Blood Men: A Thriller

“Yep.”


“So the bank robbers isolated the bundles with the dye packs to protect the rest of the cash,” Landry says.

“They came prepared. They must have had the box inside the van, and they knew they had only a couple of minutes to transfer the dangerous cash into it.”

“They really knew their stuff,” Landry says.

“Only it doesn’t make sense,” Schroder says. “Why not throw the cash out the window? Why go to the effort to keep it, and even then, why not leave the metal box with the van? Why bring it here?”

“Maybe they’re planning on using it again?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it,” Schroder answers. “There were hundreds of bricks of cash thrown into those bags, how do you think they knew which ones had the dye unit in it?”

“Maybe they used some kind of metal detector?”

“Yeah, and if they did, why hide it?”

“I’m not following . . .”

“I think they had inside help.”

“What?”

“Think about it. When the four people went back to the vault, they all knew the dye packs had to be inserted. If somebody forgot, they’d look suspicious. But what if somebody loaded them into a specific place? Laid them on top, maybe marked them somehow? The bank crew get the bags back into the car and take out the marked notes and contain them immediately in the metal box. They can’t throw them out the window because then we’d wonder how they found the dye packs among all that other cash. They couldn’t leave the box with the van because we’d think the same thing.”

“Jesus, you think somebody from the bank was in on it?”

“It makes sense,” Schroder answers.

“You think this is the person who killed Kingsly?”

“They’d have taken the box.”

“Maybe they didn’t see it,” Landry says.

“Maybe. Other possibility is this person, whoever they are, might be after the others. Next step is to run down Kingsly’s known accomplices. See if we can find a link between somebody and the bank.”

“So you think Hunter is capable of this?” Landry asks, nodding toward Shane Kingsly as he’s carried from the house in a body bag on a stretcher.

“I don’t know.” Schroder thinks about Benson Barlow and his warning. “I hope not,” he says, “but let’s go find out.”





chapter twenty-seven


The knocking wakes me. I unplugged the alarm clock last night since time doesn’t really matter much these days. I get to my feet and pull back the curtain and the Christmas Eve sun is high enough to suggest it’s sometime around noon. I knew the knocking would come today, I just didn’t know when. The clothes I wore last night are gone. As is the murder weapon—or accident weapon, to be accurate. I’ve cleaned my hand up, put a fresh bandage on it, it hurts but that’s the price you have to pay, I guess. First thing the monster made me do when I got home last night was drop a glass on the kitchen floor when I was trying to take painkillers.

I pull on some jeans and a shirt. My shoulder hurts and I rub at it. My body is stiff and sore. The knocking comes again.

I reach the door in bare feet. The house is closed up and the air is warm and stale. I open the front door and bright light floods in, the windscreen of the car parked out front reflecting a load of it into my eyes. I hold my hand up to shield them, squinting, exposing the bandage to the men standing outside.

“We have some developments,” Detective Schroder says.

“What kind of developments?” I ask, and I realize that I haven’t actually spoken out loud since leaving Sam last night at her grandparents.” My voice catches and my mouth is dry and the words are croaky, and I have to repeat the sentence.

“Mind if we come in? This is Detective Landry,” he says, and Detective Landry looks too small for his clothes and a little too tired to be working. I lead them inside and we sit in the living room. At least I do, and Landry does, but Schroder stays standing near the Christmas tree, which pisses me off. I don’t offer them a drink. It’s not a social call.

“You’ve found the men who murdered my wife?” I ask.

“We recovered some of the money at a homicide this morning,” Landry says. “Drug dealer went and got himself murdered.”

“So somebody bought drugs from him with the stolen cash?”

“That’s quick thinking,” Schroder says.

“I like that,” Landry adds. “A quick thinker.”

“But no. That’s not what we’re saying,” Schroder says. “The cash we found was from the bank. It was stained with dye and damaged.”

“I don’t follow,” I say.

Schroder explains to me what a dye pack is and it makes enough sense. The whole time I keep thinking there’s something he’s not telling me. Maybe they found something of mine at the scene. Could be a neighbor saw me—it doesn’t seem likely, it was too dark. And why isn’t he mentioning the rest of the money? The bricks of cash under the mattress weren’t ruined with dye.