Vince looked at his watch. It was already past noon. He’d be getting a call soon. He gave me directions to another house.
We got lucky there. Like the first place, no one was home. Vince and I went in while Cynthia and Grace kept watch out front. I had to lift up almost all the insulation to find the cash. Vince had thought it was on one side of the house, but it turned out to be on the opposite.
“Eldon,” he muttered under his breath.
“What happened there?” I asked while I was bent over hunting for money and Vince was watching me from the access hatch. “Bert took off. Gordie got run down by a truck. You said Eldon’s dead, too.”
“Yeah,” Vince said.
“How?”
“Don’t ask,” he said.
“Could it have been him?” I asked.
“Him what?”
“Who ripped you off? Was his son helping him? Him and Stuart? Something went wrong?”
Vince shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“But it had to be someone who knew the money was there. You never told Teresa why you wanted into our house. And you didn’t tell the dog walker, either.”
“No. Unless he figured it out.”
“You saying it couldn’t have been one of your own people?”
It was suddenly very quiet in the attic. It was several seconds before Vince spoke. “I suppose one could think that. But that’s my problem. Not yours.”
We finished up, did our best to make it look as though no one had ever been there, and left the house. I got the ladder strapped back onto the roof rack.
“Where to now?” I asked as I got back behind the wheel.
Vince looked again at his watch. “They’re supposed to call in half an hour. We haven’t got time to do any more.” He talked in a monotone, as if on autopilot, his mind elsewhere.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, which told me he did. “She said she wanted everything, like maybe it’s not just about the money. It’s the needle in the haystack.”
Grace asked, “What?”
“Maybe it’s that crystal meth. The people who left that with me have been perfecting their product for some time. Maybe someone wants that batch to figure out how they did it. Or maybe it’s some documents, tucked in with some money from another house. Something they know is in one of my hiding places, but they don’t want to ask for it outright so I could just go to the right house and get it. They don’t want me to know what it is. Because if I knew it was that valuable, maybe I’d want to hang on to it myself.”
“So we might not even have it yet,” I said.
“Yeah.” He thought some more. “That’s kind of what I’m hoping.”
I shot him a look. “What?”
“But if we do have it, I still have to tempt them with something more.” He wasn’t talking to us. He was talking to himself.
His interior monologue got cut short. His cell phone was ringing. He grabbed it from his jacket, looked at the screen, and said, “It’s them.”
FIFTY-FIVE
JANE, still bound and hooded and sitting in the chair, heard Joseph drag something across the floor from somewhere else in the room. She kept very still, listening, trying to figure out what he was doing.
The noise stopped abruptly, directly in front of her.
“Just want to make myself comfortable,” Joseph said. A chair. He’d dragged over a chair, one with wooden legs, she bet. She heard the rustling of fabric, a slight shift in the air as the man sat down.
Suddenly, she felt something touch her knees, and she flinched.
“Hey, don’t worry,” he said. “That’s just me. I pulled my chair up close so we could sit knee to knee.”
She tried to force herself back farther into her chair, but there was no place to go. He opened his legs so he could trap hers between his two knees.
“That’s nicer. I like that. You like that? You don’t say much, do you? You know something? I like that in a girl.”
He patted her knees with his palms, as if he was drumming.
“Badoop, badoop. Hey, I bet you’re wondering whether your dad is going to get you out of this. I know, I got that wrong. Reggie says he’s not your dad, that he’s your stepdad. I had a stepdad for a while. Me and Logan, there was a couple years our mom lived with this asshole named Gert. He was from Bavaria or someplace. My mom liked him, till she got to know him and found out he got his kicks from bending her fingers back till they nearly snapped if she didn’t get his dinner on the table on time. What he liked to do to me was—and I gotta admit, I was kind of a pain in the ass—was put me in the dryer. You know, this big white Kenmore. Well, it probably wasn’t any bigger than a regular dryer, but when you’re a little kid and you can’t even see over the top of it, it’s big. So when I was a pain in the ass, he’d open the door and shove me in, and then he’d prop a chair up against the door so I couldn’t get out. I know what you’re thinking. Did he turn it on? You know, and like spin me around and toast me to death? Naw. I mean, he might have wanted to, but I was too heavy, it would have busted the machine, and the last thing he’d have wanted to do is pay a repairman to fix it. So he’d just leave me in there, all bunched up. One time, he musta forgot he’d put me in there, or just didn’t give a shit, because he went out for the afternoon to go drinking with his buddies. Your mom ever do anything like that to you? Did she have a nice body? Because you do.”
A hand came off her knee and touched the side of her head. Caressing her through the hood.
“So, anyway, we saw your stepdad last night, and I couldn’t believe it. He pissed his pants. I guess we scared him. He must scare easy, because we weren’t being threatening or anything.”
He took his hand from her head and rested it back on her knee. “Anyway, about when I was in the dryer.”
Jane made a mewing noise of frustration.
