Claudia awoke in complete darkness. The night surrounding her felt as solid as glass, and panic tightened her stomach, thrummed between her shoulder blades. She felt tied. Danny. Danny still had her, Gar waiting nearby, the tattooed arms ready to force the life out of her, hungry to force himself inside her. She sat up in bed, blinking, easing out of the snarl of sheets.
No Danny. No Gar.
No Ben in bed.
She glanced at the digital clock. Ten forty-six p.m. She’d drunk too much, the michelada and the wine too early in the evening; she wasn’t used to it. She had a little headache, not bad. She got up, went to the bedroom balcony that faced onto the bay. The heavy curtains were pulled closed and she parted them an inch. St Leo Bay lay calm in the night, the moon a wafer in the wash of the Milky Way.
She closed the curtains, found her clothes on the floor. She stepped into panties, pulled her khaki slacks up over her legs. She groped for her bra and blouse and put them on.
She started down the stairs, toward the spill of light in the kitchen, heard Ben say, ‘All right, I’ll be there.’ When she entered the kitchen he was standing by the granite-top counter, a cell phone in his hand. He set it down on the counter.
‘Ben?’
‘That was my brother, babe. He’s alive.’
‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Where is he?’
‘In Corpus Christi. He wants me to come see him. Right now.’
‘He decided to come out from under his rock?’
He didn’t react to her sarcasm. ‘He’s ashamed. Embarrassed that he panicked. But he’s alive.’ He took Claudia into his arms. ‘He’s at a warehouse he owns down by the port. You know a guy named Leonard Guchinski?’
‘Yeah. He’s nuts. How the hell is he involved?’
‘Stoney’s with this Guchinski guy, and I’m not quite sure why.’
‘So what are you going to do, Ben?’
‘I should call the police,’ Ben said in a tone that said he actually didn’t want to do that. ‘Let them know he at least is all right.’
‘You want to wait until you talk to him?’
‘I kind of think I should.’ He tucked the cell phone into his front pants pocket. ‘You want to go with me?’
‘Maybe this should be a private meeting,’ Claudia said.
‘I’d like it a lot if you came. He owes you an apology and an explanation. Maybe you can help us figure out how to deal with the authorities, help him avoid embarrassment. He’s probably going to need a lawyer, too.’
‘He’s going to need a PR firm,’ Claudia said. She wasn’t worried about Stoney’s embarrassment. ‘Let me run upstairs, get my purse, and we’ll go.’
The trunk was dark, so dark that when Whit shut his eyes he could not tell the world had gone darker. The rattle and bump of the Taurus shook him back to full consciousness as they sped down the highway.
I’m going to kill you, he thought.
If he simply lay here, prone with grief, Alex won. He had no doubt Alex’s goal was to kill him, Gooch, Stoney, whoever got in his way. A clean sweep. If he thought too much about Lucy a sickening paralysis crept into him.
He had hardly moved since Alex punched him again for good measure and dumped him into the trunk. He felt in his pocket for his cell phone. Gone. He groped in the dark, trying to find anything that could be used as a weapon. Alex had been at Stoney’s when Whit stopped by, but this car hadn’t been. So either a rental or maybe stolen. Maybe Alex hadn’t paid enough attention to what was in here if it was stolen, and the trunk seemed cluttered with junk.
His fingers found the rim of the spare. Soft material that felt like silk, maybe some clothes destined for the dry cleaner’s. A small wrench, probably left out for the lugs of the spare. A book, a wilting paperback. A cool plane of metal, with three hinges on the side.
Tool box.
Whit slowly turned the toolbox around, found its opening. Closed, but not locked. He managed to open it, heard the clatter of metal tools as the car hit a bump in the highway. Waited for the car to slow, pull over to the side. If he made too much noise – if Alex thought he were anything but grief-stricken and broken now – Alex would kill him.
Taking his time, forcing himself to be calm, Whit let his fingers explore the tools. A tape measure. A hammer, which would be great to swing at Alex’s face. A Baggie, with what felt like an assortment of screws, nails, and lug nuts inside. A small ball of twine. Pliers. His fingers found a bar in the space above the tools. A handle. The tool box had a lift-out tray, with another compartment beneath.
He eased the top compartment out. His fingers fumbled inside the deeper well of the box. More Baggies with nails or hooks. Screwdrivers with hard plastic handles, two or three. A ball peen hammer, the better to break Alex’s teeth with if he got a chance. Masking tape, a roll thinned from use. Electrical wire. He pricked his finger on a long V of sharp metal, with wicked little teeth on each side, a carved wooden handle. He gently explored the tool with his fingertips. A wallboard saw, the kind used to slice through Sheetrock, to make cutouts for light switches and electrical outlets. But with that nice pointed blade for plunge cuts into walls.
All it takes is one mistake, Whit thought, and, you murdering bastard, you just made it.
‘You’re gonna sit here real quiet,’ Gooch said. ‘You mess this up so that Whit or Lucy gets hurt, you’re the mess.’
‘And I thought we’d gotten to be friends,’ Stoney said.
‘Yeah, I’m going to be godfather to your kids.’
‘So what, I sit here and you negotiate with Alex?’
‘No. You sit here and I get rid of him if I have to,’ Gooch said. ‘Then I give you to the judge and he figures out what to do with you.’
Talking to him like he was a kid. ‘Be nice, Gooch. Or I’ll press charges and you’ll go to prison.’
‘Are you quite so eager to get more in the public eye that way, Stoney? Sit your ass down,’ Gooch said, and Stoney said nothing. He eased down into the chair behind the desk and Gooch turned to douse out the lights.
Now, Stoney thought. He grabbed the handle of the desk drawer, gave it a heavy yank.
The drawer slid out, fast, and Stoney swung it as he bolted around the desk, connecting with Gooch’s skull as he turned. Gooch went down. Stoney brought the drawer down again.
Gooch’s eyes went white. ‘Fuuu-’
Stoney took the heavy end of the drawer and smacked it down hard on Gooch’s head again, twice. Gooch sprawled across the concrete floor.
My God, that was fast, Stoney thought. He picked up the gun, groped Gooch’s thick neck for a pulse. After a moment he found it. But Gooch seemed to be out cold. Stoney considered whether or not to shoot him. Easier than shooting Danny. At least he wasn’t looking at him with a wet face and a horrible, blubbering pleading look. He pressed the gun against the back of Gooch’s head.
But then headlights gleamed against the shuttered warehouse windows, a car turning in, and Stoney Vaughn threw a tarp over Gooch, took the gun, doused the last light, and stepped back into the shadows, into the maze of unopened crates and equipment in the clutter.
Stoney knelt down by a section of crates in the back. He checked Gooch’s gun by flashlight, a full clip. He sat back, raised the flashlight, its little circle of light spilling along the crates five feet in front of him.
He froze. ‘That bastard,’ he whispered.