Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (children's books read aloud TXT) 📕

I used a card somebody could track me. I couldn’t put my family or friends in danger. But after a while—” She wiped her eyes. “It was too hard, so I called Fatimah. But even after I was in the room over her garage, I went back to homeless shelters now and then to toughen myself up, in case I brought heat on Fatimah’s family and had to leave.”

I took out my notebook and pen and slid them across the table to her. “Give me the names—not the titles or boards—but the names of everyone with access to that account.” As she wrote, I gave her the two-minute summary of FBF’s business model and expansion to other cities. She slid my notebook back across the table just as I began telling her about Dante Cuthbert. The list had seven names. I recognized only two: Custodian Tito Glenroy and attorney Harlow Graves, the church treasurer. I was forming my first question about Tito when I looked up and saw astonishment spreading across Keisha’s face.

“Dante?” she said. “The guy pointing the gun at me called the man in charge Dante.” She hesitated, narrowing her eyes, perhaps processing what I had said or resisting an immediate conclusion. “Cuthbert is Mrs. Markham’s maiden name.”

38

I should have seen it,” I said again, checking my rearview mirror once more as I pulled onto the Kensington Expressway toward downtown and police headquarters. “I should have put it all together long before now. Damn it, I’m slipping in my old age.”

Back in the coffee shop, Keisha had been stunned by the possibility that the man who had tried to kill her was related to the minister’s wife she admired. She had said nothing as I flipped back through my notebook for all I had on Dante Cuthbert. When I found the name Melony listed as the fourth-born child of Rod and Lizzy Cuthbert, I realized I had invested so much thought in my theory Dante and Quentin were the same person that I never considered his siblings or where Loni Markham had come from. Now, with Keisha in the back seat, we were in my car and headed toward Chalmers and Piñero.

“It wasn’t obvious,” Phoenix said. “You were looking at two different names in two separate places. Melony Cuthbert in Detroit, Loni Markham here.”

“It’s not just that,” I said. “It’s Harlow Graves too. I skimmed some church bulletins early on but I didn’t remember H. Graves, treasurer, so I never connected him to the lawyer who got Felicity Sillers out.”

“I don’t know every lawyer in town and we all belong to the same Bar Association,” Phoenix said. “Why should you?”

“I don’t blame you, Mr. Rimes,” Keisha said. “You came looking for me and took care of my parents. You even kept that Sillers bitch from killing my mother. I’d rather you did that than sit still and think of everything.”

Can’t afford to sit still, I thought but did not say. Sitting still gets you caught.

“Listen to her, Gideon,” Phoenix said. “Stop beating yourself up.” She half-turned toward the back. “Keisha, I know you’re disappointed, but maybe Mrs. Markham has nothing to do with her brother’s business. He could be going after her foundation because he saw a weakness, a chance to score big. But the fact they’re related might get somebody interested enough to look into your case deeply enough to get justice for Odell.”

“I didn’t deny Odell and I shot up together. What happens when I change my story?”

“You gave your statement under duress. You can recant it.”

I had noticed the vintage blue Cadillac DeVille behind me on Grider a block or two before I turned onto the expressway ramp. I had noticed the broad grille in my rear-view mirror because the Cadillac emblem above it sat inside a widened V, which meant the car was decades old, though it appeared to be in excellent condition. When it turned onto the entrance ramp behind me, it ceased being a curiosity, probably driven by an elderly man who just couldn’t part with it, and became a concern.

It was late Saturday morning and sunny. Last night’s snow had been cleared from the expressway. Light traffic was heading deeper into the city. At first, the Caddy kept pace with me, six or so car lengths back. Now, as we passed under the Delavan Avenue overpass and emerged in the center lane on a straight shot to downtown, it began to speed up. Five car lengths. Four. Three.

The expressway began its descent below street level, to stretch nearly two miles long that had high walls at first and then sloping greenery. Over the years planners had proposed covering the walled section to make a tunnel below a restored Humboldt Parkway. A few years earlier, an elaborate action sequence for a Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had been filmed in this section. But the Caddy closing the distance between us to less than two car lengths was likely not being driven by a trained stunt man. A tap the wrong way risked forcing either car into a concrete wall or abutment. Still, the Caddy swung into the left lane and began to pull alongside us.

Just before it entered my side mirror’s blind spot, the passenger window slid down.

And time began to slow.

“Get down!” I shouted, lowering my head as much as I could without taking my eyes off the road. The instant I heard the shot, both rear passenger windows exploded. What the hell was he shooting? A second shot punched through my door, and I felt it tear through the width of my seatback. Phoenix and Keisha both let out full-throated screams, which I prayed meant neither had been hit. If this had been a movie, I might have reached for my gun and fired back with my left hand—after I lowered the window, of course. But it wasn’t a movie, and as someone who remembered how hard it had been to get a cell phone out of a pocket before