“Don’t interrupt. I used to go to this place, like, in my head, when Gert would do shit like that to me. Somewhere far away, so I wouldn’t think about what I was going through. It was really helpful. Sometimes I’d imagine I was on a ship out in the ocean, or maybe on a rocket going to Mars—anything like that. I wondered, is that kind of what you’re doing now? Imagining you’re someplace else? Because if you’re not, I think that’s what you might want to start doing.”
From upstairs: “Joseph!”
“Shh,” he said to her. “That’s my brother. He probably wants me to do something. Whatever it is, it can wait. I thought we’d have a little fun first. Even with a bag over your head, you’re nice-looking. Some girls, you’d want to do them with a bag over their head. I have to stand up for a second.”
He released his grip on her knees, stood back. Jane wondered whether he was leaving, but she didn’t sense him moving away. She could hear his breathing. Then she could hear something else. A clinking, like the sound of a belt buckle. Then the unmistakable sound of a zipper.
Descending, in all likelihood.
“Go to your special place,” he said, his voice sounding very close.
“Joseph!”
She could feel his breath on her face, even through the fabric of the hood. His face directly in front of hers.
Jane figured, if she was ever going to try something, it was now. It didn’t take her more than half a second to figure out what it would be, and to execute.
She leaned back, to allow herself a few inches to build up some momentum, then shot her head forward.
Fast.
Whole thing couldn’t have taken more than half a second.
She couldn’t know exactly where he was—where, specifically, his nose was—but she had a pretty good feeling about it. She tipped her chin down, brought her forehead forward, and drove it as hard as she could to whatever part of him was there in front of her.
Contact. It lasted only an instant, but it was enough to feel bone meet flesh and cartilage. To feel Joseph’s nose crushed into his face.
His scream was ear-piercing and immediate.
“Ahhhhh!”
Which was quickly followed by, “Oh my God, oh my God!”
Jane felt warm drops land on the thighs of her pants. Upstairs, the sound of people’s feet pounding on the floor.
“Joseph! Where are you? Where—? Jesus!”
“My nose!” he cried. “She smashed my nose!”
“Holy shit!” The voice of the woman. Reggie.
“Logan, it’s broken!” Joseph said, weeping. “It’s goddamn broken!”
“Okay, hold on, hold on.” Sounding frantic.
“I’m gonna kill her!”
She felt hands, wet and slippery, grab her by the neck just below the hood, smear her skin. He wrapped his palms around her throat, started to squeeze.
“Stop it!” Logan. “Joseph, stop it!”
Someone dragged him away. “Jesus, he’s bleeding like a faucet.” Another man. Had to be the one called Wyatt.
“Get something for his nose,” Logan said.
More screaming.
“I’m going to have to take him to the hospital,” Logan said.
“Are you kidding?” Reggie said. “You can’t go to—”
“Look at him! He’s gonna choke on his own blood!”
“What the hell are you going to tell them at the hospital?” Wyatt said.
Joseph, his voice gargling: “That this bitch did it! This fucking bitch broke—”
“No!” Logan said. “You’ll tell them you tripped and fell flat on your face—that’s what you’re going to tell them.”
“I need a doctor,” he said frantically. “I need a doctor bad.”
“Fine, shit, okay,” Reggie said. “Take him to the hospital. Just have a good story.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” Logan said. “It could take a while. God, I don’t even know if they can set that.”
“How bad does it look?” Joseph asked.
“What the hell are you doing with your pants down?” Reggie asked. “Honest to God. We’ve got shit to do and you’re down here fuckin’ the help.”
“What about the meet?” Wyatt talking.
Reggie said, “We can do that without them. You guys go to the hospital and we’ll regroup back here after.”
“We still want our share,” Logan said.
“Don’t worry about that. God, get him out of here—he’s making a mess. Look at the goddamn carpet.”
Jane heard Joseph’s whimpers recede as his brother led him out of the room and upstairs. But she could sense someone still in the room.
Reggie said, “Did he touch you?”
Jane shook her head under the hood.
Reggie sighed. “It’ll all be over soon enough,” she said, and left the room.
FIFTY-SIX
TERRY
VINCE Fleming put his cell phone to his ear and said, “Yeah.” His jaw was set tight as he listened to the person on the other end.
About thirty seconds passed before Vince said, “I understand.” He ended the call and put the phone away.
“Well?” I said.
“I give them the money in half an hour.”
“Half an hour?” Cynthia said.
“We have to go back to your place,” he said to me.
“Why?”
He cocked his head toward the backseat. “We have to get rid of them.”
“We have names,” Grace said.
Vince half turned in his seat so he could see her and Cynthia. “I need to borrow Terry for this. I need a driver. But you can’t come along. They see a car full of people and they’re going to get spooked. I don’t think it’s going to be dangerous—I’m just handing stuff over and then they’re going to tell me where Jane is—but you can’t come.”
“How can you say it won’t be dangerous?” Cynthia asked. “What if these people take the money and . . .” She struggled to get the words out. “What if they take the money and shoot you or something?”
“That won’t happen,” Vince said.
