Gone ’Til November (17 page)

“Who put it together? You, the girl, Flynn. Who else?”

“What do you mean?”

“The other deputy, the woman. Was she part of it?”

“I don’t know who that is, who you’re talking about.”

From outside, the sound of a car engine, low. Morgan looked into the front room. Big windows there, with blinds. No headlights outside. The engine sound faded.

“We have to get out of here,” Delva said.

“Why?”

“They’ve been looking for me. These boys down here don’t play. They coming to talk.”

“About the money? Why they never got it?”

Delva didn’t answer.

Morgan went into the front room, looked out the window. There was a single streetlight down the block, mist hanging around it. The street was empty.

“They’ll come back,” Delva said.

Morgan looked at his watch. Ten minutes after midnight.

“Get up,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

The phone chimed again. Morgan backed into the kitchen and picked it up, still watching Delva. He opened the phone, lifted it to his ear.

“Yo,
papi
why you not answering?” A thick island accent. “We outside, boy. Let us up in there. We need to talk,
konprann
?”

Morgan looked at the sliding glass door, at the dining room window. A shadow passed by it. He’d waited too long. He wondered how many of them were outside.

“You there,
gason
? Don’t fuck around.”

He closed the phone, dropped it on the counter.

“What are you doing?” Delva said.

Two bangs at the back door, someone rattling the knob.

“
Louvri la pot
!”

Footsteps on the deck.

Morgan started toward the front door. It would be his best chance. If he ran, he could lose them in the night, make it back to where he’d parked the Toyota. They’d be too busy with Delva to chase him.

The sliding door exploded. Glass showered inward, a cinder block skidding across the wood floor. A figure pushed the blinds aside to come through, and Morgan fired twice, sent it reeling back onto the deck. He put another shot into the darkness beyond, then swiveled and aimed at the dining room window, the shadow that had reappeared there. He fired, blew glass out.

There was silence then. Delva was on the floor, using the couch for cover. Shards of glass fell from the frame of the sliding
door, broke on the floor. He could hear them out there, getting ready to try again. Time to move.

He went to the front door, fired through it in case someone was on the other side. He worked the locks, kicked the screen door open, went out fast and low. He heard shouting to his left, fired in the direction of it, and then his foot hit wet grass and slid out from under him and he went down onto his side.

He grunted with the impact, heard shots popping behind him, gunfire from inside the house. He got to his feet, half sprinted, half slid down the slope of lawn to the street. Shouts behind him, more shots. He twisted, saw two men in the doorway, blue bandanas around their necks, guns pointing at him. One of them called out, “Andre! Andre! Get him!
Vit!
”

Morgan fired at them, blew off a piece of door frame. They ducked back inside.

He started to run, away from the streetlight, then saw the dark shape of the car parked ahead. A man was coming around it fast, an automatic in his hand. Ten feet between them, no cover. They raised their guns at the same time, and Morgan saw the blocky shape of the Russian pistol, heard the click. Then another.

The man lowered the gun, pulled on the slide. Jammed. Morgan shot him twice in the chest.

More shouts from the house. Morgan ran past the car, across the street. A shot whined off the pavement to his left. He kept running, saw the empty lot a block away, the construction equipment.

When he reached the bulldozer, he swung behind it and
sat down in the dirt, his back against the treads. He was breathing hard, tightness spreading across his chest, a solid ball of pain in his right side.

Muffled shouts. A car starting. He pressed back against cold metal, the damp ground soaking through his pants.

Headlights, engine noise. Beams lit up the empty ground to his left. They’d have the windows down, weapons out, looking for movement.

The car passed, the ground going dark again. His breathing was starting to slow, the pressure in his stomach and sides easing.

After a few minutes, the car came back from the other direction. Headlights played across the bulldozer blade. He gripped the Beretta, wondering if they had the courage to get out of the car, look for him on foot.

The car rolled by. The shadows around him turned back into darkness.

How long he sat there, he didn’t know. After a while, he heard the car again, coming from the direction of the house. It went past the bulldozer without slowing, engine noise fading in the night.

