Chapter 8 - THE SHADOW OF CAIRO
The two men closed the distance between us with the practiced, synchronized efficiency of wolves.
I didn't look at their faces; I looked at their feet. The mud along the riverbank was slick, clay-heavy, and uneven. They were wearing tactical rubber-soled boots—good for pavement, terrible for wet Missouri gumbo.
"The key isn't in Cairo, Julian," I said, keeping my voice level, buying three seconds.
Julian paused, his silver cane hovering half an inch above the mud. "Don't bother lying, boy. We turned Rose’s apartment in Belleville inside out the week she died. The Cairo bank was the only regional branch she visited within forty-eight hours of taking you."
"She didn't use the box in Cairo to hide the stock," I said, taking half a step backward toward the open door of the hunter's shack. "She used it to hide the coroner’s report on Victor."
Julian’s eyes narrowed. The smooth, aristocratic mask slipped for a fraction of a second, revealing something feral and cornered beneath the silver hair.
"Victor died of cardiomyopathy," Julian said, but the cadence had changed. It was faster now. Defensive.
"He died of digitalis toxicity," Marianne cut in, her voice ringing like a bronze bell. "Rose typed the prescription refills for his private physician! She saw the order signatures you forged while Victor was in the cardiac unit!"
"Enough," Julian snapped. He didn't wave his fingers this time; he made a sharp, cutting gesture with his cane. "Take them. Both of them. Into the vans."
The first guard lunged.
He reached for my shoulder with a heavy, gloved hand. I didn't pull away; I stepped directly into his chest, ducking under his arm just as Rose had taught me when the drunks got ugly outside the laundromats in Gary. I drove the heel of my muddy boot straight down onto the bridge of his foot, using his own forward momentum to break his balance. As he stumbled forward into the mud, I drove my elbow backward into his kidney. He let out a wet, strangled grunt and went down into the clay.
The second guard drew a Glock from his shoulder holster, clearing the leather with terrifying speed.
Crack.
The sound didn't come from his gun.
It came from the tree line sixty yards to the west.
A high-velocity rifle round punched through the rear windshield of Julian’s silver town car, sending a spray of tempered glass across the mink collar of his coat.
Julian flinched, ducking instinctively toward the open door of his car as the second guard spun around, bringing his pistol up toward the dark woods.
"Drop it!" a voice roared through a bullhorn from the tree line. "State Highway Patrol! Hands where we can see them! Driver, cut the engine!"
Blue and red strobe lights exploded through the fog along the levee road—not one cruiser, but five, their heavy V8 engines roaring in low gear as they crested the gravel crown and descended into the clearing like an armored cavalry.
Julian’s driver slammed the door shut, trying to throw the town car into reverse, but the lead patrol cruiser didn't slow down. The police interceptor hit the town car’s front quarter-panel with a violent crunch of tearing steel and exploding plastic, wedging the silver sedan firmly into the mud bank.
Marianne didn't duck. She stood in the center of the flashing lights, her hair wild, her ruined coat open, laughing a sound that was half-sob, half-war-cry.
"You didn't check my phone, Julian!" she screamed over the sirens. "When you broke into the cemetery office, the call to the state attorney general’s special investigations unit was already connected! They've had a wire on your Chicago security desk for six months!"
Julian backed away from his wrecked car, his cane slipping in the mud, his immaculate gray trousers splattered with filth. For the first time in eighty years of absolute privilege, the old man looked at the world around him and realized he was not the author of the scene.
A dozen state troopers poured from the cruisers, shotguns leveled, their voices cutting through the rain with mechanical authority:
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"On the ground! All of you! Step away from the vehicles! Hands behind your heads!"
Julian Bennett stood frozen, the silver dog’s-head pommel of his cane trembling in his grip, as the cold Missouri mud slowly seeped over the tops of his handmade English boots.
