“It’s gone,” I said.
“Her?”
“Yeah. The teller said she saw me a half hour ago.”
“But she saw her.” Blake tried to wrap his mind around my situation and force it to make sense.
“Yeah.” We walked quickly to his car. “There’s a chance Lucas got here first and she left empty handed too, but I doubt it. He’d keep his backups spread out, especially if he thought he was in trouble.”
“So what now? She’s one step ahead of you.”
“She’s not one step ahead, she is me.”
We reached his car. He swung my elbow to make me face him. “So what would your next step be?”
Blake, my little genius.
“The courthouse building. Lucas’ office, see if anyone there knew where he might be.”
“You think that would be her move too?”
“I don’t know.”
I shut my eyes, trying to pick up anything from her. I knew I must have looked like the kid from The Shining, but Blake would have to deal. I tried harder, reached further across the black than before. I’d been building up these strange new muscles apparently. I pinched my eyelids shut until I saw stars, then out of the sparkling lights came brief flashes of her vision.
A door held open. Elevator buttons being pushed. She moved something around in her pocket. They were distant, like transmissions from outer space. The broken images were like seeing what a broadcast from the very bottom of a radio dial would look like.
“Samantha, you all right?” Blake asked, touching my arm.
As soon as he touched me the signal went dead. “No, don’t touch me.” I squeezed my eyes harder. They started to ache. All I got next was sound, but I knew where she was. Shoes on a marble floor. The mid-40s opulence of the courthouse. I loved the sound of heels on that floor. The slight echo, the solid click of a spike heel on the hard surface. It sounded like Europe is what I told Lucas. Like an old cathedral or something.
He said it sounded like justice, but to most people justice sounds like Judge Judy’s voice.
Sam was at the courthouse looking for Lucas. One step ahead.
This time it was me who pulled at Blake’s elbow. “We gotta go.”
BABY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR
Blake drove. I started to tell him to drive fast, but my mouth wouldn’t form the words. Instead I explained how I couldn’t drive fast because of the…whatever it was. He got the hint.
In the passenger seat I closed my eyes. I must have looked like someone who is terrified to death of driving because I sat there with my eyes squeezed shut like a kid their first time on a roller coaster after they barely make the height requirement.
The images coming through were the same as watching a movie on a broken projector and a really shitty speaker from and old transistor radio.
Here’s what I saw:
She knew where she wanted to go. Of course she did. I did, so she did too. I saw several of Lucas’s coworkers wave to her/me. Everyone gave her smiles and nice-to-see-you waves. The sound only came in pops and buzzes, but I could tell she asked if anyone had seen Lucas.
“Was he expecting you?” someone said. Her head shook and I heard, “No. I thought I’d—” Surprise him I guess is what she probably said. Yeah, surprise him with a bullet in his liver.
She kept at it, determined. She stopped at every damn desk on the fourth floor. She asked people I’d never seen before and I’d been to two Christmas parties with these people. She looked at everything. She looked at cubicle walls, into their coffee mugs and water bottles (a lot of that for some reason). She left no stone unturned.
I knew Lucas wasn’t so dumb as to go into hiding inside his own office though. Right? Still, she knew something I didn’t to make the desk to desk interviews worth her time.
I could feel Blake weaving through traffic. I started to get a little nauseous to go along with my headache. Riding in a car with your eyes closed is a weird sensation.
“Are we close?” I asked.
“Getting there. Five minutes. No, less.”
One thing regular cops have on the DEA? Sirens. We were in a nondescript navy blue sedan. No one got out of our way. I couldn’t see it but I knew some of the horn blasts came with raised middle fingers aimed our way. My God it would feel good to flip someone the bird again. I vowed if I ever got out of this madness I’d flip off whoever, whenever I wanted. Jerk who doesn’t signal when changing lanes? Finger. Guy talking on his cell phone while I’m at dinner? Flipped. Crying baby in the checkout line? FU, kid.
I thought for a second my view through Sam’s eyes was stuck on some sort of loop. Asking people, linger a while, move on, ask someone else. She literally went desk to desk.
She knocked on a door. She’d exhausted the secretarial pool and the paralegals, time for the big guns.
Daniel Graves. Assistant District Attorney. Nice guy. Big, black, sharp suits. He smiled when she came in. She handed him a mug of something. Coffee I guess. Buttering him up isn’t gonna get you any closer to Lucas, babe.
Graves shook his head. Hadn’t seen Lucas today. She moved on.
A conference room. She knocked once and went inside with a pitcher of water. Is she applying for a job in there or something? Why is she being so damn nice?
Something didn’t click. This woman is pure evil. For her to be handing out beverages, trying to get answers she damn well knows she isn’t going to get made me really nervous.
“Here we go,” Blake said.
I opened my eyes. The light blasted me and I blinked like I’d been pepper sprayed and my eyes teared up immediately.
Blake double parked but stayed in the driver’s seat. “You want me to come with you?”
“No. Go find Lucas. Tell him what you know.”
“Are you sure? What’s going to happen when you two are in the same room?”
“I have no idea.”
“But you think she won’t hurt you?”
“Not without hurting herself.”
“Okay.” His face radiated confusion and concern. I hated making him do my dirty work. I laid a hand over his on the steering wheel.
“Thank you, Blake. I honestly think you’re the only person I can trust right now.”
He either had nothing to say or a million things to say. Either way, nothing came out.
“If something goes wrong,” I said, making sure he looked me in the eye. “Tell people everything you know. You’ve got to bring down Calder and Rizzo. Don’t worry about trying to protect my good name.” At least my good brain allowed sarcasm.
Pictures danced over his face. Sam was leaving. She waved to the receptionist and punched the elevator button. I didn’t have much time.