Scott was confused. He didn’t see why this was a priority when stanching the wound in her side and getting her to an emergency room seemed far more critical. “Look-” he started.
“Just do it!”
He steered her into the driver’s seat as she’d requested. He grabbed at the bag with the plates and, with a frown and deep breath, a single glance at the house where the party was, ducked to the front and back of the car as rapidly as he could, putting the proper Massachusetts plates on the rental car. He took the others and threw them into the backpack along with the gun, and he stuffed the dish towel marred with gasoline and blood into the plastic bag alongside the weapon.
He went back to the driver’s side. Hope had put the key into the ignition, and he could see her face contort with pain as she stripped the tape from her ankles and pulled the tape and the two sets of gloves from her hands. She handed these and her balaclava to Scott. He stood by helplessly as she pulled the knife blade out of her body.
“Jesus!” she gasped. Her head lolled back, and she nearly passed out. But as quickly as this wave came, another arrived. The pain kept her alert. She breathed in sharply.
“I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
“I’ll get there myself. You’ve got too much to do.” She gestured at the knife. “I’ll keep that.” She dropped it to the floor of the car and pushed it out of sight.
“I could get rid of it,” Scott said.
It was hard for Hope to think completely straight, but she shook her head. “Get rid of that stuff, and the plates, somewhere where they won’t be connected to this car.” She was trying hard to remember everything, trying hard to be organized, but the pain prevented true calm, reasoned thinking. She wished Sally were here. Sally would see most of the angles, all of the details. It was what she was good at, Hope thought. Instead she turned to Scott and tried to look at him as if he were somehow a part of Sally, which, she imagined, he once was.
“Okay,” she said. “We’re back following the plan. I’m okay to drive. You do what you’re supposed to.” She gestured toward the backpack with the gun.
“I can’t leave you. Sally would never forgive me.”
“She won’t have a chance to forgive you if you don’t. We’re way behind schedule. What you have to do now is crucial.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Hope said, although she knew this was a lie. She wasn’t sure about anything. “Go. Go now.”
“What should I tell Sally?”
Hope paused. A dozen thoughts went through her head, but she said only, “Just tell her I’ll be okay. I’ll speak to her later.”
“Are you sure?” He glanced down to where the knife handle had protruded from her side. He could see where the black mechanic’s jumpsuit was stained with blood.
“It’s not nearly as bad as it looks,” Hope lied again. “Just go, before we lose our opportunity.”
The idea that, after everything she’d done, they might fail almost crushed her. She waved her hand toward Scott.
“Go.”
“Okay,” he replied, standing up, stepping back.
“Oh, Scott.”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for coming to help.”
He nodded. “You did all the hard work.” He closed the driver’s-side door and watched as Hope bent to the wheel and started the car. He stepped back, and she pulled away steadily. He continued to watch as she drove down the road, standing alone in the darkness until the red rear lights disappeared in the ink that enveloped him. Then he flung the backpack over his back and started to jog toward the bus route. He was late, he knew, and it might be disastrous, but he still had to play out the hand as Sally had dealt it. He was unsure what Hope was going to accomplish the remainder of that night, but most of their luck needed to ride with her. Then he realized that that might be wrong. Much luck was still needed in other locations that night.
Sally was parked on the edge of a strip-mall lot, waiting for Scott. She glanced down at her watch, then checked the stopwatch, picked up the cell phone, and thought hard about calling, but decided against it. She was perhaps forty-five minutes out of Boston, close to the interstate, a place selected for the same reasons she had selected the spot where she had met with Hope to transfer the gun, but different, in that it would provide Scott easy access to the route back to western Massachusetts.
She leaned her head back against the seat headrest and closed her eyes. She would not allow herself the fear of going through all the possible disasters that might have taken place that night. They were amateurs at the art of killing, she thought. They might each have had some expertise that made the planning, organization, and conceptualizing of death seem manageable and feasible, but when it came down to the actual execution of the plan, they were the rankest of novices. In a way, when she had designed the machinations of that night, she had thought that their inexperience would be their strongest suit. Experts would not have done what they did. The plan was too erratic, too haphazard, and far too dependent on each person managing certain tasks efficiently. That was the strength of the whole idea, she thought.
Educated people would not be doing what they were doing. Drug addicts or violent people might work their way up the ladder of criminality to murder. That was logical.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Perhaps the idea that they could function in a landscape of murder was a fantasy all along. She immediately envisioned Scott and Hope in handcuffs, surrounded by policemen. O’Connell’s father would be giving a statement, and she would be next, as soon as either Scott or Hope broke down under questioning.
And Ashley, even with Catherine at her side, would be facing a future of Michael O’Connell alone.
She opened her eyes and surveyed the green-tinged light of the parking lot.
No sign of Scott.
Hope should be on her way home.
Michael O’Connell should be on the side of the road either trying to repair his flat or waiting for a tow truck. He should be angry and cursing and wondering what the hell was going on. The one thing he wouldn’t be expecting was that he was caught up in a performance in which he was a critical player. Sally smiled. She thought that the part that was most likely to have been performed without dropping a line, or taking a misstep, had been his, and he did not even know it. He was being choked and he wasn’t even aware that he was being neutralized, removed from Ashley’s life right at that moment.
She clenched her fist and imagined, We’ve got you, you bastard.
She breathed out slowly. Maybe.
Scott should be pulling in. Any second.
She pounded on her steering wheel in frustration and despair.
“Where the hell are you?” she whispered fervently, sweeping the area with her eyes again. “Come on, Scott. Get here!”
She reached for the cell phone again, then put it down. Waiting, she understood, was the second-hardest thing. The hardest thing was trusting someone she had once told herself she loved, had left behind, cheated on, and then divorced. In truth, the only thing that maintained any kind of civility between her and her ex-husband was Ashley. That, she guessed, would be enough to get them through the night.
Then her thoughts turned to Hope. She shook her head and felt tears in her eyes. She knew she could trust her completely, though she had done precious little over the past months to deserve that trust. She felt as if she were floating in the air of uncertainty.
“Come on!” she whispered again, as if words alone could make things happen.
A large green Dumpster was located in a far corner of the parking lot where Scott had left his truck. To his immense relief, it was nearly full, not only with plastic bags jammed with debris, but also stray bottles and cans, and uncollected trash. He seized one of the bags that seemed only partway filled, undid the fastener at the top, and thrust the stolen plates and the rest of the leftovers of tape and gloves deep inside. Then he carefully retied the top so that it wouldn’t break free and replaced the bag in the midst of the pile of waste. He guessed that the container would be emptied soon, probably the next day.