City of Shadows

Chapter 25

7.42 a.m., 12 September 2001, Interstate 95, outside Branford

Five minutes later they were all back aboard the RV, on the road and running on the last quarter-tank of petrol, Bob driving north-east as instructed and Maddy rocking back and forth beside him in the passenger seat trying to get a handle on things, get a handle on her jangling nerves, a handle on the growing knot of grief in her chest, as Sal, Liam and Rashim threw questions at her over the seat.

‘He’s gone,’ she said, finally answering them as to where the hell Foster was.

‘What? Do you mean…?’ Liam struggled to say any more. So Rashim finished his question for him.

‘They… they got Foster?’

She nodded. ‘Shot him.’

‘He’s dead?’

Here it comes. Maddy felt her composure slipping. The blissful comfort of numbness was ebbing away, like the downslope of a novocaine buzz after root-canal treatment. The first hot tears trickled down her cheeks. She tasted salt on her lips and licked them away.

She nodded. ‘Yes, Foster’s dead.’ Her voice was a lifeless whisper. The flutter and tap of moth wings against a windowpane. She took her glasses off and buried her damp face in her hands and realized that now she’d finally become that typical movie girl-in-distress: all quivering, dimpled chin and smudged mascara.

Albeit minus the mascara.