Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,77

they’d invented for the occasion.

Sara shook her head, almost in tears now. “She missed her appointment with them, too.”

I heaved a sigh, trying to control the flare of anger. “She’s probably at the house, getting ready. I’ll go and bring her. How much time do we have?”

“Logan is due onstage in seventy-two minutes,” Sara answered immediately, not even needing to check her phone.

“Okay, let me—” But before I could finish the thought, Nora’s voice cut through my consciousness.

“And when was the date of cancellation?”

As I spun around, time slowed down into the jumbotron moment, the slow-motion point of impact just before everything went dark.

“Monday, okay. And you can confirm the entire nineteen-million-dollar balance was transferred out?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.” The voice on the line affirmed in a flat, bored accent. “The account is at a zero balance and has been closed.”

* * *

Logan. Fucking Logan.

Everything in me vibrated on the way to our building, an anger too large for one person’s skin. I didn’t see the throngs of people pushing their way into the stadium; I only felt their heat, absorbing their enthusiasm and transmuting it into a dark, blinding rage. The downtown noise receded to nothing. The corner where a man’s body had been flipped over a car, gone. The only thing that existed at that moment was my wife, my stealing, cheating, probably murdering wife. If she was at the apartment, balconies be damned. I was going to kill her or die trying.

Nora had watched me with dispassion after requesting the transfer details and ending the call. “The next account will likely be in the transferor’s name only”—she avoided any names in front of the employees in the room—“which would mean we can’t access the funds without a judgment in whatever jurisdiction it’s been opened in.”

I didn’t reply. Sara and the others still hovered in the background, listening, their fears compounding. They were waiting for me to speak, to illuminate the path forward, but the world had gone black in the space of a phone call.

“Mr. Abbott,” she paused. “Gregg. This is the point in the investigation where we could discuss the possibility of legal action. My team will continue to gather evidence and we’ll provide you some scenarios to raise capital based on our prior assessments this week.”

A rumbling swell filled the stadium below us. The doors had opened. Music began pumping out of the audio system as the screens blazed to life with the image we’d unveiled on opening night—the signature Strike glove with a shadow behind it. A space only big enough for one champion.

I must have said something, I had no idea what. An acknowledgment to Nora. An encouragement to the Strike staff. The world had distilled to the single task of finding and confronting my wife.

Outside our building, a dark sedan pulled up to the curb and Detective Li climbed out of the car with the officer from yesterday in tow.

“Can this wait?” I didn’t slow down.

“We’re actually here to talk to your wife.”

“It’s not a good time. The championship finals are about to begin.”

They flashed their badges at the doorman and followed me into the elevator, as though I hadn’t said a word.

“Ms. Russo made an appointment for this day and time. She contacted us yesterday, saying she had some additional information regarding Corbett MacDermott’s accident as well as Aaden Warsame’s suicide.” The detective let that settle for a moment. “Do you have any idea what she wants to tell us?”

I knew what I wanted to tell them—that Logan Russo was a ruthless, bloodless criminal—but I still didn’t know how far those crimes extended, or why she’d called the police here, now.

“I have no idea.”

I reached the penthouse with less than an hour to find Logan, get rid of the police, and get back to the tournament, but when I unlocked the door and waved them in ahead of me they stopped short, blocking me from crossing the threshold.

“What is it?” I craned my neck around them, braced for some horrible scene.

“Did something happen here?” Detective Li asked.

“I haven’t been home in almost a week. How would I know?” I shouldered past them and into the condo. The kitchen was a disaster, dishes and half-eaten takeout littered everywhere, but it was the mess beyond that which had gotten the officers’ attention. The terrace door, where Logan had thrown my scotch on Sunday night, was still shattered. She hadn’t even cleaned up the glass. It littered the terrace and dining room floor, glinting like