Page 48 of Shatter

"The other one?" My voice comes out a croak.

"Passenger bolted in the SUV. Aren went after him, but he lost him on the interstate." He holds out a hand to help me up, palm open, and waits. "We got the driver."

I take his hand.

He pulls me up onto the seat so gently it's almost worse than if he'd yanked.

Through the windshield, across the dark lot behind the laundromat, an old black Charger sits with its trunk open under the one working light.

Ulf and Gunnar are lifting something into it.

Something long and heavy, wrapped in a moving blanket, with a pair of expensive loafers sticking out of one end.

One of the loafers twitches.

The trunk comes down with a thud I feel through the soles of my feet.

A man with dark hair buzzed short at the sides and a trimmed black beard leans against the Charger's back bumper with his arms folded, built like a refrigerator.

Aren, I think.

He glances toward the truck.

For a second, his dark eyes meet mine through the windshield, flat and assessing, and then he looks away.

Hakon climbs in behind the wheel and pulls his door shut.

He doesn't start the engine.

He sits with both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead at the Charger, and a muscle jumps in his jaw.

The man in the trunk has maybe a few hours left.

I grew up on the docks.

Men who get put in trunks don't come back out of them the same, if they come out at all.

My hands should be shaking.

The tears should come, or the sick, cold sweat.

Nothing comes.

My pulse is slow and steady in my throat.

My hands lie still in my lap.

I look down at the sandwich bag in my palm, at the little black drive holding every dollar my father ever laundered for Desmond Arsenault.

Nice suit, nice haircut.

Said you were his cousin.

I close my fingers over it and look back up at the Charger's trunk, and I don't feel anything at all.

Except, maybe, a little bit glad.

CHAPTER SIX