The Spider Thief (22 page)

“No, I’m telling you. It’s right there.” Ash pointed at the Torino. “You can have it. Just leave Mauricio alone.”

Andres’s face was impossible to see in the glare, but his voice carried the unmistakable glow of victory. “Who is to say I cannot have both?” He backed out into the sunlight, taking Mauricio and his gunmen with him. “You will go get
La Araña
and bring her to me.”

The door slammed, a clap of thunder in the warehouse.

Ash staggered as if he’d been punched. He sagged against the pool table, barely able to hold himself up.

DMT hustled over to Prez. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “You okay, Boss?”

Prez nodded. “Check the rest of the place. Find out, did anyone else get hit. They came in shootin’.”

“You want me to call the cops?”

“Not less I tell you.”

Ash heaved himself up off the pool table and sprinted across the room. He hit the open button on the garage door and tugged the fabric cover off of the Torino.

Oh, hell no
, Prez thought. He limped across the room. “Ash. The hell you think you doin’?”

“Going after them.” Ash tossed the armload of gray fabric aside and climbed into the Torino. The engine coughed and rumbled to life.

As the garage door rattled up, Prez planted himself in the doorway, blocking the exit. “The hell you goin’ anywhere. You can’t take this thing on the street.”

Ash leaned out the window. “Andres has got my brother.” For once, his eyes showed nothing but the painful truth. “If I don’t go get him, right now, then what the hell am I?”

“Police catch you drivin’ this car, you goin’ away for a long time.”

“Then I’ll take the fall. But I’ll get Andres first.” Ash’s eyes narrowed. “How many of your crew has he killed so far?”

Prez felt something stir inside him, a deep righteousness he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

“No matter what it takes, I’m getting my brother back.”

Prez nodded. “D!” he yelled, bringing the big guy running. “Get the car door!”

DMT opened the Torino’s passenger door for him. Prez limped around and climbed into the enormous back seat, then motioned DMT to get in front beside Ash. The Torino sagged as he sat.

Ash turned his head and stared at Prez, his eyes asking a silent question.

“You gonna sit there?” Prez said. “Or you gonna drive?”

DMT looked over and grinned. “Ash, you are one crazy mother—” The rest was lost as Ash hit the gas, squealing the tires. The stench of burning rubber filled the air. The acceleration shoved Prez back into the deep seat as the Torino rocketed outside.

Throttle

Drops of summer rain dappled the windshield. Ash could just make out the black Trans Am through the traffic ahead.

From the back seat, Prez kept up a steady stream of directions. “Get over in the right lane. Put the hammer down, man. We gonna lose them!”

“Hang on!” Ash said. He swerved around a silver pickup.

DMT clutched onto the armrest. “What we gonna do if we catch them?”

“I don’t know,” Ash said. “But I’ve got to get Mauricio out of this.”

Up ahead, the Trans Am shot through a red light, making an old wood-grained station wagon stop dead in the intersection and get rear-ended by the van behind it. Ash ran the light, streaking past the shouting station wagon driver, feeling his chest tighten up with fear as he flew across the oncoming traffic.

The Trans Am braked and took the next left onto a narrow side street. Ash followed, taking the corner too sharp. The Torino bumped up onto the sidewalk and smashed through a newspaper box. Stacks of Westword newspapers fluttered across the hood and sailed off behind them.

“This thing handles like a pig,” Ash muttered.

“Ain’t the car, man. It’s who’s behind the wheel.” Prez leaned closer. “D, you think you can shoot out one of them tires?”

DMT nodded. “Yeah, he ever gets me close enough.”

Ash weaved around a garbage truck. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“Driving like a fool,” Prez said. “What’s this spider he’s on about?”

Ash spotted the Trans Am up ahead and put his foot down. The engine picked up speed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Huh. So where is it?”

“You wouldn’t believe that, either.”

A white Denver police cruiser turned onto the street behind them, its blue and red lights flashing to life.

“We got company,” Prez said.

“I see them.” Watching the cop, Ash nearly lost track of the Trans Am as it shot into the next intersection and took a fast right onto an underpass.

