Vincent leaned in and Harden saw the crazy in his eyes, a crazy that was never there with Agent Barrillo. Vincent released Harden with a shove, sending him to the sidewalk. Despite the pain from impact, Harden was thankful to be breathing again.
The rock was nearby, but Harden did not reach for it. The idea of defending himself lost purpose when Vincent opened his jacket and flashed the gun tucked in the waist of his pants. Harden wanted to stay on the ground but forced himself to stand. No matter what happened next, he would be on his feet for it.
“Tell Coyote to let her go. He has no reason to keep her.”
Vincent swiveled his head, eyeing up and down the empty street.
“Let’s go for a ride, Harden. More privacy.”
“No.”
“Yes, Harden.”
“If I get in a car with you, I’m not happy with my odds of getting out of it alive.”
Vincent shook his head just enough to register his obvious disappointment, then removed the gun from his waist. Harden tensed and started to turn, his impulse being to run. But it took only a fraction of a second for logic to kick in. I’ll never make it.
Then Vincent did the last thing Harden expected. He grabbed the nose of the gun and handed the grip to Harden.
“Take it,” Vincent said.
Harden didn’t have to ask why. He snatched it from Vincent’s grip and immediately pointed it at Vincent’s head.
“It’s not loaded, G.I. Joe. What am I, new?”
Harden did not listen to him. He’d listened to him before and all he’d been told were lies. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Plus the safety is on,” Vincent said, sighing. “No bullets, and safety is on. Now put that thing away and let’s go for a ride.”
Harden kept the gun at Vincent’s head. He was now certain the gun was useless in the moment, but it felt good to aim it like this. “Why would I go anywhere with you?”
Now Vincent reached up and lowered Harden’s extended arm until the gun pointed at the sidewalk.
“Because, Harden, I’m going to tell you where to find your girl. And then you’re going to use that gun to put a bullet into the head of my client’s only child.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Harden sat next to Vincent in the front of a white Mercedes C-Class as they crept through the familiar streets of Owen, winding about in no particular direction for a few minutes. Harden thought they were at last headed toward the interstate, but when the car veered into the empty parking lot, Harden felt his chest tighten.
Vincent had driven them to the elementary school.
“Why are we going here?” Harden asked.
Vincent took a moment before answering. “Privacy,” he said. He looked at Harden. “We were a little obvious on the street. Is there a problem?”
Harden struggled to fight off memories of his childhood. “This whole thing’s a problem,” he said.
Vincent knows, Harden thought. He knows because Coyote knows, because he read every page of what I wrote in that cell.
The car pulled into a slot near the back building. Harden looked past Vincent’s suntanned face and spotted the old swing set he used to play on. He went there a lot by himself—especially afterwards— and he used to imagine swinging hard enough to fling himself all the way to another city. It was one of his many escapist dreams that never came true. Rust now covered the chains of the swings, and the rubber seats crackled like elephant skin.
“I don’t like it here,” Harden said.
Vincent’s voice was soft. “This will just take a moment, Harden. I have a proposition for you I need you to consider. Then I’ll leave you alone.”
Harden barely heard him. He was staring out the front window, the sunlight outside muted by the dark tint on the glass.
The room was three windows over from the left-side wall of the building. Room 4A.
Just over there, less than a hundred feet away.
“I don’t want you telling anyone about this.”
The voice jolted Harden. Vincent’s hand now rested on Harden’s forearm. Harden jerked his arm free.
“Don’t touch me.”
Vincent pulled his arm back. “Take it easy, Harden.”
“Tell anyone what? What don’t you want me to tell anyone?”
“About this meeting. It wouldn’t be good for either one of us.”
“I don’t make those kind of promises,” Harden said.
“It’s not a request, Harden. You’re going to do exactly what I say, and you’re not going to mention any of this to anyone. Not the police, reporters, your father, anyone.”
“Or?”
Vincent shrugged. “Or we burn your daddy’s house down with him in it. Is that clear enough for you?”
Harden didn’t think Vincent was lying now. He nodded.
“Good,” Vincent said. “Now look. Mr. Martin’s son has issues with power, which really shouldn’t surprise me. I’ve known the little shit since he was two. But I didn’t realize the extent of it until he disappeared. He called me the day before he disappeared. Not his father. Coyote called me. He called me because he knows I can talk to the old man. Be the voice of reason, if you will.” Vincent leaned forward and Harden could see crow’s feet around his eyes, something he’d never noticed when he knew the man as an FBI agent. “Coyote told me everything. He even made me a copy of your story.”
“My story? You mean my school project?”
“No,” Vincent said. “Your story. What you wrote in those three months he held you. That’s how I know how motivated you must be to find your girlfriend.”
“So you know—”
“Everything. I’m actually surprised Coyote shared that with me, because it shows how deeply he strayed from his father’s instructions. But I think he wanted to use your story to apologize, to confess to me so that I might convince his father to absolve him of his misdeeds. Unfortunately, Mr. Martin is not so forgiving.”
Harden’s mind tried to put everything together, but this was a puzzle missing a few key pieces.
