Wondering whether there might be a way I could move things along, I pressed the Glock harder against Wyatt’s temple, to the point he nearly lost his balance. I said to him, “She needs to decide just how much she loves, and needs, you.”
“Give him the gun, for Christ’s sake!”
From below, near total silence. I thought I heard a muttered “Fuck.” The tension probably didn’t last more than ten seconds, but it seemed to stretch out for much longer.
It was a relief when I heard Vince say, “I’ve got it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The two of you can come back down now. Wyatt, you first.”
“He’s got a gun on him,” I said.
“Wyatt, be a good boy and let Terry relieve you of that,” Vince said.
“Use your left hand,” I said. I’d seen a movie or two.
Wyatt forced his left shoulder up and took the gun from his waistband. Holding it between his thumb and index finger, he dangled it toward me and I took it with my left. Without looking, I dropped it behind me on some insulation.
“I take it,” I said to Vince, “that I don’t have to bring all these guns down.”
“Just the one in your hand.”
Wyatt turned himself around and lowered his legs through the hatch, found a perch on the ladder, and descended. I grabbed my phone on the way to the opening, and by the time I was down, gun still in hand, Vince was stationed in a corner of the room with the gun trained on the happy couple, now standing shoulder to shoulder.
“We tell where she is, right now, you let us go,” Reggie said, still an edge in her voice, still thinking she had some leverage.
Vince looked at me and sighed. “Do I look like I have some sort of mental problem?”
“It’s okay. We’ll take you,” Wyatt said. “We’ll take you to the house. We’ll take you to her.”
“Who’s with her?”
“Nobody,” the woman said. “She’s alone. Tied up, but just fine.”
Vince’s eyes went from her to him and back again. He said, more to himself than anyone else in the room, “We only need one person to take us there.”
I thought, Please don’t kill someone in my house.
“Come on,” Reggie said, a hint of pleading in her voice. “We’re cooperating, we are.”
“We’ll get her back to you,” Wyatt said flatly. “We’ll do what you want.”
“We’re going back out to your car,” Vince said, “and you’re driving.” He was looking at Reggie. “I’ll be in the back with your husband.”
Which put me up front, riding shotgun, as it were. Unless Vince no longer required my services.
I decided to ask, “You still need me?”
The man looked wounded. “Are you kidding? You’re my number two.”
Sixty-four
Terry
Vince said I’d lead the pack and he’d take up the rear. So I went down the stairs first, followed by Wyatt, then Reggie. Vince, hobbling some, came down last. He and I maintained a solid grip on our weapons.
Vince had taken Reggie’s car keys from her and had the presence of mind to ask Wyatt for his set, too, no doubt figuring that both of them would have keys to the BMW. He was right.
Vince tossed Wyatt’s keys into the shrubs under the front window and held on to Reggie’s. When we all came out of the house, he hit the remote to unlock the BMW. “Go on and get in,” he said to the couple. “We’ll be right along.”
Reggie got behind the wheel and Wyatt settled in behind her.
I said to Vince, “You think they’re telling the truth? That Jane’s still okay?”
Grim faced, he said, “Gotta hope.”
“You could have told me about the guns being hidden up there instead of money.”
“I knew you’d figure out what to do. If you’d known ahead of time, you’d have been too nervous.”
Like I wasn’t already?
“Vince,” I said, reaching out tentatively and resting my hand on his arm. He glanced at it and I took it away. “I wasn’t going to say this again, but damn it, you really could call the police now. You’ve got these two. You can hand them over.”
“Let’s go,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.
“You have to,” Vince said, his voice sounding weak. “Because I can’t do it alone. If it’s just me, they’ll get the drop on me. I’m feeling like shit. Coming down the stairs there, things were spinning some.”
I locked up the house while he limped to the car and got in the back next to Wyatt. Following his lead, I kept the gun down and close to my thigh so as not to attract the attention of anyone passing by. As I was getting into the front passenger seat, Vince was handing Reggie her car keys.
Reggie took us north out of the neighborhood and got on 95 heading east, but very soon she took the Milford Parkway north to the Merritt, then went west. She got off at Main, went north, passing Sikorsky on the right, then hung a left on Warner Hill Road. We made a left onto Colbert, and soon she was rolling the BMW up the driveway of a nondescript white bungalow, tapping a button on a remote clipped to the visor. Ahead of us a garage door rolled up.
Nobody had said a word the entire trip.
“Take the keys,” Vince ordered me.
Reggie removed them and handed them over. I tucked them into the pocket of my pants as I got out of the car.
“Close the garage,” Vince said, and she hit the button to make the door rattle down behind us.
In the garage, there was another door that led into the house.
“This your house?” Vince asked.
Wyatt nodded. “We live here.”
I tried the door, but it was locked. “Which one is it?” I asked Reggie, holding her keys in front of her.
She pointed. “That one.”
I inserted it into the lock and turned. The door was unlocked, but before I could push it open, Vince said, “Wait.”
“There’s no one else here,” Wyatt said. “There’s no other car.”
“Go in first,” Vince told him, and Wyatt did as he was told. I went after him, then Reggie, and as always Vince was last.
We’d come into a laundry room off the kitchen. Just ahead of us, a set of stairs led down.
Vince shouted, “Jane!”
“She can’t talk,” Wyatt said.
His face went dark. “Where is she?”
Reggie said, “Downstairs.”
“Let’s go.”
We went, in our regular formation, to the basement. We were in a wood-paneled rec room with a Ping-Pong table, a couple of old couches, and a big-screen TV on the wall. There was also a long desk set up with three laptops on it, and stacks of what looked like tax forms. For their IRS tax refund scam, I guessed.
“In there,” Wyatt said, pointing to a door on the far side of the room. “It’s a bedroom.”
“I’ll watch them,” I offered, training my Glock on the two while Vince crossed the room.
He put his hand on the doorknob, held it there for a second, as if afraid to see what was on the other side. But then he gripped it and swung it wide.
We all looked.
At the empty chair, with lengths of rope scattered around it on the floor.
Sixty-five
When Jane Scavullo heard the door open upstairs, sensed footsteps coming into the house, she wanted to be hopeful. Right away, she could tell by the sounds overhead that there was more than one person entering. Two, maybe more, pairs of footsteps. That in itself was neither good news nor bad. Yes, it could be Wyatt and Reggie returning. But it could also be Vince, with at least Bert and Gordie in tow.
But her gut told her it was not going to be Vince, or Bert, or Gordie.