Vince shook his head. Vince had brought some brown paper Whole Foods shopping bags to put the money in, but Logan pointed to the backpack and said, “You can keep that.”
Joseph said to his brother, “Check it out.” He was pointing at Vince’s crotch. “Guy’s pissed himself.”
Vince bent his head down to examine himself, saw the dark, wet stain to the side of his zipper. “Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.
Gordie bit his lip. This happened occasionally, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to point out to the boss. At least not in front of others.
Joseph took a step toward Vince. “Hey, I was out of line pointing that out. Sorry about that. Don’t be embarrassed. My uncle, he’s older than you now, but there’s been times when he’s had the same problem. Thing is, though, those times it happened, he was three years old.”
He flashed that grin again. Vince turned his head away from Joseph and fixed his eyes on Logan.
“Your mother still alive?” he asked.
“Huh?” Logan said.
“Your mother. The one who pushed you and your brother out her cooz. She still alive?”
Logan blinked. “Yeah. She is.”
“What are you gonna tell her?”
“What am I gonna tell her about what?”
“What are you gonna tell her when she asks why you didn’t do more to save your brother? Why you didn’t get him to control his mouth? Why you let him get himself killed by being an asshole?”
Logan’s eyes shifted to the left, looking beyond his brother to Gordie, who had his arms raised and extended, a gun pointed at the back of Joseph’s head.
Logan swallowed slowly, then said to his brother, “Apologize to the man.”
Joseph turned around long enough to assess his situation, then looked at Vince and said, “I may have spoken out of turn. You have my sincerest apology.”
“It’s gonna cost you another five to leave your stash with me,” Vince said.
Logan nodded, caught his brother’s eye, and tipped his head toward the door. The two of them left the room.
When the door closed behind them, Gordie lowered his weapon and said, “All you had to do was give me the nod.”
Vince glanced down again at his pants. “I got a change of clothes in the car.”
“I’ll go,” Gordie offered. He was used to this.
Before he reached the door, Vince’s phone buzzed again. He looked to see who it was and frowned. Not with disappointment, but curiosity. It wasn’t one of his guys keeping watch outside.
He put the phone to his ear.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “What’s up?”
His face grew dark as he listened. “Tell me again which house.” He listened a few more seconds. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know. You done good.”
Vince put the phone into his jacket and spoke to Gordie. “We need Bert. Tell Eldon to take care of the money. Then tell him to take the rest of the night off.”
“Why? We’re not going back to your place for a drink or—”
“Do it. Get rid of him.”
“What’s going on?”
Vince put a hand out to the dresser, steadying himself. “We may have been hit.”
“Jesus,” Gordie said.
“It’s worse than that,” Vince said.
TEN
TERRY
I was thinking I must have heard Grace wrong. There was no way she could have said what I thought I’d heard.
“You what?”
“I think—I don’t exactly know for sure—but I think I might have shot somebody,” she said.
So I’d heard right. But it didn’t make any sense. I felt as though I’d just been pushed off the top of a tall building and there was no one down there with a net. The sidewalk was coming up very, very fast.
“Grace, I don’t understand. How could you think you shot somebody?”
“He gave me the gun.”
“Who gave you the gun?”
“Stuart.”
This was going to be bad.
“He wanted me to hold on to it. But then we thought we heard something, and it was dark, and I don’t know what exactly happened. But there was this loud noise, like a gun went off. Like, this huge bang. And I didn’t think it was me, that I was the one who made the gun go, but I was the one who was holding the gun, and Stuart didn’t have one, but I’m not sure because it was all so dark and crazy and I’ve never touched a gun before and I was so scared and then I thought I heard a scream but I don’t even know now if it was somebody else or me. I just ran. I was going to go out the front door, even if it set off the alarm, although the little light was green, but when I turned the knob, it was locked and I couldn’t figure out how to open it, so I went back through the basement and went out the window and I didn’t know what to do at first—I was kind of paralyzed or in shock or something, I don’t know, and I got my phone out and then I just ran and ran until I got to the gas station and I wasn’t sure what to do and finally I decided the person I had to call was you even though I knew you and Mom would be really mad but I didn’t know what else to do and it wasn’t my fault. I mean, maybe it was my fault, but I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.”
And then she dissolved into tears. Not just tears, but huge, racking sobs.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself and rocking against the wall. She raised her head, and even though her eyes were looking my way, it was as if she didn’t even see me.
“My life’s over,” she said. “My life’s completely fucking over.”
I got down on the floor next to her, putting my arms around her and holding her as tight as I could.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “We’re going to sort this out. We’re going to sort it all out.”
Knowing, even as I said the words, how unlikely that was. This was no fender bender. This wasn’t getting arrested for drinking underage. This wasn’t something we’d be able to smooth over in a hurry.
