The Cruel Ever After (31 page)

She felt inside Dustin’s diaper. “He’s wet. I should change him.”

“Let him sleep,” said Chess. “He looks so peaceful. Why don’t we take a look at the bull, figure out what we’re going to do with Jane.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Did she come with you?”

“She’s outside sitting on one of the benches. We owe her something. She did put up the money so I could get out of jail.” He pulled her into his arms. “Just show me where you’ve hidden the bull.” When he tried to kiss her, she pulled away. “You need to brush your teeth. You stink.”

He smiled and ground his teeth at the same time. “Tell me where there’s a toothbrush and some toothpaste.”

“No,” she said backing farther away. “You can’t use mine.” She gave a shiver of revulsion.

“Irina, what’s wrong? It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you or Dusty. Surely you know that.”

She closed her eyes, pressed her arms to her stomach. “I want you to go.”

“But the statue.”

“That’s all you ever think about.”

“Irina, where is it?”

“Do you realize that you lower your voice when you try to act like you’re in charge? It doesn’t work on me anymore.”

This time he almost screamed. “Where is the bull?” He grabbed her by her shoulders. “Tell me.”

“I don’t have it.”

“But you said—”

“I lied. People lie all the time.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Okay, I do have it, but it’s not here.”

“Then we’ll go to wherever it is.”

“I don’t think so.” She picked up the teddy bear and cradled it in her arms. Walking around the room, she began humming “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” “Actually, it is here, on the houseboat. But you’ll never find it.”

He was inside a carnival fun house. This was Irina’s mind.

“Maybe I’ll give it to you.”

“Will you?” he said. “When?”

“I’ll have to think about that.” As she sat down on the bed, she inadvertently knocked a thin sliver of the caked baby powder off the bear’s paw. “Give me a few minutes. You’ve upset me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

She caressed the bear’s ravaged head. “Go outside. When I’m ready to show it to you, I’ll call for you.”

“Then it is here.”

“Of course it’s here.”

He didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t exactly beat the truth out of her.

What he was going to tell Jane was another matter. His credibility with her was already shot. She was never, in a million years, going to believe this.

36

Jane paced back and forth in front of the houseboat, waiting for Chess to come back out. All she’d done all morning was wait—first at the bank, then at the jail, and now on the pier. Time was ticking away. She’d already received three phone messages from Cordelia on her cell, two from Peter, and one from her father. They had to be wondering where she was and why she hadn’t called back.

Hearing a door open, she turned and saw Chess hop back onto the pier and come toward her.

“Where’s the bull?”

He stopped a few feet away and sank his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know where to start.”

“She doesn’t have it?”

He looked across the river toward the far shore. “Honestly? I don’t have a clue.”

“Either she has it or she doesn’t.”

“She’s sick. Mentally ill. She’s got a teddy bear in there that she thinks is our baby. It’s grotesque. Jesus, I need a cigarette.” He felt inside the pocket of his sport coat but came up empty.

This was starting to sound like a bad joke. “So this how you two are planning to play me? Your girlfriend has suddenly gone crazy? Sorry, I don’t buy it.”

Chess bent over, hands on his knees, as if he’d just run a marathon. “If I were you, I wouldn’t believe it either.”

“I’m going in,” said Jane.

“No.” As he stepped in front of her, his eyes darted over her shoulder. “What the hell’s a cop doing here?”

She turned to see a uniformed officer jogging toward them.

“Shit. I knew it,” muttered Chess. “That’s Smith. Dial’s neighbor. This is bad news.”

She supposed he could be Smith. He had the right girth, but he was wearing a hat, which covered his head.

“We gotta get out of here,” said Chess, tugging at her arm.

They didn’t have any good options. They could jump into the river or they could climb aboard one of the houseboats and try to play hide-and-seek.

Chess was halfway to the end of the pier when the officer pulled his gun and ordered him to stop.

“I mean it, Garrity,” called the officer. “Back here.
Now
.”

Chess came to a halt. Without turning around, he called, “What do you want?”

“We both know the answer to that.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Where’s Mia?” demanded Jane. “I’ll give you anything I have. Just let her go.”