He looked at his watch. One forty. He tried to stand, his legs stiff, had to sit again. It was easier the second time, one hand braced against the muddy tread. He heard his knees pop.

He set the Beretta on the bulldozer seat, looked back toward the house. Light in the windows still. No car out front.

He rubbed his legs until feeling returned. The next time he checked his watch, it was two.

He started back, the Beretta at his side. His knees and
hips ached, but the stomach pain had subsided. He crossed through backyards and empty lots until he was opposite the house. No sound or movement from inside.

No body in the street, just a glistening on the pavement where it had been. He went across fast, then along the side of the garage. The Navigator was still there.

He went around back and onto the deck, listened for a moment, and then stepped through the shattered door and twisted blinds. The living room was empty. He checked the other rooms quickly. No one.

The gun and cell were gone from the kitchen counter. The cellar door was closed. He’d left it open when he’d checked it earlier.

He raised the Beretta, twisted the doorknob, pushed. He pointed the gun down the steps into blackness. No sound below, no movement.

He felt for the light switch, tripped it, illuminated wooden steps, a concrete floor. Went down slowly, gun up, the steps creaking.

Delva was in the center of the basement. They’d brought the chair down, tied him to it, clothesline knotted around his chest. He was slumped forward, naked, dreadlocks hanging over his knees. His jeans lay on the floor a few feet away. Below the chair, a pool of dark and drying blood. Morgan could smell the copper tang of it.

He pointed the Beretta at him, moved closer, knew what he’d find. There was an entry wound behind his left ear, the dreads there matted with blood.

Near the chair, a set of bloody pruning shears. Delva’s left
arm dangled almost to the floor, but the pinkie and ring fingers were stumped, blood spatter on the concrete beneath them. The blue bandana was tied tight around his wrist, a makeshift tourniquet to keep him from bleeding out while they worked on him.

Morgan put a gloved finger on his forehead, gently pushed. The mouth sagged open and something fell out, bounced from a naked thigh to clatter on the floor. A black domino with six white circles.

Morgan went back up the steps, turned the light off, closed the door.

He’d parked the Toyota in a stand of scrub pine three blocks away, hidden from the street. The night was quiet around him. As he neared the car, he raised the Beretta, in case they’d found it, were waiting for him. No one.

He got in, touched wires to restart the engine. Then he reversed out of the trees, cut the wheel hard, started back.

He was shirtless in front of the mirror, wiping sweat with a towel, when the cramp hit him.

It bent him, a stabbing pain followed by a burning surge through his bowels. He tore at his belt, got the pants down and made it onto the toilet just in time. The waste exploded out of him, hot and fluid and painful, spasm following spasm. He put his elbows on his knees, rested his head in his hands. He felt dizzy, flush.

After a while, the pain lessened. He sat there until the nausea subsided, then cleaned himself off and turned on the
shower. He stood in the lukewarm spray, holding on to the showerhead for balance.

When he was done, he dried off as best he could, drank a glass of cool water from the sink, splashed more on his face. He got a full Vicodin down, then checked the door locks and lay across the bed, feeling the room start to spin around him. It was five minutes before he had the energy to crawl under the sheet.

The last thing he did was take the Beretta from the nightstand and set it on the bed beside him, the grip cool in his sweating hand. Then he closed his eyes.

Sara spun the wheel and turned into Billy’s driveway, dust kicking up around the Blazer. The Camaro and truck were both in the carport.

She braked, leaned on the horn. Eight thirty in the morning, but she’d been up most of the night. She hit the horn again, held it, saw curtains pushed aside in the kitchen window.
Woke them up. Good
.

The door opened, and Billy came out. Jeans, white T-shirt, flip-flops. Lee-Anne in the doorway behind him in cutoffs and Jack Daniel’s T-shirt.

Sara opened her door, stepped down. He tried to smile as he got closer, his face still puffy from sleep, eyes bloodshot.

