F Wilson - The Dark at the End

Abducted… taped to a chair… threatened with torture… shooting people…

“Preoccupied, I guess. Maybe one of the other boats-”

“Maybe the Andrea Gail will take you. Look, that katana’s been in your closet for months. It can stay there a few more days. No sense in risking your life just to-”

Now Weezy’s phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket.

“Hello?” she said. “Oh, hi. Yeah, he’s right here. What-?” She frowned and handed Jack the phone. “It’s Dawn. She sounds a little worked up. Says she’s got to talk to you.”

“Nothing?” Dawn said, her voice rising in pitch and volume. “We do nothing?”

Jack noticed a couple of people in the deli/sandwich shop glancing their way and made a calming gesture.

“Let’s keep this between just the three of us, okay?”

“Okay,” she said at a lower volume. “But my baby’s in there. I can totally feel it.”

Jack watched her. Dawn looked more animated than he’d ever seen her. After her call, he and Weezy had driven directly from Jersey to Long Island by way of the Verrazano and Brooklyn. They’d stayed in touch much of the time, with only a few cell dead spots along the way. When Dawn had called to say Dr. Heinze was leaving the beach house, Jack had told her to follow him as far as the nearest town and find someplace like a coffee shop where she could wait for them. She’d resisted at first, preferring to stay where she was, but had finally agreed.

She’d found a Citarella with a view of a windmill, and waited. The three of them occupied a rear table, with Jack facing the two women.

Jack decided she looked more than animated. She looked wired. Not the state of someone who’d be easy to convince that slow and steady was going to win this race. So he’d have to let her convince herself.

He said, “I agree a hundred percent: Everything points to your baby being in that house. What do you think we should do?”

She shrugged as if the answer was too obvious. “Go in and get him.”

“Really? How many people are inside?”

From her spot beside Dawn, Weezy gave him an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

“Well, I know Georges is there, and I assume Mr. Osala and… Gilda.”

Lots of poison in that last name. From what Jack had gathered, Osala’s housekeeper had given Dawn a pretty hard time while she was a not-so-voluntary guest at the Fifth Avenue digs.

“Can’t assume. You do a home invasion, you’d damn well better know what you’re getting into.”

She lowered her voice further. “Well, you have a gun-I’ve seen it. You could use it to make them give us the baby.”

“They could have guns too, and things could get ugly, endangering us and your baby. But let’s say they’re unarmed. What if they refuse to give up the baby? Who do I shoot?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Gilda.”

“Really? Shoot her dead or just wound her?”

She looked away. “All right… I guess not.”

“Okay. But let’s assume we do cow them and they hand over your baby. Where do you take him? They know where you live. Reprisals could follow. Not only that, you signed him away for adoption. Maybe Mr. Osala adopted him. You have no legal right to that baby, so they could send the police after you-and Weezy and me, as well-for kidnapping.”

She leaned back, looking defeated. “Okay, okay, okay, but I can’t believe there isn’t something we can do.”

Weezy put an arm around her shoulders. “We talked about this on the way here and we think we’ve come up with a plan.”

He was glad she’d sat next to Dawn; that way it didn’t seem like the two adults against her. Jack had to keep reminding himself that she was only nineteen.

“Right,” Jack said. “A full frontal assault is a last resort. We need to determine exactly what we’re dealing with and find a way to spirit your baby out of there without being seen. But before we try that, we need to set up a way for you to drop out of sight afterward. You’ll be their prime suspect, but if they can’t find you…”

Jack had no idea if he could pull this off. Really… how do you hide a woman who has a baby with a tentacle growing out of each armpit? But he was going to try his damnedest.

The only way he could see even a glimmer of hope of success was to take out Rasalom first. Do that and Georges and Gilda would lose their center, their purpose for staying with the baby. They might be glad to have someone take the child off their hands. But even if they weren’t, grabbing the baby would be much easier with their Mr. Osala out of the picture. In the aftermath of his death, Jack could very likely swoop in and snatch the child from right under their noses.

A plan began to form…

“First thing we need is an observation post. You say you found a house that’s a good vantage point?”

Dawn nodded. “But I don’t see how we can camp out there very long without someone noticing.”

Jack agreed. “It has a garage?”

Another nod.

“Okay, we need to find out who owns it and-”

“It has an oar over the door carved with ‘The O’Donnell’s’-that’s with an apostrophe s. ”

“Perfect. Time to learn all about the O’Donnells.”

It took longer than expected. Not because the O’Donnells were particularly secretive, but because the Internet still wasn’t up to snuff after the crash.

First thing after leaving the coffee shop, the three of them drove to the county seat and looked up the lot and block number of the property jointly owned by Francis and Marie O’Donnell who were listed as residents of Riviera Beach, Florida. From there to the local library where they used a computer to track the couple. Bits and pieces from multiple sites sketched out the details Jack needed. Francis: seventy-six and a former stockbroker who retired from Bear Stearns well before the meltdown. Marie: seventy-four and a former high school teacher.

Jack made the assumption that, barring a family emergency, a couple in their midseventies with a primary residence in South Florida would keep their distance from the bitter cold of Long Island in March.

So he decided to move in.

He left Weezy and Dawn in the Hamptons and made the long trip to his apartment to retrieve his break-in kit and a few other goodies.

Darkness had fallen by the time he returned. Weezy dropped him off at the end of the street and he walked the rest of the way. He had a bad moment when he reached the place and found lights on in the front room and an upstairs window. But a few cautious peeks inside showed no signs of life: he spotted a timer in the socket feeding the light in the front window. No doubt the same story upstairs. A good policy for the owner: The place looked occupied to anyone driving by.

He used a bump key to enter the house through the rear door into the utility room. The place felt delightfully warm to Jack after the frigid wind off the bay, but still a little cool for the comfort of a couple of septuagenarians. A good sign, but he needed to be absolutely sure the place was empty. He hurried through the first floor, then through the bedrooms upstairs. All empty.

Back on the first floor, he used quick flashes of his penlight to find a thermostat. They’d left it set on fifty-five. He upped that ten degrees and heard a furnace go on. He tried a faucet. No water. Took him a few minutes to find the shut-off valve; he turned it back on.

He called Weezy and gave her the all-clear, then went out by the garage-a one-car garage, unfortunately. But they’d found a spot in the trees down by the highway, not a hundred yards from the O’Donnells’ back door, to stash the SUV. A padlock on the simple gate latch held the garage’s old-fashioned double doors closed. He shimmed it open and waited.