At last, finally, footsteps echoed above me before descending the stairs. My hands felt slick against the grip on the bat and I wiped them off on my coat. The heavy footsteps crossed the living room, heading for the hearth. Clutching the bat with one hand, I inched out from below the stairs, moving soundlessly forward until I could stand upright.
A tall man stood with his back to me, bending over the fireplace. This was it. Hit him with the bat, hit him hard. I took a silent step forward, raising the bat high just as he stood upright, duffel bag in hand, his back still to me. I had a perfect aim, either against his head or in that spot between his shoulders, but as I prepared to swing I flashed to a memory of other hands raised and more than ready to inflict a beating. Could I really do this? Could I bash him? It was a split-second hesitation, but the man turned and saw me and the opportunity was gone. He ran for the front door and I leapt forward to grab him, but his leather jacket slipped from my fingers. I chased after him as he went out the door and sprang down the front steps, running across the front yard with the duffel bag tucked under his arm. And then Sarah was there, chasing him with me as he ran across the neighboring yard and the one next to that, my lungs burning as we tried to catch him. He dashed between two houses, disappearing from view, and I pursued him, Sarah right behind me, both of us turning the corner in time to see him jump on a motorcycle he’d hidden down a driveway. We raced toward him, but the engine roared to life, and the bike leapt forward, wobbling dangerously as he swerved around us, the bag tucked against his lap. Sarah grabbed the bat from my hand, hurling it after him. It fell short, clanking harmlessly against the street as the motorcycle sped away.
chapter thirty-six
ALISON
“How the hell did you let him go?” Sarah cried, grabbing the bat again only to hurl it at the ground in frustration. She paced the street, both hands on her head, while I stood there panting and defeated, feeling as shitty as it was possible to feel. I’d failed. I’d failed, and when he saw that we’d cheated him out of the money, this guy would take the photos to the cops and they would show up at my house to arrest me.
I remembered when my father was taken away, the sounds of the handcuffs snapping around his wrists, his bitter protests that it wasn’t my fault, that he hadn’t done anything wrong. I imagined saying this to Lucy and Matthew, calling out to them as I was ushered into the back of a squad car.
A car roared up the street toward us. Julie screeched to a halt and jumped out, hopeful and twitching with excitement. “Did you get it? Did you get the phone?”
“She let him get away—she didn’t even hit him.” Sarah was angry and scornful.
“What?” Julie looked at her then back at me. “What do you mean, you didn’t hit him?” I didn’t answer and I saw her take in the bat lying abandoned where Sarah had thrown it. “What happened, Alison? Why?”
“He saw me—there wasn’t time.” But there had been time, there’d been those few seconds that seemed to last forever when I could have cracked the bat across the back of his head. It had been long enough for me to see that his black hair was shiny and damp, to notice the tattoo on the base of his neck, a detailed crucifix with a tiny hanging Christ. It had been long enough for me to flash back to another arm raised, to the whoosh the shovel made as it swung so fast through the air there was no time to react. It had been long enough for me to remember the horror as it connected, slicing through skin like a paring knife through a peach, the blood oozing like juice, dripping down the face, rolling over the chin.
There was no point in explaining this to Julie or Sarah; it didn’t change anything. I started to weep then, sinking to the ground, resting my head in my grimy hands and sobbing. Julie and Sarah thought it was about my failure to stop the blackmailer—I could hear them talking about what to do—but the tears were about so much more.
“Look, it’ll be okay,” Julie said after a while, patting my shoulder. An ineffectual gesture, but I appreciated the effort. “Here, take this.” She shoved some tissues into my hands. I swiped at my face, sniffling and struggling to regain some self-control.
“I got part of the license number,” Sarah said. “And the make—it’s a Harley-Davidson.” She scribbled it down on a piece of a paper that Julie fetched from her purse. I felt ashamed. Here I’d wondered if Sarah was fit to be there, and she’d done her job better than I had mine. Except where was my car?
“It’s parked where I dropped you off,” she said when I asked. “I figured you might have trouble so I doubled back and crept around the side of the neighboring house.”
“Is there some way to look up who the bike’s registered to?” Julie asked as I slowly stood up, my body aching as if I’d run for miles. “Do we know anyone at the DMV?”
“They wouldn’t give us that information,” Sarah said. “It’s not allowed. But maybe we could hack into their site?” She looked at me.
I shrugged, wincing as my shoulders protested. “I could try, but it’s risky and would probably take a while.”
Julie glanced at her watch. “We have to hurry—I’m sure he’s figured out by now that he doesn’t have twenty thousand dollars.”
Another way to get the information suddenly occurred to me. “I’ll ask my brother to look it up,” I blurted, so eager to make up for my failure that I didn’t add that I couldn’t promise he’d help me.
“It’s probably too late anyway,” Julie said. “The guy could have driven straight from here to the police.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He obviously wants more money and he’s not going to get that from the police.”
“But by now he knows we screwed him over,” Julie said. “He’s got to be pissed off about that.”
“Maybe, but if we dangle the possibility of the money there’s a chance he’ll bite.” I pulled out my phone and looked at the blackmailer’s last message. “What if we send another text and offer him the cash?”
“Why would he believe that?” Sarah said. “He’s got the fake bills—he knows we lied to him.”
“Greed,” I replied. “It’s worth a shot—what do we have to lose?” I typed quickly and held it up for them to see before sending it: Do you want what you asked for?
We took wet wipes from Julie’s glove compartment and wiped down the house’s front and back doorknobs and brushed away any visible footprints. I retrieved the yoga bag from under the steps and loaded the bat back into it.
There was no response to the text, not in five minutes or in ten, taking away the last bit of hope that I was struggling to keep afloat. Julie drove Sarah home, ostensibly so I could make the call to my brother before the kids got off the school bus, but I imagined them spending the ride complaining about how I’d screwed us all over because I was too weak to take down the asshole who wanted to rob us blind.
As I waited for Sean to pick up, I berated myself for my failure to get the blackmailer’s phone, even as part of me wanted to tell my brother that maybe he was wrong—that there was a line that some people wouldn’t cross. That even the right circumstances didn’t mean people always made the wrong choice.
“Hey, what’s up?” My brother’s cheerful greeting made me well up again, but I blinked the tears back, careful to keep my voice equally light.
“Hi. I’ve got a quick favor. You have access to vehicle registrations, right? Could you look up a license number for me—I’ve got most of it—and see who owns this Harley-Davidson?”
“Look, Alison, we’re not supposed to do that,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. “That information isn’t public.”
“I know, it’s a big favor, but what’s the point of having an older brother who’s a police officer if you can’t ask him to help you out?” I forced a little laugh.