“What do you mean his father’s instructions?”
“Harden, don’t you get it? Coyote was working for his father. The whole Church of the Revelation thing? That wasn’t just some vanity project. It’s a front for the family business. Harden, most of the shit I told you about Alastair Martin? It’s true. My boss is . . . well, I’ll just say not all of his business dealings are completely within the limits of the law.”
Harden’s look must have been obvious: that first glint of understanding before total realization took form.
“Alastair needed Coyote to do two things for the family business,” Vincent continued, ticking off his fingers. “One, create a tax-free entity. And two, be a distraction. The idea of Coyote starting a church was brilliant and crazy.”
“So the Revelation is all bullshit?”
“Well, of course it is, you know that. But Coyote got carried away. Maybe he was surprised how effective he was as a church leader. I suppose he liked the idea of people doing whatever he told them to. What was supposed to be a distraction became a major shit storm. Fucking kid.”
“Why did you need him to be a distraction?” Harden asked.
Vincent shot him a cold stare. “Now, Harden, you don’t really want to know that, do you?” He smiled, flashing his teeth just a little.
Honey badger.
“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose I do.”
“Good answer.”
Harden turned over the gun in his hand. “Why do you need me?”
“Coyote’s . . . activities have put a lot of pressure on Mr. Martin’s business affairs.” Vincent scratched mindlessly at the leather on the car seat. “I know he killed your friend, or at least had him killed. I know he has your girlfriend.” He paused. “I know what he did to her finger. He’s become more of a problem for us than a solution.”
“Yet you trusted him with the family business,” Harden said.
“What we asked
of Coyote was simple. Coyote expressed interest in joining the family business, and his father was willing to try him out. Having a son for a business partner can either be brilliant or disastrous, and Mr. Martin decided to test the waters with him. For the most part he executed proficiently. But then he got carried away, proving to be an unreliable employee. He became . . . unpredictable.”
Unpredictable. Just the thing that had gotten Bill killed.
“Now I’ve been tasked with cleaning up this mess,” Vincent continued. “And you need . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I don’t need anything from you.”
“Yes, you do, Harden. You need to find your love. And I know you want to. I read what you wrote about her. About your secret affair. Your fear of Coyote finding out.”
Harden leaned in toward Vincent.
“Where is she?”
“He took her, of course. I don’t know what he has planned for her, but I don’t imagine it’s good.”
And then it hit Harden. It all suddenly made sense.
“He wants me to find him,” Harden said. “It’s why he set me free. Why he took Emma. He’s not done with us yet.”
Vincent took this in for a moment and then shrugged.
“Perhaps,” Vincent said. Then he considered a moment longer and smiled to himself. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“Maybe you’re just right. Maybe he’s a step or two ahead of all of us.”
It took Harden only a second.
“He told you where he was, didn’t he?” Harden asked. Again he looked at the empty gun in his hand, considering its heft, the coolness of the grip. “He told you, knowing you would tell me. So I would come to him.”
Vincent turned his gaze out the window, toward the school, to the empty swing with rusted chains rocking gently in the breeze.
“Son of a bitch,” he said again. “I think you just may be right.”
“You came to tell me where to find him because you want me to kill him.”
Vincent nodded. “He’s become a liability.”
“But he’s waiting for me.”
Vincent considered this. “That’s a very real possibility. But we don’t have a choice, Harden. You can kill Coyote and save your girlfriend, be a hero. No one would be surprised by that story. You’ll say that Coyote called you and told you where to find him, threatening to kill Emma if you didn’t come alone.”
“Or you could just kill him,” Harden said.
“Yes, Harden, we could.” Vincent pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from the center console and used a brass lighter to light one up. He took a long inhale and as he held the smoke in his lungs he rolled down the window. Smoke snaked from his nostrils as he spoke.
“That was the idea, Harden. Once Coyote told us where he was, his daddy wanted me to pop him. But I convinced him to have you do it. Not just because that kept our distance from it.”
“Then why?”
Vincent pointed the tip of his cigarette at the school. “You went to elementary school here, didn’t you, Harden?”
Harden said nothing as he felt his skin chill.
“I know what happened to you here. It was in your manuscript. All your secrets were in there, and you told them all to Coyote. Why did you do that?”
Harden stumbled to find his words. “It’s . . . what he wanted. He wanted the whole story. It was my only chance at getting out of there.”
“He wanted to know your vulnerabilities,” Vincent said. “He wanted to know what makes you scared. What you would be willing to fight for, or how easily you’d agree to do what you were told.” He took another long, slow drag on the cigarette, and the smoke in the car swirled around Harden’s head. “You know what I saw in those pages, Harden?”
“What?”
“I saw a kid too scared to fight for himself. Too willing to please. I saw a follower, Harden.”
“Fuck you,” Harden said. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“The worst kind of itch is when someone is right but you can’t admit it, Harden. Time to scratch that itch. I told my boss you should do the job. That you earned the right to do this job. Harden, don’t you want to kill him? See the expression on his face as you pull that trigger?”
