He looked over his shoulder into the backseat where Emily was sleeping, dosed with the Benadryl that he had given her so she wouldn’t be afraid or put up a fuss when it became clear to her that Uncle Doral had fibbed about why he’d taken her in the middle of the night from Tori’s lake house.
Just as he’d pulled the trigger to end Tori’s life, a piping voice came from behind him. “Hi, Uncle Doral.”
He spun around and there had stood Emily in the doorway of Tori’s bedroom, wearing a nightie, holding her Elmo and bankie, and, most disconcerting of all, happy to see him.
“Aunt Tori and I made mud pies. And guess what? Tomorrow she’s going to let me play in her makeup. How come you’ve got gloves on? It’s not cold outside. Why’s Aunt Tori on the floor?”
It had taken him several seconds to process her unexpected appearance. She started coming farther into the room, and with only seconds to spare, he had a burst of inspiration.
“She’s hiding her eyes and counting because we’re going to play hide-and-seek.”
With complete trust, Emily had played along. Sneaking downstairs with him, and out to the car that he’d borrowed from his cousin for the night, and into his backseat, Emily had stifled her conspiratorial giggles. They were several miles from the house before those gave way to wariness.
“I don’t think Aunt Tori can find us if we hide this far away.” And then, “Are you taking me to Mommy? Where’s Coburn? He’s gonna buy me an ice cream. I want to see them.”
The questions had become numerous and unnerving, and he was glad that one of his sisters had once remarked on the effectiveness of the liquid antihistamine for sedating kids. He’d stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought a cherry Slurpee and a bottle of the medication, and soon after drinking the laced slush, Emily was sleeping soundly.
That’s when he’d called The Bookkeeper to report his success. He wasn’t praised for a job well done, but he actually thought he heard a sigh of relief. “See if you can get Coburn to answer your brother’s phone. Set it up.”
Now things were in place and all he had to do was wait for the appointed time. He faced forward, unable to look into Emily’s angelic face and acknowledge what a creep he was for exploiting her affection for him. This was Emily, for crissake. Eddie’s kid. He’d killed her father. He would have to kill her mother, too. Sourly he thought that making an orphan of a sweet little girl like Emily was some fucking career, wasn’t it?
He wondered how he’d come to sink this low without his noticing. He was in so deep he couldn’t even see the surface anymore.
He’d chosen this path and there was no going back. Initially he’d thought that closing all his escape hatches was a good thing. He’d thrown off his old life the way a snake shed its skin. Having had his fill of kowtowing to his fishing charter clientele, and his usurious creditor, he had turned his back on that business and had exchanged customer service for adventure and violence. He’d relished being licensed to bully and intimidate and, if necessary, kill.
Looking back now, however, he remembered those days on his charter boat as being much less complicated than his days were now. The work had been backbreaking and the income dependent on factors beyond his control, yet he remembered that time with a nostalgia that bordered on yearning.
But when he’d signed on with The Bookkeeper he’d made a covenant with the devil, and it was a commitment for life. There was no do-over. He couldn’t throw his life into reverse.
As for his grandiose idea of eliminating The Bookkeeper and assuming control of the operation, who was he kidding? It would never happen. Even if he had the courage to attempt it, he would blunder and wind up dead anyway.
No, he would stick to the path he’d chosen until he came to a dead end.
But before he cashed out, whether it was twenty years or twenty minutes from now, he was going to kill Lee Coburn for killing Fred.
Immediately after Coburn disconnected from Doral, he punched in the number of Tori’s lake house and got an automated voice mail message.
“What’s Tori’s cell number?” he asked Honor, hoping that Tori had defied him and restored her phone’s battery.
She lowered her hands from her mouth. Her lips were white from the pressure her fingers had applied to them. They barely moved as she dully recited the number.
That call also went straight to voice mail. “Dammit!”
Tremulously she asked, “Coburn? Is Emily alive?”
“If they had killed her, they wouldn’t have anything to bargain with.”
He could tell she wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe it.
She hiccupped a sound. “Is he holding her hostage at the lake house?”
“Sounded like he was in his car.”
“Do you think Tori is—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question and ended on a whimper.
Coburn punched in 911, and when the operator answered he gave her the address of Tori’s lake house. “A woman at that address has been assaulted. Send police and an ambulance. Got it?” He made the operator repeat the address, but when she started asking questions, he disconnected.
Honor was trembling. “Will they kill my baby?”
As bad as the bald truth was, he refused to lie to her. “I don’t know.”
She made a sound of such abject despair that he put his good arm around her and pulled her hard against him, laying his cheek on the top of her head.
“We’ve got to call the police, Coburn.”
When he didn’t say anything, she raised her head and looked up at him. “We can,” he said quietly.
“But you don’t think we should.”
“She’s your kid, Honor. You’ve got to make the decision. Whatever you decide, I’ll go along. But I think if you bring the cops into it, The Bookkeeper will know in a matter of minutes.”
“And Emily will be killed.”
He nodded bleakly. “Probably. The Bookkeeper wouldn’t back down. He’d have to follow through on the threat or he’d look weak. He won’t let that happen. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I won’t bullshit you.”
She gnawed her lower lip. “The FBI office?”
“Is no better. Case in point, VanAllen.”
“So it’s up to us?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to save her life.”
“Whatever it takes.” Both of them knew what that implied. “That’s the deal, isn’t it? You for Emily.”
“That’s the deal.” But he didn’t say it with his customary shrug. He wasn’t as indifferent to his mortality as he had been only a few days ago. Death was no longer a possible outcome he regarded with nonchalance.
“I don’t want you to die,” she said huskily.
“Maybe I won’t. I’ve got another good bargaining chip.”
He released her, sat down at the computer desk, and accessed the contents on the USB key.
“We don’t have time for this.” Honor stood at his shoulder, wringing her hands. “Where do they have Emily? Did you hear her crying?”
“No.”
She made a mournful sound. “Is that good or bad? She has to be afraid. Why wasn’t she crying? Do you think that means… What do you think that means?”
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
Her near hysteria was justified, but he tried to tune her out long enough to concentrate on what he needed to do hurriedly but without making any mistakes. He opened Gillette’s web browser, went into a web-based email service, and used his password to access his account. He sent the file on the USB key as an attachment to an email, then reversed the process by rapidly logging out and closing the browser, but not before remembering to clear the browser history, so that no one could tell, not in a timely fashion anyway, that he’d visited an email service.