The Inn(38)

“He’s a contact of ours. Nick’s driving him north to Augusta,” I said. “He’s got a cousin there. Cline’s more likely to look for him at his mother’s house in Boston.”

“You’ve gone rogue.” Susan shook her head.

“I haven’t gone rogue,” I said. “I’m not a cop anymore. I don’t need to play by anyone’s rules.”

“Just because you’re not a cop doesn’t mean you get to snatch kids off the street!” She threw her hands up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Bill. Cline put a missing-persons report in with Clay, and he mentioned it to me. I heard about the crashed bike. You endangered that kid’s life by making him flip on Cline.”

“Oh, believe me, he was already in danger,” I said. “It’s a matter of time with these people. When the heat’s on, they clean house. I’ve seen it over and over. Cline wants Squid brought in so he can kill him or locked up so he can get one of his prison contacts to do it. The kid will be safe with his cousin.” I watched her shake her head again. “I needed information. This guy killed Marni, Susan. He had someone lure her there and he killed her. If his men had been better shots, he might have killed someone here at the house.”

“I’m worried you’re going to get in over your head on this,” she said.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not your problem.”

I turned to go but she took my hand. I couldn’t look at her. From the moment Cline had offered to tell me exactly what had happened to Siobhan, to lay out for me the awful truth I’d been denying all this time, my nerves had been frayed. I didn’t want to think about Siobhan. I didn’t want to think about Marni. I didn’t want to acknowledge the heavy desire now in my chest to hold Susan in my arms, to feel her hands on my neck, her lips on mine. Fighting back against it all seemed the only safe course of action. But then, without realizing it, I let her put her hand on my cheek. She was so close I could smell her sweet breath.

“Bill,” she pleaded, “just don’t—”

“I can’t do this,” I said. I pulled away and went inside.

Angelica was on the couch in the living room under the windows, one arm in a sling and the other lying across her forehead like she’d fainted; her left index finger was splinted. I went into the kitchen and stood at the window, felt Susan’s presence without turning to look at her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. I gripped the edge of the sink.

“I have a plan,” I said. “But a part of me wants to throw it in. I keep thinking about just driving to Cline’s house, dragging him down the stairs by his shirt, and kicking the shit out of him on his own lawn.”

She was silent. The malice in my voice was frightening, even to me. Another being was speaking from a dark place in my mind. It was loss that did this to me, forced me down into my own deepest, most evil recesses.

“You’re not that dumb.”

“Oh, I can be pretty dumb,” I smirked. I heard a thunk from upstairs, which I ignored. I turned to her. I wanted to tell Susan that I’d done this before. That I’d let the badness take me, stupid and filled with rage, and I both did and didn’t regret what I had done. But the phone rang in my pocket, drawing us both out of ourselves. I answered without looking at the caller ID.

“Bill,” someone said. A voice I hadn’t heard in over two years. “It’s Malone.”

I barely managed to respond. “What do you … this is not a good time.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” he said. “But I don’t think we have a choice. I’m a hundred yards from your house, and a black woman on the second floor has got me pinned with a big fuck-off rifle. She just blew a hole the size of a dinner plate in the tree right next to me.”





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR





EFFIE WAS SITTING on a wooden stool at the window, her eye on the scope and her finger on the trigger of a rifle even bigger than the one I’d pulled off Nick the other night. The silencer on it was as thick as my arm, which accounted for the thunk I’d heard when she’d fired a warning shot at my former partner. Effie turned and looked at me as I entered the bare room, then made a couple of signs I recognized from raid training I’d done as a young patrolman.

One target. Hundred yards.

“Does everybody in this goddamn house have an enormous rifle under the bed except me?” I asked. Effie looked like she was mentally reviewing the number of guests with large guns under their beds. I moved toward her, stopped when I noticed a tiny brown lump on the bedspread. The rat was sleeping, curled up in a ball like a cat, its pink tail tucked around its body. I knelt beside Effie and looked through the scope. Jerry Malone was indeed standing frozen in the forest, his hands out from his sides like he was prepared to either raise them or jump for cover if another shot came. He’d dropped the phone, probably not wanting to push his luck any further. There was a hole in the tree right next to him large enough for a man to put his head through. The scope of the rifle was so big I could see the individual splinters of wood from the shot that had fallen on his shoulder.

“He’s an old buddy,” I told Effie.