake took a deep breath and let it out slow. “No, but Dwayne was wearing his clothes. The boots and some old underwear. There was some blood.”