Blood Men: A Thriller

“Nothing.”


There’s no time to be proud.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the doctor asks, when I try to get up.

“I have to get out of here.”

“The hell you do,” he says. “Mate, I haven’t even begun sewing you back together here.”

“I need to . . .”

“Lay back down or you’re going to keep bleeding, and if you don’t bleed out you’ll get infected, and then you’ll lose your leg. That what you want?”

It isn’t what I want. He goes back to work, and is about halfway done when Schroder walks into the room.





chapter thirty-four


“You don’t remember who loaded the dye pack?”

Because they weren’t officially treating any of the bank staff as suspects, Landry and two other detectives were interviewing the other three people who went back to the vault, while Schroder dealt with the fourth—William Steiner. They were doing the interviews at the suspects’ houses—this gave the detectives a better chance to get a sense of who they were talking to; whether or not they looked like they could use a few extra hundred grand. Maybe they’d spot a bag full of money somewhere too.

Steiner was a man in his midthirties with a pale complexion that helped highlight the acne scars around his neck. He didn’t seem nervous, and before he could answer only the third question Schroder had time to ask—the one about who loaded the dye pack—Schroder’s cell phone started ringing.

“Excuse me a moment,” he said. He stood up from the living-room couch, stepped into the hallway, and opened the phone. He barely managed to get out two words before the information came racing in. Edward Hunter. A shoot-out. A dead man.

That had been ten minutes ago. The drive into town was quicker than the last few days, most people having finished their shopping by now.

“Quite some mess, Edward,” he says, stepping around the doctor and looking down at the leg.

“It’ll heal.”

“I’m not talking about the leg. I’m talking about the scene you left behind.”

Hunter is nervous. His hands are shaking and his eyes are big and he looks like he’s wired on amphetamines. “I had to leave it behind,” he answers. “If I hadn’t got out of there I’d be dead right now.”

Schroder nods. It’s what he’d heard, and it’s what the evidence supports. His next trip from here will be to the scene. “A lot of people watched you running for your life,” he says. “A lot of witnesses.”

“Any of them feel the urge to help?” Edward asks.

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re here when you should be out there, looking for Jodie’s killers.”

Schroder ignores the remark. “I think you’re lucky you’re still alive,” he says, “and that luck will run out if you don’t tell me the truth.”

“I want to see my daughter.”

“Sure, Edward, no problem. As soon as you’re done telling me what happened.”

“I want to see her now.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s with her grandparents. I don’t know where they are.”

“Where are they supposed to be?” Schroder asks. Is there a chance the men who went after Edward would also go after his daughter? No . . . surely not . . .

“I don’t know. At their house.”

Schroder’s stomach sinks. He tightens his features and tries to hide his concern. “And you haven’t heard from them?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

He takes his cell phone out and heads a few meters away. While it rings, he watches the doctor, who so far has said nothing since he arrived, just kept on stitching. He’s probably heard similar stories a hundred times already. Schroder passes the information about Sam on to the detectives at the scene then goes back to Edward.

“Okay, we’re going to send somebody to bring her in here,” he says, trying not to sound concerned. “In the meantime, tell me what happened.”

Edward tells him what happened from the moment Schroder dropped him off to fleeing the scene in the stolen car, running over one of his attackers on the way.

“Okay, okay, that’s good, Edward. What I really need you to do now is tell me what happened last night. Don’t make me wait for the blood results. We don’t have the luxury of time anymore, especially now that these people are coming for you.”

“I don’t know anything, except two men were trying to kill me. With all the people that called the cops, and the gunfire, and the blood and chaos, nobody got there in time to arrest the second guy, am I right?”