Page 86 of Lies He Told Me

Those magical words at the end, meaning he doesn’t have time for paperwork — he’ll do it later. Just track the damn subject for me now, and I’ll justify it afterward.

He waits. Wherever Marcie is, if her cell phone’s on, he’ll be able to track her.

She won’t get far.

His phone buzzes again. He’s still waiting for the cell-tracking operator, but he looks at his phone. The new caller isn’t listed. Which means it’s Tommy Malone.

Also known as Silas Renfrow.

Blair answers the phone. “She’s in the wind,” he tells Silas. “But we’ll find her.”

NINETY-ONE

“SO WHERE THE HELL did she go?” Silas shouts into his earbud as he puts his car in gear. “We have to find her!”

“Yeah, Silas, I know,”says Blair through the earbuds.“The question is how.”

Silas pulls out of the U-Move parking lot down the street from the bank just before police barricades go up, cordoning off the entire block because of the bomb threat.

“Well, you’re the FBI! Can’t you — I don’t know — block the highway exits or something?”

“On what ground? Can’t exactly advertise what I’m doing, can I?”

“Can’t you track her?”

“I just tried. Her cell phone’s off.”

“So she definitely thought this through.” Silas punches the steering wheel. “Are we sure she took a car?”

“I’m not sure of anything,”Blair says.“But it’s the only thing that makes sense. With all that money and those luggage carriers, how far could she expect to get on foot?”

“Do we — I mean, do we even know she took the money?”

“The safe-deposit boxes are empty, and the duffel bags are gone. So you tell me.”

Right. Right. “So what the fuck do we do now?”

Blair doesn’t immediately answer. Silas grips the wheel with white knuckles, ready to pull it off its mooring.

“Best guess, she’s taking her kids and making a run for it with the money,”says Blair.“I’m heading to the hospital. That’s where the kids are. She won’t go anywhere without those kids.”

Silas races his car around the streets north of Spring-field Avenue, looking for anything out of the ordinary, any car speeding, someone running on foot. “What about me? What do I do?”

“Take a look around there locally. I doubt she’s still in Champaign, but take a look around the surrounding neighborhood. Who knows?”

“Roger that.”

“Don’t do anything stupid if you find her, Silas,”Blair says.“Remember, the money’s the important part. Marcie I can deal with later.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“I’m telling you, I have her spooked.”

“Is that right, Frankie? Does she seem spooked right now?”

“I don’t know what’s going on with her, okay? She surprised me. But I know this much — her husband might not survive, and she can’t go to prison and leave her kids high and dry. She’ll gladly trade the money to avoid that. I have all the leverage. If you go and kill her, you create a lot of headaches for me. We can still salvage this.”

Silas doesn’t respond.

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