At 1 AM, Bonnie was charging hard up the Jersey Turnpike, closing in on exit 13, which would take her to the Bayonne Bridge. It was the same route Kyle Ridley had followed less than an hour earlier. A toll plaza camera had flagged the Hyundai on the bridge as Kyle headed north into Bayonne.
Since then, she’d been off the radar. Probably she’d gone to her apartment. Not a good move. It was the first place the bad guys were likely to look.
Which once again raised the question Bonnie had pondered as she’d traveled along the parkway and turnpike, lighting a new succession of Parliament Whites: Just who were the bad guys?
Shaban had denied sending the hitters. He’d sounded sincere, and breaking his word would be out of character. Anyway, she pegged him as the type who would do his own dirty work, not farm it out to a crew.
But if Shaban wasn’t behind it, who the hell was?
Throughout the drive, the girl’s voice had kept coming back to her. You fucked it all up …
Fucked all of what up, exactly? Kyle’s plans—or somebody else’s?
Fencing two kilos of H wasn’t the easiest thing to do, especially if word was out that the Dragushas were looking for a rogue drug mule. Anyone Kyle had approached might have been willing to turn her in to the syndicate in exchange for a cut of the action and a little goodwill. That was assuming she knew anybody in a position to move that much weight in the first place.
But suppose absconding with the heroin had been only a ruse to lure Shaban to the motel. Suppose Kyle had never intended to sell the stuff. Suppose she’d been working for someone else the whole time, someone who would know how to unload the heroin and who would reward her in cash.
Bonnie thought of the safe-deposit key the girl had been carrying. Kyle hadn’t earned fifty thousand bucks from her courier job. But she could have been paid that much by someone who wanted Shaban Dragusha out of the way.
“Yeah, but then they’d just hit Shabby themselves,” she said aloud as she fired up another cigarette. It was more of a question than a statement. She really wasn’t sure.
There could be valid reasons for somebody to hire Kyle Ridley as a cutout. That way, the hit could never be traced back to the person who’d ordered it.
And if the plan failed—well, then Kyle would be looking at some pretty serious consequences. Somebody would be gunning for her. No wonder she’d gotten all panicky and wild.
A sign for exit 13 slid into view. She was easing into the right-hand lane when her phone chimed with a new alert.
The Hyundai was on the move. It had been pinged on I-78, heading west out of Bayonne.
Okay, forget the exit. New plan. I-78 was only five miles away. No traffic at this time of night. Bonnie stomped the gas pedal. With any luck, she could catch up with the Hyundai once it pulled onto the turnpike.
Assuming, of course, that it did pull onto the turnpike. The other option was to shoot over to US 9 and swing into Newark International, the airport she’d used in her travels to Turkey. Not too many planes were taking off at this hour, but she might be hoping to hole up there until morning.
Two minutes later she received another alert. The Hyundai had just passed through a toll plaza, taking the Port Street exit.
Which made no sense at all. Port Street didn’t go to either the airport or the turnpike. It didn’t really go anywhere. It looped around and made a beeline for the water. Nothing was out that way except Port Newark. The docks.
Bonnie steered the Jeep onto I-78, speeding west. The Port Street exit came up immediately. She took it, letting the road carry her in a half circle that turned her eastward. She kept pushing the Jeep hard. She had to be moving faster than Kyle. The girl ought to be close.
Port Street was a four-lane divided highway bordered by giant shipping containers on the right and ramshackle fenced-in compounds on the left. The long, straight road was nearly empty of traffic, but far ahead, a pair of taillights shimmered.
Kyle’s Hyundai.
Bonnie narrowed the gap between them, but held back a couple hundred feet. At some point during the chase, she realized, she’d killed the Jeep’s one working headlight. She’d wanted to be invisible, because all of a sudden she had a not-so-great feeling about this.
For the first time, she was wondering if Kyle was the one driving the car.