‘All right, Dad. Can I ask you a question?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you love Mom?’
‘Evan. My God. Yes, with all my heart.’
‘I wondered if maybe the marriage was arranged, to give you cover.’
‘No, no, son. I loved her like crazy. My brother, he was in love with her, too. It was the only time I beat him in anything. When Donna chose me.’
The night was dark and vast. Evan had never seen the Everglades before and it was both empty and full, all at once. Empty of the human touch other than the highway, filled by a plain of dirt, water, and grass that throbbed with life. Mitchell headed south onto Highway 29, on the edge of the Big Cypress National Preserve. No lights of a town or business, just the curve of the road heading into black.
In the darkness by the side of the road, his father stopped the car.
‘Hide in the trunk. Break the trunk light so it won’t shine.’
A jolt of panic hit his chest. So much unplanned. So much to do to try to prepare, but no time.
‘The driveway goes around to the back of the lodge, where there’s a large porch. I’ll park with the trunk aimed away from the lodge. You’ll see a gray brick building toward the back of the property. It’s a garage and houses the generator. Run as fast as you can for it. Stay behind it until I come for you. If we come out and I miss a shot, you should have a clear line at Dezz or my brother.’
‘Dad. I love you.’ Evan took his father’s hand in the darkness.
‘I know. I love you, too. Go get in the trunk.’
45
I nside the trunk – for the second time in a night, and he hoped for the last in his life – Evan felt the BMW come to a stop. He heard his father get out of the car. No call of greeting broke the still quiet, and he heard his father go up stairs onto a porch, a door open. Then he heard a murmur of cautious hellos, his dad’s voice sounding actor-pitch perfect in its weariness and fear, and then the door shut.
He eased the trunk open, rolled out the back. The night air was cool and moist, but his palms were drenched in sweat. He held the Beretta that Frame had given him a few hours ago. No spill of lights glowed in the night to show him his way. He lay flat for a moment on the concrete, waiting for a door to fly open, shots to fire. Nothing.
He ran, keeping the cars between him and the lodge’s back porch.
Blackness. He didn’t have a flashlight; his dad said not to risk using one. He ran into the pitch-dark and hoped that he wouldn’t trip and plunge into wet or a hole or a stack of trash cans that would set off a din. He stumbled against the garage, eased around its corner. Evan stayed still. Every rustle sounded like a snake or a gator – he did not want to see alligators again – slithering closer.
He thought he heard a click: probably an alarm system, reactivating after his dad was inside. He stayed still as stone, the sweat oozing down his ribs, his breath sounding huge in the silence. He had a gun. He had Khan’s PDA, with its fancy alarm deactivator, which he had no idea how to use. Now he needed patience.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. No blast of shots. No creak of a footfall on the back porch. He peeked past the corner of the garage, past his father’s parked car, up to the lodge. Only the sound of his breath, of the ocean of life around him.
Then he heard the slightest crush of a heel on tall grass. Fifteen feet away. He froze.
‘I… see… you,’ a voice called in singsong. Dezz. ‘Sitting so still…’
A bullet smacked into the brick wall ten feet to his right. Evan lurched backward. Another shot hit the corner, well above his head. Shards of brick pelted his face.
Evan pointed the gun in the direction of the shots. He’d seen a moment of flash, but he was shaken and he hesitated.
‘I see you sitting on your ass, pointing a gun. You’re not even close,’ Dezz said. ‘Put the gun down. Come inside. Or I’ll march back inside and I’ll break your father’s spine. He won’t die; it’ll be worse than death, because when we roll out, we’ll just dump his quadriplegic ass in the swamp. The choice is yours. It’s over, Evan. You decide how nasty it gets for your dad and the bitch.’
Evan dropped the gun. The clouds parted for a moment and he saw, in the dim moonlight, Dezz hurrying toward him, gun stretched out. Then a savage kick hammered him into the wall. Brick cut the back of his head.
Dezz drove the heel of his boot into Evan’s cheek.
‘You took me away from my game with Carrie,’ Dezz said, bending to retrieve Evan’s gun from the grass. ‘And I was just getting warmed up.’
46
‘I hear an idiot pissing his pants.’ Dezz pushed Evan up the back-porch steps, his gun nestled at the back of Evan’s head. Pressing against his scalp, maybe the same gun Dezz had used in Evan’s mother’s kitchen a week ago.
Evan’s head throbbed and his face ached. He kept his hands up.
Dezz grabbed his arm, shoved him through a doorway.
Evan tried to stop but he splayed out on the tile floor.
Dezz flicked on lights. He trained his gun – the same one he’d smashed Evan in the face with – on Evan.
Dezz pulled the goggles free from his face and tossed them on the counter. ‘Night-vision, with an infrared illuminator,’ Dezz said. ‘Nowhere you can hide from me. Not that it matters anymore. You are quite the fearsome mercenary. It’s like watching a Special Forces bloopers tape.’ Dezz clicked on a light, and now, close to him, Evan saw a twisted, compact version of himself: the same dirty-blond hair, the same slim build, but Dezz’s face wore a harsh thinness, as if God had short-changed him on the flesh. A pimple sprouted at the corner of his grin.
Dezz jerked Evan to his feet and locked the gun on Evan’s head.
‘Please run. Please cry. Please give me a reason to shoot you.’
Evan blinked against the bright lights. The lodge opened up into a broad foyer. Dim lights shone, but none of the glow slipped past the boarded-up windows. The furnishings of a lobby had been stripped clean, except for a wagon-wheel chandelier that hung from the ceiling. It had the air of an expensive building trying to look rustic, aimed at the ecotourist or hunting crowd.
‘I’m surprised you came out looking for me,’ Evan said. ‘Since you’re so scared of gators.’
Dezz drove a hard punch into Evan’s stomach, ramming him against the wall. He collapsed, fought to stay conscious. Dezz grabbed Evan’s throat, pulled him back to his feet.
‘You’re’ – he slammed Evan’s head against the wall – ‘a’ – slammed it again – ‘nothing,’ Dezz said, finishing with another head pound. ‘Famous film-maker. That counts for shit in the real world. You thought you were smarter than me and you’re just so unbelievably dumb.’ Dezz opened a piece of caramel, shoved the wrapper into Evan’s mouth.
Evan spat the wrapper out. Blood coursed down the back of his neck. ‘I talk with Jargo. Not you.’
A scream, born of terror and pain, broke from upstairs.
Evan froze; Dezz laughed. He prodded Evan with the gun. ‘Get your ass up there.’
He pushed Evan up the curving grand staircase. ‘Girl Scout’s a screamer. I bet you knew. I bet you scream, too. I bet you cry first, then you piss yourself, then you scream your throat raw. When I’m done with you, I’ll have to take notes so I don’t forget.’ The staircase led to a wide hallway with four doors, all but one shut. Boards covered the window at the end of the hall. Dezz pushed Evan into a room.
The room had once been a conference space, where people sat with open binders, fought off meeting fatigue, watched droning presentations about sales projections or revenue figures, and probably all wished they were out fishing or hunting in the Everglades instead of deciphering a pie chart. They would have drunk coffee or ice water or sodas cold from a bowl filled with ice. Muffin tray in the middle.
Now the table and the drinks were gone, and Jargo stood, holding a red-stained knife and a pair of pliers. He stared at Evan with a cold, fierce hatred, then stepped aside so Evan could see.