Free Long Way Down by Paul Carr Page A

exhausted my resources.”
    That didn’t sound good. Sam gave him the string of numbers from La Salle’s computer and asked him to check the banks, thinking it might be an account number.
    “How about looking up the NeoWorld Corporation too.” Sam spelled it out for him.
    “Never heard of it.”
    “Yeah, me either, but NeoWorld owns La Salle’s Jaguar, and it could be a key to what happened to all that money that went missing.”
    J.T. said he would call back when he had something and hung up.
    Sam saw Candi drive into the parking lot a few minutes later and went outside. Hector stood leaning under the hood of the truck, talking to the driver and pointing to something on the running engine.
    Sam walked by and said, “I'll call in a few days. Good luck with your dad.”
    Hector smiled and nodded, and Sam got into the Chevy with Candi.
    “What’d you find?” Candi said as she drove back onto the thoroughfare.
    Sam unzipped his bag and showed her the cash.
    “How much?”
    “About three hundred grand,” Sam said.
    “Huh.” She looked annoyed. “Where do you think he has the rest of my money?”
    Sam shrugged. “What did you expect; maybe he’d have a few million dollars stuffed in his mattress?”
    She nodded and said, “Yeah, did you check his mattress?”
    “No, I never went into the bedrooms.”
    “Well, maybe you should have.”
    “Maybe you should have gone in there yourself.”
    Candi took a deep breath, sighed and looked straight ahead. Sam wondered why he'd signed on for this job. He waited a few seconds, then broke the silence and told her about the list of numbers he'd found on the computer.
    “Maybe a bank account?”
    “Yeah, maybe. I asked a friend who’s good with computers to check it out.”
    “You think that's wise, giving someone a bank account number where you know there’s a lot of money?”
    Sam knew the risks when he dealt with J.T., and it made him even more uncomfortable for her to point it out.
    “I couldn't do anything without more information.”
    Candi pressed the accelerator and the engine revved. They shot around an SUV, narrowlymissing an oncoming truck before getting back into the right lane. The truck horn blasted.
    “Oh, yeah,” Sam said, “I had to take Marcus with me when I took the Jaguar. I just let him out a few minutes ago.”
    Candi shot a glance at him, her eyes wide.
    “What did he say?”
    “He said you know something, and that’s the reason La Salle wants you dead.”
    Sam watched her face for a reaction. She rolled her eyes, nothing else. The traffic thinned out and Candi jammed her foot on the accelerator.
    “He said I know something?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I don’t know what that would be other than he took Philly’s money and then knocked him off. That’s the reason he wants me dead.”
    “He said La Salle has something cooking with a Russian named Danilov. You know anything about that?”
    Candi pressed her lips together and sighed. “No, I don’t. I told you what I know.”
    The car had sped up, and Sam peered at the speedometer; they were going almost seventy miles per hour.
    “Better slow down. We don't want to get stopped by the cops.”
    Candi glanced at the speedometer and took her foot off the gas.
    Candi had kissed La Salle in one of the photos. She had lied about her relationship with him, and now about what she knew. Sam felt the familiar tickle at the back of his neck and wondered if this might be a good time to say goodbye to Candi Moran.
    “I’ll split the money with you and we’ll go our separate ways.”
    “What?”
    “And you can have the account number, if that’s what it is. Maybe you can get your own money back.”
    Candi’s face turned red and she glanced at Sam, back at the windshield, then at Sam again.
    “Wait a minute. You have to help me, there isn’t anybody else.”
    “Sorry, no can do,” Sam said, his tone firm.
    Candi stepped on the brakes and turned into the edge of a liquor store parking