There was still traffic in the Holland Tunnel, but most of it was heading in the other direction, and it was light enough that Andy could swing into the oncoming lane now and then to get around cars that blocked her path. She was aware that she was riding the high wire over certain death. Not just for her, but for the innocent men and women and children in the cars around her, marveling at her as she passed at speeds they’d probably never seen before, certainly not in tight, tourist-riddled New York. She was driving like a maniac and the lights were all shimmery from the blow to the back of her head, and her thoughts were incomplete, unable to run to natural conclusions, because Tony Newler was dead. She’d killed him. She’d blown away the black cloud that had been threatening the edge of her horizon for fifteen years, always out there somewhere, waiting for his moment to finally come on and consume her. Andy had to hope Newler had been as intensely secretive about her involvement in the case as she had been led to believe. That his and Ryang’s annoyance at her “shadow games” at Newler’s house didn’t mean he’d mentioned who she actually was to the grab team he’d set up at the abandoned property on the river. If he had, there would be questions. The ballistics on the porch at Jake’s mother’s house wouldn’t line up, wouldn’t sell the experts on the idea that Jake and Newler had shot each other. Gabe, and the street witnesses, would mention a woman.
She’d be hunted.
Andy knew she’d have to get on a plane before the night was through. Go somewhere. Bury herself. She’d done it before, plenty of times, left a mess behind her and questions on the wind. The game just went that way sometimes.
That was if she survived the night.
Her priority now was Ben. Making sure he didn’t do something that would make it impossible for her to deliver to him what she’d promised: an answer to what had happened to his family. And a future. He’d have to pay for what he’d done too, sure. The robberies. But in Andy’s mind and in her heart, there was still a chance the man she thought she knew hadn’t murdered Officer Ivan Willstone, and hadn’t been a part of what happened to Titus Cliffen. Andy had to believe that, because she’d felt something as he slept beside her, as he laughed and danced with her, as he gripped her and moved inside her and groaned in her ear.
She’d felt the goodness in him.
She was racing to save that goodness now.
When she’d checked the phone before she left Jake’s house, Andy had seen that the little blue bubbles that indicated Matt’s, Engo’s, and Ben’s cars were all assembled at the fire station. As she checked again, entering the tunnel, she saw Engo’s car had moved toward Midtown.
Andy knew what that meant.
She held the wheel with one hand and dialed with her other. Ben didn’t pick up. There was no voicemail, just a soulless clicking of the call failing.
“I found Gabe!” she roared impotently at the phone. “Please, Ben. Please, please, please. Don’t throw it all away.”
She screeched into the oncoming lane to get around a semitrailer, darting back in front of the massive vehicle just in time to survive being taken out by a van traveling in the opposite direction. Both horns blared. Andy saw the turnoff to Midtown ahead. She dialed the phone again. Three numbers. It rang twice before it was picked up.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“I’m gonna give you an address,” Andy said. “Send everyone.”