It was what Harden wanted more than anything in the world, and his expression must have revealed his feelings.
“I thought so.”
Harden pressed his palm against his forehead, as if pushing away all the memories of pain from the last three months. Suddenly he felt all of his injuries at once: his ribs, his head, his mouth. The knife wounds in his hand and stomach. It suddenly overwhelmed him, and he thought it was only a matter of seconds before he threw up.
“If he’s expecting me, what kind of chance do I have?”
“Honestly, I’d say somewhat slim. I have no way of verifying Coyote’s even at the location he told me. And if he kills you, we’ll have to eventually go after him ourselves, which we’d prefer not to but it’s doable. But I’m giving you this chance, Harden. If you don’t want to take it, I suppose you could just go on your way and forget about this conversation.” He flicked the butt of the cigarette out the window. “So what’s it gonna be?”
Harden didn’t answer, but he kept holding onto the gun. He supposed that was all the answer that was necessary.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Sleep didn’t come that night. Harden twisted in the thin sheets of the bed in which he grew up, listening to the familiar creaks and groans of his father’s aging house. He told himself he would stop looking at the old night-table clock once it showed two a.m., but that was a promise quickly broken. At just after four in the morning, he got out of bed and started packing.
He didn’t have many clothes at his father’s house, but what he did have he stuffed into a plastic grocery bag that he knotted tight. He walked quietly into the kitchen and picked up his father’s battered leather wallet off the counter. It smelled like grease. Inside, Harden counted eighty-six dollars. It sickened him to take all the cash, but he had no choice. He couldn’t chance using a credit card. He hoped his father would understand.
It would be about a six-hour drive, he figured, assuming he kept to the speed limit. He’d have to stop for food and gas, but that should be it. He wouldn’t tell anyone where he was going.
Harden pressed his ear against the closed door of his father’s bedroom, hearing the deep, rhythmic snores from inside. He then crossed the hall and went back to his room, where he lifted the mattress and pulled out the gun Vincent had given him yesterday. It was heavy. Vincent said it was a Beretta nine millimeter, untraceable. He’d taught him how to release the safety and fire. It was a simple piece of machinery. One clip, fully loaded. No more ammo than that, but that should be enough.
Vincent had then given Harden an address where Coyote was supposedly hiding out. Would Coyote actually be there, and if he was, would Emma be there as well?
There were so many unanswered questions to this plan, so much uncertainty. Harden was assuming all the responsibility and, even if he succeeded in killing Coyote and saving Emma, he would still have to deal with the police. They would want to know how Harden had tracked down Coyote. They’d want to know where he’d gotten the gun. What would Harden tell them? Vincent made it clear if he told them the truth, they would take their anger out on his father.
Can’t think about that, he told himself.
Just find Emma. It’s the only thing you can do right now. Worry about the rest later.
The last thing Harden did before leaving the house was write his father a note.
Dad -
I’m sorry and I love you. Just remember those two things, please?
I need to go away for a couple of days, but I will be back. I will explain everything then, but I can’t explain now. Don’t call the police. Just wait for me, okay?
Don’t be mad at me. Try to have faith in your son. I need you to do that for me, now more than any other time.
&nbs
p; I love you. Harden.
After leaving the note on the table next to his bed, Harden opened his bedroom door and crept down the hallway to his father’s room. His father’s heavy breathing continued, the rhythmic rise and fall he remembered as a boy. At no time was that sound more comforting than when Harden had a childhood nightmare and had crawled inside the bed next to his old man. That was so long ago.
He knew where the keys were. They would be in the pocket of his dad’s jeans, crumpled in a ball next to the bed. Reston Campbell was a fiercely religious man but not a tidy one. Harden took long and slow silent strides to the jeans and fished the keys without much effort. The keys jingled like a bell on the collar of a waking cat, and Harden froze for a moment, making sure he hadn’t stirred his father awake.
He hadn’t.
Harden stood, looked in his father’s direction one last time, then left the room.
He went to the front of the house and slid into his father’s 1978 Dodge Challenger. Reston had bought it with nearly 150,000 miles on it, and Harden knew his dad loved the car. He didn’t want to take it but had no other choice.
He started the ignition—the engine purred a bit before coughing up a small hair ball—and backed onto the street. Pointing north, Harden flipped on the headlights and crawled down the block. He considered stopping and changing license plates, just in case his father reported it stolen as a means of trying to get his boy back home. But Harden didn’t have a screwdriver handy.
He told himself he wouldn’t be gone long enough for it to matter, anyway.
CHAPTER SIXTY
The Challenger rumbled along the interstate at precisely the speed limit. Harden had no reason to suspect he would attract attention except for the fact he was now the subject of a national news story, and word of him disappearing once again would create a stir.
What would his father do when he woke? Would he call the police? His father hadn’t even wanted him going out for groceries, so who knew how he would react to Harden suddenly stealing his car and his money and disappearing? If he did what Harden fervently prayed he would, Reston Campbell would remain quiet and patiently wait. Harden put the odds of that happening at about 1 percent.
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