Run Away - Harlan Coben Page 0,105
for anyone he or his daughter knew in the Buffalo area. Nothing came to him. Of course, she could have gotten off earlier, really any place in upstate New York, but he still couldn’t come up with anybody.
“Luther?”
“Yeah, Rocco.”
“Come up, okay?”
Rocco disconnected the phone. Then he smiled at Cornelius. “It was you, wasn’t it, Cornelius?”
Cornelius said nothing.
“You the one who shot Luther.”
Cornelius just stared him down. Rocco laughed and held up his hands.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t worry, I ain’t going to tell him. But here’s the thing you’re about to find out. He had his reasons.”
“What reasons?” Simon asked.
Rocco moved toward the door. “Self-defense.”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t going to—”
“Not you, man.”
Simon just looked at him.
“Think about it. Luther didn’t shoot you. He shot your wife.”
Rocco smiled and reached for the doorknob.
Several things happened at once.
From the corridor, Luther screamed, “Rocco, look out!”
Rocco, working on instinct, flung open the door.
And then the bullets started to fly.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Five minutes earlier, Ash pushed open the door loaded with graffiti.
He entered the poorly lit foyer first. Dee Dee followed. They didn’t have their weapons out. Not yet. But their hands were poised near them just in case.
“Why would Simon Greene be here?” Ash whispered.
“Visiting his daughter, I imagine.”
“So why not say that in his text to Elena Ramirez? Why talk about this Cornelius guy?”
Dee put her foot on the rickety step. “I don’t know.”
“We should step back,” Ash said. “Do more research.”
“You step back then.”
“Dee.”
“No, Ash, listen to me. Elena Ramirez and Simon Greene are cancers. We need to get them now or they’ll spread. You want to be more cautious? Fine. Go back to the car. I have enough firepower to handle this.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ash said. “And you know that.”
A small smile toyed with her lips. “Are you being sexist again?”
“You wouldn’t leave me either.”
“That’s true.”
“This place,” he said. “You know what it reminds me of?”
Dee Dee nodded. “Mr. Marshall’s brewery. The smell of stale beer.”
He was amazed that she’d remember. JoJo Marshall had been one of Ash’s foster fathers, not hers. He made Ash work the fermenters. Dee Dee had visited him there a few times and clearly, like him, had never gotten over that stink.
She started up the stairs. Ash did a little hop-step, so he could take the lead, but she blocked him off with her body and disapproving glare. So he stayed one step back. No one passed them on the stairs. In the distance they could hear the faint hum of someone playing a television too loudly.
Other than that, not a sound.
Ash glanced down the corridor of the second floor as Dee Dee continued to ascend.
No one. That was good.
When they reached the third floor, Dee Dee looked back at him. Ash nodded. They both took out their guns. They kept them low, by their sides, and maybe if someone opened a door right now, what with the crappy lighting in this place, maybe that person wouldn’t see that they were both carrying FN 5.7s with twenty-round mags.
They made their way to apartment B. Ash knocked on the heavy metal door.
They were ready.
No answer.
He knocked again. Nothing.
“Someone has to be home,” Dee Dee whispered. “We saw Greene come in.”
Ash took a look at the heavy metal door, put on, no doubt, to fortify against break-ins, but it had been done stupidly. The door was made of steel, but the doorframe was wood.
Not strong wood based on what Ash had seen of this place.
Ash took out his gun and nodded for Dee Dee to get ready. He raised his foot and kicked in the spot where the bolt slid into the wood.
The wood gave way as if it were made of dried twigs.
The door flew open. Ash and Dee Dee rushed inside.
No one.
Two single mattresses lay on either side of the floor. There were dried bloodstains on the floor. Ash took it all in, took it in fast, and knew something was seriously wrong. He looked on the floor. He bent down.
“What?” Dee Dee whispered.
“Yellow tape.”
“What?”
“This was a crime scene.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
They heard a door nearby open.
Dee Dee moved fast. She dropped her weapon onto the mattress, stepped outside, and closed what was left of the door behind her. A man had exited his apartment. He wore earbuds with music turned up so loud, Dee Dee could hear it from fifteen feet away.
He was near the stairs, almost ready to start heading down, and he hadn’t seen her yet. She stayed frozen, hoping