Linwood Barclay - No Safe House

Rather than empty the bottom drawer, he turned his attention back to the closet, dropped to his knees, and grabbed shoes. “How the hell else am I going to take their dog out?”

“Was it you?” Grace asked.

“Was what me?” he said. He was on his feet now, dumping the shoes into his luggage. He zipped up another one of the bags.

“Was it you who was there last night?”

“Jesus, you sound like Vince’s flunkies. You going to start taking my teeth out?”

“Did you shoot Stuart?” Grace persisted. “Did you, you asshole?”

“This is crazy,” he said.

Grace glanced down at the case she’d been running her hand on without quite realizing it. “What’s in here?” she asked.

“Get your fucking hands off that!” he shouted. “I’m outta here.”

“What are you running from?” Cynthia asked.

“Seriously? Fucking nutjobs, that’s what.”

“Answer Grace’s question. What’s in that case?”

“Papers,” he said. “All the papers from my failed business. Legal shit. Documents. Patent stuff. Zip drives.”

“Open it.”

Nathaniel laughed. “You’re something else — you really are. No wonder your family needed a break from you.”

He knelt down again in front of the dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. As he grabbed a bulky sweater, there was a clunking sound. The sweater had been wrapped around something large and heavy.

“What the...?” Nathaniel said.

As Cynthia and Grace watched, he reached in and delicately lifted out a powder blue vase, nearly a foot high, the cover held in place with duct tape.

Shortly after Reggie had saved Jane from Joseph, Wyatt made the call to Vince about the ransom delivery. Jane could barely hear him one floor above talking to Vince, but she heard enough to know that the handoff was supposed to be in half an hour. In a cemetery.

She wondered, would Wyatt go alone? If he wanted any kind of backup, he’d have to take Reggie with him. But then they’d be leaving her in the house by herself. Logan was with Joseph at the hospital, getting the perv’s nose fixed.

So if Reggie and Wyatt both went to pick up the ransom money, she was going to have the house all to herself.

Which was exactly how things turned out.

Reggie came back downstairs to visit her.

“We’re going to meet with your stepfather. In the meantime, we’re going to have to leave you here all by your lonesome. And even though we’ve got you tied up pretty good, you’re not tied to anything, and I’m going to have to do something about that. Don’t want you wandering around the house or trying to get outside while we’re gone, do we?”

At which point Jane felt more ropes being wrapped around her torso and ankles, securing her to the chair.

“There we go,” Reggie said. “You sit tight till we get back.”

Not long after that, she heard them leave the house.

It became very quiet.

She tested the bonds that held her to the chair, and they seemed to be doing the job, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to give it her best shot to get away.

It seemed like a no-brainer that she had to try. What were the odds, really, that once they had what they wanted, they’d let Vince and her live? If you crossed Vince and wanted to live another day, what choice would you have but to kill him?

So when Reggie and Wyatt and Joseph and Logan rendezvoused back here, they’d have to kill her.

Jane needed to get the hell out.

Now.

She twisted and turned, trying to build some slack, even the tiniest bit of play, into the ropes. If she could get just one hand free, the rest would be easy. As long as she got the job done in time.

She thought about Vince, how he’d handle something like this. He was no fool. Okay, sometimes. Like maybe this whole business model of hiding money in people’s houses hadn’t turned out to be the most brilliant plan ever.

But one thing Vince did know was how people like him thought, what they were capable of. So he’d know Reggie and Co. would try to kill him, and her, once they had what they wanted.

So he’d plan for that.

He’d have Gordie and Bert in position. Hiding in the bushes, or behind a tombstone. Eldon, she figured, would be out of the picture. He’d be mourning somewhere, grieving. But Vince wouldn’t go into a meet like this without having someone watching his back.

Maybe, just maybe, he’d pull something off.

Because he loves me.

She had no doubt of that. Vince thought the world of her. It wasn’t as if he was going to tell her kidnappers to get stuffed. She couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he’d refuse to pay, even if he might not be able to give the kidnappers everything they wanted.

Jane began to cry.

Suck it up. Suck it up and get yourself out of here.

She struggled for so long that she started losing track of time. But at one point, while she was stopping to catch her breath, it occurred to her that her hosts had been gone for quite some time.

Jane was pretty sure it had been well over an hour.

She figured, ten minutes for them to get to the cemetery, ten minutes tops for the handover of the ransom, another ten to get back. That was half an hour.

Build in another fifteen minutes for traffic. Even ten minutes for Vince to be late, which didn’t seem likely.

They should have been back by now. Reggie and Wyatt. Or Vince.

Somebody.

But more than an hour — she was willing to bet it was getting closer to an hour and a half — and not a soul?

She wondered what to make of that. One way or another, someone should be coming back to this house.

To set her free, or to kill her.

They couldn’t just leave her here. If someone didn’t come eventually, and she couldn’t get herself free, well, how long could a person survive this way? A couple of days? Half a week, maybe?

What could have happened? She thought up a number of scenarios. Maybe they’d taken shots at each other. Wyatt — now there was a perfect name for a guy who’d start an Old West — style shoot-out — pulled his gun, and Vince pulled his, and everyone started firing, and everyone got hit.

It could have happened that way.

Or maybe—

What was that?

She went still, stopped breathing. Listened.

Upstairs, the sound of a door opening, and then closing.

Someone was in the house.

Please be Vince.

Please be Vince.

Please be Vince.

Detective Rona Wedmore left Spock to work his magic, intending to go straight back to the station to follow up on other possible leads. She’d work the phones for a while. Talk to relatives, old coworkers, friends, of both Eli Goemann and Heywood Duggan. Anyone she could find. She’d check in with Joy, see what she’d learned.

But en route, Rona decided she needed a moment.

Alone.

She pulled into the parking lot of the Carvel on Bridgeport Avenue. Went inside and bought a chocolate milk shake. Wedmore could not remember the last time she’d treated herself to a milk shake.

Rather than drink it there, she drove back downtown, grabbed a parking spot on South Broad Street alongside the Milford Green, left the car, and found herself a park bench under the shade of a towering tree. She took a seat and sipped her milk shake.

What was it Heywood had said to her the night before? About his client?

Basically, he was trying to get back what you were to me. He was trying to get back the love of his life.

The son of a bitch. Why’d he have to say something like that? And if he’d felt that way, why’d he have to be such a bastard?