Aurora(83)

Zielinski sat again, rubbing his sore right hand and flexing his fingers. Scott moaned in pain, Celeste choked back sobs, and Aubrey breathed hard, full of rage and unable to do anything about it.

Zielinski picked up a box of kitchen matches from a side table, struck one, and lit the two candles that were there.

He spoke quietly to Aubrey. “I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to say to your brother when he gets here, and you are going to say it. Word for word. After he leaves the money, me and Celeste are gonna take it and go. But until he gets here, we are all just going to sit here and wait. Silently. Anybody says anything I don’t like”—he nodded toward Espinoza—“I’ll put the barrel of his gun between their teeth and pull the trigger.”

He looked around the room. “Are there any questions?”





34.





Cayuga Lane

The first thing that gave Thom pause was the two SUVs, parked nose to nose, that were stationed at the end of Cayuga Lane. It made sense, he supposed, given the condition of some of the neighborhoods he’d driven through on the way here, but it wasn’t reassuring. Neither was the fact that the two lawn chairs in the beds of the trucks were empty. If this was a guard post, it was unmanned tonight.

His fears were somewhat allayed by the Edenic nature of Aubrey’s block itself, which looked like it was out of a Utopian future. It was dusk, so some of the vibrant colors of the fields were dimmed, but he could see, as far as the light allowed in both directions, the rich, verdant plantings that had been carefully sown, tended, and harvested over the past several months. He kicked himself for never having considered this, in even one of the dozens of think-tanking, brain-dating, and strategic-planning sessions he’d held over the past ten years.

Had he actually picked the desert? Live in the desert and eat freeze-dried food? What had been the matter with him? Eat what you can grow, grow everything you can. Nothing else would work. Why had he never seen that? He was so concerned with continuing to live life as it was that he’d never thought about living it as it might be.

The street was quiet as he approached Aubrey’s house. He’d been there only once, but remembered it because it was the oldest one on the block, and he’d thought she was crazy to buy it. It sat near the end of the street on the left, or loomed there, he’d thought at the time, like the scary old money pit it was. There were no lights on, of course, but there was a wavering glow visible through a tiny part in the curtains of the front windows.

He reached the bottom of the steps and stopped, noticing the second odd thing.

It was a cake.

Or it looked like a cake, anyway, a thick, brown, round thing on a wire cooling rack, sitting at the top of the front steps. He climbed the steps and stopped near the top, bending down to take a closer look. Yes, it was a cake, a homely-looking one, no icing, but someone had clearly baked a chocolate sponge cake and left it here, on Aubrey’s front step.

Thom looked around. Nobody out on the block.

He looked back at the cake. He reached down, laying a finger on the side of it. Still warm.

He moved it carefully to the side, stepped up to the mat, and opened the screen door. He thought he detected a flash of movement through the sliver in the living room curtains, and he snapped his head that way. There was light inside, maybe the flickering of a candle.

Thom shifted, adjusting the jacket he was wearing. It was too hot for the sultry evening, but he’d put it on to cover the Glock, which he’d shoved into the back of his pants. He’d had to tighten his belt an extra notch to keep it there, and it was uncomfortable as hell. With any luck, about thirty seconds from now he’d realize he didn’t need it. That this had all been a big overreaction.

He knocked on the door.

A long moment went by. He thought he heard movement inside, but no one answered.

He was about to knock again when the door opened, leaving his hand hanging in midair.

Aubrey looked at him for a long moment, then forced a strained smile. “Hello, Thom.”

“Hey, Aubs.”

“Thank you for coming,” she said. But she didn’t move to admit him, just stayed standing in the two-foot gap of the open door, her body blocking the entrance to the house.

“Least I could do,” he said. He tried to look past her, into the house, but she didn’t move.

“I know Rusty called you. He didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad he did.”

He looked back at her. If he had suspected something was wrong before, he knew it now, and not just from her stilted tone. She was glad Rusty called him? She hadn’t been glad about anything Rusty had done for years.

Thom thought he heard a footfall inside. His eyes flicked toward the living room, but he couldn’t see into it from this angle.

“Is that Todd?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Scott. I’m kidding, you know, I always get his name wrong?”

“Right. Yeah. Scott’s here.”

“Can I say hi?”

“Not right now,” she said. “He’s in kind of a mood.”

Thom nodded. “Teenagers. Always trouble.”

“Exactly.” She looked at him, holding eye contact. “Trouble.”

“I heard Brady came back and threatened you,” he said.

“Yes. Three or four days ago.”