“Penn? What on earth? Why didn’t you call?”
“Mom, it’s cold. And I have Annie with me. Open up!”
After five seconds of silence, she flips the bolt and opens the door. I see many emotions in her face, but fear is dominant. I also see one hand hidden in the pocket of her housecoat. Whatever she’s holding there looks heavy—probably the .38 Special my father gave her decades ago.
“Why don’t you make Annie some hot chocolate?” I say, slipping past her and into the kitchen.
“I don’t need any hot chocolate,” Annie says. “Gram? Are you okay?”
I walk into the den and toward the hallway that leads to their bedroom.
“Penn!” Mom calls after me. “Your father’s exhausted. Please don’t put any more stress on him today.”
With a last look back at her, I enter the dark hall and move along it, my heart pounding with dread. Her hurried footsteps rush up behind me.
“Penn, please don’t wake—”
I whirl on her, my face hot. “He’s not in there, is he?”
She takes a deep breath and looks at the floor.
“Mom?”
When she looks up, her eyes are red. “No.”
For a few seconds the world seems to shudder on its axis. A couple of hours ago I learned my mother would lie on the stand to protect my father. But now I realize she’s been lying to me. How could that deception possibly help Dad? Who could it protect him from, other than me? But then the answer comes to me: my parents believe they’re protecting me by keeping me ignorant of my father’s insanely desperate act.
“Daddy?” says a small voice.
Annie stands watching us from the end of the hall. I want to comfort her, but I can scarcely get my mind around what’s happening myself. “Where is he, Mom? Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” she says, hurrying to Annie’s side.
“Is that the truth?”
She looks back at me in surrender. “Yes.”
“Do you have a way to reach him?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She hugs Annie and whispers something in her ear.
“Why do you look so mad, Daddy? Is Papa okay?”
“I’m not mad, baby. Please go back to the kitchen for a second. We’ll be right there.”
After my mother whispers something else, Annie reluctantly obeys.
I step closer to my mother so that I can keep my voice low. “He’s jumped bail?”
She nods.
“How long ago?” I ask, trying to compute how much time has elapsed since I called earlier. “Two or three hours?”
“I think he left just after lunch. I’m honestly not sure.”
I feel like a man blinded by some injury, suddenly having his bandages ripped off. I spent the second half of this day working on the assumption that I’d have the opportunity to try again to persuade Dad to save himself, and that Quentin Avery might help me do that. But the truth is that my father jumped bail hours ago, and probably fled the city. Maybe even the country.
A primal blast of fear surges through me. Two days ago, Viola Turner was murdered in her sickbed. Last night Glenn Morehouse was murdered almost the same way. Tonight someone tried to kill Henry Sexton. Right after that, Special Agent John Kaiser asked me if I could protect my “folks” until the FBI arrives tomorrow. I said I could. What the hell was I thinking?
“Mom, pack a bag. Right now. Clothes for three days.”
Her eyes go wide. “What?”
I take her arm and start leading her up the hall. “We’re in danger. All of us. When was the last time you talked to Dad?”
“Around noon,” she says, trying to hold her ground. “Wait!”
“We can’t. Pack the bag and bring your pistol. Don’t take more than five minutes. Annie and I will be in the kitchen.”
She stops. “Penn, I can’t leave this house.”
“Why not? Is Dad going to call you here?”
“No, but …” She doesn’t know what to say. “Where are we going? To your house?”
“Only long enough to get Annie packed. We’ve got to go into hiding. At least you and Annie do, until I can find out what’s really going on. The FBI will be here tomorrow, and things should be safer then.”
“Penn, this is crazy. Why are you saying this?”
“Because Dad’s put us all in danger! Maybe more than he understands. I hope so. But either way, I’m going to need your help with Annie.”
Mom shakes her head, reflexively resisting me. Gripping her shoulders, I lean down and look hard into her eyes. “Annie needs you. Now, go. Go!”
She hesitates five or six seconds, but then her resistance crumbles. Annie is the future of our family, and my mother cannot contemplate exposing her to danger. The decision made, she takes her pistol from her pocket and darts through the bedroom door.
CHAPTER 51
TOM SAT IN the back of Walt Garrity’s Roadtrek van, looking into the flat, uncommunicative eyes of Sonny Thornfield. They’d sat him on the edge of the six-by-six-foot bed in the rear of the van. The old Double Eagle’s hands and feet were bound with a pair of flex-cuffs that Walt had brought from Texas.
“What the hell am I doing here?” Thornfield asked.