After another thirty seconds of uncomfortable silence, Jack said, "But business is business. I suppose it'd be a lucrative way to make some fast money."
"It is," Fenniger said, words tumbling out. "If you want, I could cut you - "
"Not interested."
Reel him in. Let him drop. Keep him off balance, searching for equilibrium.
"Can I at least ask who I'm dealing with?" Fenniger said.
"No."
An audible sigh of relief. If Jack gave his name, even his street name, that would mean Fenniger would never get the chance to use it against him. By withholding it, calling me "girl," and getting pissy when Fenniger looked my way, Jack was suggesting that while he might intend to kill Fenniger, the matter was still open to negotiation. That was essential - a man who's about to be executed has no reason to talk.
"I suppose it'd be a decent gig, though," Jack said. "If you could stomach it. I can't blame a guy for that. I've done stuff..."
I'm sure Fenniger was barely breathing, eyes screwed shut as if he could mentally swing the pendulum his way. Thoughts of escape wouldn't enter his head. Jack was a pro, at least as good as he was, plus armed, physically bigger, and with a psychotic partner. Fenniger's only escape would come through cooperation. There was no cowardice in that, no loss of face... or so he'd keep telling himself.
"Shit like this?" Jack continued. "Not my style. But business is business, and you take what you can get. If you don't take the job, someone else will."
Ah, hitman justification at its finest. I'd used that one a few times myself.
"The sick fucks are the ones who put out the contracts," Jack said.
Fenniger's nods punctuated every word, though he probably didn't even realize he was doing it.
"Something like this?" Jack said. "Who dreams this shit up?"
My fingers stopped drumming against my thigh and I squinted into the darkness, as if I could see Jack's expression, though he had his back to me. What was he doing? We'd discussed what we needed from Fenniger. First, confirmation of the hit. Second, the name and location of the people who'd bought Destiny. I had no idea what I'd do with the latter - probably nothing - but if I didn't ask for it, I'd be waking up at 2 a.m., certain Destiny had been sold to a Satanic cult or something.
Parents... buyers... That's where he was heading - giving Fenniger an "out" by blaming them. The muscles between my shoulders tightened. Letting this bastard lay the responsibility on people whose only crime was desperation? But Jack was right. It provided Fenniger with an excuse for giving them up.
"That's who I'm interested in," Jack said. "You? You're just a means to an end."
"Okay," Fenniger said, head still bobbing. "So you want to know who hired me?"
"Yeah, that's what I want to know."
Silence.
Damn it, Jack. He's not that bright. Prod him. Dangle the buyer as his scapegoat and he'll -
"They made contact through the broker. A guy named Honcho."
"I've heard of him. Headhunter, right?"
A headhunter was a broker who took contracts based on a price, with only the barest of details: number of marks, deadline, international versus domestic, political versus personal. Then, he offered it to his hitman contacts, who'd get the specifics directly.
The broker would argue that he's providing an invaluable service by tightening the security between client and pro. He's really just covering his butt. Any advantage to the hitman is more than wiped out by the liability of accepting a job based almost exclusively on price. That's the best a second tier has-been like Fenniger can get while still making enough to finance his drug habit.
So I didn't doubt he was doing other work for this "Honcho" guy. But to blame him for this job, one he'd created himself? Low. Risky, too, presuming Jack would follow up.
And yet... maybe Fenniger was more clever than I gave him credit for. If Honcho didn't know the details of the jobs he gave Fenniger, how would he know he hadn't given him one for killing teen moms?
"So Honcho sets up the meeting..." Jack prompted.
"Byrony Agency."
"What?"
"That's the name of the company. Or, at least, the name of the office the client works at. I don't know if it's legit or a cover, but after the meeting, I followed him back and that's where he went. Byrony Adoption Agency in Detroit. Moron walked away from the meeting and never even looked over his shoulder. Complete amateur. Got the bright idea to hire a hitman to help him steal babies, and had no fucking idea how to go about it. I had to hold his hand through the first two."
