Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) Gary Ross (most popular novels txt) 📖

“Jody thought he couldn’t be reached if he stayed offline and kept to himself. Didn’t work for him. Won’t work for you. Not with you trying to write up what he gave you.”

You wonder how he knows, how much he knows, but you say nothing.

“Even without Facebook, Twitter, and all that other shit floating in cyberspace, anybody can be reached. Remember that. Anybody can be touched. Anybody can be put down, even all the way over in jolly old London.”

You take a moment to steady yourself before responding. “Including a chickenshit motherfucker like you.”

He chuckles. “No, you old nigger cunt. I’m a ghost these days, but I can see you anytime I want.” Then he hangs up.

Gun in hand, you open the front door and ease down your flagstone path. You gaze up the street and down. No one is there.

Turning to re-enter the house, you see the small white swastika on the door frame. The paint looks wet.

Packing two large hard-shell suitcases with enough clothes to last two weeks, Grant’s notes and your own, your laptop, and as many cherished belongings as you can fit inside, you sling your purse over your shoulder and for the last time lock the door of a home you have loved.

Later, seated on a bed in the Fairview Park Marriott, where you paid in cash, you use your laptop to close every social media account you have, freeze both your personal and work email accounts, and cancel every credit card in your name. Next, you make a handwritten list of everything you must do over the next week or two:

Meet with your lawyer to update your will and file your name change petition with the court.

Meet with your supervisor to file your retirement papers and set up direct deposit.

Find a realtor who can arrange not only the sale of your Annandale house but the sale or disposal of its contents, someone who also can find you a furnished rental somewhere Wally Ray and his boys would stand out like Frosty the Snowman and his posse.

Call Miranda and tell her to find another place to live—with Ben or his parents if necessary. Stress that she must change her routines and become vigilant. It is unlikely those assholes will make it to London, you will tell her, but it’s best to be careful. Call Dr. Clay and thank him for his help before you withdraw as his patient. Then terminate your mobile phone contract and get your own temporary burner.

Visit the DMV when the legal filing is done to get a new driver’s license and the post office to get forms to revise your passport. Then go to your bank to empty the safe deposit box, close out the checking and savings accounts you shared with Grant, and open three new accounts in your new name. Transfer the life insurance money into one of the two savings accounts, keeping out maybe ten thousand in cash and travelers’ checks. Designate the second savings account as the recipient of the home sale proceeds and the checking account for pension deposits.

Pay off the remainder of the lease on your Avalon and buy a nondescript used car from a separate dealer. Buy new clothes in a style you wouldn’t ordinarily wear and trade your glasses for disposable contacts.

Finally, find a new hairdresser, one who does not know the old you and will be glad to make you look different.

Maybe you won’t be able to get as far off the grid as Wally Ray, but if he’s gone ghost, you must move closer to invisibility yourself. You remember the article that made Cropper call your husband. In it Grant had written, “Hatred is a monster we unchain at great risk to ourselves.”

Wally Ray, you swear, will regret the monster he unchained in you.

28

After signing my witness statement, I found Tillman Bishop on a corridor bench inside police headquarters. Dressed in the tan, short-sleeved summer uniform of a locally owned HVAC company and sporting a chest patch that said Bishop, he was a large brown-skinned man with a shaved head, salt-sprinkled mustache, broad shoulders, and callused hands. I introduced myself as his wife was interrogated elsewhere in the building.

“She talks about you,” he said, shaking my hand. “You remind her of her favorite lieutenant when she was in the army.”

I sat beside him. “From the beginning, Lucy struck me as somebody I could count on. She never let me down.”

“What’s gonna happen now? She killed somebody. That ain’t something Weisskopf guards do.”

“The dead man assaulted her. Grabbed her throat. I saw it. Her partner saw it. So did the cop who was with me. Her phone got the whole thing on video. Best of all, the woman sitting with her in the interrogation room is one of the best lawyers in Buffalo.”

Tillman Bishop narrowed his eyes at me and swallowed. “I know for a fact Miss Hauser ain’t gonna pay for nobody but a jackleg shyster. How much this lawyer gonna cost?”

“A trip to her Tia Rosita’s in Puerto Rico,” I said. “But that’s on me, not you.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You married to her or something?”

“Something.” I offered what I hoped was an encouraging smile. “One of the cops questioning her is a friend of mine too. I’ll be surprised if any charges are filed, though it’ll be awhile before Lucy gets her gun back.”

He shrugged. “Gun ain’t what counts. She is. Thank God I don’t have to give the boys bad news.”

“All that matters.” After a moment I added, “Might be a good idea if you and your family took a trip for a few days. Easier to stay out of the spotlight if you’re off the stage.”

“It’s a good bet Miss Hauser’s gonna let Lucy go.”

“Gideon Rimes! Why am I not surprised to find you here?”

I turned to see Amanda Corso drawing near, white jeans tight as ever and soft-soled canvas flats making no sound on the floor tiles.