64

Brenda didn’t answer.

She might have abandoned the phone. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Jason cut off the call when her voicemail picked up for the third time. No point leaving another message.

He was numb. More numb than his old man had been when the paramedics told Jason what he already knew. He sat in the living room that used to be his father’s, on the same sofa Jason had dozed on when he was a teenager. His hand stroked the worn pattern of the cloth. The wooden coffee table at his knees bore the marks and wear of heels propped on it, of cold glasses beading moisture onto it. Across the room, the gray face of the old television reflected a square of light from the window. Jason had bought the set for his father for Christmas years ago, and the old man had never replaced it.

This would all go. Box it up, take it to some charity. He would have taken care of it, if he were going to be around.

He looked at his phone. Nagging, nagging. The feeling beneath all his numbness pestered and prodded him. Good-bye, she said to him. There was no one around to hear her. Why had she said that?

He shivered.

His smartphone contained an e-mail telling him that his fraud was complete. It was an automatically generated e-mail. He’d seen hundreds of them in his years at BTB. It informed him that a loan assigned to him had funded. He opened the message again. At some point when he was standing over his father’s dying body, a $30 million wire transfer had left BTB for the federal reserve. Now, an hour later, the fed had probably processed it. The money was on its way to Nevis.

Good-bye.

He stood. The front door was still unlocked from the paramedics’ exit. He went outside and found himself searching the street for signs that he’d been discovered. No one apprehended him on his way to the car.

His personal laptop was in a case in the trunk. He took it out and powered it up. Standing in the street, he waited for it to go through its starting sequence. He stared at the house where he grew up. The paramedics had taken his father’s body away, but the stained bed remained. Jason was unable to parse sorrow from the sense of dread overtaking everything else inside him.

He made his way onto the Internet. A cloud broke free from the sun, and glare obliterated the screen. He walked to the house. In the shade of the porch, he typed in the web address for his bank in Nevis. It came up and prompted for his user name and ID number. He typed them in. Pressed Enter.

In two seconds, red letters flashed across the screen. We’re sorry, but we are unable to recognize that combination of user name and password. Please try again.

He might have entered them wrong. It happened all the time. One missed key, one lowercase instead of an uppercase letter.

His mouth was dry. Deliberately, with his eyes fixed on the keyboard, he entered his user name, and tabbed to the password field. He typed it in. His finger trembled over the Enter key. He hit it.

Red letters again. Blanks below waited for the proper character entry.

She’d stood over his shoulder while he entered the codes. She’d been at his side when he created the accounts. His lover, his coconspirator. She’d watched him type the letters and numbers. She’d stroked him and kissed him and purred into his ear while he obediently gave her the keys to the bank.

It would be 5:30 pm in Nevis. He’d never reach a banker there now. She could have changed his ID information on the Nevis account as soon as the wire left BTB. After watching him initiate wires in and out of that account, she could have given the bank wire instructions to direct the $30 million out of Nevis to anywhere in the world.

He’d never seen her passports. He had no idea what identity she was using.

He threw his laptop across the room.

From the back of the house, Max wailed.

His phone rang. Brenda Tierney, mobile.

He clicked on. “Where are you?”

“LAX. Meet me at the Encounter. I’m waiting for you.” In the background he heard voices, clatter.

“What did you do?”

“Time’s wasting, darlin’. I’m here. I’ll explain everything. I’m at the Encounter. I’ll wait for you in the bar.”

“What—?”

It went dead.

“Brenda? Brenda?”

He ran to his car, jammed the key into the ignition, and sped away from the curb.

She wouldn’t call him if she meant to steal it. It must have been a mistake at the bank. Or maybe he’d entered the password wrong after all. With everything that had happened, he could have just been confused. He might have entered the password for one of the other accounts instead of the Nevis account.

He eased off the accelerator. Slow down. The last thing you want is to attract attention. She called you. You’ve been wrong before. There’s no reason for her to call if she doesn’t want you. She wants you. Nothing’s changed. Maybe she changed the password for security. With $30 million going in, it’s not a bad idea to put in a fresh password. Why would she call if she didn’t want you?

He turned onto Manchester. LAX was only a few minutes away. He’d park at the airport, meet her in the restaurant. He could still make the flight out of San Diego. He had seven hours to get down there before takeoff. Then on to Switzerland. Meet her there, and freedom.

Oh, come on. You’re a fool. You know this is all wrong. You know she’s had you pegged from the minute she laid eyes on you. She played you from the first day, with her eyes and her lips. With every motion of that body she was playing you. Every stitch of clothes she put on to play you.

Horns blared. A truck headed for his door. Smoke billowed from its tires. He wrenched the steering wheel and punched the gas. He waited for the collision.

The truck missed him by inches.

He’d blown through a red light.

Get yourself killed. That’s the idea. Why leave one more Dunn on the planet? The other two are already gone.

He made his left on Aviation. A jet cruised overhead. Another mile, and he waited for his turn to make a right onto Century. Traffic was absurd. All these people flying around for a turkey dinner. It would take forever for the four cars ahead of him to get onto Century and for him to find his own break.

You were ripe for it. She picked you like an apple off a tree. Unhappy at home, a cheating wife . . .

Brenda had forged Casey Flynn’s signature. She’d copied everything else on the copier, but that signature was original. She hadn’t practiced Casey’s signature once. He was sure of it. She forged it in an instant.

It was an act. All of it was an act. The signature practice, the poor renditions she’d done early on. Randy’s signature was perfect. CFO underneath it matched his lettering. She hadn’t needed any practice.

Serena never wrote that letter.

He laid into the horn. “Get moving!”

In five minutes he was on Century, cutting between cars, and in another ten he was running past the curved arches of the Theme Building. The elevator doors opened into the restaurant, and he walked into the futuristic cartoon of the place. Blue lights in the ceiling floated like gigantic amoebas overhead.

He marched into the bar. The place was packed. His eyes swept for Brenda. Two blondes, but neither one had the face of the girl he wanted.

“Hi, Jason.”

He turned. It wasn’t Brenda. Black hair, spiked short on top. A tattoo of a snake with wings on the side of her neck. Gold looped earrings marched up the edge of one ear.

“Do I know you?” He scanned the crowd for Brenda.

“No. But you used to.”

He looked in her eyes. Green.

His knees weakened.

“Danah.”