The Inn(49)

“You have a very inflated sense of your role in my life, Cline,” I said. “You need to think less ‘God walking the earth’ and more ‘Indistinct mass of crud in someone’s boot tread.’”

“That sounds like a thing someone who’s won would say,” Cline said. “But I’ve got to remind you—you haven’t won here tonight.”

“You don’t think?” I scoffed. “Your product is at the bottom of the ocean. Your guys are in the hospital.”

“Yeah,” he said. I could hear a mean smile in his words. “So what does a guy do when all his men have proved to be useless to him?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the line went dead. I jumped at Susan’s hand on my shoulder. She had crept down the basement stairs without my hearing her.

“Was that him?” She must have been able to tell it was from the look on my face. “What did he say?”

“I …” I drew a deep breath. “I think he’s bringing in reinforcements.”





CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR





THERE WERE THINGS to do. There are always things to do when you have seven people under your roof and a rickety old house. But the events of the evening sent me into a kind of mental paralysis, and I could only wander around, looking out the windows, half expecting to see more of Cline’s guys on their way to slaughter the people I loved. In time I managed to throw together one of my characteristically terrible breakfasts, this one watery scrambled eggs, deflated roasted tomatoes, and burned toast. I cleaned up the mess in the dining room and sat through the brief and uncomfortable interviews of all my residents with a couple of Clay’s trusted officers, gold columns of morning light streaming through the bullet holes in the dining-room wall.

Clayton called at midday to tell me what I already knew: Marni’s tox screen showed she’d had enough fentanyl in her system to kill a horse.

When the sun was just climbing over the tops of the pines guarding the sea, I went to my car, which was parked at the edge of the woods. I figured I’d drive into town and run some errands, try to take my mind off things. I slid behind the wheel, looked over, and saw a backpack I didn’t recognize on the seat beside me.

Thinking it must belong to one of the members of the house, I grabbed the bag to move it to the footwell so it didn’t slide as I drove. The zipper wasn’t closed, and thick stacks of cash spilled onto the floor of the car.





CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE





THE HOUSE HAD fallen quiet again. I went to my bedroom in the basement and emptied the contents of the backpack onto my bed, stood staring at the heap of cash for a minute. I jogged up the stairs and shut the basement door, then pulled the small blind down over the window to the backyard.

I counted the cash. Eight hundred thousand dollars. There was a short note written on a piece of fine cream stationery. Cline didn’t do anything cheaply. The note read simply: Think carefully.

I sat on the bed beside the cash. There was no need to think carefully. My whole body shook with fury. Cline thought he could buy me off after he had killed Marni, destroyed my house, threatened my friends. I began snatching up the bills and throwing them back into the bag.

I stopped to look at the cash in my hands, wondering what my next move should be. The only course of action, I supposed, was to give the money to Clay. There would be no proving Cline sent it to me. It would sit in an evidence locker until the State of Massachusetts claimed it as proceeds of crime. I fanned the bills with my thumb. The cash remaining on the bedspread was more than I had ever seen in one place in my life. This was what Cline paid in shut-up money. There would probably be more cash, keep-shutting-up money, if I accepted it and backed off. How many people was he paying to look the other way, surrender their turf to him? For the first time, the magnitude of his operation hit me.

A brief fantasy, like a flash across my eyes: A car. A house. Booze, parties, beautiful women. Sure, I wasn’t the booze-parties-and-beautiful-women type, but money could make me that way. Fat stacks of money could do anything. Change my life. Change my mind. The guilt rippled through me as the seconds ticked by and the money stayed in my hands. No bad fortune immediately came crashing down on me. The money made me feel strangely good, even though it was just sitting here, stacks of paper sizzling with power and potential.

I was drawn out of my reverie by a gentle knock at the basement door. I shoved the cash and the backpack under my bed. At the top of the stairs, above the labyrinth of unpacked boxes and stacks of paint cans, ladders, and toolboxes, Susan opened the door. She hadn’t been at breakfast, but she had showered and changed and looked fresh and ready to work. She didn’t usually wear her hair up, so I had never noticed how perfect her ears were. Or maybe I had. Maybe in the fog of the past couple of years, I’d always known how beautiful Susan Solie was but had simply shut my mind to it, and all the trauma of the past few days had thrown open that door.

“I knew you’d be down here in your dungeon,” she said, rubbing her arms. “I don’t know how you stand it. It’s freezing!”

“It’s easier to sleep at low temperatures,” I said.

“Come here,” she said. “I want to show you something cute.”

I followed her to the laundry room, where she pointed out the window. Angelica was sitting on a picnic table by the edge of the woods; Vinny was in his wheelchair on the other side. Vinny was describing something, maybe a scene from his past, pantomiming throwing open a door, pointing a pistol. Angelica’s face had an unfamiliar expression—rapture and intrigue. She was actually laughing at the story.