Stone Cold

by David Baldacci

  “I know we have a lot going on, but if you want your mother to come and live with us, I’m okay with that. We’ll make it work somehow.”

  “Not a good idea, Mandy. She’s fine right where she is.”

  “Okay, Harry, but there might come a time when we need to make that decision.”

  “Maybe, but that time isn’t now. So let’s not worry about it. We have enough on our plates.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing bothering you?”

  He shook his head, but didn’t look at his wife.

  She touched his hand. “Harry, you seem to be drifting away from us.”

  His response was delivered with a harshness that surprised even him. “I went to Susie’s school. I almost never miss a ball game or soccer match. The yard doesn’t have a weed in it. I help with all the homework and housework. I play chauffeur as much as you do. What more do you want from me, Mandy?”

  She withdrew her hand slowly. “Nothing, I guess.”

  They finished their pie in silence. Mandy slowly headed upstairs but Finn remained sitting in the kitchen staring at nothing.

  “Not coming?” she said.

  “Got a few things to do.”

  “Don’t go out, Harry, not tonight.”

  “Maybe just a walk. You know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Mandy said to herself as she climbed the stairs.

  “Mandy?”

  She turned back around.

  “Things will get better. I promise. They’ll get better soon.” I’m almost there.

  “Sure, Harry, sure.”

  CHAPTER 46

  THERE WAS REALLY ONLY ONE PLACE for Annabelle to go: the graveyard. She had never had the opportunity to pay her respects to her mother. She was going to take care of that tonight.

  She parked her rental, slipped through the gate and walked along the darkened pathways. The location of her mother’s grave was seared into her head. However, when she arrived there, she found that her mother already had a visitor. She ducked behind an evergreen and watched.

  He was stretched out on the ground next to the grave. As Annabelle listened she could hear the words floating to her from the prone figure. He was singing an Irish ditty to the dead woman. It was a song that Annabelle had heard him sing to her mother when Annabelle was a little girl. The lyrics had to do with dreams and a green, lush land and a man and a woman very much in love. As she continued to listen tears started sliding down her cheeks, though she didn’t want them to. The sounds grew fainter and she finally realized her father had fallen asleep next to the grave of his wife—her mother.

  Annabelle stepped out from behind the tree, strode quietly over to the burial plot and knelt down on the other side of the grave from where her father lay quietly snoring. Then she did something she hadn’t done since attending mass as a little girl. She crossed herself and prayed over her mother. More tears poured down her face as she spoke to God and tried to talk to her mother, telling her how much she missed her, how much she wanted her to be alive.

  She prayed and spoke until her heart was nearly bursting. Then she rose, crossed herself again and, staring down at her slumbering father, made up her mind.

  He was painfully light as she gripped him under the armpits, lifting him to his feet. He awakened slightly. She half carried him to her car, put him in, drove back to the inn and got him to bed in her room. She sat outside on the couch until she heard a tap on her door.

  It was Stone. He looked worried. He filled her in on what had happened with Milton and Reuben. Then he glanced toward her bedroom door, from which loud snores were now pouring forth.

  Stone didn’t say anything about that because the look on Annabelle’s face told him quite clearly that any questions would not be welcome.

  “Do you want to go back home tomorrow?” he asked instead.

  “I don’t have a home,” she replied. “But we can go back to your home tomorrow.”

  The next morning Annabelle had breakfast sent up to the room. When her father came out of the bedroom hot coffee was poured and eggs and bacon were on the plate.

  “You look like you could use some food,” she said.

  He looked around. “How the hell did I get here?”

  “You were at the grave last night. So was I.”

  He nodded slowly, rubbing his tangled hair down with one hand. “I see.”

  “Come and eat.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Annie.”

  “I know that. Eat.”

  He sat and managed to down a few bites and drink a bit of the coffee.

  “How bad is it?” she asked, studying his gaunt, gray face.

  “Bad enough. Six months without treatment. A year with. But who wants to go out sick all the time?”

  “Do you need anything? Money? A place to live?”

  He sat back and wiped the napkin across his lips. “You owe me nothing, Annie. And I ain’t taking nothing from you.”

  “There’s no reason you have to be in pain or sleeping in the back of a truck. I have money.”

  “I’ve got whiskey for the pain and that old truck of mine is what they call a low-end recreational vehicle. I’m fine.”

  “You’re obviously not fine.”

  His expression darkened as he pushed away from the table. “I don’t want your pity, Annie, okay? I can deal with your hatred a lot easier.”

  “Is that why you never found me and told me you were in jail when Bagger killed Mom?”

  “Would it have made a difference to you?”

  “Probably not,” she admitted.

  “So there you go. Would’ve been a bloody waste of time.”

  He rose and fumbled in his pocket, fishing out a cigarette pack and a lighter. “Do you mind, seeing as how it’s already killed me?” She shook her head and he stepped to the window, opened it and blew the smoke out that way.

  “So did you hit Jerry up in Atlantic City?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you hit the bastard hard?”

  “Millions.”

  “Well, then you’re a lock for heaven, ’cause there ain’t no man what deserves it more than that bloke.”

  “But it wasn’t enough,” Annabelle said in a low voice.

  Paddy stared moodily out the window. “Course it wasn’t. One thing Jerry has is lots of money. You can take all you want and he’ll make it all back off the sorry types tramping through his casino every bloody minute.”

  “So how do I hurt him enough?”

  He swung around to look at her. “You take away one of two things: either his life or his freedom. Only way.”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on killing someone.”

  “You got proof he murdered your mum?”

  “Nothing that will stand up in court. But I know he did it.”

  “I do too.”

  Father and daughter stared at each other for a long time.

