Read Online Dead Sleep by Greg Iles - Free Book Online Page A

get him.” And what do I tell them if they do?
    â€œYeah. This is one fucked-up crime scene. He could be the guy, though.”
    The cop is young and Italian, with a five-o’clock shadow that looks more like midnight. “What do you mean?”
    â€œThey just found a guy in a car across the street. Dead as a hammer.”
    â€œWhat?” I whirl and try to see, but the crowd obscures my view. “How did he die?”
    â€œSomebody cut his throat. You believe that? Wearing a suit and tie. Looks like he hasn’t been dead an hour. Something strange going on here.”
    â€œWho was he?”
    â€œNo wallet. Like a slaughterhouse in that car.”
    The fire captain is already pushing back toward us, the cop in tow.
    â€œSee anything?” the Italian cop calls to them.
    The other cop shakes his head. “Crowd’s too big. Guy could be two feet away, we wouldn’t know except by the smell.”
    â€œI’ll make a pass,” says the Italian, tipping his cap to me as he walks toward the tape.
    The guy could be two feet away. And there isn’t any gasoline smell. He could kill me before I know he’s there. It’s time to go. But how? My cab is long gone, and walking isn’t an option. Neither is the subway.
    As I ponder my options, a yellow taxi pulls to the end of the block and disgorges a kid with two cameras hanging from his neck. The official press. Knowing he’ll ask for a receipt, I start running, and I’m at full sprint before he has it in his hand.
    â€œTaxi!” I yell. “Don’t let him go!”
    For some reason—maybe because he’s seen my camera—the photographer holds the cab.
    â€œThanks!” I tell him, jumping into the backseat.
    â€œHey, are you with a paper?”
    â€œNo.” I thump the plastic partition. “JFK! Move it!”
    â€œWait. Don’t I know you?”
    â€œGo!” I shout at the back of the cabbie’s head.
    â€œHey, aren’t you—”
    With a screech of rubber, the cab is rolling toward the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
    Â 
    MY FLIGHT LANDS at Reagan National at 10:15 P.M., and when I deplane, there’s a man in a suit waiting for me at the gate. He’s holding a white cardboard sign that says J. GLASS, but he doesn’t look like a limo driver. He looks like a buffed-up accountant.
    â€œI’m Jordan Glass.”
    â€œSpecial Agent Sims,” he says with a frown. “You’re late. Follow me,”
    He sets off down the concourse at a rapid clip and walks right past the down escalator marked “Baggage and Ground Transportation.”
    â€œI have some bags down there,” I call after him. “My cameras. They were on the earlier flight, so they’re probably in storage.”
    â€œWe have your camera cases, Ms. Glass. The airline lost your suitcase.”
    Great. Agent Sims leads me through a door marked “Airport Personnel Only,” and a blast of cold air hits my face. It’s fall in Washington too, but unlike New York, the humidity here adds a taste of home to the air. Home as in Mississippi. My present residence is in San Francisco, but no place I’ve ever lived has replaced the fecund, subtropical garden of creeks, cotton fields, oak, and pine forests where I grew up.
    The concrete is slick with rain, reflecting the bright lights of the terminal and the dimmer blue ones of the runway. Sims helps me onto a baggage truck and signals its jumpsuited driver, who takes off across the airfield. My aluminum camera cases are stacked in luggage well behind us.
    â€œI thought we were going into the city,” I shout over the engine noise. “To the Hoover Building.”
    â€œThe chief had to get back to Quantico,” Sims yells back. “That’s where the meeting is now.”
    â€œHow are we getting there?”
    â€œOn that.”
    As he points into the darkness, I see the sleek lines of a Bell 260 helicopter