Blindside (Michael Bennett 12)

Ollie started with the touchy subject first. “Your girlfriend attacked Christoph and helped Bennett escape.”

After a long silence, Henry said, “Is Natalie still here, or are they both missing?”

“They both fled.”

“Are you certain Natalie helped him?”

“Absolutely. She hit Christoph with a board and shattered his nose.”

“Her phone is still here. Too bad. That would’ve made finding her much easier.”

Ollie said, “Sorry, Henry.”

“I’m really disappointed in you two.”

Ollie said, “So are our families.”

“Always with the smart answer.”

Ollie let the silence hang there for a moment, then said, “We’ll keep searching and let you know if we find them.”

“Let me see what I can do on this end. I’ll call out some more help since you two morons can’t seem to handle anything yourselves. If I hear anything, I’ll send you to their location.”

Ollie cut off the call. “He sounds pissed.”

Christoph said, “He always sounds pissed. That’s how crazy people sound.”

“Exactly why I’m not sure we should even waste time looking for Bennett and Natalie.”

“What? Have you lost your mind as well? Look what they did to me.”

Ollie thought for a moment. “This is still business. We need profit, not problems.”

“Then I’ll finish this alone.”

“Wait—”

“No, I’m serious. This has to get done.”

Ollie said, “All right, we’ll finish this, but then we walk away from Henry. This is getting to be a pain. I don’t care how well he pays. You get your revenge, we collect our pay and head straight back to Amsterdam.”

Christoph smiled. That’s all he wanted. A chance for some revenge.

CHAPTER 80

WITHOUT A SOUL noticing, Natalie and I had slipped back upstairs in the building to what seemed like an empty ground floor and out the front entrance. Then we ran, trying to stay off the main roads. Neither of us was hurt. Natalie squinted at the street signs, and I remembered that Christoph had knocked her glasses off.

“You can still find your way around town, right?” It went without saying that I was a tourist. Most of my travels around this town had been out to St. Laszlo’s with Fiore driving and on the floor in the back of Christoph and Ollie’s car where I couldn’t see anything.

As we trotted down an alley, I said, “Do you have any money? Anything we can use to get a ride?”

“I have a few euros, that’s it.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to help us much.” I found the euro coins in my pocket that I’d told Christoph about, which I doubted amounted to enough for a cab.

When Natalie stood on a street corner, looking for an approaching bus, I snapped at her. “Keep off the street. They’ll be looking for us.”

Natalie turned and frowned at me. “Sorry, I’ve never been on the run before. How about cutting me a little slack?” After a few moments, she said, “Where are we running to, anyway?”