Ash braked and turned hard, but too late. The Torino’s rear tires lost traction on the wet road and skidded, swinging the car around almost three-quarters of a circle.

The cop swerved into the intersection to avoid them, just as a delivery van barreled through the yellow light, hitting the cruiser broadside. The impact shattered the cruiser’s windows. Ash flinched as the car was instantly bent into a kidney shape.

“Damn!” Prez yelled. Then he cackled.

“Sorry,” Ash muttered under his breath. Instead of fighting the long skid, he fed gas into it and brought the Torino full-circle, facing the underpass. They’d gone too far and ended up on the wrong side of the center guardrail, but there was no way to go back. The tires found traction again and Ash floored it.

The downshift threatened to snap his neck. The Torino roared downhill into the underpass, against traffic, concrete walls rising around him. A white minivan raced toward him and he dodged around it, inches from the concrete wall. He caught a glimpse of the driver’s shocked face as she flashed past, her mouth frozen open.

To his right, the Trans Am dodged around slower-moving traffic as the road rose up toward the next light. The concrete columns supporting the highway above blocked Ash’s view for just a moment, but he could make out Andres at the wheel, his black hair flying in the wind.

A blue pickup came at him, flashing its headlights. Ash tried to dodge around it to the left, but the pickup driver had the idea to pull over, and they ended up coming head-on.

Ash dodged right and squeezed between the pickup and the concrete columns. The truck’s horn dopplered from high to low as it flew past. Ash caught a glimpse of the Trans Am again and picked up speed, pulling alongside it.

“Get the tires!” Ash yelled over the wind noise.

DMT leaned out the window with the shotgun. “I can’t. The curb’s in the way!”

Ash glanced over. The concrete divider that supported the columns blocked the shot.

A big rig blared its horn ahead. An eighteen-wheeler came at Ash, its wide-load flat bed hauling a chained-down bulldozer. The truck squeezed itself to the side, scraping off its passenger-side mirror on the concrete wall. The chrome grille loomed like a steel wall.

DMT pulled his head back inside the car. Ash jammed the Torino right, against the concrete divider, raising a curtain of sparks. The edge of the trailer flashed past his window, so close the wind blasted him in the face.

And then it was gone. They made it out of the underpass just as bright sunlight broke through the clouds, making the drops of rain on the windshield shine like gold. Prez let out a brief keening sound, which broke into brittle laughter.

The Trans Am cut left across the road like a black arrow. Ash hit the gas and followed, adrenaline pounding through him. He had to find a way to stop Andres before anyone else got hurt.

But what if the worst happened? What if they crashed into someone innocent? Could he live with himself after that? He pushed the thought out of his mind. He had to stay focused. Had to save Mauricio.

As the Torino upshifted and the engine noise throttled down for a moment, Ash caught a strain of music. Unconsciously, he leaned closer to the dashboard, listening.

It sounded like disco.

He caught DMT doing the same thing. The two of them traded glances, then looked down at the 8-track.

“The Temptations,” Prez said, matter-of-fact. “Turn it up, man.”

*

Graves turned off the radio. He felt his shoulders tense up until the ache shot up his neck and pulled at the back of his skull. It was nearly silent inside his car, now stopped in traffic, but unspoken words echoed inside his head. The words he should have said.

There were so many things he wanted to tell Cleo. So many different ways he could try to argue some sense into her. Trying to watch over her right now was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You could see what was happening, watch the train coming off the rails, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. Directly in front of him sat a red motorcycle, both of the rider’s booted feet flat on the ground. Cleo’s Jeep sat in front of the motorcycle, waiting for the traffic to clear up. Through Cleo’s rear window, Graves watched her work her hair into a ponytail, check it in the mirror, then pull it out again and redo it.

Her movements were sharp and frustrated. They matched his mood.

There was only one way to break through this particular logjam. He put on his earpiece and picked up his phone. But then he hesitated.

Would she listen to him, if he told her how worried he was? Probably not. It might just push her further away. He’d known her long enough to know that she resented being told to trust the system instead of her instincts. Her instincts could be flat wrong, but she’d never admit it.