So this hadn't been a one-man project. It hadn't even been Fenniger's idea. The way he was now spitting details, I knew he wasn't dreaming up a story on the fly. He gave us a description of the client, a play-by-play of their meetings, and the address where he'd dropped off Destiny. With the first two babies, he'd taken them to the client in a park, but after the second hand-off caught the attention of a passerby, the client decided they'd do this more privately. With Destiny, he'd given Fenniger a suburban Detroit home address, met him there, and taken her.
The scheme had been orchestrated by this Byrony Agency. They found the parents and they sold the babies, while Fenniger juggled the roles of scout, killer, and delivery boy. Earlier, Jack had said it was a lot of work, considering his pace. This is what he'd meant. It was too much work for one man.
Why the hell hadn't I seen that?
Because I hadn't allowed myself to consider the possibility. I'd been completely focused on my goal, and that goal was one man. Like Drew Aldrich. Like Wayne Franco. Like Wilkes. One perpetrator. One target. That I understood. That I could stop.
An entire organization... How could I stop that?
Forget it for now. I had to concentrate on the immediate situation. The immediate resolution. The immediate vengeance.
By the time Jack finished, I'd found my focus again.
"Dee?" he called.
At that word, Fenniger's head jerked up. In that second, as he heard Jack say my name, he knew he wasn't walking away. He started to struggle, to protest, to promise, to threaten. The words passed by me, meaningless. All I heard was the rich undercurrent of fear.
I thought about Sammi, her fear and rage in those final moments, and I slowed my pace, dragging it out until I hoped his panic outweighed anything she'd suffered.
I stood in front of him, and let him see me, and he knew that meant he wasn't walking out of here alive. And I prayed that in that last second, maybe he thought of Sammi and the other girls, maybe he thought "so this is how they felt."
Then I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-nine
My first body dump. Jack seemed shocked when I said so, but after a moment's thought, he realized that with my specialty, it wasn't surprising. Half the reason for calling a mob hit was to warn others. A corpse in a subway car said "Screw us over, and we'll get you, anytime, anywhere" far better than a former ally missing, presumed dead.
Even last fall, the two bodies I'd left behind had stayed pretty much where they'd fallen. Hauling a hitman out of a motel would have been more dangerous than leaving him there. The second guy I shot was the killer we'd been chasing and we needed the authorities - and the public - to know he was dead. My body disposal know-how was pure theory.
Jack was the one who found a place to hide Fenniger - the still functioning trunk of a wreck. The police might find him when they investigated the death of his mark in the office, but we weren't giving them any help.
I'd hauled Fenniger to his resting place, Jack carrying his legs as best he could. As I arranged the corpse in the trunk, Jack returned to the site to double-check for any traces we might have missed.
"Did you look over where I was standing?" I asked. "The ground's hard, and I'll be trashing my shoes, but I should check - "
Jack grabbed my arm as I passed. "Got it."
"What about the mark?"
"Dead. Checked."
Still holding my ar
m, he started toward the fence.
"But there's a chance it's someone connected to this Byrony Agency - "
"It's not."
"How do you know?"
"I do."
He led me to the part of the fence Fenniger had scaled.
"Shouldn't we use the section we cut?" I said. "I can see headlights - "
"Couple miles away. Get over."
I hooked my gloved fingers in the fence links, then heard a sound that made my head jolt up.
"Is that a siren?" I whispered.
"No."
His answer came quickly - too quickly. He'd already heard it, and that was why he was hurrying me over the fence.
I hefted myself up, toes finding purchase. The wail came again and I instinctively stopped, head swiveling to follow it. If there was one sound I knew, it was a police siren. And this wasn't it.
It came again, and my gut went cold. I dropped to the ground and broke into a sprint, heading for the building. Jack lunged, catching my arm and wrenching me back.
"It's not - " I began.
He grabbed my shoulders and swung me toward the fence. "Climb."
"It's not a siren, Jack. It's a baby."
"Yeah."
I heard the voice inside the office again. Raspy. I'd presumed it was a man, but it could have been a woman.
