“I might have found out whether our guy was actually in Burlington, Vermont, before flying the hell up here. But that’s just me.”
“It was the right house,” Lewis said through gritted teeth. The van, driving through the night, was doing close to eighty, and felt as though it might float off the highway. They were heading west. He figured it would take them about two hours, maybe a little more, to get to their new destination.
An elderly neighbor had spotted them standing on the porch of Ray Kilbride’s house when no one answered. She said her name was Gwen, and that she was picking up Ray’s mail and any flyers left at the door while he was away, in Promise Falls. His dad had just died, she said, and he was staying there while he sorted things out. He was looking after his brother, too.
“Can I help you with something?” she’d asked.
“Wait a minute,” Nicole’d said. “You say someone named Ray lives here?”
“That’s right.”
Nicole had turned to Lewis and said, “I told you this was the wrong house. We’re on the wrong side of town.”
Lewis had shrugged. “I’m an idiot,” he’d conceded.
“So you’re not looking for Ray?” the neighbor had asked.
They’d said no, got back in the van, and pointed it in the direction of Promise Falls.
Along the way, Nicole needled Lewis about his fuckup. She wanted to get under his skin. Push him. See how angry he’d get.
It would be a clue to his intentions.
She said, “If it was me, I wouldn’t have gone up and knocked on the front door. You find a way inside the house, get the jump on them there.”
Lewis tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We’ll try it your way.”
Being nice.
That was when she knew he was going to kill her when this was over. He was being nice so she’d be off her guard.
It would be easy to take him out first. She could put the pick through his neck while he drove, then grab the wheel, get her foot on the brake. In a big van like this, it wasn’t hard to shift over to the driver’s side.
Nicole knew she could do it.
But she had to let this play out. She needed answers to what was going on as much as Lewis and his people did. Had to find out whether this Kilbride was as big a risk to her as he was to those who’d hired her in the first place. And then she’d have to decide how much of a risk her associates—not just Lewis—posed to her. Whether she’d have to do something about them. Because she was done with this. She was through. She’d had enough.
Something had happened to her in that basement in Chicago. When she’d killed that Whirl360 guy’s wife. Nicole didn’t want to take any more orders from any of these men.
She’d ride this one out to its conclusion, keeping a close eye on Lewis the whole time. She’d taken at least one major precaution in the event he got the jump on her.
Lewis said, “Maybe, if we get a second, we can run in somewhere, get some coffee. My treat.”
Oh yeah, he was definitely going to kill her.
FIFTY-FOUR
“THIS is good,” Thomas said, shoving another forkful of Marie’s tuna medley into his mouth.
“Yeah, not bad,” I said. But I’d found, once Marie had left, that I did not have much of an appetite. The things Len had said to her, that she’d repeated for me, were stuck in my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling he was up to something. Trying to lay something on Thomas that he hadn’t done.
“I’m going to have seconds,” Thomas said.
“That’s fine. And maybe you’d like to clean up after dinner.”
“Is that fair?” he asked.
“What do you mean, is it fair? Sure, it’s fair.”
“But you didn’t make dinner. I thought, if you make dinner, I clean up. Or if I make dinner, you clean up. But Marie made dinner.” He shoveled some more in.
“So if I follow your logic,” I said, “if someone other than us does some of the duties, whatever’s left is my job.”
He chewed slowly, like he was formulating an argument. “Well,” he said, “that was just how it struck me at the time.”
“So maybe we should both clean up,” I said. “What about that? You clear the table and load the dishwasher, and I’ll scrub out that casserole dish. Judging by how you’re going there’s not going to be any left over.”
“Okay,” he said.
Ten minutes later, we were standing side by side at the kitchen counter. I was filling the sink with soapy water as Thomas put our glasses and cutlery into the KitchenAid. Our shoulders were brushing up against each other, and we actually had a kind of rhythm going. We weren’t talking, but it was the closest I’d felt to him since coming back here.
But later, as he was wiping down the kitchen table, Thomas said, “You ever feel like someone who was your friend really isn’t your friend anymore?”
He wasn’t looking at me when he asked. He was focused on making the table as clean as possible.
“Yeah, that’s happened to me a few times. Who are we talking about here?”
“I don’t know if I should say.”