by Chris Jordan
“A few minutes later Kidder drove away and I started to run back into the house—I was going to call 911—and that’s when the house exploded.”
Some sort of incendiary device had been detonated—possibly something as simple as a natural gas line—and Kathy had fled through the open gate before the fire engines arrived, and made her way down the beach to the next big oceanfront estate where, miracle of miracles—she took it as a sign from God—she had found a silver Volkswagen Beetle in the garage of an unoccupied mansion, the ignition keys hanging on a hook inside the garage door, and she had driven the miracle car into Boston and found him where he lay in his hospital bed, the only man in the world who could help her put things right.
Shane is not a man of faith, not her kind of faith anyhow, with its certainty of heaven, but he knows that whatever is keeping this woman alive depends on recovering Joey Keener. Not because she intends to keep him—the only child she has ever wanted is the one she can no longer have—but because she needs to return the boy to his rightful mother, restoring balance to the world, and that portion of her soul that has been torn from her by grief.
He’s got a few things he wants to even up, too. After that there will be time enough to treat physical maladies like burned arms and ankles bruised by tearing away electronic monitors. Bodies heal with time. Souls require something else again.
“There’s a Best Buy at the mall,” he tells her. “First exit off the traffic circle. Buy the cheapest laptop they have in stock. Just make sure it has Wi-Fi. I’d do it myself but I’m, ah, more noticeable.”
There will be a manhunt under way, he’s sure of that. His description and image will already be circulating, but there’s a chance that she hasn’t yet been connected to his escape. It’s a chance they’ll have to take.
“I’ll have to use my card,” she warns him, standing up. “We’re out of cash.”
“The card will be fine. By the time it’s posted you’ll be out of the mall, back on the road. If the owners weren’t in residence at that estate you stumbled into, there’s a good chance the car hasn’t been reported as stolen yet. There’s nothing to connect you to the vehicle.”
“But they’ll know we’re here, in this area. The card will tell them.”
“They’ll already know that much. If the cops haven’t figured it out, Naomi Nantz has. Whatever happens will be in the next twenty-four hours. That’s all we need. One last day.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Too Many Guns
When the whole thing blew up with my fake husband—not that I knew he was fake at the time—I had to resort to sleeping pills. There was no way I could run the office of a busy dental practice without sufficient sleep, and no way I could stop the mad whirl of self-recrimination in my head whenever it hit the pillow, not without assistance from those helpful little pills. Fortunately the brand my doctor prescribed were not physically addictive, but even so I’m not really a pill popper by nature, and threw away the bottle soon after taking the job with Naomi and moving into the residence. Something about the 1200-thread-count bedding must have worked, because I’m almost always able to sleep, no matter how tense and involving the case.
Not tonight. I know it without even trying. And there’s no way I’m going to take a pill and risk being groggy in the morning. So that’s why I’m once again wandering around the residence after midnight, still fully dressed, and wishing I could take a stroll around the block to settle my nerves. That’s not a possibility, not with half the Boston cops and probably the FBI parked outside our door. A nighttime tour of the residence always involves a visit to Naomi’s Zen garden, which exudes peace even to us nonbelievers. The cool shadows of the room, with its vaulted ceiling and subdued lighting, have always appealed, even if I would never dare draw a rake through the sand like Naomi is doing at the very moment I enter, aware that I’m intruding on her privacy.
“Join me,” she says.
“You’re raking,” I say. “That means you’re thinking.”
Her shoulders lift. “I’m always thinking. This is just another way of getting there. Sit, relax.”
I sit. Relaxing is not an option.
“Meditation might help,” she suggests.
“No, thank you.”
“I wasn’t offering to teach you. Although I could put you in touch with an excellent instructor.”
I turn to her, puzzled. “Don’t you mean like a monk or something?”
She chuckles softly. “I’m not a Buddhist, Alice. But I do find meditation useful, and I have great respect for certain aspects of the religion.”
“Oh,” I say, flummoxed. Just when I think I know what she’s thinking, it turns out she’s thinking something else. “What aspects?”
