The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) (25 page)

A narrow smile formed on her face, and Tobias rested his head against the window again. “So where does she live?” he asked.

“We’re not meeting her at her house.”

“Oh? Where then?”

“You’ll see.”

Tobias rolled the window all the way up to keep out the chill. The roads were busy, as they always were, but his mind was not on traffic but on whether he would ever be free to live his life again. For as long as he could remember, he’d tried to remain invisible to the government and the authorities, mainly so his grandfather wouldn’t find him and potential employers would never link him to the family name.

He had been going by the name of Tobias only since moving to New York from Denver just over a year earlier, but his grandfather had found him. He had considered running again before meeting Penélope, but now he no longer had the freedom of anonymity even if he did create a new identity, because his face would be recognized anywhere in America without a heavy disguise.

“We’re here,” Annabel said ten minutes later. She parked the car on an isolated street, deep within Prospect Park.

Tobias looked around at the park beyond them and the paths filled with parents and children. He opened the door and stretched his arms. The sky was blue, and he figured the temperature was in the high sixties. Annabel went to the trunk and armed herself with a Glock. The Smith & Wesson went into her ankle holster like last time. She passed another Glock to Tobias.

“Do we really need all this if we’re just going to see your mom?” he asked.

“You said it yourself. We don’t know what’s waiting for us. Take it.”

Tobias put the gun in his pocket. Annabel closed the trunk and walked toward one of the four paths in front of them. They walked for almost five minutes before Annabel crouched behind two thick trees. She focused on a park bench about thirty steps ahead as she drank from a bottle of water. Tobias sat with his back against one of the trees.

After nearly twenty minutes of watching people walking around the park, Tobias looked at his watch—1 p.m.—and sighed. “Are they even coming?”

Annabel waved him to silence and continued watching from the bench in all directions. “The meeting was always at 1,” she said.

“Then why did we get here so early?”

She fixed a questioning stare at Tobias. “I do worry about you sometimes. You didn’t think I’d just show up without casing the place first, did you?”

“And?”

“They’re here.”

Tobias almost leapt from his shoes. “Where, who?”

Annabel smiled. “Relax. It’s only the FBI.” She nodded toward a bench about 200 yards away where two men in black shirts read newspapers.

“Them? How do you know?”

“It’s a great vantage point for seeing the whole park. They don’t know where I’m meeting my mom. Look at the way they’re looking in all directions. They have no idea where the meet is. The bald guy is also doing a bad job of pretending to be reading that magazine. And there’s more.”

Tobias’ eyes widened.

“You see those bushes over there?” She nodded toward some trees with thick leaves standing amid three small bushes. “That man and woman have been lying on the ground reading their books for the last fifteen minutes, except they’re not even reading. They’re communicating with the men on the bench.”

He glanced in the direction she referred to—probably 200 yards away—and saw a number of people walking past the bushes. Some people sat on the ground on picnic blankets. Tobias studied each of them but lingered on an attractive woman with dark hair. While she read, she continuously glanced at her phone—once pushing a number of buttons— as did the rugged-looking man next to her, stubble across much of his face.

“I don’t know,” Tobias said. “And how do you know they’re here for us? For all we know, they could—”

Annabel waved him to silence again and nodded ahead. Two women about fifty yards away approached the bench they were watching. They seemed to be in their late fifties or early sixties. One was tall and very thin with brown hair. She seemed to assist the other one with walking. The second woman was shorter, with thinning gray hair and a walking stick.

“Which one’s your mom?” Tobias asked.

Annabel watched every step the women took, seemingly oblivious to Tobias’ question.

“Annabel!” he said.

She gave him a questioning look.

“Which one’s your mom?”

She rolled her eyes and looked at the approaching women again. “The shorter one. My aunt’s with her.”

When they reached the bench, the taller woman helped the shorter one sit down. She then pulled out her phone and appeared to type something into it. Tobias looked at the two men on the other bench, and they were clearly watching the women. The man and woman who were farther away had risen to their feet and were also watching the women.

