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Her nervous fingers creased the corner of a thousand-dollar bill, one of many. “Why would someone put all this cash in my safe deposit box?”
“Why would the FBI be questioning you about a man you contacted five years ago?”
“Do you think they’re linked?” She sucked in her bottom lip to stop it from trembling.
“If you hadn’t had the same suspicion, you never would’ve run out of that bank.”
“As soon as I found the money, I knew something was off—not just that the bank had made a mistake, but that the money represented something sinister. When I walked out into the bank and saw those two talking to Dorothy, I panicked.”
“That’s understandable.” Mike checked the rearview mirror for the hundredth time. “They didn’t show up to help you count your money.”
Shoveling the bundles back into her purse, she said, “They came to arrest me, didn’t they?”
“I don’t want to scare you, Claire,” he said as he brushed the back of his hand against her arm, “but I think so.”
Her mouth felt dry even though Mike wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t suspected already. Maybe she’d suspected it from the moment Agents Finnegan and Glotz showed up at her house this morning, flashing pictures of Hamid.
She bolted forward in her seat. “Mike.”
“Don’t worry, Claire. We’ll figure this out.”
“It’s not that. What about Hamid?”
“What about him?”
“If they’re setting me up, they’re setting up Hamid, too.”
“He’s their fall guy.”
“But he didn’t do anything. Hamid is a good kid, a university student. He tried to help me.”
“He must live in the States if they’re fingering him as the valet. Is he visiting, or does he reside here?”
“H-he lives here...now. Remember, I told the FBI agents that I’d helped him with a student visa.” She stuffed her hands beneath her thighs.
“And he’s still here? How long has he been here?”
“Mike, I sponsored him. I facilitated his relocation to the US from Pakistan. He’s a student at MIT.”
“I heard you tell the FBI agents that you’d helped him, but not that much.” Mike groaned and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “That’s not gonna look good.”
“Let’s face it. Nothing’s going to look good at this point. They managed to turn even something as harmless as a safe deposit box into poison for me.”
“Correll must know you have something on him—something other than suspicions about your mother’s accident, unless he’s using the car bomb as an excuse to get rid of your petty meddling and direct the suspicion away from him.” He snapped his fingers. “He kills two birds with one stone.”
“I really don’t care what his motivation is at this point. The question is, what are we going to do now?”
He pointed to the road ahead. “Disappear and regroup.”
“Where are we going?”
“Vermont.”
“That’s so far. What’s in Vermont?”
“A safe house, seclusion.” He patted the dashboard. “We’re going to have to get rid of this sweet ride first.”
“Get rid of, as in get rid of?”
“I’m not going to send it to a dismantler, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’ll leave it at the airport in Newark and take a very long bus ride to Vermont.”
“I want to get to Ethan.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know you do, but he’s safe where he is, and if you try to see him, they could be waiting for you.”
“How did this get so crazy so fast?” She massaged her temples with her fingertips. “Once Prospero identifies the man meeting with Spencer as the same one who executed my husband, will this all end?”
“It’s not as simple as that, Claire. We’d have to get more on Correll than just the meeting.”
“And I’m supposed to hang out in Vermont—without my son—until you do?”
“It’s a start.” He tugged on a lock of her hair. “Trust me, Claire. Can you do that?”