“If somebody did get shot, are you saying it was Stuart?” I asked between her sobs. “Did you get the sense that there was somebody else there? Someone else who could have fired a gun? And is it possible Stuart had a second gun? That he gave one to you and held on to another one for himself?”
“He—I’m pretty sure—he had just the one. He went back to the car to get it. I . . . I called for Stuart and he didn’t say anything. I think . . . I think I actually screamed for him. But then I thought I could still hear something moving around, and I put my hands over my eyes for a second, screamed again, I was totally freaking out, and I felt someone run by me, or I heard someone running . . . I don’t know. It was dark in the house. He told me not to turn on any lights, so no one would know we were there. I think I got bumped. If Stuart was okay, wouldn’t he have answered me? Maybe—maybe what I heard was a dog or something running through the house. He said the people there had pets, so they didn’t have those, you know, those things in the house that can tell if you’re there.”
“Motion sensors.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear a dog? Was there any barking?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything like that.”
“Okay. Grace, where did this happen?”
“A house.”
“Where’s this house?”
“I don’t know.” She took several deep breaths. “I mean, I sort of know, but I don’t exactly know. Not far from the gas station. I wasn’t running that long.”
Ten minutes, she said. Could be a radius of half a mile to a mile or so around that location.
“So it wasn’t Stuart’s house?”
She shook her head. “No. It was some house that he said was on the list.”
“What list?”
“He didn’t say. Just a list where they kept track of things. It might have been a list his dad had.”
“What’s his dad do?”
Grace sniffed and shook her head. “I don’t know, just
stuff. But Stuart knew the people who lived in the house were away and figured if he could get into the house, he could get the keys and take the car for a drive.”
“Jesus,” I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. It was really stupid. I’m so sorry. I know this is it for me. My life’s finished. What’s Mom going to say when she finds out? She’ll probably kill herself. After she kills me.”
“Grace, listen to me. Is it possible you didn’t actually shoot him? Did you see him get shot? What did you see?”
“I don’t know. I heard the shot, but I didn’t really see anything.”
“Were you pointing the gun? Were you holding it up, or was it down at your side?”
“I think—I don’t think I was pointing it. Stuart told me not to put my finger on the trigger, but then when I started to follow him, I kind of moved it in my hand because it was heavy and I might have got my finger on it. Maybe it went off when it was pointed down, and the bullet bounced or something.”
“Tell me again, where did this gun come from?”
“It was in the glove compartment.”
“He keeps a gun in his car?”
“It’s not his car. It belongs to his dad. It’s really old.”
“Is it possible his father’s a cop or something?”
Grace shook her head. “He’s definitely not a cop.” I had the sense she knew more than she was saying about Stuart’s father. “And it was just a dumpy old car, not a police car or anything. It was huge.”
“Okay, so Stuart got the gun from the glove compartment. Why did he want to have a gun?”
“In case we ran into anyone. He said he wasn’t going to use it to shoot anybody, just to scare them off if they gave him a hard time.”
In my head, I was screaming.
“How did it end up in your hand?” I asked.
“He dropped it while he was looking for the keys, so he asked me to hang on to it. I told him I didn’t want to, I swear. I didn’t want to touch it even. But he got really mad at me.”
“When the shot happened, did your arm kick back hard?” I didn’t know much about guns but was aware of the principle of recoil.
“I don’t know. It’s all kind of hard to remember.”
“Grace,” I said, trying to get her to look me in the eye. “Grace, look at me.”
Slowly, she raised her head.
“If this boy has been shot, then we need to get him some help.”
“What?”
“If he’s in that house, if he’s been wounded, then we have to help him. If you did shoot him, and we don’t know if you did or not, but if you did, he might be alive. And if he is, we have to get him to a hospital. We have to call an ambulance.”
Another sniff. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Think. Do you know the address?”
“I told you. I don’t even know where I was. Stuart drove, and then when I left, I didn’t even pay attention to where I was exactly. He said the name of the people who lived there, but . . .” She struggled to remember. “I don’t . . . I can’t think what it was.”
“Then we’re going to have to find that house,” I told her.
“Huh?”
“We’re going to have to go back. You’re going to have to help me find it. If we drive around that area, maybe you’ll recognize it.”
She started to shake.
“I can’t do that. I can’t go back.”
“Look,” I said. “Call him. Try calling Stuart on your cell. Maybe he’s fine. Maybe’s he’s okay.”
“I tried,” she said. “After I ran away. I made—I made some calls before I called you, most of them to Stuart. He didn’t answer.”
“Try one more time. If you get him and find out he’s okay, then we’ll sort out what we have to do. But if you can’t get him, we’re going to have to find that house. Right now, if I called an ambulance, I’d have no idea where to send them.”
Grace swallowed again. “Okay.” She pointed to her purse, which she’d dropped by the bathroom door. “Can you reach that for me?”