Naomi is considering her reply when a window explodes.
We’re both on our feet almost before the sound stops echoing. There was no gunshot, only the sound of bullet-resistant glass shattering, pretty much exactly as it did the night before, and I’m up and running, heading upstairs because that’s where the safe room is located, and there’s nothing like the noise of high-powered ammo to make you want a nice safe place to hide.
I’m not the first to arrive. That would be Mrs. Beasley, arrayed this evening in an ankle-length dressing gown. She says not a word, but her expression communicates a sense of disgust, that such an inconvenience could be allowed to occur two nights in a row.
“Teddy!” Naomi shouts behind me. “To the safe room. Follow the drill, please. The alarms have already sounded.”
“It was Jack’s room again,” Teddy says, clearly terrified. “But he’s here this time.”
“I’ll check on Jack. Alice, you get Ming-Mei.”
Our Chinese visitor has been given the largest of the guest accommodations. I pound on the door and call her name but there is no reply, so I have to use the pass key and let myself in. It’s way less than a minute since the glass shattered and the alarms went off, but it seems much, much longer.
As I wake Ming-Mei in her bed she sits up befuddled—apparently she does not share my reluctance for sleeping pills—and she has to remove the foam earplugs from her ears before I can make myself understood.
“We may be under attack. Follow me, please.”
She has the good sense not to ask questions and follows, wearing only a light T-shirt that seems to emphasize her diminutive size. Approaching the safe room at a run—our international guest is fleet of foot—I’m greatly relieved to see Jack Delancey standing there, big as life.
“Hit the ceiling, just like last time,” he’s telling Naomi. “Had to be fired from ground level. Lucky for me I wasn’t looking out the window.”
“Indeed,” says Naomi. “Everybody in, quickly!”
But when the door to the safe room is shut, bolts engaged, and I finally have time to take a breath and count heads, Jack is not among us. And when I insist that the door be opened and he be admitted, Naomi insists otherwise. “Jack will take care of Jack. He’s very competent when it comes to self-defense. He’s very competent, period, as you must know.”
“What’s going on?” I demand. “Why did we violate protocol?”
Naomi holds up her hand, calling for silence. “Leave it for now,” she says softly. “When the all clear comes, as it soon will, it is crucial that none of us mention that Jack remained outside this room after the alarm sounded.”
So we wait. A minute or two passes. I can’t help noticing Teddy noticing Ming-Mei in her little thin T-shirt. Noticing the astonishingly beautiful woman the way a starving man notices a T-bone steak grilling on the other side of a restaurant window. Because poor Teddy knows he’s on the other side of the glass, at least I hope he does.
After five minutes or so a green light blinks, indicating the all clear from Beacon Security. At a nod from boss lady I release the magnetic bolts on the heavy steel door and swing it open. The Beacon Security chief nods politely, then makes his report. No surprise, it’s a repeat of last night’s incident. No one b
roke in; the alarms were tripped by a heavy-caliber lead slug shattering a window in Jack’s room. “I don’t know what to tell you,” the security guy says. “Someone is using you for target practice. Obviously, stay away from the windows. And I’m going to suggest that we post armed guards in the vicinity. Maybe we can catch the perp in the act, if he tries again.”
Naomi is dubious about the efficacy of that. “We’re already under surveillance by at least two law enforcement entities. If they didn’t see anything, your men are not likely to.”
He shrugs. “Up to you.”
The Beacon Security men dutifully file out, and each is logged exiting the residence. In the resulting silence I decide it’s time to escort Ming-Mei, who is visibly trembling, back to her guest suite.
“A moment, please,” Naomi cautions.
The delay is explained, at least partially, when Jack appears in the hallway, finger to his lips. He says something to Teddy, too quietly for me to pick up, and our young hacker looks hopeful. Why that should be I can’t imagine until it becomes clear that he’s been instructed to take Ming-Mei back to his room instead. “Lock the door and stay in there,” Jack whispers. “Come out for no one but me, okay?”