Fenniger had indeed been in Kingston to kill another girl and steal another baby - it just hadn't been the one we'd thought. He'd been scouting that girl earlier as a potential future target while waiting until it was late enough to come here and kill the one he'd already targeted on an earlier trip, as he'd done with Sammi.
I pushed back from the fence, struggling to duck out of his grasp.
"Nothing you can do," he said.
I managed to turn around and face him. "There is a baby in there, and I am not going to walk away and hope someone hears it. My God, how could you - "
His arm swung up. I instinctively yanked back, but he only lifted his hand. In it was a cell phone I didn't recognize.
"Fenniger's. We get away. Call 911. Toss it."
Fenniger's cell phone? Jack didn't just happen to grab it before we dumped him. He'd seen who was behind that door. That's why he'd gone back to check, and that's why he'd been dragging me away, before I heard the baby.
"You didn't accidentally make that noise earlier, did you?" I said. "You thought I saw who he killed. You were distracting Fenniger before I did something stupid - "
"Over the fence, Nadia. Now."
"I want to - "
"The longer we wait? The longer that baby cries."
I paused, then grabbed the fence links and hoisted myself up.
We made the trip back to my pickup in silence. When I didn't speak, Jack didn't push. Maybe he thought I was in shock. I guess I was.
I forced myself not to speak, not to move, not to think on that drive and later on the way to the lodge, after we dropped off my work car in Peterborough. When we got home, Jack accompanied me up the stairs, said good night, and waited while I went into my room.
I closed my door and leaned against it, tracking his footsteps, fearing he'd head back downstairs. But the familiar thump of his cast went toward his room. The door opened, then closed.
I peeked out. A dim glow came from under his door. I pulled back inside, waited five minutes, then checked again. His door frame had gone dark. I crossed my room, opened the window, and slid out, my toes finding familiar grooves in the wood as I climbed to the ground.
Only when my feet touched the frost-covered grass did I realize I was still wearing socks. I'd left my shoes and coat in the back hall.
I could get them now, but I doubted my hands were steady enough to pick the lock. I was already shivering. I set out along the path and, within a few steps, my feet were too numb to feel the chill.
When I was far enough from the lodge, I stepped off the path and sat at the base of a big maple, leaning back against it, knees hugged to my chest.
Blaming myself for Sammi's death was irrational. Yet I still felt guilty, that nagging sense that I should have been nicer to her, should have offered her a room at the lodge, should have somehow sensed Fenniger was in town.
If her ghost was here now, I'd say, "I got him, Sammi. I killed him for you," and she'd only roll her eyes and call me a loser for bothering. I couldn't save her. I could only avenge her death and prevent another.
Only I hadn't prevented another. Tonight, I'd stood twenty feet from another Sammi. One I could have saved. And I'd failed.
I could have taken Fenniger down as he'd perched on that fence, before ever setting foot in the wrecking yard. Or as he'd walked to the door, his back to me. Or before he'd knocked. Or even once I'd heard someone answer.
Instead, I'd watched him open the door, watched him shoot her, then left her, maybe still alive and bleeding to death, as I toyed with Fenniger behind the building, taunted him and tormented him and gorged on his fear.
Why hadn't I shot him before that door opened? Because I needed to question him and satisfy myself that I was killing the right man. So I wouldn't wake in a cold sweat, convinced Sammi's real killer was still at large, and that Destiny had met some horrible fate.
Me. All about me.
Just like with Amy. I'd thought only of myself. Of getting untied. Of getting away. Of getting to safety. I'd heard her screams as Aldrich raped her, and I'd run the other way.
I'd done what I'd been taught - run for help. At thirteen, I was no match for a twenty-four-year-old man. Stay, and he would have killed us both. Run, and I gave Amy a chance. I'd heard it all. Over and over. My father. Amy's parents. A parade of therapists. No matter how many times they said it, no matter how many times I said it, I couldn't feel it.
There was always an unstoppable voice, deep in my gut, that said I'd failed her.
And now I'd failed a girl in a wrecking yard office. A girl I couldn't even picture because I hadn't even seen her.
I'd found Fenniger and I'd had him in my sights, with the means and the will to end his life... and I hadn't.
I just hadn't.