“Shut up,” ordered Smith. “Garrity, you give me what I want and I let you and your wife here live.”

Chess turned to face him. “I told you. I don’t have it.”

“You’re pissing me off.”

“I can’t produce it out of thin air.”

“That’s it.” He motioned for Chess to stand next to Jane, then ordered them to move back down the pier.

Halfway up the hill to the parking lot, Chess said, “Are you really a cop?”

“It’s as good a disguise as any.”

They stopped when they reached the same white Ford pickup Jane had seen in Smith’s driveway the night before.

Smith tossed the keys to Chess. “You drive. Wifey sits next to you.”

It was an extended cab. Smith sat in the back and directed Chess.

Staring out the front window, Jane watched the names of the streets as they passed. They were heading south on back roads away from the marina. Chess kept the needle at a steady forty miles an hour, five miles under the speed limit.

“Tell me where my niece is,” said Jane. “I’ll do anything you want, just let her go.”

“Shut up.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

He cracked her on the head with the butt of the gun. “There’s a lot I can do to you short of killing you. When I say shut the fuck up, I mean it.”

She gripped the door handle and waited for the pain to subside.

*   *   *

A while later, Smith touched the barrel of the gun to the back of Chess’s neck. “You see that red and white sign on the left about a hundred feet ahead?”

“Yeah?” said Chess.

“Turn there.”

They headed into the woods, bumping down a dirt road until they came to a dead-end about fifty yards from a lake. Jane had a headache the size of Texas, and she was lost. Even if she tried, she doubted she could give anyone directions to their position.

“Get out,” said Smith, opening the back door and jumping out ahead of them. He motioned for them to stand by the front fender. “Now,” he said, backing up a few paces, his heavy boots breaking the dry twigs. “I’m giving you one more chance. You tell me where the bull is. I’ll send someone to get it. Once it’s in our hands, I’ll leave.”

“We’re supposed to believe that?” said Chess. “After what you did to Dial and Morgana Beck?”

“Please let Mia go,” said Jane. “She’s got nothing to do with any of this.”

“I’ve been paid to do a job. Your husband’s the one who started it all by stealing an artifact that didn’t belong to him. If you want to blame someone, blame him.”

She saw only coldness in the man’s eyes. No compassion. Not even a sliver of pity. “I’m going to tell him the truth,” said Jane, turning to Chess. “The statue, it’s at one of my restaurants. The Lyme House. In my office in the back of my black filing cabinet.”

Scared as he was, Chess’s face betrayed only the faintest tremor. But Jane caught it. She glanced back at Smith and saw that he had, too.

“No it’s not,” said Smith. “Nice try.”

“Irina Nelson’s sister has it,” said Chess, as if he were finally giving in. “She took it from the storage room in the basement of the gallery. Irina and I were trying to get it back when I was arrested.”

“Nope. No cigar.”

“How could you possibly—”

“I
know,
” he said flatly.

“Look,” said Chess, sweat dripping off his forehead, “if I had it, wouldn’t I tell you?”

“People are funny. I stopped trying to figure humanity out a long time ago.” His cell rang.

Out in the woods, the ring seemed out of place, a reminder that the world they lived in was far away.

“What?” Smith asked, stepping back another couple of paces. Rubbing the stubble under his chin, he said, “Nah, we’re not going to get it. I hear you, but we get paid either way. I want everyone packed and ready to leave by six. Pass that on. And pass the word to get rid of the girl. You know where to dump the body.”

Something hard and cold clenched in the center of Jane’s chest. She lunged at him. “No,” she screamed.

He trained the gun on her, his eyes inviting her to keep coming.

Seeing the grin playing on his lips, she finally understood. Her death meant nothing to him. Shooting her would be like swatting a fly.

Folding the phone closed, Smith said, “Makes no difference to me what you do. I was sent to find the bull. If I don’t get it back, you don’t walk out of here. It’s that simple.”

Chess stared at the ground. With a voice empty of emotion, he said, “Then I guess we don’t walk out.”

“How can you be like that?” demanded Jane. “She’s a little girl. She never hurt anybody.”

Smith shrugged. “Nothing personal.” Motioning with the gun, he said, “Both of you, move toward the lake. When you get to the shore, kneel down.”