“You can’t know that,” I said.
“I do,” he said.
“You know Cyn’s right. There’s every reason to believe they’ll shoot you and take the money and you’ll never see Jane.”
“That’s not how it’s going to go down.”
“So you do have some sort of brilliant plan?” Grace asked.
He didn’t respond for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “And the sooner I get rid of you and your mother, the sooner I can get to it.”
Sometimes Vince made it very hard to like him.
I took my foot off the brake and aimed the car for home. I could sense Cynthia wanted to talk to me, but couldn’t say what was on her mind in front of Grace, or Vince. I knew she didn’t want me heading off with Vince alone, but she also had to know it wasn’t a good idea to make Grace a part of this continuing adventure, either. It actually made sense to drop the two of them off and for me to stick with Vince. I was still mulling over whether, and when, to put in a call to the police, and wondered whether Cynthia, once I’d dropped her off, would do it.
We were almost back to our place when Vince said, “We’ll take my truck. They’ll probably be looking for it, but you can drive.”
Once I’d turned into the driveway and turned off the car, Vince said to Cynthia, “Don’t hang around here.”
“What?” she said. “Why not?”
“I can’t say for sure someone won’t come back here. It won’t be anyone working for me—that much I know. Until this is over, you two take off. Go for a drive. Go to the mall. I don’t know. Just don’t be here. We’ll call you when we’re done.”
I said, “That’s a good idea.”
We all got out of the car. Vince gathered together all the bags of loot he’d collected, including the ones he’d taken from his body shop, and carried them over to his truck. He set them down, got the keys from his pocket, and, once the doors were unlocked, tossed the keys my way.
I missed the catch and had to bend over to grab them off the lawn. I thought I saw a small frown on his face, wondering, no doubt, whether any confidence he might have in me was misplaced.
I’d say yes.
He was walking with a decided limp and, while not collapsing, seemed even weaker than he had a couple of hours earlier. He went around to the passenger side of his pickup and got in, stuffing the bags behind the seat.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Grace asked.
“Go to your mom’s apartment,” I suggested.
“I need to talk to your father,” Cynthia said, shooing Grace away. “I don’t like this. It’s one thing gathering up that money, but it’s another delivering a ransom to kidnappers.”
“It’s not exactly how I’d expected my day to play out,” I said. “You want, I’ll pull the plug on this now. I’ll call the cops. Vince’ll be mad, but there won’t be a damn thing he can do about it. And as far as Grace is concerned, we’ll still get that lawyer and do whatever it is we have to do.”
Cynthia hesitated.
“Right now, right this minute, it’s about Jane,” she said. “What if bringing in the police—what if that really does screw things up somehow? And ends up getting Jane killed?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to do. But my gut tells me this is Vince’s call, how to play this. She’s his stepdaughter. I’m not sure it’s up to us. And if it isn’t, I don’t see how I can let him handle this alone. All his people are dead or have abandoned him. Right now, we’re all he’s got.”
Cynthia laid a hand on my shoulder. “Just be careful, okay? Promise me that? Don’t do anything stupid?”
“You’re a bit late with that advice.”
I wanted desperately to make some kind of joke, to not make this a scene where the soldier is heading off into battle. I gave her a quick kiss. Too long a one, I thought, would give the impression I wasn’t coming back.
I was coming back.
Cynthia grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. I opened the
door of the pickup, hauled myself in, and got settled behind the wheel.
“You remember what I told you seven years ago?” Vince asked.
“Huh?”
“When you and I set off in this very same truck, me helping you figure out what happened to your wife’s family? The night I ended up getting a fucking bullet in my gut?”
“You said don’t fiddle with the radio. Don’t touch the stations, or you’d fucking kill me.”
Vince nodded agreeably.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said.
FIFTY-SEVEN
TERRY
“THEY want to do the handoff in the cemetery,” Vince said once we were on the road. “You know the one, on the way out to the mall?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Isn’t that a bit clichéd?”
Vince gave me a look. “Is that your concern? That they’re not being original enough?”
“Look, I’m going to take one last shot at this. Call the cops.”
“No.”
I brought my voice down. I didn’t want to be arguing with him. I just wanted to make my case. “You’ve already as much as admitted to me your future’s kind of bleak at the moment. If these people who kidnapped Jane don’t kill you, the people whose money you’re using to save her will want to when they come to collect. So we’re not talking about saving your ass here. We’re only worried about Jane. The cops have a better shot at getting her back alive than you do.”
“They’d fuck it up,” he said.
“They’ve got helicopters and tracking devices. They know how to tap into everybody’s surveillance cameras. They can have all kinds of cops in ordinary cars following these people. You’re just one guy. With me, you’re about one and a half guys. If you called them right now, they could get someone in place near the cemetery. They could watch what went down. They’d be like backup.”
“We’ve got backup,” Vince said.
I took my eyes off the road a second to look at him. “What?”
“Right here,” he said, opening the glove compartment. I saw what looked like the butt of a gun in there. He wrapped his hand around it and took it out.