Right now, she was headed straight into a fiasco. Her career, her reputation, her life—all of it hung in the balance. All of it depended on what move she made next. But she didn’t give a damn about anything except getting Andres and rescuing this dysfunctional high school sweetheart of hers.

Graves figured she’d thank him eventually, after all the smoke cleared. But to save her in the meantime, he had to make her face a few unpleasant facts. She might balk a little bit, but in the long run it was the right thing to do.

So that meant he’d have to convince her to see things his way. He took a deep breath and dialed her number. This wasn’t going to be easy.

As it rang, he watched her glance down at the seat beside her and then up at him in the rearview mirror. Their eyes met for a brief instant, and then she went back to looking dead ahead. The phone rang again, then a third time. She didn’t make any move to answer.

It went to voicemail.

He hung up, cutting off the recording of her voice, and dialed again. “Come on,” Graves whispered to himself. “Don’t do this. You’re better than this.”

With a toss of her head, Cleo finally grabbed the phone and put it to her ear. “What.”

“Cleo, look, I’m sorry about barging in back there.” He watched her for any reaction, but all he could see was the back of her head. “With everything that’s going on, I know you don’t appreciate me keeping tabs on you right now.”

“You can keep tabs all you want, Graves. Just stop telling me to go home, watch TV, and wait for Snyder to make nice again.”

“Is that what this is about? Because I’ll walk into Snyder’s office right now and get down on one knee. I will beg her to take you back. I’ll even bring her flowers.”

Cleo sniffed. “Yeah, right.” A moment later, she added, “You think that would do anything?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“She’s probably allergic.”

“Probably.” Graves smiled. “But I am on your side. I just want you to know that.”

“Yeah, I know that.” She sighed. “Just give me a little space.”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “So you want to share what you’ve got so far?”

“See, that’s it, Graves. Stop with the micromanaging.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Then stop making it so hard for me to get the answers I need.”

He took a deliberate pause. “Nobody’s questioning your abilities. I’m just taking the position that you’re too close to all of this to have any perspective. You can’t argue with that.”

She made an exasperated sound. “Apparently not with you.”

“Can you agree with me on this one thing?” he said. “Just maybe you’re not the most level-headed about Ash’s situation. Let’s face it, he looks guilty as hell. The evidence all points to him. He’s the trigger man, and the only one who doesn’t see that is you.”

“Ash would never murder anyone,” she said, matter of fact. “He’s a hustler, not a killer. You don’t know a damn thing about him, Graves.”

“Really. Because we have a dead body killed with a silenced nine-millimeter pistol. We have bullets from the same gun taken out of the tires of an FBI vehicle. And who was the last person seen firing that pistol? Your Ash. You saw him shoot those tires.”

“That doesn’t mean he killed anybody.”

“Why are you defending him like this?

“Why do you think, Graves?” she said. “Somebody has to.”

“You sure it’s not a little bit more personal than that?”

“Of course it’s personal. Are you saying I would cover up a crime for him?” Her voice rose. “Is that what you’re implying?”

“I’m not trying to question your integrity, Cleo.”

“Oh, that’s a relief. Because for a minute there, I thought you were actually trying to help me get to the truth.”

“Well, that is ironic, coming from you. You’d do anything to prove Ash is innocent.” The moment he said those words, he wished he could take them back. He winced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, no, you’re right,” she said, her voice ominously cool. “I will go to any lengths to get to the truth. And I believe Ash is innocent.”

“Why?” The question hung in the air between them so long that he worried she’d hung up on him.

Finally, she answered. “Because when he found a million-dollar gold statue in the trunk of his car, the first thing he said was, ‘We have to find my brother.’” Cleo paused, and Graves could hear the anguish in her voice. “He didn’t say, ‘Hey, I’m filthy stinking rich,’ or ‘Hey, let’s split the money and get out of town.’ He didn’t care about that. He cared about making sure Mauricio was safe.”

“And by ‘safe’ that includes turning him into a fugitive from federal authorities?”

“You don’t get him, Graves.”