Linwood Barclay - No Safe House

She couldn’t know exactly where he was — where, specifically, his nose was — but she had a pretty good feeling about it. She tipped her chin down, brought her forehead forward, and drove it as hard as she could to whatever part of him was there in front of her.

Contact. It lasted only an instant, but it was enough to feel bone meet flesh and cartilage. To feel Joseph’s nose crushed into his face.

His scream was ear-piercing and immediate.

“ Ahhhhh! ”

Which was quickly followed by, “Oh my God, oh my God!”

Jane felt warm drops land on the thighs of her pants. Upstairs, the sound of people’s feet pounding on the floor.

“Joseph! Where are you? Where—? Jesus!”

“My nose!” he cried. “She smashed my nose!”

“Holy shit!” The voice of the woman. Reggie.

“Logan, it’s broken!” Joseph said, weeping. “It’s goddamn broken!”

“Okay, hold on, hold on.” Sounding frantic.

“I’m gonna kill her!”

She felt hands, wet and slippery, grab her by the neck just below the hood, smear her skin. He wrapped his palms around her throat, started to squeeze.

“Stop it!” Logan. “Joseph, stop it!”

Someone dragged him away. “Jesus, he’s bleeding like a faucet.” Another man. Had to be the one called Wyatt.

“Get something for his nose,” Logan said.

More screaming.

“I’m going to have to take him to the hospital,” Logan said.

“Are you kidding?” Reggie said. “You can’t go to—”

“Look at him! He’s gonna choke on his own blood!”

“What the hell are you going to tell them at the hospital?” Wyatt said.

Joseph, his voice gargling: “That this bitch did it! This fucking bitch broke—”

“No!” Logan said. “You’ll tell them you tripped and fell flat on your face — that’s what you’re going to tell them.”

“I need a doctor,” he said frantically. “I need a doctor bad.”

“Fine, shit, okay,” Reggie said. “Take him to the hospital. Just have a good story.”

“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” Logan said. “It could take a while. God, I don’t even know if they can set that.”

“How bad does it look?” Joseph asked.

“What the hell are you doing with your pants down?” Reggie asked. “Honest to God. We’ve got shit to do and you’re down here fuckin’ the help.”

“What about the meet?” Wyatt talking.

Reggie said, “We can do that without them. You guys go to the hospital and we’ll regroup back here after.”

“We still want our share,” Logan said.

“Don’t worry about that. God, get him out of here — he’s making a mess. Look at the goddamn carpet.”

Jane heard Joseph’s whimpers recede as his brother led him out of the room and upstairs. But she could sense someone still in the room.

Reggie said, “Did he touch you?”

Jane shook her head under the hood.

Reggie sighed. “It’ll all be over soon enough,” she said, and left the room.

Vince Fleming put his cell phone to his ear and said, “Yeah.” His jaw was set tight as he listened to the person on the other end.

About thirty seconds passed before Vince said, “I understand.” He ended the call and put the phone away.

“Well?” I said.

“I give them the money in half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” Cynthia said.

“We have to go back to your place,” he said to me.

“Why?”

He cocked his head toward the backseat. “We have to get rid of them.”

“We have names,” Grace said.

Vince half turned in his seat so he could see her and Cynthia. “I need to borrow Terry for this. I need a driver. But you can’t come along. They see a car full of people and they’re going to get spooked. I don’t think it’s going to be dangerous — I’m just handing stuff over and then they’re going to tell me where Jane is — but you can’t come.”

“How can you say it won’t be dangerous?” Cynthia asked. “What if these people take the money and...” She struggled to get the words out. “What if they take the money and shoot you or something?”

“That won’t happen,” Vince said.

“You can’t know that,” I said.

“I do,” he said.

“You know Cyn’s right. There’s every reason to believe they’ll shoot you and take the money and you’ll never see Jane.”

“That’s not how it’s going to go down.”

“So you do have some sort of brilliant plan?” Grace asked.

He didn’t respond for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “And the sooner I get rid of you and your mother, the sooner I can get to it.”

Sometimes Vince made it very hard to like him.

I took my foot off the brake and aimed the car for home. I could sense Cynthia wanted to talk to me, but couldn’t say what was on her mind in front of Grace, or Vince. I knew she didn’t want me heading off with Vince alone, but she also had to know it wasn’t a good idea to make Grace a part of this continuing adventure, either. It actually made sense to drop the two of them off and for me to stick with Vince. I was still mulling over whether, and when, to put in a call to the police, and wondered whether Cynthia, once I’d dropped her off, would do it.

We were almost back to our place when Vince said, “We’ll take my truck. They’ll probably be looking for it, but you can drive.”

Once I’d turned into the driveway and turned off the car, Vince said to Cynthia, “Don’t hang around here.”

“What?” she said. “Why not?”

“I can’t say for sure someone won’t come back here. It won’t be anyone working for me — that much I know. Until this is over, you two take off. Go for a drive. Go to the mall. I don’t know. Just don’t be here. We’ll call you when we’re done.”

I said, “That’s a good idea.”

We all got out of the car. Vince gathered together all the bags of loot he’d collected, including the ones he’d taken from his body shop, and carried them over to his truck. He set them down, got the keys from his pocket, and, once the doors were unlocked, tossed the keys my way.

I missed the catch and had to bend over to grab them off the lawn. I thought I saw a small frown on his face, wondering, no doubt, whether any confidence he might have in me was misplaced.

I’d say yes.

He was walking with a decided limp and, while not collapsing, seemed even weaker than he had a couple of hours earlier. He went around to the passenger side of his pickup and got in, stuffing the bags behind the seat.

“Where are we supposed to go?” Grace asked.

“Go to your mom’s apartment,” I suggested.

“I need to talk to your father,” Cynthia said, shooing Grace away. “I don’t like this. It’s one thing gathering up that money, but it’s another delivering a ransom to kidnappers.”

“It’s not exactly how I’d expected my day to play out,” I said. “You want, I’ll pull the plug on this now. I’ll call the cops. Vince’ll be mad, but there won’t be a damn thing he can do about it. And as far as Grace is concerned, we’ll still get that lawyer and do whatever it is we have to do.”

Cynthia hesitated.

“Right now, right this minute, it’s about Jane,” she said. “What if bringing in the police — what if that really does screw things up somehow? And ends up getting Jane killed?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what to do. But my gut tells me this is Vince’s call, how to play this. She’s his stepdaughter. I’m not sure it’s up to us. And if it isn’t, I don’t see how I can let him handle this alone. All his people are dead or have abandoned him. Right now, we’re all he’s got.”