No Safe House

by Linwood Barclay

Vince nodded.

  “Nate told me, last night, he had something going on with you that he wanted out of. He wouldn’t say what. You dragged him into this after you met him at my apartment.”

  Vince said nothing.

  “You’re some piece of work,” Cynthia said.

  “Someone took what you had stashed at the Cummings house,” I said. “But it wasn’t Stuart. He and Grace were there when someone else was ripping you off.”

  “Yeah,” Vince conceded. “Which is why my guys have been checking out our other locations, to see whether we got hit in more than one place. That’s what Bert was attempting to do here.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  His eyes went north. “Attic,” he said. “That’s where we usually tuck stuff. No one ever goes up in the attic. We put it in between the joists, under the insulation. No one’s going to find it.”

  “Unless they already know it’s there,” I said.

  He looked at me with dead eyes. “Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “This money you’re hiding,” I said. “How much of it’s yours?”

  “None of it. I take my cut off the top. Like I said, I store it for others.”

  “So if it goes missing,” I said, “you’re in deep shit.”

  He smiled patronizingly at me. “Yeah, I am. But you don’t have to worry about me leaving anything with you anymore. I’m here to take it off your hands.” A pause. “Assuming it hasn’t been taken. There’s not all that much here, at least not in cash.”

  “So we’re just supposed to let you go up there?” Cynthia asked.

  “I can wait here if you’d rather do it,” he said. “Might take you a while.”

  We both hesitated, glanced at each other. “I’ll get a ladder,” I said.

  I was turning to go get it when Vince’s phone started to ring. He reached into his pants and pulled out his cell. He looked at it, said, “It’s Jane.”

  “She know all about this?” I asked.

  He shook his head as he put the phone to his ear.

  “What is it, honey?” he said. But his expression changed from mildly curious to deeply concerned. “Who the fuck is this? This Bryce?”

  He listened. His face darkened.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Who the hell is—?”

  He said nothing for several more seconds, then exploded.

  “If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you. I will rip out your fucking heart. I will—”

  Someone at the other end was trying to tell him something, but Vince wasn’t done.

  “No, you shut up, you—you gotta be fucking kidding. There’s no way I can pull that together, no way! You put her on the phone! I wanna talk to her! I wanna hear her voice.”

  He waited. I didn’t know whether he was holding his breath, but I was, and I was pretty sure Cynthia was, too.

  “Baby?” he said tentatively.

  When Jane came on, she shouted loud enough that we could hear her, too.

  She said, “Vince, don’t—”

  Nothing more.

  “Put her back on!” he shouted. “If you—Okay, okay, just don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her. Tell me what you want.” A pause. I saw color draining from his cheeks. “That could take some time. It’s not all in one place. It’s complicated. I’m not trying to bullshit you. It’s spread out for security—”

  He stopped talking, took the phone away from his ear. He’d been hung up on.

  Very softly, Cynthia said, “Vince. What’s happened to Jane?”

  But Vince was already entering a number into his phone, putting it to his ear. “Come on, pick up, pick up. Son of a—Gordie! Call me! Right fucking now!”

  He ended the call, entered another number. Droplets of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

  “Jesus, pick up . . . Bert! Is that you? Okay, okay, look, are you with Gordie? I tried to call and he—what? Slow down! Slow down! How did that happen? A FedEx truck? How the hell did he get hit—and what happened to Braithwaite? Jesus, he walks dogs. He’s not fucking James Bond!”

  He put a hand to his forehead, held it there. “Look, look—I don’t care about any of that right now. Just—shut up and listen to me—don’t worry about that now. We’ve got a situation . . . Yeah, something else . . . yeah, more important. Somebody’s got Jane!”

  More questions from Bert.

  “That’s what I said. They’ve got Jane and they say they’re going to kill her if we don’t—Don’t tell me you don’t care!”

  Vince’s eyes looked as though they’d pop out of his head. He’d taken his hand from his forehead and put it over his chest. “Are you listening to me? Listen! I’m at the Archer house. Whatever you’re doing, come by here and pick me—What?”

  His face was dark like the bottom of a well.

  “No, you listen. You still work for me. You get your ass here right—”

  And then he stopped. A second hang-up within as many minutes. Slowly, he slipped the phone back into his jeans and looked at us, a man who’d lost all hope.

  “They’ve got Jane,” he said. “And I got nobody.”

  He reached out to the front hall table to steady himself, but his hand slipped on some mail lying there from the day before.

  That was when his legs melted under him, and he went down.

  FORTY-NINE

  IT was the blood on the train of Claudia Moretti’s wedding dress that prompted the owner of the bridal shop to call the police.

  Claudia had the first appointment of the day for another fitting for her gown, which she would be wearing in two weeks when she married Marco Pucic, an out-of-work electrician who Claudia’s parents believed was nothing less than a total schmuck. She’d been zipped into the gown when she noticed she had something sticky on her hand, and, rather than run the risk of getting whatever it was on the dress, slipped through the shop’s back door and into a short hallway, where there were two doors nearly side by side. The first was for the bathroom, the second for private investigator Heywood Duggan.

