Eddie then did something Skylar could not have expected. He awkwardly reached out and hesitantly touched her arm. For only the briefest moment. It was all he could manage. But he wanted her to know that he wanted to touch her, too.
The enormity of the gesture wasn’t lost on Skylar. It was more than she was ever able to elicit from her little brother. Try and try as she might, as a teenager, she was never able to help Christopher feel comfortable enough to initiate any contact. Skylar took a moment to find just the right thing to say, certain that it was the most physical contact Eddie had ever initiated in his life. “Thank you.”
Eddie looked at her inquisitively. “For what?”
She answered with her eyes. For taking a chance. With her. Right then. In the middle of all this. For extending himself. And validating her belief in him. For comforting her as best he could. “For being okay.”
“I am okay, Skylar.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “I can see that.”
“You’re crying.”
She nodded. “Happy tears.”
“How can you tell the difference between happy tears and unhappy tears?”
“You have to look at the rest of the person’s face. If they’re smiling, they’re happy tears.” She used her hand to wipe her cheeks.
The bearded man in the driver’s seat couldn’t stop from beaming, either. He was immediately taken with the one person Eddie liked more than birds. “You must be Skylar.”
“Who are you?” There was an edge in her voice. Her protective instincts were up, like a mother who was talking to the stranger who’d just invited her child into his car.
Eddie answered for his new friend. “He is Rupert Kreitenberg, who loves birds more than people.”
Rupert tried to allay Skylar’s understandable concern. “Eddie came into my shop and started talking to the birds. I’ve never seen anything like it. After a while, we started talking, and he explained how he got separated from you. I didn’t think I should leave him alone, so I was going to take him back to Harmony House.”
She studied him suspiciously. “It’s a hell of a favor to do for someone you just met.”
He nodded, understanding her skepticism. “I’ve never done anything this nice for anyone in my life.”
Eddie interrupted, making his BUZZER sound.
Kreitenberg smiled and continued. “I’ve also never met anyone quite like Eddie.”
Skylar softened, smiling briefly. She knew the feeling. “Most people haven’t.” She studied the man, who genuinely seemed harmless. “Mind if I get in?”
“By all means.” He unlocked his doors so that Skylar could get into the back seat, where there was birdseed all over the seat and floor. “You’ll have to excuse the mess.”
Skylar climbed in, using her hand to sweep off the seat. “What mess?”
He smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “So where would you like to go?”
CHAPTER 76
Gloria Pruitt’s House, Parsippany, New Jersey, May 27, 9:28 p.m.
Nurse Gloria’s legs were tired, particularly her feet. Her heels throbbed. So did her knees, which typically swelled a good inch during the workday. A nurse’s job was to be on her feet, and by the end of an eight-hour shift, Gloria’s were ready to call it quits. She was still quite curious as to the whereabouts of Eddie Parks, but had decided not to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. The head of security had given her an answer, and that was supposed to be good enough.
Given her primary allegiance to her true employer, Gloria did not want to draw undue attention to herself. She needed to be careful. Her instinct for self-preservation had kicked in when she’d sent the text earlier that day. She genuinely cared about Eddie, but nowhere close to how much she cared about her son, or her own well-being.
Her drive home typically took thirty-five minutes, but required a little extra time today because she made stops at the grocery store for a pork tenderloin and the pharmacy to refill her Lipitor prescription. She never once noticed the sky-blue Jeep Wagoneer following her.
The nurse parked in her driveway as the sun set over the horizon. It was darker than it should have been, because the exterior lights weren’t on. They were supposed to go on automatically, but, like everything else in life, they didn’t always work as they should. She carried her dinner and medicine into her kitchen, turned on the radio, which she kept tuned to her favorite easy-listening station, and rinsed off the pork in her sink. Eating alone used to depress her, until she decided to make an occasion out of her meals. Now, every dinner she prepared was something special. A date with herself. It took time and focus, and was a far better way to spend an evening than watching the day’s investment news. Jim Cramer’s advice had never much helped grow her retirement fund, anyway. The repetition had also turned her into one heck of a cook, at least according to her devoted son, Cornell, who came home every chance he could.
Gloria was thinking about pouring herself a glass of white zinfandel when she thought she heard something outside. Well, not so much heard it as felt it. Something or someone was in her backyard. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but something wasn’t right.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as everything got very quiet. The air was suddenly perfectly still. Too still. Looking out the window, she couldn’t see a thing. It was nearly pitch black. There was no light outside except for the moon, and even that was obscured by the dense trees around her yard. She flipped the switch on the wall by the back door, but all her outdoor lights seemed to have gone on the fritz at the same time. A trip to the hardware store was now on her agenda for the following morning, right after church. God always came first on Sundays.
At least, that was her plan.
Crouched in Gloria’s backyard, Strunk was fidgety from adrenaline. “Let’s do this.”
Dobson nodded. He didn’t have quite the appetite his partner did for this type of work, and he wanted to get it over with.
The two lethal silhouettes moved swiftly across the yard toward the kitchen door. One carried a crowbar. The other a roll of duct tape. They were going to make it look like dangerous predators were on the loose. Morris County residents would be double locking their doors for years to come after reading news accounts of what was about to occur. First she was robbed. Then tied up and beaten. And then far, far worse. Sales of firearms and security systems would go up for months, as they always did after a heavily reported crime. Because Michael Barnes’s two-man team was going to leave an ugly mess. Whoever Gloria was working for would get the message, loud and clear.
CHAPTER 77
Backyard, Gloria Pruitt’s House, May 27, 9:29 p.m.
Through Leupold Mark 6 tactical night-vision scopes, Strunk and Dobson, Michael Barnes’s two-man team, looked like greenish apparitions. The lenses were zoomed to 8X, which was close enough to make the targets’ expressions clear. The taller man was gritting his teeth, like he was here for business that he was eager to be done with. But the smaller one appeared to be smiling ever so slightly. He was excited. There was no question he was looking forward to whatever he was about to do.
That expression was about to change.