And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(46)
Emmett took a final drag off the cigarette, dropped it, and stepped on the butt. He turned his head and blew the smoke outside the room. “Seems like a girl who needs medicine to stay alive should have thought twice about stealing someone else’s.”
“Oh my god! I’m sorry!” she shouted. She flinched when he suddenly looked at her. “I’ve never been more sorry about anything. Jesse’s dead because of this stupid thing we did. I don’t want to die, too. Please. Get me more insulin. If it’s not about money, then tell me what’s the real price.”
“Some things don’t have a price. Some things I have to decide whether they’re worth the trouble or not,” he said.
“You said everything has a price. Whether something is worth the trouble depends on what you get in return,” she said. “So tell me what you want in return for bringing me insulin every single day. Am I supposed to let you fuck me? Or give you a blow job?”
Emmett made an irritated grunting sound. He dropped his head and shook it side to side. He couldn’t look at her. She started clearing the things off the cot—the backpack, the chemistry book, the magazine. “Just tell me what I have to do for you to get me insulin so I can decide what I’m willing to do to save my life.”
Emmett put the pieces of the ruined phone in his pocket. “What you need to realize,” he said, moving toward the door, “is that you don’t get to decide anything. Not one thing.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dan and Patty Gherlick lived in the biggest house on Lake Redwing. Approached from behind, down a long drive through a heavily wooded lot, the house looked smaller than it was. The modest back entrance and close trees hid how the house stepped back and spread its wings on either side of a towering, three-story great room that was all windows and redwood-sized logs. The lake side of the house featured a pair of gables on each wing, second-story balconies, a gently graded pebble beach, a separate boathouse, and a dock that stretched to the horizon. At night the place was lit up with more spotlights than a NASA launch pad.
Packard went up the steps, rang the bell. A five-car garage with wooden carriage doors ran perpendicular to the house. No cars parked out front. The house was enormous, but Packard had the sense that it wasn’t empty. Someone was inside, making the place feel occupied. Through the textured glass window he saw a shadow pass deeper in the house, but no one came to the door. He waited a minute, then leaned on the bell. Another minute went by before Patty Gherlick finally came to the door wearing a fuzzy pink outfit that looked like something between pajamas and gym wear. At first glance he thought the loopy embroidery across the chest of the zippered hoodie spelled Patty, but after a second look he realized it said Sassy.
“Hello,” Patty said. She had medium-length brown hair streaked with highlights, cut in layers around her face. She barely came up to Packard’s shoulder and seemed to get lost for a second staring at his badge, as if she was trying to see her reflection in it. She ran a hand through her hair, then spun on her heel and turned away. “Welcome. Please come in. Nice to see you.” Packard had the impression she was talking more to herself than to him.
Patty disappeared into the house with a slow, exaggerated walk that made her ass move. Her bare feet made sandpapery sounds on the tile floor. Packard wiped his shoes and followed her inside. They passed through a kitchen with more marble than a cemetery. A staircase on his left went up to a landing on the second floor. A three-story stone fireplace dominated the great room. He walked around the giant hearth and found a pair of camel-colored couches facing each other in front of the fireplace. A large glass coffee table separated the couches. Packard counted four other intimate seating areas arranged on top of expensive rugs in the huge room. There were lamps and potted ferns and enough throw pillows to fill a swimming pool. Doors and hallways branched off in both directions. Opposite the fireplace, tall windows framed by peeled logs looked out over the lake.
Patty had taken a seat on one of the couches and reached for a lidded thermal mug on the coffee table. Packard stood across from her. Most people got nervous when the police showed up unannounced. Patty acted like she’d opened the door to a field researcher who had come to observe her in her natural habitat. She drank from the mug in her hand and smiled at him. Her teeth were purple with wine.
“Mrs. Gherlick, is your husband home?” Packard asked.
Patty rolled her eyes and rolled her head like she was exhausted by even the mention of her husband. “He’s around here somewhere. Thirteen thousand square feet of living space and twelve acres of lakeshore property, and I can still feel him. He’s close. Too close.” She twisted, put her arms across the back of the couch, and looked out the window behind her. “That’s why I hate the weekends. He doesn’t work on weekends so he’s always around. I can feel him on me like a sunburn. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Well, then you’re lucky. That means you get to enjoy your weekends. I don’t. I hate the weekends.”
The fact that he was here in uniform on a Saturday didn’t seem to have registered with Patty. She was rambling. Packard had the feeling she’d keep repeating the same idea endlessly if he didn’t interrupt. “Mrs. Gherlick, it’s important that I talk to you and your husband.”
She waved her hand in the direction of the towering wall of windows behind her. “Oh, go find him. He said something this morning about…pontoon…motor…blah, blah, blah.” She drank from her thermal mug again.