  She went into the bathroom, washed her hands, and when she returned, store owner Sylvia Monroe noticed a dark red mark on the train. When she examined it, she discovered it was still wet. In the hallway, Sylvia spotted the small trickle of blood coming out from under the door of Heywood’s office.

  No way she was going in there. But she did call 911.

  Rona Wedmore got a call not long after the uniformed officers arrived.

  It was an execution.

  One bullet to the head. Wedmore figured the killer must have used a gun with a silencer. Even though that still would have made a sound someone nearby might have heard, Joy Bennings, the lead crime scene investigator, figured Duggan had been dead an hour or two before anyone had turned up for work at the bridal shop.

  “We’ll work our usual miracles,” Joy told Rona.

  Rona said, “I want to know whether the gun that was used here is the same one that killed the Bradleys.”

  Joy said, “Those two retired teachers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is connected to that?”

  “It might be,” she said. “Same kind of execution.”

  “You okay?” Joy asked while Rona stood there and looked down at the body. “You’re not your usual chipper self.”

  “Duggan’s an ex–state trooper,” Wedmore said.

  “Shit,” Joy said. “You knew him?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I interviewed him last night. He’s been sniffing around the Goemann murder, and Goemann used to live next door to the Bradleys.”

  “What a summer,” Bennings said. “I was thinking of taking a week off, going to the Cape. But people are dropping like flies around here lately.”

  While the medical examiner dealt with the body, Wedmore searched through Duggan’s desk, then sat down in the office chair and, with a gloved hand, nudged the computer mouse to bring the monitor to life. She handled it gingerly, knowing they’d be dusting it for prints, even though sh
e had zero expectation of finding any other than the deceased’s.

  She opened the mail program and sighed.

  “We’re going to have to take this in,” she said. “See what we can get off it. All the e-mails—sent, in-box, trash—have been deleted. Might still be something there.”

  Like something that would point Wedmore in the direction of Heywood’s client. Find the client, find out what he was working on, find out who’d want him dead.

  Yeah, simple as that.

  Wedmore noticed there was no landline on the desk. Like an increasing number of people, Heywood must have worked solely with a cell phone, the number she’d used to call him last night after finding contact info on his Web site.

  “You find a phone on him?” Wedmore asked Joy.

  Joy shook her head.

  Shit.

  Wedmore would be able to track down his cell phone provider and get a list of calls from them, but it would have been nice if the killer, or killers, had left the phone behind so she could check it out.

  She left Duggan’s office and sought out Sylvia Monroe. Wedmore found the bridal shop owner in a closet-sized office off her showroom, which now had a CLOSED sign in the window. She was sitting behind a postage-stamp-sized desk that was obscured by receipts, fabric, and a bottle of bourbon and a shot glass.

  “Ms. Monroe?”

  She glanced up, grabbed the bottle, and shoved it back into a desk drawer. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a wreck.”

  “Of course. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “Sure, yes, of course.”

  “What time did you open up this morning?”

  “Just before ten.”

  “You notice anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No, nothing. I usually come in through the front door, not the back, so I hadn’t even been in that hallway.”

  “You didn’t hear anything?”

  “Like?”

  “An argument? A shot? Footsteps in the hall?”

  The woman shook her head hopelessly. “Nothing. It must have happened before I got here.”

  Wedmore figured that was the case.

  Sylvia said, “We’ve had trouble here before, but never anything like this.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “A few years ago we had a break-in. Someone made off with nearly a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of wedding gowns. Who steals wedding gowns? Insurance only covered a fraction of it. I thought, when Mr. Duggan set up his office there, that maybe we’d be safer. It was like having a security guard here, you know? Because he used to be a cop. Did you know that?”

  “I did,” Rona Wedmore said.

  “It never occurred to me that him being here was just going to attract trouble. Look at my hand. It’s shaking.”

  “You never had any more break-ins?”

  Sylvia shook her head. “Never. Spent a fortune on cameras for nothing.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The surveillance cameras we put up out back.” Monroe looked at Wedmore as if she’d just remembered where she left her car keys. “Should I have mentioned those to you?”

  FIFTY

  TERRY

  VINCE went down to his knees, then threw out both his hands to brace himself. I thought he was going to pass out, but he spent a moment on the floor there, on hands and knees, panting and catching his breath.

  “Call 911,” Cynthia said to me.

  “No!” Vince bellowed.

  She struck off for the kitchen.

  “Don’t call!” he yelled, looking down.

  She returned with a glass of water. “Drink this,” she said, holding it in front of his face. He took one palm off the floor so he could do as he was told. Grace was perched halfway up the steps to the second floor, taking it all in, her eyes fixed on Vince.

  He took a couple of sips and handed the glass back to Cynthia. I was next to her now, extending a hand.

  “Here,” I said. He grasped it, hard, and with great effort got back up on two feet. “Over here,” I said, moving him to the closest living room chair.

  “No time,” Vince said, his voice breaking.

  “Just for a minute,” Cynthia said. “Till you have your strength back.”

  “I have to . . . have to start making the rounds.”

