If Mendes wants to bury her, shoving Don’s gun in his face isn’t going to defuse things. If he wants to bury his kid, he’s a monster who could do anything.
I’m holding her so close in the darkening woods behind her house. I’ve tried to talk her out of this a dozen different ways—reasonably, soothingly, threateningly—but if I were facing her down in Model UN, there’d be thermonuclear war.
I say, “What about if Mendes is armed?”
Nicolette sniffs. “He hunts. It’s not like he carries a Winchester around the house. Come on!”
She bounds through the woods with cheerleader enthusiasm. I can barely see the path in the twilight. She thinks we can just walk up to the house and use her Catherine Davis prepaid Visa Buxx card to unlock the door and get in, that if we trip the alarm, Mendes will think it’s a raccoon because it’s always a raccoon.
I don’t know what she plans to say to him because she won’t tell me. If her plan is to provoke him so he strikes, provoking me to do something to stop him, it’s a bad plan. I’ll try. But why would she think she could disarm me, but a guy with decades on me couldn’t?
Being this humbled this recently doesn’t make for a shit ton of self-confidence.
77
Nicolette
The French doors in Steve’s office open with the credit card.
The doors creak slightly, but it’s a creaky house. The motion detector isn’t on, no beams of light. Great, because I don’t have to sprint into the kitchen to turn it off. Bad, because it means Steve is home, walking around.
I wanted to get here first.
But it’s home. It’s Steve. It’s what I’m used to.
For a second, I relax. As if it’s safe.
But this is the opposite of safe. This is the lion’s den. Not the nice lion that likes the mouse for pulling a thorn out of his paw. The hungry kind that drags his prey through the woods. And stabs it eleven times.
There’s a light on in the hall.
We creep toward it.
I turn to lift the rope off Jack, motioning for him to put down all his stuff. It’s not like Steve is going to call the police on us, incensed homeowner pointing to a bunch of abandoned burgling tools.
Jack shakes his head.
This is what Jack looks like when he stops breathing.
He holds up his hand and points.
There’s a guy in a white shirt, sitting in the kitchen, texting.
Perfect.
You don’t forget the guy who hits you with the shovel he’s using to bury a girl. You don’t forget his profile when the flashlight lit him up, or his voice, or what you want to do to him.
Jack puts his hand on my shoulder. He actually thinks he can hold me back.
Well, he can’t.
Then Gertie comes charging out of nowhere. A tiny brown fur ball, barking her head off.
The guy stirs.
Starts to turn.
Starts to ruin everything.
I grab the white china pitcher that has orange roses in it. Always. In memory of my mom.
Bring it down on the guy’s head.
It’s not like TV. The vase doesn’t shatter. The guy doesn’t make a sound. Slumps forward over the table. His phone hits the floor.
Roses strewn.
Jack mutters, “Jesus. Are you sure you didn’t cut Connie Marino?”
I punch him in the side. He grabs my wrist. I’m wrestling to get my hand back when Steve walks in. Comes toward me.
Followed by Alex Yeager.
A guy I’ve known since his dad, Karl, brought him up here to play in the lake while the fathers talked business.
And who is the scum of the earth.
I thought I knew how Jack sounded when crazy angry.
I didn’t.
He jerks around and yells, “Stop! Now!”
Steve stops dead. He’s sock-footed, like he was just taking his shoes off. Changing out of his suit. Just reaching for his jeans when he heard the vase bouncing off the guy’s head. Holding out his arm to keep Alex back.
Alex is glaring at me like his eyes could burn holes through me.
I’m glaring back. Like bullets could burn holes through him.
78
Jack
This isn’t looking too good for Mendes, one guy down, his other guy taking cover behind him.
He reaches out toward Nicolette as if she were an apparition. “Nicky, you came back. Did this boy hurt you?”
I reach for the gun.
Nicolette yells, “Shit, Steve! You better duck!”
“Nicolette!” Like he’s the stern dad, having missed the facts that I’m aiming Don’s gun at him and that once your kid figures out you’re going after her, you don’t get to rein in her language.
Mendes says to me, “Whatever you want, you can have it. But why don’t you put that down on the table? I’ll stay back here. No problem.”
“No problem!” Nicolette says. “What would be a problem to you? Your kid sees you burying someone and then you say she’s not even your kid and you’re getting rid of her?”
“How could you think I meant that?”
The young guy half-crouched behind Mendes says, “What is this, fucking Family Feud? Why am I even here?”