The October List by Jeffery Deaver Read Free Book Online

sky had changed for the worse.
    The spongy clouds, which had been floating so benign and frivolous in the azure sky, were gone. Taupe overcast stretched from horizon to horizon, as if the air itself were tethered to the raw edge of these past thirty hours. The harbor was choppy, the wind rude.
    Gabriela and Daniel were emerging from the subway. After the screams, after the chaos on Second Avenue not long ago, the police had appeared in droves. She and Daniel had had no choice but to use the subway system to flee, despite the risk of getting spotted by Transit Authority police. But no one had noticed them and, on the streets now, they maneuvered through families, tourists, shoppers, and lovers, trying to find cover in the crowds – just as the two fugitives had lost themselves in the various subway lines for the past half hour. They’d ridden to Harlem from the Upper East Side, then headed crosstown and finally south to Midtown.
    From here they’d walk to the apartment that Daniel had told her about – the one his company, The Norwalk Fund, kept for out-of-town clients. It was presently empty and they could hide out there.
    He now looked around carefully. ‘No police, no Joseph, no anybody else after us.’
    Gabriela was solemn. ‘All the blood, Daniel. Did you see it?’
    Of course he had. He squeezed her hand tighter. The pressure seemed to have meaning. But what? She couldn’t tell.
    ‘Look!’
    He too noted the blue-and-white patrol car speeding their way, the lights flashing urgently. Gabriela shucked the backpack off her shoulder and they veered, stepping closer to a store, putting a stream of passersby between them and the street.
    The NYPD cruiser, though, sped quickly past, heading in the direction of the incident.
    The blood …
    Daniel directed her east. ‘The apartment’s that way. About eight, ten blocks. Not far.’
    But before they started walking Gabriela took his arm and said, ‘Wait. Let’s ditch the hats and get some better camouflage.’ She tapped the dark, logo-free baseball cap she was wearing. ‘We need more than this to fool them.’ Nodding at a discount clothing store up the block. ‘Let’s go shopping.’
    Five minutes later they were out, wearing jeans – his blue, hers black – and sweatshirts and windbreakers, also dark. His top said, NYU . Hers was bare of type or images. The clothes they’d been wearing were in shopping bags.
    She grimaced and clutched her ribcage, coughed. Then wiped a spot of blood from her lip.
    ‘Mac!’
    She said dismissingly, ‘It’s all right. I can handle it.’
    They continued walking.
    Her phone pinged, a text. She glanced at the screen. A smile, dampened by a wince, appeared.
    ‘The Complication.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘He got his present.’ Gabriella decided not to tell him the rest that Frank Walsh had texted.
    They were at the corner when a dark sedan sped by – it was clearly an unmarked police car. This one, unlike the squad cars a moment ago, slowed as it grew close. Then sped up and continued on, vanishing around the corner.
    No other police cars or uniformed officers were in the area. ‘I think it’s clear,’ Daniel said.
    Into his backpack he stuffed the shopping bag containing the gray Canali suit and shirt he’d changed out of at the store. Gabriela examined the contents of her bag and noticed spatters of blood on her sweater and windbreaker. ‘I’m dumping these. Shit. I loved that sweater.’
    She went through the pockets and kept only the money; everything else – receipts, bloody tissues and a Bic pen – she left in the bag. She looked around and noticed a Department of Sanitation truck, filled to the brim, en route to the processing facility on 14th Street at the Hudson River.
    She slung the shopping bag into the back of the truck as the driver waited for the light to change.
    Gabriela gripping his arm, Daniel set a good pace and they wove through the herds of pedestrians filling the streets on this blustery