  He finally said, “There’re only two people in the whole world who’ve conned that bastard and lived to tell about it. And they’re both in this room.”

  “So you want to con Jerry, together?”

  “I want him to pay for what he did to your mum.”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “I know you do. You went after the bastard. I never had the balls to do it. Sure, I’m a good con, maybe one of the best. I’ve got nerve, more than most.”

  “And things have changed?”

  “I’m dying already. So what the hell does it matter to me? Better to get a bullet in the brain courtesy of Jerry than watch my insides dissolve on me.”

  “And how exactly do you propose doing that?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually. Probably the only thing I’ve been thinking about. But your conning Jerry gives us a way to nail him.”

  “Because he’s coming after me?”

  “Right. You had a crew of course.”

  “Two people you know, or know of, one you don’t.”

  Paddy flicked his c
igarette out the window and sat back down at the table. “Jerry hit any of them?”

  “One. He’s a veg.”

  “And maybe ratted you out?”

  “No maybe about it, he did. In fact, Jerry is in D.C. trying to find me right now.”

  “That tall, older bloke with you, can you trust him?”

  “He’s never let me down.”

  “Good friend to have.” Paddy fell silent, staring down at his unfinished breakfast.

  “You think you’re in shape to run a con on Jerry? I got away from him last time because I worked it to perfection. I’m not looking to walk in and get my head blown off because you fall on your face.”

  “Always admired your bluntness.”

  “Guess who taught me?” she shot back.

  “I am ready for this. In fact, it’s the only thing keeping me alive. And I’ve got the plan.”

  “What is it?”

  “Basically to get Jerry to confess to killing your mum.”

  “Oh, really, is that all? Hell, I wish I would’ve thought of that one.”

  “You have a problem with the concept?”

  “No, with the execution, as in yours and mine. Because correct me if I’m wrong, but getting someone to confess to a murder, wouldn’t that involve getting up close and personal?”

  “Absolutely. The closest possible proximity.”

  “Well why don’t we stop right there then. I’ve done my face time with Jerry. I have no desire to do it again.”

  “With my plan the risk will be minimal to you.”

  “Define minimal.”

  “Just trust me, Annie.”

  “You must be insane.”

  “No, I’m just a dying man who’s got to make peace with his God. And to do that, I have to make this right. I have to.”

  This remark came so out of left field that Annabelle could only stare at him.

  “But there is a small problem with the plan,” he said.

  “How small?’

  “We need access to the good guys, the cops. Not exactly my specialty.” He glanced at her. “Any ideas on that score?”

  Annabelle sat back, not looking very confident. “You know this is suicide, don’t you?”

  “I will never let you come to harm at the hands of Jerry. But I have to do this. I swear that to you on your mother’s grave.”

  This last remark did something to Annabelle she never thought any words could ever do. She actually started feeling something for her father. She wasn’t sure if it was sympathy, pity, or maybe even something more.

  “Then maybe I can find the good guys to help us,” she said quietly.

  CHAPTER 47

  ANNABELLE LEFT HER FATHER and walked to Stone’s room.

  “He wants to team with me to con Jerry into confessing to my mother’s murder,” she said bluntly and then collapsed on the small couch next to Stone’s bed.

  “You think you can trust him?”

  “Damn it, Oliver, you just spent all that time telling me to forgive the man.”

  “Forgive him, yes, not trust him.”

  “I have no reason to trust him at all.”

  Stone looked at her warily. “I sense a but coming.”

  “But with all that I do trust him. I don’t know why, just call it my gut.”

  “But you need the cavalry?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “I thought so. I mean, they owe you after the last time.”

  “They never owe you, Annabelle. Or at least they never think they do. But let me see what I can work. So what do you do with your father in the meantime?”

  “I was sort of hoping he could come back to D.C. with us.”

  “And stay with you? That might be a little dicey with Bagger in the same town.”

  “Any help there would be appreciated.”

  “Tell your father to get his things together.”

  Paddy didn’t have anything to get together. Everything he owned was already in his battered truck. He insisted on following them down. “Truck’s all I’ve got left. I ain’t letting it go.”

  With Paddy behind them, Stone and Annabelle drove south to Reuben’s house in one of the few remaining rural areas of northern Virginia. It was very late when they arrived there, but Stone had called ahead.

  They pulled down a gravel drive that was more path than road and bracketed by thick woods. They passed leaning shacks and rotting cars as the wilderness and poverty grew with each click of the odometer. A few minutes later the Nova’s headlights flicked across a weed-filled yard and spotlighted a garage with its single overhead door open. The interior was bursting with tools and car parts. Parked beside the garage were six cars, two trucks, three motorcycles and what looked to be a dune buggy, all in various states of being rebuilt. Next to the garage was a mobile trailer that was no longer mobile, being set firmly on cinder blocks.

  “Reuben just moved here recently,” Stone remarked.

  Annabelle gazed back at the garage. “Does he run a chop shop on the side?”

  “No, the man’s a mechanical genius. I think he’s closer to his machines than he is to most people. That’s why he loves his motorcycle so much. He says it’s far more reliable than any of his three wives ever were.”

  “Oliver, do you have any normal friends?”

  “Well, there’s you.”

  “Oh, God, are you in serious trouble.”

  Stone noted Reuben’s truck in the yard and a light on in the trailer.

  “They’re waiting for us,” he said.

  Reuben met them at the door and then stared over at the pickup truck, Paddy at the wheel.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A friend,” Annabelle answered quickly.

  “I thought he might be able to stay here, at least for tonight,” Stone said.

  “What the hell’s one more? He can have the presidential suite. It’s right next to the bathroom.”