So this was it, thought Jane. This was what her last day on earth looked like. Her skin felt clammy, and she wasn’t sure that her legs would support her. As she stepped cautiously away from the truck, she felt Chess take hold of her arm. His touch buoyed her, if only briefly. She looked up and saw a hawk riding the thermals. Two squirrels chased each other around the trunk of an oak. She was terrified, and yet it all seemed suddenly so beautiful.

They knelt down together by the water, their arms around each other’s waists.

Jane looked at Chess, saw that he was crying.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he whispered.

She heard a burst. In that instant, her mind disconnected. Chess fell forward, his face pressed into the sand, a small hole ripped in the center of his sport coat. A red oozing stain in the sand spread out beneath his body. She leaned toward him, her hand finding his. Holding her breath, she looked up, trying to find the hawk one last time.

Two blasts broke the stillness. They sounded farther away, with a higher pitch. She waited for impact, refusing to shut her eyes.

“Drop the gun,” shouted a familiar voice.

She spun around.

Smith was down on one knee, blood spouting from a wound in his shoulder. His eyes were fixed on the woods to his right. He fired three quick rounds as he scrambled behind a broken tree trunk. Crouching there, he fired another shot, then curled up and began to moan.

Jane half stumbled, half ran toward the woods. “Nolan?” she called, jumping over rocks and brambles. She felt light, graceful, her mind disengaged from her body. She floated from tree to tree, her eyes scrutinizing, sifting, scanning until she found him. He was on the ground, his legs spread out in front of him, propped up on one elbow. She assumed that he was staying low, but as she came closer, she realized that he, too, had been hit. She skidded into the dirt next to him. “Are you okay?”

It was a stomach wound. Bleeding like crazy. He held his hand over it, but the blood seeped through his fingers and soaked into his shirt.

“Take my Glock,” he said, forcing it into her hand. “I’ve got my cell. I’ll call for the police and the EMTs. You go make sure Smith is out of commission. If he’s still moving, hold the gun on him until the cops get here.”

“I shouldn’t leave you.”

“Move,” he ordered. “And be careful.”

She pushed to her feet and ran back through the woods. Instead of coming out where she’d entered, she doubled around behind where Smith had gone down. Crouching behind a tree, she saw that he was still there. That was when it hit. A feeling she’d never experienced before. She thought of Peter, when he’d murdered that man last fall. Was this what it had been like for him? She thought of Mia. She looked toward the lake, saw Chess’s body sprawled on the shore. Melvin Dial was dead. Morgana Beck. At that moment her hatred surged so hot that it bordered on physical pain. Something deep, a feeling beyond words, broke like a thunderstorm inside her.

Holding the gun in both hands, she walked up to the man who had become, in the space of a few seconds, the center of her fury. He was bleeding from the shoulder wound, but also from a hole in his chest. His skin had gone deathly white, and his breathing was labored. His eyes cracked open as she moved in close to kick the gun away from his hand.

“Don’t,” he said weakly. “Please don’t.”

She was overwhelmed by disgust. This guy thought he had the right to beg for mercy when he’d shown none to others.

“Tell me where Mia is.”

He coughed a couple of times. “It’s hard to kill, ain’t it.”

“Not for you. Of course, like you said, there’s a lot I can do to you short of killing you. The thing is, I’ve never fired a gun before. I would imagine I’m not a very good shot.”

His eyes registered caution.

“Tell me where you’re keeping Mia.”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s dead by now.”

She aimed for his foot, pulled the trigger. The recoil thrust her hand up into the air.

Smith screamed.

When she looked down, she saw that she’d hit his thigh. He was grinding his hands into the dirt, swearing and groaning.

“You probably won’t die from that, but I’ll bet it hurts. Too bad. Nothing personal. Tell me where you’re holding my niece. If you do, I’ll call and get the paramedics out here for you.”

He looked up at her, made a guttural sound in his throat—and then his mouth opened and blood drained down his chin. He watched her with a kind of animal terror in his eyes. A few seconds more and the expression faded. He was still looking at her, but his eyes had grown dull and vacant. In that instant, her emotions thudded back to earth. He’d been her last link to Mia, and now he was gone.