  “Damn it, sit for a minute,” Cynthia said. “Do you have chest pains?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Just . . . I’m just tired. A wave kind of came over me . . .”

  “Drink some more of this.”

  “Something stronger . . .”

  “Drink the water.”

  He took two more gulps, handed the glass back again.

  “Fill us in,” I said.

  “Some guy. Using Jane’s phone. He said they’ve got her. They want everything.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “She got one—two words out. Mine, and then she said, ‘Don’t,’ and then they wouldn’t let her say anything else. But it was her.” He made fists with both hands, opened them, closed them again. “I’ll kill them,” he said quietly. “All of them.”

  Cynthia glanced at me, then said to Vince, “No one doubts you for a second about that, but right now you have to figure out how to get her back.”

  “You think I don’t know that? But after I do, I swear to God . . .”

  He looked at both of us, and for a moment I thought I saw a flicker of self-pity in them.

  I asked, “What did you mean when you said they want everything?”

  “Everything!” he said, as if it should be obvious. “Everything I’ve got! Everything I’ve put away for people. The money, anything else. They want it all.” Vince shook his head. “If that’s what it takes to get Jane, fine, they’ll get it. But after that, I’m a dead man. And if I’m a dead man, I’m taking them with me.”

  I had an idea what he was getting at, but he must have seen confusion on our faces, so he spelled it out more clearly.

  “I’m paying a ransom with other people’s money and property. One day, they’re gonna want it back, and they’re not gonna be happy when I tell them I gave it all away. These are not forgiving people. I’m talking bikers. I’m talking bank robbers. I’m talking drug dealers. I’m a dead man walking, in more ways than one. So these fuckers who took Jane, I don’t care how many I take down, or what happens to me after.”

  “It’ll matter to Jane,” Cynthia said.

  Vince shrugged. Defiantly, he stood bolt upright out of the chair. But his top half swayed slightly and he had to put his arms out for balance.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “You can’t do this,” Cynthia said. “You’re not well. You’ve got to let somebody else handle this. You have to call the police, Vince.”

  “No!” he shouted. Weak as he was, he could still make his words echo off the walls. He pointed a meaty index finger at both of us. “No police.”

  “Vince, for God’s sake,” Cynthia said, keeping her voice calm. “They’ve got experience with this kind of thing.”

  “They got no experience with handling this kind of thing the way I intend to handle it,” Vince said. “Christ, can you imagine if I called the cops? They’d love that. They’d put the cuffs on me and spend a week busting my balls before they got around to looking for Jane.”

  I thought he was probably right about that.

  “No, no way. I’ll handle this.”

  “Do you know who has her?” I asked.

  His head went side to side slowly. “But I got an idea. I think I recognize the voice. A woman. Someone who brought some cash for me to hide a few days ago. Now I think maybe she was sizing me up, seeing how the operation works. I was wondering that about those two guys who came to see me last night, too. Maybe they’re in this together.”

  “What two guys?”

  “Logan, and his asshole brother, Joseph. The donut eater.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.


  “There was something about them didn’t smell right. But the woman, she must have an idea how much money and stuff there is. She said bring it all. Said if I didn’t, she’d know. Son of a bitch. If she really knows, then I’m gonna be coming up short.”

  “The Cummings house,” I said. “You got ripped off last night.”

  “Two hundred grand, and incidentals,” Vince said, his jaw tightening. “I gotta go.”

  He took a couple of unsteady steps toward the door.

  “What about your guys?” I asked. “You said you’ve got nobody.”

  Another shrug. “Eldon’s dead. Gordie’s dead. And Bert, he’s bailed. Abandoned me. Disloyal fuck.”

  Cynthia gasped. “Two of your men are dead? These people who have Jane, did they kill them?”

  A shake of the head. “No. Eldon . . . had a problem. And Bert said Gordie was in an accident. Minutes ago. Hit by a truck.”

  “You mentioned Nathaniel,” Cynthia said. “You said dog walker.”

  “They thought he might have ripped off the stash last night. Picked him up for a chat. Things didn’t go right.”

  “Is Nate—what happened to Nate?” Cynthia asked.

  “Got away.”

  Cynthia looked relieved. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Pull together what I can, in the time I’ve got. Bert, Gordie got to a few places where we tucked stuff away. But not all. They were running out of time—some people were home; they couldn’t get in without causing a scene. Had to find out if we’d been hit anywhere else. They pulled together a few hundred thou, some other stuff. I can raise maybe another couple hundred, buy myself some time.”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “She’s calling me again after one. Gives me better part of four hours. Gotta get moving.”

  “Wait. Just hang on,” Cynthia said. “Let me get this straight. You have to go to how many homes? Where the money’s hidden?”

  He rolled his eyes up into his forehead, thinking. “Five—maybe six—oughta do it. If the money’s there. If we didn’t get ripped off like at the Cummings.”

  “And you’ve got keys and security codes?”

  “At the office.”

  “And if the people are home? What then? You going to shoot them? But get them to hold the ladder first so you can get into their attic? You’re already woozy. I don’t see you crawling around cramped spaces. There’s no way you can do this.”