When they’re gone Jack turns to me with a grin and says, “Can you sound like her? Like Ming-Mei?”
“Are you serious?”
“Just fake it, that may be good enough.”
“What are you talking about?” I hiss.
“Pretend you’re her. Just for five minutes.”
“But I can’t—”
“Sure you can,” he says, taking my arm and guiding me in the direction of the guest suite.
He reaches behind his back and removes a handgun from his belt. Again with the finger to his lips. I don’t necessarily trust Jack Delancey with all things, but as it so happens I do trust him with my life. So I stop resisting and follow his lead.
Naomi is trailing behind us, and damned if she isn’t armed as well, with a .38 Smith & Wesson Airweight, small and light enough for her slender hands. She’s not exactly a gun enthusiast, but a while back we all received a few hours of training at the firing range, under Jack’s tutelage, so my first thought is, what about me? What about a weapon for me? How about sharing with your friends? My next thought is how to avoid getting caught in a cross fire. What the hell is going on? And if it’s going to get dangerous, how come we’re not donning body armor? Not that we have any body armor, but still, the thought occurs.
We’re outside the guest room where Ming-Mei has been staying.
“Say something,” Jack whispers, his lips so close to my ear that I can feel the warm pulse of his breath. “Try to sound like her.”
This is more embarrassing than having to stand up in front of everybody at speech class in ninth grade—did I mention I had a slight lisp at the time, since corrected?—but with a sense of here-goes-nothing, I attempt to speak in a very slight but very cultured Chinese accent, with British overtones. The best I can do is drop r’s and pitch my voice slightly higher. I end up sounding vaguely Polish.
“Thank you ve’y ve’y much. You’re a big strong man, Mistah Jack.”
Jack scowls—obviously he thinks my impression sucks—and gestures for me to open the door. “You’ll be fine, Ming-Mei. It was just a false alarm,” he says, a little too loudly. “If you need anything, ring the buzzer.”
I open the door. Nice digs, nearly as nice as mine, but with a trace of perfume that isn’t my thing, not at all. The bed is rumpled from when I roused her, and her clothing is strewn about. Hadn’t noticed that, either, what with all the excitement. Nor do I have any idea what Jack has in mind—he and Naomi have slipped into the room behind me, and taken up positions in opposite corners. Jack gestures for me to shut the door. Actually, if there’s going to be gunplay I’d just as soon leave, but that doesn’t seem to be part of the plan.
Very carefully Jack gets down on his knees and looks under the bed. He shakes his head. Naomi has moved to get an angle on the open bathroom door. She silently slips inside and quickly returns with a shake of her head.
Jack gestures at me, making a yawn. He wants me to yawn? Am I supposed to yawn in Chinese or what? Follow-up gestures indicate that I’m supposed to be preparing for bed. We’ll never win at pantomime if we can’t do better than this.
The pair of them, Jack and Naomi, raise their weapons in unison and point at the closet door. Jack edges closer, keeping to an angle, and presses the latch, swinging the door open. As befits a proper guest suite, it’s a sizable walk-in closet. And standing there with a creepy grin on his face is a man I’ve never seen before.
A big, rangy guy with a wool cap snugged down over his ears, rapper-style, and crazy dare-me eyes, and a great big gun in his hand.
“What do you know,” he says. “Mexican standoff. Or is it Chinese?”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Into the Night
“Bang,” says the man in the closet. “You want to go that way? You shoot me, I shoot her?”
By her I’m supposing he means Naomi, only because I’m slightly farther away, cowering in plain sight.
“Put the gun on the floor and place your hands behind your head,” Jack says.
The man in the wool cap gives us another loony grin, as if delighted that Jack is playing along. “Spoken like a real lawman. But here’s the thing, sunshine. I’ve got a gun and you’ve got a gun and I hate to say it, but mine is bigger than yours. You have, let me see, a nine-mil for the gentleman and a .38 for the lady. Nice firearms. Quality. But the gun in my hand is a Kahr PM45, nineteen ounces fully loaded, which means I can hold it all day long. And the nice thing about a large-caliber bullet, all it takes is one shot. I’m aiming at the lady’s torso, but even if I wing her in the arm or leg she’ll bleed out in less than a minute. So why don’t we go in the other direction? Put your guns on the floor and place your hands behind your head.”
