Catherine gasped. “Oh my goodness!” she shouted loudly.
Within a few seconds, several stock boys and the store manager had descended upon the mess. The stock boys set to repairing the display, while Catherine and Ashley profusely apologized and insisted upon paying for any damage. They were turned down by the manager, but Catherine reached into her pocketbook and withdrew $50, which she thrust toward the manager. “Well, then at least make sure that these nice young men who have cleaned up the mess Ashley and I have made are properly rewarded for their assistance.”
“No, no,” the manager said. “Really, ma’am, that’s not necessary.”
“I insist.”
“Me, too,” said Ashley.
The manager, shaking his head, took the money, to the great relief of the stock boys.
Then Ashley pushed their cart into the checkout line, while Catherine pulled out a bank card to pay for the items. Both women made sure that they, too, turned directly toward the store’s security cameras. There was little doubt in their minds that they would be remembered that particular night. That had been Sally’s final message to the two of them: Make certain that you do something public that establishes your presence at home.
This they had accomplished. They did not know what was happening in some other part of New England at the same time, but they imagined it was something truly dangerous.
Michael O’Connell’s car headlights cut across the dim front of his onetime home. The lights reflected off the polished side of his father’s truck. A car door slammed loudly and Scott saw O’Connell striding toward the entrance to the kitchen. The urgency in Michael O’Connell’s pace seemed to light through the darkness.
O’Connell’s anger was critical, Scott thought. Angry people don’t notice the small things that could later be important.
He watched as O’Connell grabbed at the side door and disappeared inside. He hadn’t been in Scott’s sight line for more than a few seconds. But every motion that Scott had seen told him that whatever Ashley had said to him, it had driven him single-mindedly right to the house.
Taking a deep breath, Scott hunched over and ran across the roadway, trying to keep to the shadows. He sprinted as quickly as he could up the drive to where O’Connell had left his car. He ducked down and reached inside the backpack, first removing a pair of surgical gloves, which he slipped on. Then he pulled out a hard-rubber-headed mallet and a box of galvanized roofing nails. He took a single glance toward the back of the house, breathed in sharply, then drove one of the nails into the sidewall of Michael O’Connell’s rear tire. He bent down and heard a slow hiss of escaping air.
He then took another couple of the nails and tossed them haphazardly around the driveway.
Moving as stealthily as he could, Scott made his way to the back of the elder O’Connell’s truck. He left the rest of the box of nails open in the back. He also left the mallet nearby, just another one of the many tools that cluttered the back of the truck and the carport.
His first task completed, Scott turned and walked steadily back to his hiding spot. As he crossed the street, he heard the first raised voice, electric with anger, coming from inside the house. He wanted to wait, to make out the precise words, but understood he could not.
When he reached the decrepit barn, he pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial.
It rang twice before Hope picked it up.
“Are you close?” he asked.
“Less than ten minutes.”
“It’s happening now. Call me when you stop.”
Hope disconnected without a reply. She pushed down on the gas, picking up her pace. They had figured on at least a twenty-minute lag time between Michael O’Connell’s arrival and her own. They were pretty close to schedule, she thought. This did not necessarily reassure her.
Inside the house, Michael O’Connell and his father stood a few feet apart, in the bedraggled living room.
“Where is she?” the son shouted, his fists clenched. “Where is she?”
“Where is who?” his father replied.
“Ashley, God damn it! Ashley!” He looked around wildly.
The father laughed mockingly. “Well, this is a hell of a thing. A hell of a thing.”
Michael O’Connell pivoted back in the older man’s direction. “Is she hiding? Where did you put her?”
The older O’Connell shook his head. “I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And who the hell is Ashley? Some girl you knew back in high school?”
“No. You know who I’m talking about. She called you. She was supposed to be here. She said she was on her way. Stop screwing with me, or so help me God, I’ll…”
Michael O’Connell raised his fist in his father’s direction.
“Or you’ll do what?” the father asked, a sneer filling his voice.
The older man remained calm. He took his time sipping at a bottle of beer, staring across the room at his son, eyes narrowed. Then he deliberately walked over to his lounge chair, slumped into it, took another long pull on the beer bottle, and shrugged. “I just don’t know what you’re getting at, kid. I don’t know anything about this Ashley. You suddenly call me up after being out of touch for years, start screaming about some piece of tail like you’re some punk in junior high school, and asking all sorts of questions I got absolutely no idea what the hell it is you’re talking about, then you all of a sudden show up like the whole world’s on fire, demanding this and that, and I still don’t have no clue what’s going on. Why don’t you pop a beer and calm down and stop acting like a baby.”
As he spoke, he gestured toward the kitchen and the refrigerator.
“I don’t want a drink. I don’t want anything from you. I never have. I just want to know where Ashley is.”
The father shrugged again and held his arms wide. “I have absolutely no goddamn idea what and who you’re talking about. You ain’t making any sense.”
Michael O’Connell, steaming, pointed at his father. “You just sit there, old man. Just sit there and don’t move. I need to look around.”
“I ain’t going nowhere. You want to take a look around? Go ahead. Ain’t changed much since you moved out.”
The son shook his head. “Yeah, it has,” he said bitterly as he pushed across the small living room, kicking some newspapers out of the way. “You’ve gotten a whole lot older and probably drunker, too, and this place is more of a mess.”
The father eyed his son as Michael O’Connell swept past him. He didn’t move from his seat as the younger man entered the back rooms.
He went first into the room that had been his. His old twin bed was still jammed into a corner, and some of his old AC/DC and Slayer posters were still where he’d tacked them up. A couple of cheap sports trophies, an old football jersey nailed to the wall, some books from high school, and a bright red painting of a Chevrolet Corvette filled the remaining space. He paced across the room and flung the closet door open, half-expecting to see Ashley hiding in the back. But it was empty, except for an old jacket or two that smelled of dust and mildew, and some boxes of out-of-date video games. He kicked at the box, strewing its contents across the floor.
Everything in the room reminded him of something he hated: what he was, and where he came from. He saw that his father had simply thrust many of his mother’s old things onto the bed-dresses, pantsuits, overcoats, boots, several painted boxes filled with cheap jewelry, and a photo triptych of the three of them on one of their rare vacations at a camping ground up in Maine. The picture stirred up nothing but terrible memories: too much drinking and arguing and a silent ride home. It was a little as if his father had simply dumped everything that reminded him of his dead wife and his estranged son into the room, kicking it away, where it collected dust and the smells of age.