I crawled over, got the bag, and set it by her knee. She dug into it, pulled out the phone. She went into her recent calls, tapped the screen, put the phone to her ear.
Waited.
Looked at me.
Waited a little longer.
A large tear formed at the corner of her right eye and left a damp trail down her cheek.
“It went to message,” she whispered.
I stood. “I guess we better go.”
ELEVEN
“HELLO?”
“I almost gave up there. That was ten rings, Unk. I wake you?”
“I guess I’d nodded off. What time is . . . It’s almost eleven. I was watching TV and fell asleep. I think I was dreaming about your father. About when the two of us were growing up together. He liked to light firecrackers under turtles. Mom always said he wasn’t wired right in the head. Something happen?”
“Just thought I’d bring you up to speed.”
“Yes?”
“First of all, they took the bait. Again.”
“That’s good, right, Reggie?”
“Yes and no. What we’re finding is, there’s not just one hiding place. She could be anywhere. It’s a risk-reduction strategy. Multiple spots. I get the wisdom of it. And like I said before, there’s a chance for a real payoff here. Something I wasn’t expecting at the outset.”
“I want you to come out okay. You deserve it.”
“It just means I may have to come up with another strategy. I can’t hit a dozen locations at once. I’ve got help—I’ve had to bring in a couple of extra guys—but it’s not like I’ve got an army. Instead of us finding a way to get it, maybe we’re going to have to find a way to get them to bring it—and her—to us.”
“You think she’s okay?”
“I’ve got no reason to think otherwise. But we need to move quickly because we’re not the only one looking for her.”
“He can’t have her back. I won’t allow it.”
“I know.”
“You know, I nod off watching TV, but when I actually go to bed, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about her. About how we met.”
“It was at a funeral, wasn’t it?”
“We both went to Milford High—this was before they closed it and turned it into offices—but she was a year ahead of me. Couple of years after I graduated, and there was this kid name of Brewster. Clive Brewster. Not that bright, drunk half the time. One night he’s goofing around and—You know that little bridge downtown, past the green, with those turrets at one end and those big stones with people’s names on them?”
“Yeah.”
“He decides to jump in. Water’s not that deep there, but it hardly matters because he does this little spin and whacks his head on one of those stones. That was the end of him. So lots of kids came to the church, and I end up sitting next to her, and she nudges me, whispers that the minister’s got this funny little strand of hair that’s sticking out the side of his head, and every time he moves this hair goes waving along with him, like it’s an antenna. And she starts to get the giggles.”
“Wow.”
“It was kind of like—you remember that Mary Tyler Moore episode where Chuckles the Clown died? He was in a peanut costume at a parade and got crushed by an elephant?”
“Before my time, Unk.”
“She can’t keep it together. Her body’s starting to shake, so I put my arm round her, like I’m consoling her, like she’s crying instead of laughing, and whisper, ‘Follow my lead. Act really upset.’ We’re right at the end of the pew, so I stand and take her with me, my arm still around her, and she’s making these noises that sound like sobs but she’s actually laughing. I get her out of the church, and the door closes, and she explodes with laughter. But I’m worried the people in the church can still hear, so I pull her in close to me, practically smother her, and I can
feel her heaving in my arms, and when she slows down and has herself under control, she looks up at me, and I don’t know what happened, but right then, I looked at her and thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I kissed her. I kissed her, Reggie, right on the mouth.”
“What a story.”
“Yeah. And the second I did it, I thought, Shit, this is wrong, I’m going to get my face slapped, but she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me back. Know what we did then?”
“Tell me.”
“Drove to Mystic, got a motel and stayed there till the next day.”
“You dog, you.”
“I was never happier.”
“I know, Unk.”
“Get her back. Do whatever you have to do.”
TWELVE
TERRY
I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge for Grace as we headed out of the house. I opened the car door for her, assisting her as though she’d suffered some physical injury. She was on autopilot, going through the motions in a daze. I uncapped the bottle and told her to drink, which she did. I got her buckled in, and by the time I’d gone around the car and settled myself in behind the wheel, she’d drunk a third of the bottle.
“I need to know how you’re feeling,” I said.
She turned her head. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, this is a serious question. Your breathing seems okay. Are you still feeling sick to your stomach?”
“I guess not.”
“You dizzy?”
“I just feel . . . I feel like I’m in a dream.”
“Chest pain?”
“Am I going to have a heart attack?” she asked, alarmed.
“I need to know whether you’re going into shock,” I told her.
Grace blinked a couple of times. “I . . . I don’t even know what I’d be feeling if I was in shock. Mostly I’m just really scared. And numb. It’s like I’m not feeling anything, like I’m watching all this happen to someone else. It can’t be me.”
I wished. I reached out, touched her knee. “You can do this. Where should we start?”
“I guess the gas station,” she said. “Maybe I can figure it out from there.”