I sat there, huddled against the tree trunk, rough bark scratching my back as I shivered, staring out into the darkness until I stopped shivering, until I couldn't feel the cold.
"Nadia?"
I jumped.
A slow look around. Nothing. I was about to settle again when a voice floated over, barely louder than the sigh of the branches overhead. When I strained to hear, I caught the distinct sound of my name again.
Jack. He must have gotten up, unable to sleep, checked on me, and found me gone. I pushed to my feet.
"Over here!" I called, as loudly as I dared.
Tree branches creaked. A mouse scampered through the brush. Waves slapped against the canoes.
I squinted, trying to see a flashlight beam through the trees. I should have been able to make out the lodge lights from here, but I must have been in a particularly dense pocket, because every way I turned I saw only darkness.
"Nadia..."
A woman's voice skated around me. I spun following it and tripped, hands smacking the tree trunk as I caught myself.
"Nadia..."
A pale shape darted through the trees. I took two steps, then tripped in the undergrowth. Another two, east - I was sure it was east - but the brush only grew thicker, no path in sight.
Another flicker through the trees, followed by a girlish laugh that raised the hairs on my neck. I stopped and rubbed my arms.
"Nadia?"
A man's voice, sharp and clear. Definitely Jack. As I turned toward it, a light bobbed through the forest.
"Over here!" I called.
The light steadied, then jiggled again, as if moving, but coming no closer. I set out after it, tripping and bumbling through the undergrowth, unable to find the path. Finally, the trees and brush began to clear and, ahead, I saw not a flashlight, but a bare bulb over a cabin door. Branches swayed in front of the light, making it seem to move.
/> I squinted at the building, trying to see past the glare. I must have crossed my property line. My neighbors had a few cabins they rented "informally," and I'd heard they were in rough shape, like this one. But as I stared, my stomach started to dance, breaths coming sharp and shallow.
I knew this place. I'd been here -
"Isn't this Bobby Mack's cabin?" a girl's voice said behind me. "My dad says he uses it to dry pot, but they can never catch him."
That voice. Oh, God, I knew that voice.
"Amy," I whispered.
"You're not going to tell on me, girls, are you?"
Another voice I knew, couldn't forget, and my spine froze as I spun, searching. That bare bulb lit the forest edge and the patch of clearing in front of it. Empty forest, empty clearing.
"That depends on what you're going to give us to keep quiet," Amy's voice rang out, the teasing lilt making Aldrich chuckle.
"Oh, I think I've got something," Aldrich said.
"Amy..." My voice. A whisper at her ear, too low for Aldrich to hear. "I think we should - "
"Shhh, it's just pot, Nadia. Don't be a spoilsport. We'll have fun."
I blinked and saw the door right in front of me. I reached for the knob and turned it slowly. The door swung open. I stepped inside.
The door slammed behind me. I jumped, spinning as the bolt whammed shut. The sound echoed in my ears.
"Gawd, it reeks," Amy said, gagging for effect. "Don't you guys ever clean this place?"
I inhaled. Mildew, rotting wood, and mouse droppings. Take-out wrappers and beer bottles littered the wooden floor. In the corner, a blue heap. A sleeping bag. I stared at that bag, heart beating faster.
"You girls go on in. There's a couch in the next room."
Footsteps. A pause. Then a sharp click. I lifted my head to see a padlock, swinging against the wood.
"You girls ever smoke grass before?" Aldrich called as his voice receded.
Amy's laugh rippled through the room, as if it was a silly question. I followed the sound and her voice as she answered, but the farther I walked, the farther they seemed to float away. The floor suddenly dipped. I grabbed for the wall, but it shimmered, my hand sliding through the wood.
A whisper. So soft I swore it was only the leaves against the roof, but the sound drummed in my skull, a steady beat becoming words.
"Gotta get up."
I followed the voice back to the front room. Dark now, the only light the faint glimmer of moon through a window. In the corner, a girl crouched on the open sleeping bag, her face hidden in shadow, only her legs visible. Bare legs smeared with blood. More trickled from a cut on her neck. She was unwinding a rope from her ankles.