The Striker by Clive Cussler (ebook reader web TXT) 📕

“Train?”

Isaac Bell explained, “You’ve got a date with the electric chair. Sing Sing’s on the way to Chicago. We’ll drop you there for safekeeping until your trial.”

•   •   •

MARION BELL knew from experience that after her husband solved a case, he would tell her everything that had happened when he was ready to. But this time was special. When he glided across Wall Street and slipped soundlessly into the auto, she sensed that he wanted to tell her now but couldn’t form the words, and might never.

She started the Marmon, pulled away from the curb into the empty street, steered around the corner, and headed up Broadway. Isaac Bell sat quietly, watching the boisterous late-night city streets. When they got to Forty-second Street, Marion turned left toward the Hudson River.

“Where are we going?” asked Bell. Archie’s town house, where they stayed in New York, was up in the East Sixties.

“Home.”

Bell considered her answer for a couple of blocks. Home was three thousand miles away in San Francisco, where they first met six years ago at the time of the Earthquake. It was a two- or three-month trip in an auto, depending on the weather and the state of the roads, and a Marmon Speedster probably wasn’t up to it. Of course Marion knew that, which meant she had a plan. They had married two years ago on the Mauretania, and he knew her well enough by now to know she had a plan.

“Joe Van Dorn won’t let me off for that long.”

“I’ll bet we could make the Mississippi in ten days.”

“Depending on the roads.”

“And ten nights.”

“We’ll run out of roads beyond the Mississippi.”

“Then we’ll put the car on a special at St. Louis. Home on the train in four days.”

Bell leaned over to read the gauges. “You filled the gasoline tank.”

“There’s a picnic basket in the trunk.”

Marion drove onto the ferry, and they went up to the passenger deck and stood at the railing, watching the lights of Manhattan. In the middle of the river she asked, “What did Congdon say?”

“He confessed.”

“What did you say?”

“I said good-bye to my old friend Mary Higgins.”

•   •   •

For a complete list of this author’s books click here or visit www.penguin.com/cusslerchecklist