She felt herself wanting to cry.
Rona Wedmore was not going to cry sitting on a park bench in the middle of the Milford Green.
But she wanted to. For Heywood. For Lamont.
For herself.
She watched three small children run past with balloons. A woman in her eighties walking her dog. A young couple on another bench having an argument. Too far away to hear the details.
Her cell phone buzzed.
Wedmore sighed inwardly. Took another sip of her milk shake, then rested the takeout cup on one of the park bench planks. She reached into her purse, found the phone, glanced at the screen, and saw that it was work calling. She put the phone to her ear.
“Wedmore.”
“It’s me.”
Spock.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I found the car — pretty sure it’s the same one — on one of the traffic cameras. Got a clear look at the plate.”
“Give it to me. I’ll run it down.”
“Way ahead of ya. Got a name and address here if you’ve got a pencil.”
Wedmore got out her notebook.
Sixty-three
Terry
Vince called up to me from the study of my house, where an armed Reggie was babysitting him.
“You find it?” he asked. There was something in his voice. Was it... mischief?
“Yes,” I said, my body blocking Wyatt’s view of the guns that had been secreted under the attic insulation. There was a hint of light filtering its way around me from the opening in the ceiling and from my phone, set to the flashlight app, which Wyatt was holding up by the rafters.
“That’s good,” Vince asked.
Reggie called up, “Is there a vase?”
I was running my hands over the contents of the box, all the guns. I was guessing at least a couple dozen.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I’m still feeling around.”
“How hard can it be to tell what you’re feeling?” she shouted.
Vince, of course, had to know what I was going to find up here. I remembered what he’d said to me.
If an opportunity presented itself, take it.
What was it he wanted me to do when I found these? Come out shooting? Kill Wyatt, then Reggie?
No, that made no sense. We had to find out where Jane was, and that wasn’t going to be easy if Reggie and Wyatt were dead. As if shooting a couple of people was even within my capabilities.
As I’d told Vince, I didn’t know a lot about firearms, but I was betting these weapons were Glocks, just like the gun in the glove box of Vince’s truck.
There is no safety.
So if these guns were loaded, all one had to do was point and pull the trigger. Maybe some were loaded, and others not. Kind of like playing the Connecticut lottery.
I glanced back over my shoulder at Wyatt. Phone in one hand, gun in the other.
I said, “I need to pass you some of this stuff — you can pass it through the hole down to them.”
He’d have to take a step closer and bend down to do that. Plus, he was going to have to put away either the phone or the gun, or both.
“Hang on a sec,” he said.
He chose the phone. He slid it into the front pocket of his pants and started to crouch down.
“Christ’s sake,” I said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
He stood up again. “Okay, fine.” The phone came back out, the flashlight app reactivated. This time, Wyatt tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants. But as he started to kneel, he realized tucking it in front was pretty uncomfortable, so he shifted it around to the side.
He knelt down, fumbling with the phone, trying to shine the light where he thought I wanted it.
I swung around, squatting on my haunches, and touched the barrel of the gun to his temple.
I whispered, “Not. One. Word.”
Wyatt took a breath.
“If you move an inch I’ll pull the trigger,” I said.
And thought, Please don’t move.
“Vince,” I called out softly.
“Yeah, Terry?”
“Could you tell Reggie that our situation has changed up here?”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“I’m guessin’,” Vince said, “the balance of power has shifted.”
“What are you talking about?” Reggie said again.
“That be fair to say, Terry?” Vince said.
“Yeah, that’s fair. I’ve got one of these Glocks pressed up against Wyatt’s head here.”
Wyatt twitched, like maybe he was thinking of going for his gun, but it would have been an awkward move for him to make, and not something he could do quickly, kneeling as he was.
Reggie said, “What? Wyatt?”
“It’s true,” he said. He’d set my phone, faceup, on the narrow side of a stud, the upward cast of light highlighting the droplets of sweat beading up on his forehead.
“How the hell’d that happen?” she asked. “Jesus! How’d he get your gun?”
“He didn’t! It was already up here.”
Vince said, “Hand your piece over, Reggie, or Wyatt’s brains become part of the insulation.”
“No! No way!” she shouted upward. “You take that gun off Wyatt, or I swear to God I’ll shoot your boss!”
Sweat was trickling down my forehead, too. A drop went into my eye and stung like the dickens. I blinked several times.
I said, “How would you like to handle this, Vince?”
Vince, directing his voice my way, said calmly, “Shoot him.”
“Wait!” Wyatt shouted. I couldn’t have been more grateful.
“No!” Reggie screamed. “I swear, if you do, I’ll shoot him one second later. You — you get your ass down here now, you fucker, and let my husband go, or I’ll kill Vince. You think I won’t? You want to try me?”
Vince said to her, “Go ahead. Shoot me. And then my friend will kill your husband. That’s what you stand to lose. Your husband. But all my friend’ll lose is an asshole boss he’s never liked much anyway. But if you hand over your piece, I can talk my friend into not putting a hole in Wyatt’s head.”
“Reggie,” Wyatt said, trying to keep calm, “I don’t want to fucking die up here.” And then he said an interesting thing. “Babe, come on, you can’t run the tax thing without me. You need me for that.”
Like, if Reggie was going to save him, it was going to be for more than love.
I know it’s a cliché, but things really did seem to be moving in slow motion. Every second I held that gun to Wyatt’s head felt like an hour. It wasn’t as if the Glock weighed twenty pounds, but holding it with my arm extended, I was feeling the strain. And my legs, hunched down the way I was, were screaming with pain.
I was a teacher of high school English and creative writing. Holding a gun to the head of a kidnapper did not fall into my general realm of experience. Sure, things got pretty hairy seven years ago, but even then, I hadn’t found myself in a position quite like this.
“So what’s the fucking deal, then?” Reggie asked.
“I want Jane,” Vince said.
“Okay, fine, you get the little bitch back. Wyatt comes down. You get Jane. We’re square. Just give me the vase and the cash that’s up there.”
“There is no vase,” I said. “And there is no cash.”
“Look harder!” Reggie shrieked. “The vase, it doesn’t mean anything to me or you. It’s got no value. It’s my uncle’s.”
“If you’re looking for something Eli Goemann left with me,” Vince said, “it’s not up there. Never was. We stashed his stuff elsewhere. Everything there? It’s from those bikers you asked about earlier. From New Haven.”
“Then we go to where you hid Eli’s stuff,” she said. “You take us there. Then you get Jane. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
“No.” Vince’s voice was very calm. “That’s not how it’s going to work. I get Jane, right now, and you two live.”