Chapter 1 - The Wrong Passenger
“FBI informant?” Elio demanded, his voice dropping an octave, completely devoid of the polite curiosity he had displayed five minutes prior.
“I plan trucking routes!” Georgie squeaked, clutching her navy folder to her chest like a paper shield. “I make sure eighteen-wheelers carrying frozen chickens don’t get stuck under overpasses on I-95! That’s it! Look at my references! Frank Delvecchio from Pittsburgh would swear under oath that I never even steal office supplies!”
“Boss,” Tonio grunted, his hand already dipping inside his coat, pulling out a heavy black pistol with fluid, terrifying familiarity. “The Suburban is creeping up on our blind spot. Heavy tint. Running without plates. That’s not airport security.”
Elio didn’t flinch. His gaze remained locked on Georgie’s terrified, wide eyes. He reached into his coat, and Georgie braced herself to be tossed out of a moving vehicle onto the Baltimore beltway. Instead, Elio pulled out a sleek smartphone, swiping rapidly across the screen.
“Freddy picked up the wrong Marino,” Elio muttered smoothly, not a trace of panic in his baritone voice. “The woman we were supposed to extract tonight is Elena Marino. Former chief financial officer of the Moretti shipping network. She was carrying three flash drives full of offshore wire transfers that could dismantle half the port authority.”
Georgie stared at him, her mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. “My middle name is Rose. My dad drives a yellow cab. He has gout. I don’t know any Morettis! Please don’t shoot me, I have a second-round interview tomorrow morning!”
“There isn’t going to be an interview tomorrow morning if you get ventilated on the highway, sweetheart,” Tonio growled, peering into the side mirror. “Boss, they’re pacing us. Two car lengths. They think Elena is in the backseat with the ledger.”
Elio looked from Georgie’s trembling hands to the neat, ribbon-tied stack of résumés currently scattered across the leather floorboards. Then he looked at the dark silhouette of the heavy SUV looming in the rearview mirror. A thin, grim smile touched his mouth—a look that made Georgie’s spine turn to absolute ice.
“They think we have the woman holding the keys to the city,” Elio said softly. “And whoever hired that chase car doesn’t want her reaching downtown alive.”
“Then let me out!” Georgie pleaded, pressing her back against the reinforced car door. “Pull over at a gas station! Drop me off at a Waffle House! I’ll walk! I’ll run! I’ll take the red-eye back to Pennsylvania and pretend Baltimore is a myth!”
“If we dump you on the shoulder right now, they will run you down before you make it ten yards,” Elio said, leaning across the console. His cologne hit her—cedar, bergamot, and gunpowder. “Freddy, take the Caton Avenue cutoff.”
“Boss, Caton is torn to pieces with utility construction,” Freddy shouted over the roar of the twin-turbocharged V8 engine. “It’s a bottleneck. We’ll get boxed in!”
“Don’t take Caton,” Georgie blurted out before her brain could stop her mouth.
Both Elio and Tonio snapped their heads toward her.
“What did you say?” Elio asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Don’t take Caton,” Georgie repeated, her father’s voice suddenly ringing loud and clear in her head. Thirty-one years of dinner table lectures about Baltimore’s asphalt veins surged to the surface. “The state water commission started digging up the six-inch mains on Caton two weeks ago. Steel plates everywhere. A heavy sedan like this will bottom out on the second rise. Plus, the light timing at Washington Boulevard was re-synced last month—it stays red for ninety seconds between ten and midnight. If you go that way, you’re parking in an ambush.”
Freddy glanced into the rearview mirror, eyes wide. “Is she telling the truth?”
“Who knows that off the top of their head?” Tonio muttered, bewildered.
“A route planner who memorized every municipal construction permit in Baltimore County to prepare for a logistics interview!” Georgie shouted hysterically. “Take the Wilkens Avenue off-ramp! Stay in the middle lane, cut hard through the old brewery alley behind the railyard, and pop out on Monroe! The freight trains have a mandatory slowdown switch at 10:50 PM. If we clear the crossing right now, the freight cars will cut the SUV off completely!”
Elio Fontana stared at the nervous, disheveled woman in the clearance blazer. For two agonizing seconds, the silence in the car was so heavy that Georgie could hear her own heartbeat hammering against her ribs.
May you like
Then, Elio leaned forward and tapped the driver’s headrest with cold authority.
“Listen to the dispatcher,” he said.