“Never going to happen.” Jack is adamant, and his eyes are subzero.
“Thought you might say that. Here’s the real deal. I’m coming out, so you better back up or I’ll shoot my way through you. And I will not hesitate.”
The man strides out of the closet. We all back up, keeping the same distance. Naomi’s gun is starting to waver. I know from the shooting range that keeping a handgun level is a lot harder than it looks. Tie a two-pound weight to your wrist and see how long you can hold your arm out. Not long, even if you’re bracing.
“Hey, this is great,” the man says, moving us backward. “Let’s use the momentum. Keep rolling. Or die. Your choice. Personally I could care less. Always wanted to die in a shoot-out, and tonight is as good a time as any.”
Maybe you had to be there, but there’s never any doubt about his personal interest in death. Which, believe me, is even more convincing if the man in question looks like he was turned on a lathe from hardened steel and smells like he’s been eating raw hamburger left out in the sun. I know about the bad breath because as he slips forward, accelerating the pace, daring us all to die in an exchange of variously sized bullets, he reaches out his left hand, snake-strike quick, and grabs hold of my neck.
In the same motion he somehow slips behind me, all in that one sly movement, like a conjuror’s trick. And his gun ends up jammed under my chin.
“Don’t look so embarrassed,” he says to Jack. “I’ve done this before. More than once. And you know what? I’m not even going to ask you to lower your weapons. Take a shot if you think you can take me down without hitting my new pal here. No? Then keep moving. I do enjoy the company.”
My knees don’t seem to be functioning, but that turns out not to be a problem, because the man wraps his arm around my waist, lifting me effortlessly. With the business end of the snub-nose buried under my chin I don’t even fantasize about struggling or fighting to get free.
He makes Jack and Naomi go down the stairs backward, which he apparently finds very amusing. Jack is really, really angry, looks like he’s going to snap
off his own teeth he’s so pissed, and Naomi has an expression I’ve never seen on her face. Fear. She’s trying to mask it, probably for my benefit, but there it is. She fears for my life.
The man with my life in his hands backs them all the way to the ground floor, to the rear fire exit. He swings me around like a rag doll and puts his back to the door.
Jack and Naomi are only a few yards away, still armed. Jack is still trying to find a shot that won’t risk killing me, too, but he looks discouraged.
“You’re good folks, I can tell that,” says the man who has the gun to my head, sounding oddly jovial. “You know why? Because you chose life.”
“What do you want?” Naomi says. “Why go to all the trouble of breaking into the residence?”
I can feel him laughing inside, which is nearly as terrifying as the gun under by chin. “It wasn’t any trouble,” he says. “I thought New Mommy might be visiting and I wanted to give her my regards.”
“New Mommy?” Naomi asks, puzzled.
“The skinny bitch with the two-by-four. She’s not here, obviously, but I’ll find her. Bet on it.”
He pushes backward through the door, carrying me out into the night.
It’s not like I think about death a lot. Not my own death. That stays buried away in the back of my mind, a dark little shape to be taken out and examined as rarely as possible. We’re all short-timers with specific but unknown-to-us expiration dates, we know that even as children, so what’s the point of dwelling on the fact of our own mortality? Bummer, man. But when I do have occasion to contemplate the end of me, I figure I won’t go easy. Not the type. I’ll be one of those who rage against the oncoming light, fighting to stay behind.
Or so I thought. As it turned out in this particular circumstance, in the arms of death himself, I was strangely docile. A voice inside was saying, this is it, you’ve come to the last moment of your life, try to be calm because the last thing you want—your very last desire—is to leave without your dignity intact. Don’t let fear turn you into something less than you are. Don’t let your last moment be one of terror.