Linwood Barclay - No Safe House

“Reggie,” Wyatt said, trying to keep calm, “I don’t want to fucking die up here.” And then he said an interesting thing. “Babe, come on, you can’t run the tax thing without me. You need me for that.”

Like, if Reggie was going to save him, it was going to be for more than love.

I know it’s a cliché, but things really did seem to be moving in slow motion. Every second I held that gun to Wyatt’s head felt like an hour. It wasn’t as if the Glock weighed twenty pounds, but holding it with my arm extended, I was feeling the strain. And my legs, hunched down the way I was, were screaming with pain.

I was a teacher of high school English and creative writing. Holding a gun to the head of a kidnapper did not fall into my general realm of experience. Sure, things got pretty hairy seven years ago, but even then, I hadn’t found myself in a position quite like this.

“So what’s the fucking deal, then?” Reggie asked.

“I want Jane,” Vince said.

“Okay, fine, you get the little bitch back. Wyatt comes down. You get Jane. We’re square. Just give me the vase and the cash that’s up there.”

“There is no vase,” I said. “And there is no cash.”

“Look harder!” Reggie shrieked. “The vase, it doesn’t mean anything to me or you. It’s got no value. It’s my uncle’s.”

“If you’re looking for something Eli Goemann left with me,” Vince said, “it’s not up there. Never was. We stashed his stuff elsewhere. Everything there? It’s from those bikers you asked about earlier. From New Haven.”

“Then we go to where you hid Eli’s stuff,” she said. “You take us there. Then you get Jane. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

“No.” Vince’s voice was very calm. “That’s not how it’s going to work. I get Jane, right now, and you two live.”

Wondering whether there might be a way I could move things along, I pressed the Glock harder against Wyatt’s temple, to the point he nearly lost his balance. I said to him, “She needs to decide just how much she loves, and needs, you.”

“Give him the gun, for Christ’s sake!”

From below, near total silence. I thought I heard a muttered “Fuck.” The tension probably didn’t last more than ten seconds, but it seemed to stretch out for much longer.

It was a relief when I heard Vince say, “I’ve got it.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The two of you can come back down now. Wyatt, you first.”

“He’s got a gun on him,” I said.

“Wyatt, be a good boy and let Terry relieve you of that,” Vince said.

“Use your left hand,” I said. I’d seen a movie or two.

Wyatt forced his left shoulder up and took the gun from his waistband. Holding it between his thumb and index finger, he dangled it toward me and I took it with my left. Without looking, I dropped it behind me on some insulation.

“I take it,” I said to Vince, “that I don’t have to bring all these guns down.”

“Just the one in your hand.”

Wyatt turned himself around and lowered his legs through the hatch, found a perch on the ladder, and descended. I grabbed my phone on the way to the opening, and by the time I was down, gun still in hand, Vince was stationed in a corner of the room with the gun trained on the happy couple, now standing shoulder to shoulder.

“We tell where she is, right now, you let us go,” Reggie said, still an edge in her voice, still thinking she had some leverage.

Vince looked at me and sighed. “Do I look like I have some sort of mental problem?”

“It’s okay. We’ll take you,” Wyatt said. “We’ll take you to the house. We’ll take you to her.”

“Who’s with her?”

“Nobody,” the woman said. “She’s alone. Tied up, but just fine.”

Vince’s eyes went from her to him and back again. He said, more to himself than anyone else in the room, “We only need one person to take us there.”

I thought, Please don’t kill someone in my house .

“Come on,” Reggie said, a hint of pleading in her voice. “We’re cooperating, we are.”

“We’ll get her back to you,” Wyatt said flatly. “We’ll do what you want.”

“We’re going back out to your car,” Vince said, “and you’re driving.” He was looking at Reggie. “I’ll be in the back with your husband.”

Which put me up front, riding shotgun, as it were. Unless Vince no longer required my services.

I decided to ask, “You still need me?”

The man looked wounded. “Are you kidding? You’re my number two.”

Vince said I’d lead the pack and he’d take up the rear. So I went down the stairs first, followed by Wyatt, then Reggie. Vince, hobbling some, came down last. He and I maintained a solid grip on our weapons.

Vince had taken Reggie’s car keys from her and had the presence of mind to ask Wyatt for his set, too, no doubt figuring that both of them would have keys to the BMW. He was right.

Vince tossed Wyatt’s keys into the shrubs under the front window and held on to Reggie’s. When we all came out of the house, he hit the remote to unlock the BMW. “Go on and get in,” he said to the couple. “We’ll be right along.”

Reggie got behind the wheel and Wyatt settled in behind her.

I said to Vince, “You think they’re telling the truth? That Jane’s still okay?”

Grim faced, he said, “Gotta hope.”

“You could have told me about the guns being hidden up there instead of money.”

“I knew you’d figure out what to do. If you’d known ahead of time, you’d have been too nervous.”

Like I wasn’t already?

“Vince,” I said, reaching out tentatively and resting my hand on his arm. He glanced at it and I took it away. “I wasn’t going to say this again, but damn it, you really could call the police now. You’ve got these two. You can hand them over.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.

“You have to,” Vince said, his voice sounding weak. “Because I can’t do it alone. If it’s just me, they’ll get the drop on me. I’m feeling like shit. Coming down the stairs there, things were spinning some.”

I locked up the house while he limped to the car and got in the back next to Wyatt. Following his lead, I kept the gun down and close to my thigh so as not to attract the attention of anyone passing by. As I was getting into the front passenger seat, Vince was handing Reggie her car keys.

Reggie took us north out of the neighborhood and got on 95 heading east, but very soon she took the Milford Parkway north to the Merritt, then went west. She got off at Main, went north, passing Sikorsky on the right, then hung a left on Warner Hill Road. We made a left onto Colbert, and soon she was rolling the BMW up the driveway of a nondescript white bungalow, tapping a button on a remote clipped to the visor. Ahead of us a garage door rolled up.

Nobody had said a word the entire trip.

“Take the keys,” Vince ordered me.

Reggie removed them and handed them over. I tucked them into the pocket of my pants as I got out of the car.

“Close the garage,” Vince said, and she hit the button to make the door rattle down behind us.

In the garage, there was another door that led into the house.

“This your house?” Vince asked.

Wyatt nodded. “We live here.”

I tried the door, but it was locked. “Which one is it?” I asked Reggie, holding her keys in front of her.

She pointed. “That one.”

I inserted it into the lock and turned. The door was unlocked, but before I could push it open, Vince said, “Wait.”

“There’s no one else here,” Wyatt said. “There’s no other car.”