Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

Haarte considered this. Rune thought he was genuinely intrigued. Rune, hands together, was kneading her one remaining silver bracelet. "It's true, I promise."

He shook his head. "No, doesn't make sense."

"Mr. Kelly did have the money. I found it. It's in a locker at the bus station."

"That sounds like a scene out of a movie," Emily said slowly.

"Whatever it sounds like, it's true."

They were both sort of believing her now. Rune could tell.

Rune fiddled with the bracelet again. "A million dollars!"

Haarte said to Emily, "It's old money. How hard to move?"

"Not that hard," she said. "They're always finding old bills. Banks have to take 'em. And the good news is even if they took the serial numbers years ago, nobody's gonna have the records anymore."

"You know anybody who could take 'em?"

"A couple guys. We could probably get seventy, eighty points on the dollar."

But then Haarte shook his head again. "No, it's crazy."

"A million dollars," Rune repeated. "Aren't you getting tired of killing people for a living?"

There was a pause. Haarte and Emily avoided each other's eyes.

The room was sepia, gloomy, lit by two dim lamps. Rune looked out the window. Outside, it was very dark, with only that one cold streetlight nearby. She played nervously with her bracelet, squeezing it.

Haarte and Emily whispered to each other, their heads down. Emily finally nodded and looked up. "Okay, here's the deal. You give us the names of everyone you've told about me and hand over the money, we'll let you live. You don't tell us, I'll let Haarte here take you downstairs and do whatever he wants."

Rune thought for a moment. "What will you do with them? Whoever I told?"

Haarte said, "Nothing. As long as there are no police after us. But if there are then we might have to hurt them."

Rune squeezed the bracelet again several times. Hard. It snapped in half.

She looked up. "You're lying."

"Honey--" Emily began.

That's the trick to lying. Make the person you're lying to your partner in the lie.

"But that's all right," Rune said matter-of-factly. "Because I was too." And leapt out of the chair.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Emily laughed.

Because Rune might have run toward the front door of the town house or the rear. Or tried for a window. But she didn't do either. Instead, she rolled toward a small door in the living room.

"Rune," Emily said patiently, "what do you think you're doing? That's a closet."

And a locked one, at that, Rune learned, tugging on the glass knob.

Haarte looked at Emily. He shook his head at Rune's stupidity. There was no way out. She'd boxed herself in. Rune glanced back at them and saw with relief that they didn't have a clue what she really had in mind.

Until Rune jumped for the electric outlet she'd had her eye on for five minutes.