“Jesus, Sara,” he said. “A little early for a Saturday, isn’t it?”

She stepped to him, swung with her right hand, putting
her hip into it as she’d been taught. Her fist cracked into his left cheekbone, snapped his head to the side. She felt the impact all the way to her shoulder. He stagger-stepped, recovered.

“What the
fuck
, Sara?”

She heard the screen door slam, turned to see Lee-Anne coming toward them.

“Keep your hands off him, bitch!”

Sara turned to face her, got ready.

Billy stepped between them, caught Lee-Anne’s arm. “Whoah,” he said.

She tried to push past him. Sara held her ground, waiting for her to close the distance. Billy used his body to turn Lee-Anne back toward the house. She twisted out of his grip.

“Who the
fuck
do you think you are?” Spittle flew from her mouth. “Don’t you ever fucking touch him!”

He caught her arm again, tried to steer her away. “It’s okay,” he said. “Enough. It’s okay.”

She lunged, her face bright red, and Sara took an involuntary step back. Billy held her tight.

“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” Lee-Anne said. “What’s your fucking problem?”

Billy squeezed her arm, turned her gently.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We’re just going to talk. Go back inside.”

She pulled away from him, turned back to Sara, but didn’t come closer. Sara could feel her heart pumping, her face warm.

“Stay away from here. You come back again, deputy or no, I’ll beat your dyke ass.”

“Inside, Lee-Anne.” He put a hand on her lower back to guide her. She pushed it away, and he slipped an arm around her waist, whispered in her ear, turned her back toward the house again.

They watched as she went up the stairs and inside, the screen door slamming behind her.

“I think you should leave,” he said. “She means it.”

“No chance. What were you doing outside my house last night?”

“I wasn’t.”

“No? Then who was driving your truck?”

He slipped his hands in his back pockets, turned to look at the house, then back at her. There was a red blotch on his cheek.

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” he said.

“What’s wrong with here?”

“Not a good idea.”

She looked past him, saw Lee-Anne standing behind the screen, watching them.

“Okay,” Sara said. “Get in.”

She K-turned and headed back down the driveway, trembling with adrenaline. When they reached the main road, she said, “Where are we going?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She turned left.

He touched his cheek, the redness already darkening into
a bruise. “You still hit solid. Guess I deserved that, all I’ve put you through lately.”

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

He looked out his window. They reached the highway intersection, turned toward town, neither of them speaking. Ahead on the right was the old Hopedale Diner, sign long gone, windows plywooded over. She pulled into the cracked lot. A rusted newspaper honor box lay on its side near the entrance.

She killed the engine, looked at him. He angled the rearview toward him, examined his cheek, the spreading bruise.

“I know about the Taurus,” she said.

He pushed the mirror back, looked out the window.

“And?” he said.

“And it’s time you start talking to me. What were you doing at my house?”

“I was worried about you.”

“Worried about what?”

“A lot of things.”

“Like how much I know?”

“Maybe.”

“You need to tell me what’s going on, Billy, before all this gets out of hand.”

He powered down his window, looked at the diner’s boarded-up entrance. “Would you believe me if I told you there was an explanation?”

“I’m listening.”

“What do you know about the gun?”

“That it came from the evidence room at the SO. That you planted it on Willis.”

“You’re right.” He met her eyes. “I did.”

There it is. So why are you not surprised?

“Christ, Billy. Why?”

“Why do you think? I got scared.”

“What happened out there? Really.”

He took a breath.

“It was pretty much like I told it,” he said. “He was speeding, wandering all over the road. I pulled him over, looked at his documents. He was nervous, so I asked him if there were any drugs or weapons in the car, anything I should know about. He said no, so I asked him to open the trunk. That’s when he bolted.”

“He was already out of the car?”

“He said the trunk release up front didn’t work, he had to use the key. He went around back, as if he were getting ready to open it, then tossed the keys at my face, took off down the slope. I told him to stop, and when he turned around I saw a gun in his hand. At least I thought it was a gun. I drew and fired.”