Annabel’s cell vibrated, and she pulled the phone out of her pocket and read the screen.

“Is that them?” Tobias asked.

Annabel nodded.

The taller woman sat beside the frail one and looked around.

“What did she say?” Tobias asked. Annabel waved him to silence. “You’re not thinking of going out there, are you?” She shut him up with her hand again and peered into the distance.

He edged closer to her and tried to see what she was looking at. “What is it?”

She leaned her back against one of the trees and squeezed Tobias’ wrist. “Listen, we have one shot at this and we’ve gotta get this right or we’ll get caught.”

He nodded quickly.

“The minute I step out there, they’ll try to take me down. They won’t care that my mom and aunt could get hurt.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stay here—”

“No,” he half-shouted. “I won’t—”

She placed her hand over his mouth, removed it and kissed him softly. “I won’t do anything foolish, I promise. I need you close to the car, that’s all.” She put the Audi’s key in his hand and closed his fingers over it. “I also need you to cause a distraction when the madness starts so I can get away.”

He frowned. “What madness?”

She looked at her watch and pulled her phone out. As she pressed the buttons, she glanced at Tobias. “Just be ready. They don’t know where we’re parked, so we have an advantage.”

Tobias started to speak, but she stopped him with her raised finger. “Hello, Mother,” Annabel said into the phone. She waited a moment. “Mother, it’s me.”

She spoke on for almost five minutes, each word aimed at convincing her mother that she was in fact her daughter. Tobias glanced at the two closest agents, who were now on their feet, their radios or phones—he couldn’t be sure—now almost constantly to their ears.

Just then a loud horn almost tore his eardrums. It went on for several minutes before a parade emerged from the eastern section of the park. Fire breathers and belly dancers soon filled almost every corner of the park, their dance routines synchronized and quite brilliant. At that moment, he realized exactly what Annabel had in mind.

As the sea of performers flooded their section of the park, Annabel ran toward the bench and embraced her mother. Tobias looked intently toward the agents but couldn’t make anyone out amid the hundreds or even a thousand people crowding the park.

Glancing back at Annabel, he saw her embrace both her mother and her aunt, wiping her eyes constantly. He remembered that she’d said he had to remain close to the car. He walked back toward it, keeping his eye on the three women and watching for possible threats in all directions.

He noticed Annabel holding to the tips of her mother’s fingers and hoped it meant she was about to leave. Although he couldn’t see any agents, he knew they must have been approaching, especially with their visibility hampered by the parade.

Just then he noticed a man about twenty-five feet in the air, lodged between two branches of a tree with a sniper rifle aimed in Annabel’s direction. His joints seemed to freeze. He pulled out his Glock and ran toward the women, screaming, “Annabel, Annabel!”

She pushed her mother and her aunt to the ground and drew her Glock. She looked around but seemed unable to find the target.

“In the trees,” Tobias shouted. “Up in the trees!”

She looked up and spun around twice but still seemed to see nothing. Tobias fired twice at the sniper but missed. The man seemed to be shaken, though, becoming entangled in the branches. At that moment, someone shouted, “Freeze!” The two men who had been sitting on the bench emerged from the panicking crowd. Annabel raised her gun into the air and fired twice, and the commotion became even more frantic, parents covering children with their bodies.

She ran toward Tobias. “The car,” she shouted.

He gave her a questioning look.

“The car. Get the car.”

He turned and sprinted down the path. After a bullet exploded on the ground mere inches from him, he looked back to see that the sniper had retaken his original position and was firing at will on both him and Annabel.

He heard the sound of the Glock releasing rounds and saw Annabel relentlessly returning fire. He sped up at the sight of the agents giving chase.

The car’s alarm deactivated after a single press of the key’s top button. Amid the sound of bullets exploding around him, he swung the driver’s door open and looked back to see Annabel about thirty steps away, her pursuers not far behind.

