chapter forty-eight

There is blood leading from the kicked-in door to the elevators. It’s how Hunter fooled the first two cops on the scene into thinking he’d gone upstairs. With all the mistakes Hunter has been making, Schroder knows there’s at least something in that mind of his that’s working. He wonders if he’d be doing the same thing if it was his daughter who’d been taken, and decides that he would. He’d do what it takes—which makes it hard to know the Armed Offenders Unit is out there gunning for Hunter, ready to take him down.

Schroder has never had any reason to come down to the probation offices before, and he knows there’s every chance after tonight he’ll never come here again. The building is fairly nondescript and the offices inside about as impersonal as you can get, with rubber plants either side of the reception desk and a sunset picture hanging on the wall the only signs of excitement. He imagines it’d be hard to work in a place like this, getting to know people on a return basis as they’re released every few years for the same crimes, addictions to drugs, taking other people’s money, taking other people’s lives, all in endless circles. At least, being a cop, your job is to put criminals away; these guys have to reintroduce criminals into the outside world, over and over and over again.

It’s too early to tell if Edward had time to find anything here. After talking to him he got the impression Hunter was still winging it with no idea where to go next. That made him dangerous.

The IT woman, Geri Shepard, is currently going through Bracken’s computer. Shepard—in her late twenties and with a body other women would kill for—is about as put out by being here as she is attractive.

“This couldn’t wait?” she asks for the third time already. “You’re real sure on that?”

“You found anything yet?” Schroder asks.

“Possibly. See here? We’ve got a list of files he accessed going back as far as you want. I still don’t see why you can’t tell me what you think Austin has done—it might make me be able to speed things up.”

“Search for Shane Kingsly,” he says, ignoring her. “When did Bracken access that file?”

She clicks away at the keyboard. “Today. The twenty-fourth. Though I guess it’s the twenty-fifth now, right?”

Today would fall in line with what Bracken told them this morning. His client didn’t show up, so he went to his house looking for him. Makes sense he’d have pulled the file.

“Is it standard practice for probation officers to immediately go to somebody’s house if they’ve missed an appointment?”

“It depends on the probation officer, and it depends on the person who missed their appointment. It’s not common, no, but it’s not unheard of. Seems he accessed the guy’s records yesterday too.”

“Was there an appointment scheduled?”

“Hmm . . . that’s weird. According to his planner, he wasn’t due to see Kingsly for another week.”

“What about Adam Sinclair?” Schroder asks. Sinclair is the man Edward hit with his car.

“Let me check. Um, November first.”

“How often was he seeing Sinclair?”

“Ah . . . according to this, he wasn’t.”

“He wasn’t?”

“No. Not according to this.”

“Then why’d he pull his file?” he asks.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was in relation to somebody else he was dealing with.”

“Ryan Hann?” he says, Hann being the man Edward stabbed with a pencil.

“Um . . . same. November first. This is weird—Hann is also no longer under probation.”

“Okay. Good. This is good. Can you find any other files he’d have no need to pull up that he accessed around that time period?”

“Hang on,” she says, and works at the keyboard for another minute. “Here, we got five more names of people no longer under probation. Wait—make that four—one of these men just died,” she says, and she twists the monitor so Schroder can take another look.

He scrolls down the list. It’s a short list and it only takes a second for Arnold Langham’s name to show up. Suction Cup Guy. “Jesus,” he whispers. “He was part of it.”

“What?”

Arnold Langham only had a criminal record for beating up his wife—but that in no way meant beating up his wife was the only criminal thing he had done. There were two possibilities he could see. Langham was involved with these other men, meaning there must be other things he was good at. He was recruited into the gang, then, leading up to the robbery, there must have been something about him the others didn’t like or couldn’t trust, and he became a liability. Shooting him or stabbing him could have brought the investigation closer to the bank robbers, but dressing him up like a pervert and throwing him off the top of a building, that pushed the investigation into a completely different direction.

The second possibility was Langham wasn’t involved, but learned of the robbery and became a liability. Schroder is more inclined to go with the first possibility—it would suggest the gang was suddenly one man short, which would explain why Bracken chose Kingsly.

Either way, it still left Schroder with a list of four names, each belonging to a man whom Bracken recruited to steal $2.8 million in cash.

chapter forty-nine

When the taxi driver drops me off he smiles with relief, as he probably does every time he drops somebody off without getting stabbed. His English is perfect when he tells me how much the fare is, but not so good when figuring out the change. Gas price increases have pushed taxi fares up astronomically over the last few years—it’s no wonder more and more people are drinking and driving. I tell him to keep the change.

I’m right next to the parking building where Jodie’s car has been for the last week. My keys are still hanging in my car, but the spare keys have been in my pocket all day. I make my way upstairs. Jodie’s car is a four-door Toyota about six years old. It starts on the first turn of the key and I let it warm up for thirty seconds. There’s a modern stereo in the center console and a GPS on top of the dashboard that both seem to be defying the law of gravity, since they haven’t fallen in some passerby’s possession. I find Jodie’s swipe card in the glove box and use it to exit the building.

I drive back the way I came and find the shotgun exactly where I’d left it. I try calling Nat and Diana again and get the same result. I drive a few minutes out of the city and pull over.

I stack up the files and go through them. The names and faces stare out at me, but none of them stand out. Twenty files, all of random people who have nothing to do with the case. After ten minutes it seems it’s all been for nothing—whatever contact Bracken had with the men who killed my wife isn’t to be found in these pages. There’s no way I can make it back into the offices to check for more. I pack the files away and get moving.

There are even fewer cars in the hospital parking lot when I get there than there were earlier tonight—mine doubles the number; the other is a van with a bunch of guys a few years younger than me leaning against it drinking. I wrap the weapon in a jacket Jodie left in the back of her car.

Visiting hours are over and have been for probably six or seven hours. I walk in looking like somebody who knows where they’re going and nobody says anything because there’s nobody around. Not a single person in this part of the ground floor—everybody is either at home for Christmas or working in the emergency room. I make my way down the corridor to the elevators, not leaving any bloody footprints behind because my shoe has dried up. I go up to the fifth floor and step past a nurses’ station that doesn’t have any nurses. Only about half the lights are on that were on this afternoon and it’s only about half the temperature. I reach the ward where my father is and there aren’t any police officers outside like there were this afternoon—which the accountant in me puts down to simple supply and demand. Tonight the city is demanding the most from its guardians, and the police are supplying every man who’s prepared to work overtime and ignore their family—which isn’t many, it seems.