“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.
70
After chaining together the star-crossed lovers, Leon had gone upstairs to the room where they’d been holding the little deaf munchkin, curious to know how she’d escaped. He’d found a hatch in the closet that opened into a crawl space so deep it had to feed into other closets on the second floor, and he instantly put two and two together.
Smart little bitch. He hadn’t even known the crawl space existed.
He did a cursory check of the other upper level rooms, and then hurried outside to find her.
The Todder was on his way, too. Leon had called him, and the gambler said he wasn’t far, that he’d anticipated this might happen, and he’d be at the house lickety-split to help Leon take care of things and arrive at a win-win solution.
Leon scowled. A fucking win-win solution. As if that were possible. Their entire master plan had gone to shit. The Feds were lurking around. The fifty large was gone. His partner was dead. Corey knew the deal.
Leon was of half a mind to just say fuck it, and to bounce. But the Todder had promised him a handsome payoff, and he needed to get something for all his troubles before he went back on the road, wasn’t going to put in all this hard work and risk his cover only to leave with diddly-squat, fuck that.
Meanwhile, he was left to track down the little deaf bitch on his own. Doing the dirty work yet again.
If Billy were alive, at least Leon could have sent him out into the great wet and muddy outdoors to find her. But Billy had gone bye-bye forever, too bad, so sad.
With his flashlight, Leon checked the neighboring houses for signs of the little munchkin. He looked inside the Oldsmobile his homeboy had arrived in and parked at the corner.
A Cutlass Supreme. Like his old ride. Too funny.
But the munchkin wasn’t in there, either.
She was only nine years old and deaf as Helen Keller. How far away could she have run on those itty-bitty legs?
He circled back to the safe house.
There was enough forestland beyond the lot to serve as the setting for a National Geographic program. Could the little one have gone back there?
Why not take a look see?
He crashed into the forest, knocking aside twigs and batting away shrubs, heedless of the commotion he was causing. The bitch was deaf. What difference did it make how much noise he made?
He swung the beam across the undergrowth.
In a fall of weeds, not far from the house, he found a tiny pink house slipper.
He rang up the Todder.
“What’s up?” Todd asked. “I’m maybe five, ten minutes from there.”
“If you wanna know where I am, I’ll be doing my wilderness tracker act,” Leon said, scanning the trees ahead. “The little bitch’s out here in the woods.”
71
Bent forward, Corey worked at picking the ratchet around his wrist. It was a bit more awkward since he had to use his left hand and he was right-handed, but with the experience he’d gained from opening the other cuff, it shouldn’t take him long to get free.
Simone had gone to the bedroom door, tried the knob, found it locked. She pounded it with a muttered curse. “How’re we going to get out of here?”
“One thing at a time. Give me a minute.”
Sweat dripped into his eyes. She came to him and, using a napkin she dug out of a bag, blotted the perspiration from his brow, a tender gesture that surprised him considering the shameful stuff he’d told her.
“Thanks,” he said. He added, “Thanks for being you, I know you’re angry-”
“You have no idea how pissed off I am, Corey,” she said, jaw rigid. “No damn clue. So don’t go there, all right?”
He lowered his gaze to the cuff, and the screwdriver.
She touched his arm. In a softer voice, she said, “But. . I’m not leaving you. I’m not going to throw away the best ten years of my life. You’re my husband, the father of my child. I have to find it in myself to forgive you.”
He looked up at her, emotion squeezing his throat. “Thank you. That means everything to me. Somehow, I’ll make it up to you.”
Her eyes glistened. “I’ll make peace with this, Corey. I’ll do that. But you have to forgive yourself, too, if you really want to grow past this. I know how hard you can be on yourself.”
He thought about the advice Otis had given him. Sometimes, we must forgive ourselves for our sinful acts before we are capable of accepting absolution from others.
“That might be the toughest part,” Corey said.
“We’ll work through it all,” she said. “We’ll go to the police together. We’ll tell them the truth, about everything.”
“And if I have to serve time?”
“I don’t want to think about it.” She exhaled through clenched teeth. “But if it comes to that, I’ll be there for you. So will Jada. You know she’ll love you no matter what. You’ll always be Daddy.”
Tears fluttered in his eyes. He had never in his life wished so strongly that he had made different decisions. He might earn a twenty-year prison sentence, but how many more years would pass before he could truly forgive himself for his errors? Before he could come to terms with the pain that he had caused his family and so many others?
He didn’t know, but he only hoped that he got the chance to do better, to make up for all his wrongs.
He took the napkin from Simone and used it to dry his eyes. Teeth gritted in concentration, he worked the screwdriver against the ratchet. In a minute or so, he finally, got the teeth up. Felt that wonderful soaring release as the cuff fell open.
He tossed the handcuffs aside. Simone helped him to his feet.
“We’ve got more work cut out for us.” He nodded toward the door. “There’s a thick piece of wood braced across the other side.”
Together, they approached the doorway. He hammered the door with his fist. It rattled slightly in the jamb.
“Think we can break it down?” Simone asked.
“Since the door’s set up to open outward, I’m pretty sure Leon hung it himself. I don’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. He’s no contractor.”
“I kicked at it earlier. See?” She pointed out the scuff marks near the center. “It didn’t give, obviously.”
“I wasn’t here to help you then. I’ve kicked down a door before.”
He saw a question in her eyes.
“I locked myself out of my apartment once,” he said quickly. “Kicking down the door was the only way I could get in.”
She blushed. “Sorry. Stupid assumption.”
“The door is weakest around the lock,” he said, indicating the spot. “I’ll boost you up on my back. Then you can use both your feet to hammer away. A few times should break it, and then we can both ram against it to knock away that board on the other side. It’s resting against just a few bent nails.”
“Then let’s hurry up and do this.”
Somewhere outside the room, a door opened. Footsteps clicked across a hallway.
They tensed. Corey sidled away from the door, prepared to launch an ambush. Simone edged away, too.
The footsteps stopped outside the room. “Hey, you guys in there?”
It was Todd.
Glancing at Simone, Corey took a couple of steps away and lifted the handcuffs off the floor. He tinkled them loudly for effect. “Listen, we’re cuffed, man. Why don’t you come in here and join us?”
“No time for chitchat.” Todd chuckled. “Got places to go and things to do, partner. I’m here to wrap things up and cash in my chips.”