Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(59)

Ronnie drove to the end of the block and stopped. Put the car in Park, left the engine running. “You sure you want to do this?” he said. Ronnie didn’t mind a little rough sex when he needed to get his gun off, but killing a woman? Then again, it might be interesting. Sort of a new . . . diversion.

“She’s gonna be a problem,” Marjorie said, sounding almost philosophical. “Sooner or later. You saw the way she talked on TV. All puffed up and certain of herself. With a little more coaxing, she could probably identify me. You, too.”

“I don’t think she saw me.”

“Don’t get smart.”

Ronnie hunched forward over the steering wheel.

“I need you to man up and take care of business,” Marjorie said.

“What do you mean?” Ronnie snapped back. “Exactly?”

“I want you to go in there and use your hunting knife. Take care of that woman nice and quick, just like you would an ordinary whitetail deer.”

Ronnie smiled crookedly in the darkness. “You mean kill her?”

Marjorie stared at him.

Ronnie was sweating in the faint warmth being spewed out by the car’s heater. He’d worked with a butcher once, a guy named Hofferman over in Martell. Helped him butcher and process more than fifty deer during hunting season. Skinned ’em, carved out the front shoulders, backstraps, brisket, sirloin, and hindquarters. Quick and efficient, assembly-line style. He’d found the work thought provoking.

Finally Ronnie said, “I never did a person before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, my boy. Besides, you’ve gone after women before, don’t play dumb with me.”

He gestured back toward Muriel Pink’s house and shrugged. He was still undecided. “But not like this. She’s an old lady.”

“Listen to me.” Marjorie reached across the front seat and grabbed hold of his collar, showing surprising strength for such a birdlike woman. “If that old lady ID’s either one of us, we’re cooked.”

“Maybe she—”

“Shut up and listen to me. Do you want to go to prison?”

Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. “Of course not.”

“If that Pink woman identifies us, we’ll sure as shit go to prison, no questions asked. And you, my boy, will never survive that experience.”

Ronnie felt his guts practically turn to water.

“When women are sent to jail, they get to live in cottages and cook meals in a real kitchen,” Marjorie said. “Guys go to hard-core prisons with cement cells, twenty-foot walls, and guard towers with automatic rifles. You’ve seen that prison over in Stillwater, haven’t you? You want to call that place home for the next thirty years?”

Ronnie shook his head.

Marjorie continued to pound away at him. Finally, she turned the tide by asking him one simple question: “Do you want nasty old men to use you like they would a woman?”

That was when Ronnie heaved a knowing sigh. He gathered up his knives, his night vision glasses, and the battered pizza box in the backseat. Then, without a word to her, he climbed out of the car and slunk toward what would soon become a charnel house.


*

MARJORIE waited in the dark. Anxious, quivering like a frightened Chihuahua. Biting her nails down to almost nothing. Then, finally, to bloody stumps. With the engine off, it was getting colder and colder and she sank into her coat, pulling up the collar and shivering. As the night yawned on, the windows began to fog. Still, her hands and feet jiggled with nervous energy.

After what seemed like an eternity—but was probably no more than twenty minutes—Marjorie was delirious with worry and ready to jack the key into the ignition and take off without him. She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught barely a hint of shadow creeping around the corner of the house. Ah, Ronnie. Now the boy was moving more quickly, his head swiveling to see if anyone was watching.

No one was.

As he neared the car, Ronnie broke into a staggering lope. Then he ripped open the car door and flung himself into the backseat.

“Did you do it?” Marjorie asked, turning to look at him.

Ronnie sank back, a stupid smile on his face. “What do you think?”

In the dim light from the overhead bulb, Marjorie could make out telltale bloody splotches. “Watch your clothes,” she warned. “Watch your clothes and stay on top of that old army blanket.”

“Shut up and drive.”

Marjorie slid across the front seat and took her place behind the wheel. She drove back through Hudson slowly and carefully. When she finally gazed into the rearview mirror, Ronnie was sprawled across the backseat and snoring softly. He might have been unnerved by his actions tonight, but he was sleeping like a baby.

Marjorie allowed herself a tight smile. The kid came through, she told herself. He pulled it off. Which means one big problem is solved. Now, knock on wood, we’re home free.





25


MAX, Afton, and Andy Farmer were sitting in the conference room, watching the tape of Portia Bourgoyne’s interview.

“The TV station sent this over?” Max asked.

Farmer nodded. “Not because they were particularly interested in doing a public service. There was, shall we say, pressure?”

“Good. Have the FBI guys seen this?” Max asked.