Cold Springs(91)

“I'll give you to ten,” Pérez bargained. “Because I like you, Chadwick. Then I open up, and I don't really give a shit who goes down with you.”

Chadwick crawled to the far end of the store, came to the front, then rose up into a sideways crouch, using an iced bin of soft drinks as a shield.

He had miscalculated. Pérez was much closer than he'd realized, doing exactly what Chadwick was doing—sneaking around. Pérez was turning in Chadwick's direction, and for a quarter second Chadwick was too startled to move—long enough to die had Pérez not been distracted by a loud THWACK-FIZZ at the storefront—the sound of a full can of beer slamming into the window. Pérez fired.

The glass shattered as Chadwick discharged three rounds into Pérez's chest—insanely loud, the force of the blasts knocking Pérez all the way to the welcome mat. He landed on his back, his arms trying to curl up, his knees trying to rise.

Chadwick stepped forward, kicked the pistol out of Perez's hands.

Pérez's eyes were open, fish-eyes. There was no blood.

Outside, the street was still empty, dark, and quiet.

The convenience store cashier inhaled like a cadaver coming back to life. “Lord Jesus . . .”

Jones called out, “Chadwick?”

“It's okay,” he called.

Jones came up, dragging Mallory, who was frantically trying to pry Jones' hand off her wrist.

Chadwick flipped aside Pérez's coat, knocked on Pérez's shirt with his knuckle, felt the hardness of Kevlar. “He came prepared. Got the wind knocked out of him. Probably broke some ribs. He'll live. Thanks for the beer, Jones. Stupid move, but thanks.”

“Next time I'll let you get killed, I promise. So what do we do with him?”

The cashier made another inhale. “I'll call the police.”

“No!” Mallory said. Her eyes implored Chadwick. “No police! Please—you promised you'd listen to me. We have to . . . we have to talk.”

“We can't leave him,” Jones said.

Chadwick didn't like any of his options, but after his conversation tonight with Kreech and Laramie, he liked the idea of the police the least. Handing Kreech this situation would be like handing the sheriff a Mensa test. As for Laramie, Chadwick had a feeling the special agent would find a way of using Pérez to hang Chadwick, not the other way around.

“I'll handle him,” Chadwick told the cashier. “I'll bring him to the proper authorities.”

“Ain't my business, but—”

Then her pale eyes fixed on the revolver still in Chadwick's hand, and she decided against finishing her comment.

“Our car is out front,” Chadwick told Mallory. “Jones will make sure you get in.”

“Where are we going?”

“A friend's,” Chadwick said. “You and Pérez, me and Ms. Jones—we need to have a nice long conversation.”

25

“You need help with the box?” David Kraft asked her.

Ann was staring at the tarnished brass hand bell, wondering if she should take it. She remembered the old headmaster, a grizzled ex-hippie named Luke, handing it to her her first day on the job, telling her it had been a gift from Pete Seeger, back in the 1960s, when the teachers at Laurel Heights used to take the high-schoolers on field trips to civil rights protests and try to get the whole class arrested. They had helped Seeger sing, “If I Had a Hammer.”

Bell is yours now, Luke had told her. Ring it if you want, man.

Was it hers, or the school's? After twenty years, how could she tell the difference? Cleaning out her office was worse than the divorce. Leaving John had been in the middle of the night, a hastily packed suitcase and Mallory. Everything else John had taken care of for her—throwing it out, smashing it, burning it.

No . . . she wouldn't think about John. She wouldn't think about the night before last, in their old kitchen, surrounded by policemen, telling them too much.

“Ann?”

David shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, his wet blond hair raked back from his face, his expression like a first-grader's, hungry for approval. Ann found it ironic that the board couldn't find anyone else to be her watchdog. She was contagious, virulent. Only a former student would take the risk—a young man who'd worked the very first auction, who'd been there from the start to the end of her grand dream to rebuild the school. David Kraft, sad-eyed and apologetic, would be the last one to see her at Laurel Heights. He'd watch her pack up her personal effects, make sure she didn't steal any files, or the school silverware, or markers out of the supply cabinet.

She put the bell back on the desk. Let the next headmaster use it. Think positive—there would be a next headmaster. There would still be a Laurel Heights.

She took one more look around her office—her desk, which had never been bare before; the window that someone had left open overnight, turning her papers, now the school's papers, moist with fog; the halls outside empty and silent, all the students on winter break.

She told herself she wasn't officially fired yet, but in her heart, she knew it was over. She had only one more choice to make—her lawyer's office, or the plane to Texas.

She pressed her coat pocket and felt the electronic ticket receipt—purchased with her last working credit card.