‘I’m really sorry about earlier, Frank,’ Katherine McKenzie said, as they took the elevator down to the parking garage. ‘I don’t know why I told you that.’
He looked at her. ‘You don’t have to apologize.’
‘I’ve never really told anyone about my brother.’
She met his gaze, and this time she was much harder to read: she was the woman he’d heard about, her expression blank as a wall.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m glad you felt I was worthy.’
She just nodded.
As the elevator doors opened onto the bottom floor of the garage, she pointed towards her car – a dark blue Mercedes – and said, ‘I’ve got some files in the trunk. I really think it might help.’
‘Okay,’ he replied.
But something didn’t feel right now.
He’d been so caught up with what was going on in the coffee shop, so fixated on the idea that McKenzie seemed to like him, in the excitement he felt, that he was certain now he’d overlooked something big.
His cellphone buzzed in his pants.
He grabbed it out of his pocket. It was Amy Houser asking him where he was. He glanced at the cardboard drinks tray he had in his spare hand, his and Amy’s coffees in it, then at McKenzie, who was looking at him, then tried to clear his head.
He replied to Houser, telling her he’d be five minutes.
As they approached the Mercedes, McKenzie used her remote to pop the trunk. It sprang up, revealing an empty space with two big boxes.
‘There they are,’ McKenzie said.
Travis’s cellphone buzzed again.
Houser for a second time.
I think Hain might be a cop.
Travis felt himself stumble.
‘Is everything okay, Frank?’
He glanced at the text again, then stopped eight feet short of the Mercedes, his cellphone still in one hand, the drinks in the other, looking between McKenzie and the two cardboard boxes – and he knew in that second that he was right.
Something was wrong.
But, by then, it was already too late.
‘Don’t move,’ a voice said behind him. He felt a gun press to the back of his skull. He’d never seen or heard an approach.
But he recognized the voice.
The man who’d called with the tip about Johnny.
The guy who’d dialled Houser’s phone.
Travis looked at McKenzie again and, for a second, he thought he saw something glint in her eyes. Regret, maybe, or remorse. And then he realized why she’d told him about her brother, why she’d tried to exorcize that ghost.
Because it would never matter.
Travis would never be able to tell anyone.
‘Now get in the fucking trunk,’ Hain said.