He started the engine and performed a 180-degree turn. He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, waiting for Annabel to get into the car at any second. After taking a deep breath, he got out and saw that she was only a few yards away but that the agents had drawn much closer.

He pulled out his gun and shot at the ground a few feet from the agents. He fired more shots, each time getting closer to her pursuers. They eventually halted and took cover behind some narrow trees. Panting, Annabel jumped into the driver’s seat and shouted for him to get in. He took another shot and joined her. The car screeched off down the road.

As they approached an intersection, she made a sharp left and floored it, but just then three black unmarked cars appeared in the distance, their sirens bellowing. Annabel shifted up a gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor again, thrusting the car forward.

***

Tom ran as fast as he could. More and more FBI vehicles were appearing, and a thin man ran out of one.

“Agent Grimes,” Tom said. “Where are they?”

The agent stepped toward Tom. “They were last seen heading toward Brooklyn Heights. We have cars in pursuit.”

Tom ran toward Grimes’ Ford sedan. “We ride with you.” He jumped into the passenger side, and Emma took the back seat. Grimes turned the car around and drove to the end of the road, taking a left at the intersection.

Tom placed his hand on the dashboard. “They knew we were there.”

“She didn’t care about getting caught,” Emma said. “She just wanted to see her mother.”

“But she knew the parade was coming. She must have been communicating with Jane the whole time.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Grimes said. “Arrest two sixty-some-year-old women for aiding and abetting?”

They drove on for a few more miles before a voice came through on the radio for Grimes.

“Go ahead, Richards,” Grimes said.

“We’ve found the car, sir, but they’re not in it.”

Tom grabbed the radio. “What do you mean they’re not in it?”

“Just as I said. They’re not in it.”

“Where are you, Agent?”

“On the corner of Montague and Henry Street.”

Tom covered the radio with his hand and looked at Emma. “Get the NYPD on it. They can’t have gone far.” He uncovered the radio. “I want you to contain that area. We’ve got to find them soon or they’ll disappear again. Work with the NYPD till we get there, but don’t take any crap from them.”

“Yes, sir,” the man at the other end said excitedly.

Tom hit the radio against the dashboard before handing it back to Grimes.

“What’re you thinking?” Emma asked.

“They’re up to something,” Tom said. “They were on their way somewhere. The park was just a stop.”

“What’re you saying?” Grimes said. “That we’ve already lost them?”

“It doesn’t matter where they are. If they’re anywhere near there, we have to find them before we go home tonight.”

***

As sirens filled the air, marked and unmarked police cars covered every possible exit. Annabel continued making phone calls, all from a distance too far away for Tobias to hear. The slim brunette woman whose apartment they were hiding in hadn’t seemed to require an explanation when they burst in with two heavy bags and a large rucksack. She merely opened the door and continued smoking while they dropped their baggage in the front room.

The apartment was large, with high ceilings and lights in every nook and cranny. Tobias had counted three toilets and two ensuite bathrooms in addition to the main one. The kitchen was probably the size of the living room back in Staten Island. He found it hard to believe that a woman so young lived in such a big apartment by herself.

He looked through the smallest gap in the curtain of the room he sat in, desperate not to be seen by what he believed must have been hundreds of police officers, all with guns. He clenched his fists, listening to Annabel pace in the living room but still unable to make out a word she said.

Though he had questioned her reluctance to introduce him to any of the people helping them, he decided that she probably knew a lot of people with questionable morality because of her previous ties with organized crime. It struck him that she knew someone who could assist them in any kind of situation they might be in.

He looked toward the bed and sat down. The fake ID Annabel had prepared seemed good enough to get him out of the country, and with his head shaved, he would be almost unrecognizable. The problem was the bank itself. Surely, if he was going to collect the inheritance left by the presumably corrupt Albert Eichelberger, the employees would know he was actually Tobias Mead, a man wanted for a homicide in the United States, along with any other crime the FBI felt like throwing in.
But if I run, I’ll never find out who killed Penélope. Her killer’s still out there.