Sighing, she rested her head on the floor again. “At least you figured out my clue about where you could find us.”
“Too late to be of any use.” He wriggled the fingers of his cuffed hand and studied the restraint, thinking. “I have my Leatherman in my pocket, on my keychain.”
“The little thingy with all the attachments, like a Swiss Army knife?”
“You gave it to me for Christmas a few years back, remember? If we can get it out of my pocket, I can try to pick the locks.”
“You know all about picking a lock, huh?”
She didn’t look at him when she said it, and she didn’t have to in order to make her point. He knew exactly what she was talking about.
“I went to a lock-picking seminar a couple of years ago-for our business,” he said. “Can’t build a better mousetrap unless you know how the mouse is scheming to get the cheese. I remember a few pointers. A handcuff isn’t like a door lock, but the general idea is the same.”
“Anything sounds better than lying here waiting for that bastard to find Jada.” She sat up with a groan. “Let’s do it.”
“My keys are in my right front pocket,” he said. “I think I can dig them out, but I’ll need you to move your leg with my arm.”
“On the count of three, then. But move slowly. I’m in a world of pain, and I’m pretty sure you are, too.”
He counted: “One. . two. . three.”
Slowly and carefully, he slid his hand down his side, Simone moving her right leg with him, bending it at the knee. He rolled over onto his left shoulder, hot agony marching along the length of his midsection, drawing sweat to his brow.
His squeezed his fingers into his pocket, snagged the key ring, and dragged it out, keys clinking. He gasped. “Got it. Now I’m going to turn over and sit up.”
“Okay. I’m with you.”
He rolled until he was on his back. Then he sat up, Simone’s chained leg lying across his lap. She scooted closer, to lessen the strain of the awkward angle on her joints.
Hunched over, Corey opened up all of the Leatherman’s attached tools-scissors, clip-point knife, tweezers, nail file, bottle opener, ruler, three screwdrivers of various sizes. He examined the locking mechanism on the handcuffs, checked his available tools.
“In the movies, people pick cuffs with bobby pins,” Simone said.
“No bobby pin here.” He picked the smallest screwdriver. “But I think this might work.”
The seminar he’d attended covered mostly how burglars bypassed pin tumbler locks, commonly used to secure doors. The handcuffs were totally different-there were no pin tumblers. But if you understood how to analyze a lock’s design, he’d learned, you could figure out its weaknesses.
Rivulets of sweat streaming in to his eyes, Corey noticed that on each cuff, the locking arm moved back and forth slightly, from the locked position to an even tighter clasp. In Leon’s haste to hunt for Jada, he hadn’t engaged the double lock that would have prevented the locking arm from moving in each direction, and probably would have made the cuffs harder to pick.
He slid the screwdriver’s tip into the ratchet around Simone’s ankle and worked at lifting the teeth.
As he worked, he felt Simone’s gaze on him, but she stared at his face, not his hands. He braced himself. He’d been married to her long enough to know that a storm was rolling in, and nothing was going to stop it. Nor should anything-he deserved whatever she could rain down on him, and then some.
“You said you were sorry for everything,” she said. “What do you mean by everything?”
“Some of this situation’s my fault,” he said.
“Some of it?”
“All of it. All of it’s my fault. I did something, a long time ago, and I never made it right.”
“Leon said you killed a man.”
Chest tightening, he looked up at her. Her eyes were hard as stones.
“Leon killed a man,” Corey said. “His name was Mr. Rowland. Phillip Rowland. He was my high school English teacher. But I was there. I saw him do it. I didn’t stop him. When it was over, I didn’t go to the police.”
He suffered her silence and searing gaze.
Finally, she said, “I knew you didn’t kill anyone. He told me that story, but I couldn’t make myself believe it.”
“I’ve never killed anyone, never physically attacked anyone. But Leon. . he’s a cold-blooded killer. It’s. . it’s almost like a sick game to him.”
“He’s a violent psychopath,” she said. “Textbook. First one I’ve ever run in to face-to-face.”
“You’ve seen the chrome cigarette lighter he carries around?”
“Yeah.”
“He took that from Rowland after he killed him. Carries it everywhere with him like a good luck charm. Takes it out to taunt me.”
She looked pained. “For God’s sake, why didn’t you ever go to the police?”
“I was scared.”
“Scared?”
“I was scared to go to prison for accessory to murder. I was eighteen, I thought my life would be over if I snitched. I’ve been scared of it for sixteen years.”
She was quiet for a few heartbeats. “He said you two used to ‘rock and roll’ back in the day.”
“Leon and I. . we used to break in to houses.”
“How many?”
“At least a dozen.”
“A dozen break-ins.”
“At least that many, yeah.”
Her lips twisted in disgust. “Why?”
“I’ve asked myself that question a million times over the years. Peer pressure, maybe? I’d let Leon manipulate me, tell me what to do. He has a strong personality, and I had self-esteem issues, I guess, and looked up to him. I would just go along with whatever he said.”
“Breaking into houses and stealing other people’s stuff.”
“Most of the guys I knew back then got into trouble. I didn’t exactly grow up in Bel Air.”
“So that’s your excuse? Growing up in the hood, nothing better to do than rob honest, hardworking people? ’Cause everyone else did it? That’s bullshit, Corey, and you know it.”
“Listen, I’m not making excuses. It was wrong, and I admit it. But you asked me why, and I told you.”
“Hmph. Wish you’d told me ten years ago.”
“So do I,” he said bitterly. “I should have told you everything.”
She closed her eyes, tilted her face to the ceiling. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his free hand and resumed working on the cuff.
But his fingers were oily, and the tension between him and Simone made it hard to focus.
Her eyes snapped open again. “You ever consider confessing your part in what happened?”
“Not until tonight.”
“You have to. Or I will.”
“I’ll do it, Simone.”
“Justice deferred is still justice. I know that dead man’s family would say so.”
“They deserve justice, and they’ll get it. I promise you. I’m not running from it any more.”
She hesitated. “Is there anything else I need to know about you?”
“Wasn’t all of this enough?”
A sour laugh escaped her. “Yeah.”
“That’s everything.”
“One more thing.”
He paused, not knowing what to expect. “Okay.”
“Did Leon kill his mother?”
He stared at her. “What?”
“He told me he killed his mother when he was eighteen, that he gave her bad heroin and she died of an overdose.”
Corey could only shake his head. “Leon hardly knew his mother. He and I had basically the same family situation, which is probably part of why we bonded.”
She looked shell-shocked. “You’re kidding.”
“When he lived across the street from us, he lived with one of his aunts. And trust me, he didn’t call her mom. What did he tell you?”
“Nothing that was true, apparently. Only proves that you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
Corey smiled thinly.
“He killed his partner.” She indicated the darkened area behind them. “That big man? Leon shot him in the head, after I’d wounded him.”
“You wounded that huge guy? That giant?”
“A lot’s happened here.”
“No shit.”
He concentrated on the restraint. After a couple of intense minutes, he felt an easing of pressure in the ratchet. He’d shimmed the ratchet teeth clear of the pawl. The cuff popped open with a soft snick.
“Free at last,” Simone said, rubbing her chafed ankle. “Thank you.”
“Now for mine,” Corey said. “We can move around as is, but I’d feel better with it off.”
“Hurry,” she said.
He switched the screwdriver to his left hand, and went to work on the cuff binding his wrist.