No Way Back: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

even right outside.
    If he has any idea what had just happened in here . . .
    Terrified, I took the earphone out and held it to my ear. I heard a voice on the other end.
    “Ray? Ray, what’s going on up there? Answer me, Ray, are you all right?”
    His jacket had fallen open, and I saw an ID folder in the breast pocket. I started thinking, What if he was security? Or maybe even the police? What then?
    I was suddenly encased in sweat.
    I opened the ID folder and stared. And whatever panic or fear I had felt up to that moment became just a dry run for what was rippling through me now.
    I was staring at a badge. But not from hotel security.
    It read, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA . DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY .

CHAPTER THREE
    M y heart, which to that point had been acting as if a live wire were loose in my chest, went instantly still, as if the power had been cut. The agent’s ID fell out of my hand.
    I’d just killed a government agent.
    Not just an agent—Raymond Hruseff. From the Department of fucking Homeland Security!
    Who only seconds before I had watched commit a cold-blooded murder and then try to frame someone else. And who would have surely done the same to me had that gun not happened to be close by.
    My throat went completely dry.
    You have no idea what you stepped into, Hruseff had said to me. I turned to Curtis and wanted to shake him from the dead. Tell me . . . tell me, damn it, what did I stumble into? What the hell did you do?
    I knew I had only seconds to decide what to do. But, clearly, staying here wasn’t an option.
    I found a duplicate room key in the agent’s jacket pocket, which was no doubt how he’d gotten in. He had icily put two bullets into Curtis right in front of my eyes. He was in the process of trying to make it seem as if Curtis was the one about to shoot. Even more troubling, when I identified myself as an ex-cop, instead of laying down his weapon and putting his hands in the air—and identifying himself , standard operating procedure—he’d made a move to shoot me. Clearly, he wasn’t up here on official business.
    What I’d stumbled into was an execution.
    And I knew if the person on the other end of that earphone happened to find me in this room , I’d be as good as Curtis.
    Wendy, you have to get the hell out of here now!
    I hurried over to the bed, wiped down the gun I’d used to shoot Hruseff, and placed it back on the bed. I did the same with the bathroom doorknob and everything else I’d touched. I took my coat. Only a minute and a half or so had passed since the actual shooting. The shots might have attracted people’s attention. There might already be a crowd gathered outside the room.
    The guy’s partner could be on his way up!
    I grabbed my bag and my leather jacket, which had fallen off the desk chair and onto the floor, and saw Curtis’s cell phone next to his laptop. I threw his phone into my bag, thinking that down the line I might well need something to prove my innocence, and I had no idea in hell who the guy even was.
    I didn’t even know if Curtis was his real name!
    I hurried over to the door. It was 8:41. It seemed like an eternity had passed since the shooting, but it had only been about two minutes. I prayed that people hadn’t been inside their rooms. That they would be out to dinner somewhere, or at a play, or at the fucking Knicks game for all I cared. Just somewhere! I put on my floppy cap and covered my face with my scarf as best I could, my blood pulsing with adrenaline. Collecting myself, I opened the door a notch and looked out. Thank God, the only people I saw in the hallway were an elderly couple heading to the elevators at the far end. Still, I didn’t think I could risk it. I needed another way out of the hotel. There had to be an emergency stairwell somewhere.
    I stepped out, averting my face from any possible cameras, but just as I headed down the hall in the opposite direction from the elevators, someone bolted around the corner,