Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

I took the backpack full of cash out from under the bed and heaped the stacks on the coverlet. Looked at the note Cline had left me.

Think carefully .

People had died in my selfish pursuit of Cline. Would it be selfish now to leave the battle? The money before me was offered on the condition that I walk away and leave Cline to his own business. I picked up a stack of cash and flipped through it, felt the electric pulse of the power tied to what the simple pieces of paper represented.

“Oh my God.”

I jumped. Susan was standing in the dark behind me, tying the belt of her robe.

“What … what is … ” She looked at the money. At me. I watched emotions flicker across her face, confusion and hurt.

“I got it yesterday,” I admitted, and I handed her the note from Cline. She took a stack of money from my hand and looked at it.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” I said. I let her take in what that meant. A coldness came over her features and she dropped the stack and the note back in the pile.

“You son of a bitch,” Susan said softly. Her eyes were two pinpoints of light caught in the dim blue flooding through the window. “You’re not thinking of—”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I said.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

“I’M THINKING,” I said. “Listen to me. I’ve been lying awake thinking all night. We’re relying very heavily on the idea that we’re going to stop Cline. That eventually he’ll wind up where he belongs, in a prison cell or at the bottom of a six-foot hole. But how many more losses are we willing to accept before that happens? Marni’s gone, Susan. And it’s because of me.”

“It’s not because of you.” Susan shook her head. “You couldn’t possibly have guessed what Cline would do to her.”

“But what if I’d just walked away in the first place?” I asked. “What if I’d just turned my back? She’d still be alive.”

“This isn’t about what-ifs!” Susan yelled.

“It is,” I said. “That’s exactly what it’s about.” I turned and sat on the bed, picked up a stack of the notes. The admission came slowly, eased through my tight throat. “There’s … there’s something I didn’t tell you about Siobhan and me. The night she was killed, she had gone into town to get things for dinner. That’s what we did after we had a big fight. We’d make a nice dinner, have a couple of glasses of wine. Reconnect with each other. She liked the walk into town and back, but she also wanted that time alone to think through what we’d said to each other during the fight.”

“What did you fight about?” Susan sat down on the bed beside me.

“This house, this town,” I said. “This was her dream, not mine. And I guess when I lost my job in Boston, I was too shocked and numb to really think about what we should do next. We sold our house and found this place and bought it before I’d really stopped to ask myself what I wanted. I missed my job. I missed the city. I didn’t feel like I belonged here, and I blamed her for not realizing that I hadn’t been ready to make big, world-changing decisions.”

Susan leaned into me. Her shoulder against mine was warm.

“I ask myself all the time—what if? What if I’d put my foot down? What if we’d stayed in Boston? Or what if we had come here and I’d just been stronger, taken the change in stride, hadn’t fought with her that night? She’d still be alive. This cash? It’s not just cash. It’s another what-if. We know what Cline is capable of. What if we back off now?”

“I can see what you’re looking at when you look at this money.” Susan nodded. “You’re seeing yourself selling this place. Taking the cash. Setting yourself up comfortably back in Boston. Forgetting Cline. Forgetting what happened here.”

“Maybe. I mean, there are other things I could do with the money. Share it. Give it to someone who needs it.”

“Whatever you do with it, it would be a way for you to stop fighting and pretend everything’s okay,” Susan said.

“Maybe it would be okay, after a while,” I said. I looked at her, and I saw one possible future realized so perfectly. Susan and me in an apartment in Boston, just like Siobhan and me, the circle of time closed and everything that had happened in Gloucester conveniently erased. I could find some kind of law enforcement job in my city. The police department wouldn’t hire me, but someone would.

Susan took my hand and rested her chin on my shoulder. The feel of her and the smell of her was not my lost wife, and I realized I was an idiot to think I could go back in time. I looked at the cash and the backpack and suddenly thought of Malone. Had he been seeing his future when he opened the safe at Ivan Pilkos’s house and started shoving stacks of bills into his backpack? Malone had wanted to take the money, start again, pretend everything was okay. I understood now what had made my friend cross to the dark side. It was his actions and mine on that fateful night that sparked all the tragedy and pain that had happened since.

I put the stack of money I was holding back into the bag. Susan met my eyes, and she knew I had made a decision. She smiled at me in the dark.

We had lain on the bed in each other’s arms, our heads together on one pillow, for only a second or two when I smelled the smoke.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

SUSAN AND I couldn’t find the source of the smoke anywhere inside the house, so we crept to the front door. The night was still and silent, silver and blue in the light of the moon. The smell of burning wood was unmistakable. I looked at the clock in the entryway; it was 4:00 a.m. I ran to the basement to get my coat and gun while she ran up to her room to get hers.

We met at the door, and the air misted at my lips as we crept across the porch and down the stairs. The eeriness of the stillness before me set my teeth on edge. My mind turned a hundred shapes into the silhouettes of men with guns. I wanted Susan to follow me, to let me guard her, but she walked ahead, her gun out, following the smell of the burning. I looked up as we passed beneath Effie’s window and saw her thrust open her curtain, the smell having reached there, her enormous rifle tracking me as she identified my shape in the dark. I waved at her to stay where she was. She nodded.

In the darkness, I spotted the firepit on the east side of the house. The fire was lit. On the bench in the light, a man sat with his arms resting between his legs, his head down. Shadows picked at his shoulders and the dark pattern on the front of his dress shirt.

Susan stepped to the side and we stood before the man, our guns trained on his head.

“Don’t move,” I said. I kept my voice low. All I needed was for the household to wake in panic at another attack in the dark hours. I didn’t know who else was out there in the night watching. Had this man come alone, or was his presence and the fire a decoy for an ambush? I noticed Susan’s pulse was hammering in her neck.

“What do you want?” Susan asked.

The man didn’t answer. I stepped closer and realized the dark pattern on the front of his shirt wasn’t a design.

It was blood.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

“HE’S DEAD.” SUSAN shuddered. Her hand fluttered near her mouth, but she regained her composure quickly. We rounded the fire on opposite sides and went to the man. He was small, thickly built. His head was bruised and scabbed with wounds at least a day old, but a huge, smiling gash across the front of his throat was new, still wet. I looked out into the dark forest, saw no one. There were drag marks in the dirt and leaves leading up to the bench. I fished in his back pocket and drew out a small leather wallet.