The Inn(58)

I made the decision and latched onto it, afraid that if I questioned it at all, I would change my mind.

“What are we doing?” Susan asked as I pulled the car over outside my wife’s killer’s house.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT





CLINE LIKED A purge night, liked to get all his business taken care of in one hit, before his targets could scatter like roaches from a kitchen light. The first time he’d cleaned house, he’d wiped out his whole crew only weeks after assembling them. He’d found out he had a rat in his pack when a cop had dragged him in and told him about it; the cop wanted half Cline’s stash for the favor. Cline had called the crew in, told them there was a last-minute job on, and driven them to a field in a big van. Then he’d turned around in the driver’s seat and said nothing while he sprayed them all with an automatic like fucking Tony Montana. Made them dance in their seats. He’d sat in the field afterward and watched the van burn, the coiling smoke and embers rising into the night. He’d felt pure.

Now he closed the door of the Escalade quietly, put his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat, and counted off the street lamps as he walked toward Addison Gilbert Hospital’s parking lot. He pulled his cap down low on his brow as he crossed the lot and opened the back door that Dr. Raymond Locke had left unlatched for him.

There’d be no playing around with Russ the way there had been with Simbo. He’d knelt by Simbo’s body after the thrashing stopped and looked at the red starbursts in the whites of his eyes, the colors still leaking in the last stutters of his heart. Cline walked the halls of Addison Gilbert and took the stairs to the second floor, following the scrape marks in the paint of thousands of gurneys passing.

Cline found the curtains pulled around bed fourteen. He checked his weapon, nosed the gun between the curtains, and shoved the fabric aside suddenly. The skinny white guy in the bed jolted awake.

Cline recalculated quickly. Let the gun waver just an inch. “Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.

The guy didn’t answer. Cline lifted the chart from the bottom of the bed. Russell Hamdy. Right name, wrong target. Cline walked down the hall, swept the curtains back from all the other beds, checked the vile snoring and moaning creatures he found there.

In the parking lot, sweat seeping into the arms of his coat, he saw a black blob lumbering between the vehicles. He recognized her from the ER. Cline walked up behind the woman and stuck the gun in the back of her neck. She froze against her flamingo-pink coupe, the cardboard box of fluffy, shiny treasures in her hands pinned against the window.

“Russell Hamdy,” he said. “Where is he?”

She turned, and Cline stepped back. Yes, this was the one he’d seen at the triage desk once when he’d come to speak to Locke in the ER; he remembered her ridiculous yellow claws and regrettable pink eye shadow. Bess was her name, he thought. A big buffoon in a clown outfit. She didn’t even look at the gun.

“I thought you’d come.” She smiled, shifted the box in her hands. “When they brought Mr. Hamdy in, I knew it was connected to you. That’s what happens when someone like you comes into town. First you get the overdoses, then you get the suicides, then you get the kneecaps blown to dust. And people like me who won’t shut up about it, who won’t stand by and let you keep on killing—we get sent packing.”

Cline looked at the box she was holding. He could see a novelty mug with a little crown on it that said SASSY SINCE BIRTH.

He thought about asking her again where Russ was stashed, but the defiance in her eyes told him he was wasting his time.

Cline raised the gun in both hands.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE





SUSAN SEEMED TO know my purpose, though to my knowledge she had no idea where Monica Rink lived. I exited the car without waiting for her and started walking up the pebble driveway. Cline had offered to tell me what happened the night Siobhan died, and I’d refused to hear it. But his words had started a fire in me, one that was threatening to consume me. I couldn’t wait any longer.

An orange cat fled out of my way, leaping into a hedge, as I advanced toward the door.

“Bill, stop.” Susan grabbed my hand as I went to knock. “You don’t know what you’re—”

I knocked. We waited, Susan still holding my hand. I looked at her and realized she was scared, frightened for me, perhaps, and the heartache I was about to put myself and Monica through. A figure in a green T-shirt, maybe expecting someone else, bounced to the door and opened it.

I recognized her from the photographs in the paper after my wife’s death. Her mouth was big and expressive, turning before my eyes from an expectant grin to an uncomfortable grimace. She knew exactly who I was. Monica grabbed her flame-red ponytail as though for comfort and glanced back into the empty hall.

She couldn’t speak, so I did. “I’m not here to cause trouble,” I said, putting my hands up.

“I can’t—” She tried to shut the door, but my foot was in the way. Susan tugged on my arm.

“Bill, this isn’t a good time,” she said. “You’re upset about Malone. It’s been a rough week. You need to just—”

“No, you need to just.” I pointed a finger at Monica. “Just tell me the truth. It’s been long enough. I can’t take it anymore.”