AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dad…you promised.”
He slips his hand away, kisses the top of her head. “I’ll be right back, okay? There’s a man over there I need to talk to. It won’t take long. Promise me you’ll stay right here, okay? Don’t go through the gate—stay behind the fence.”
Denise doesn’t say anything, and he says, louder, “Denise, promise me you’ll stay right here, okay?”
“Okay,” she mutters, and he hugs her like any old dad would do. Then, when a line of cars backs up on Broadway, he breaks free and runs.
Tom slides between two yellow taxis, is nearly struck by a battered white van with paste-on black-and-white letters for a plumbing service, and he’s up on the sidewalk and racing hard, his computer bag bouncing at his side. Yep, his spotter sees him—and damn, it was worth almost getting hit just to see the look of surprise on the man’s face.
The man spins and runs around the corner of Cedar Street.
Christ,Tom thinks,that guy can move.
Around the corner now, jogging in and out, avoiding the midafternoon pedestrians, and he spots the guy almost at the end of the other block, running like he just heard a starter’s pistol go off. Then the watcher splits left onto Trinity Place and is gone.
Running hard now, the bag constantly thumping him, Tom reaches the corner of Trinity Place and Cedar Street, looks around in every direction.
His spotter is gone.
Shit.
He stands up on tiptoe, craning his neck, but nope, the guy is gone.
Tom gives the area one more glance and thinks that if he was on his own, he’d spend a few minutes ducking into the two nearby high schools to see if the guy was hiding out there.
Or maybe he ducked behind a tombstone at Trinity Church Cemetery.
Or into that pizza shop.
Tom turns and starts walking quickly back to Denise’s school, thinking,Man, you acted too fast. You should have dug out your iPhone, got a couple photos of the watcher…that probably would have spooked him more than being chased.
But still, it was good to mess things up, to let his watchers know he isn’t just a helpless surveillance target.
When he gets back to Broadway, he decides to be a good citizen and wait for the light. Then he joins the other law-abiding people of Manhattan walking across to the Olson school, and there are the chaperones, and the teacher, and another teacher bringing up the rear, and the dozen or so kids eagerly waiting to get to City Hall, where they’ve been told they might actually meet the mayor.
Tom stops.
Looks up and down the line again.
And again.
Sweet Jesus.
Denise is gone.
Chapter47
LOTS OFthings come into focus. Like I seem to be missing a shoe. And the clattering sound of hail has stopped…and I know, uh,Amy gal, that wasn’t hail, but bits and pieces of metal from the destroyed van, landing on the runway around you.
My ears are ringing.
I sit up.
A man is on the ground next to me, looking right at me, wearing a helmet, a pulled-down balaclava, wide eyes, an open mouth and…
Nothing else.
There’s no trunk connected to the severed head.
