When She Left: A Thriller, page 11
“Your work requires deception,” Heather went on. “You feel that lying to your family is a lie to yourself. It’s filling you with self-loathing.”
There were moments in Lucky’s life when a simple answer had been the solution to a complicated question, Occam’s gleaming razor. And he realized this was one of those moments, the lid to the box cleanly yanked away, and he was able to behold what had been inside.
It was the lies.
He couldn’t live a life of lies any longer.
Perhaps that had been reinforced by Renee’s infidelity, but lying to his family now struck him in a way it never had. It was as if the corruption he engaged in was affecting his soul.
Lucky stood slowly, so as not to strain his back further. “I’ll be back,” he told Heather. He lifted the ball gag from around her neck, placed it gently against her lips. Checked the blindfold over her eyes. Strands of her brown hair were caught in it, tugged down.
Lucky stepped out of the primary bedroom and into the hall. Passed a bathroom and headed to the guest room where Heather’s husband, Bill, was similarly blindfolded, bound, and gagged.
“I’m back,” Lucky told him and removed the gag. “And you’re a lucky man. Your wife just gave me an epiphany! Does she help you a lot?”
Bill didn’t respond.
Lucky had noticed the other set of framed certificates in the house, these in the guest bedroom that they’d converted to a small office. The certificates commemorated Bill’s achievements in the military and, later, his work with the police force of Frederick, Maryland. Honors for his time in Iraq, promotions and awards for bravery in the line of duty.
Sometimes, Lucky knew, history mattered. Sometimes men had a résumé marked by violence, and every line of text was a layer of steel.
And sometimes that violence just left them broken.
It was a good thing, Lucky thought, that he and Bill had Heather to talk to.
“So you and Heather were in the Heartbreak Diner during the shooting,” Lucky began. “You witnessed Melissa Cruz and Jake Smith get into an altercation with Bruce Parks, which led to the deaths of—”
“I told you that I don’t know anything about that.” Bill’s voice was strained. “Where’s my wife?”
“She’s fine. And she’ll stay that way if you keep talking. Did you see them leave?”
“Who are you?”
“Did you see them leave? See their car? Get the plates?”
No response from Bill. Unlike Heather, Bill hadn’t needed to tamp down his fear. He’d been angry when Lucky had woken him with a gun pressed against his head. Scowled and refused to do anything.
Until Lucky had pointed his weapon at Heather.
Lucky took a knee next to Bill. “Heather’s fine, and she’s going to stay that way if you talk. I don’t want to hurt her. But I will.”
“I’ll kill you.”
Lucky nodded. “You’re saying that because it gives you strength. But the truth is, Bill, you can’t stop me from hurting her.”
Bill flinched like Lucky had struck him.
“There’s only one way to save Heather,” Lucky went on. “Telling me what I want to know.”
Lucky’s personal phone buzzed.
“But I need to take this first.”
He refastened the gag around Bill’s mouth. Headed to the hallway, where he could keep an eye on the rooms Bill and Heather were in.
Lucky answered his phone, spoke low. “Hello?”
“Hi!” The voice sounded familiar, but Lucky couldn’t place it. “I’m sorry for calling at this hour. Is this Lucky?”
“Yes . . . who’s this?”
“This is James Forrester? My wife Jean and I visited the house on Saint Jude the other day? We wanted to know, have you received any offers?”
Now he recognized the voice.
The disinterested couple at the open house, the ones who hadn’t even bothered to glance into the basement.
Lucky thought back to that couple, tried to remember anything about them, whatever he could use to motivate them. Young, white, church clothes. James in brown shoes and a suit, Jean in a long blue Sunday dress. Huge wedding ring. BMW.
“Right!” Lucky said with enthusiasm and frowned at a wet spot on his sleeve from Bill’s saliva. Kidnapping Bill and Heather had gone smoothly until Bill lunged at him and Lucky choked him into unconsciousness. Afterward Lucky realized he’d strained a muscle in his lower back. “Good to hear from you. And, yes, it is still on the market. For now.”
Muffled conversation on the other end of the line before James spoke.
“Are you available for a showing next Sunday?” James asked.
“What time?”
“Morning?”
“I can do 9:00 a.m.” Lucky cupped his hand over the phone, lowered his voice. “And, of course, I’ll let you know if I hear from the other party before that.”
“The other party?”
“There may be other interest,” Lucky lied.
More muffled conversation.
“Right.” Hesitancy in James’s voice. “Is there any chance you could show it earlier?”
Lucky thought back to his calendar. He was free, but, depending on what information he could pull out of Bill, there was a chance he could be heading even farther out of state to find Jake and Melissa.
“Saturday at eight?”
“Yes,” James said immediately.
He and James exchanged pleasantries and goodbyes.
“You have a second job?” Heather asked when he returned to her.
Lucky thought back to his phone conversation, tried to remember if he’d said anything revealing. Couldn’t think of anything that directly mentioned his identity. But, regardless, he was sharing more than he should. A daughter in high school. A weekend business meeting. An adulterous wife.
“Maybe,” he said carefully. “Do you think that’s part of the reason I’m sad?”
“Depressed.”
“What?”
“You’re not sad, you’re depressed.” Forcefulness in Heather’s tone now.
“What’s the difference?”
“Have you ever been this sad before? For weeks?”
Lucky didn’t reply.
“That’s the difference. We all get sad, but depression is different. Depression doesn’t fade without treatment.”
“Are you saying,” Lucky asked hopefully, “you’ll treat me?”
“My God no!” A slip in Heather’s determination, fear stumbling through. “You kidnapped me and my husband, tied us up, and threatened to kill us.”
“It’s not the ideal start to our clinical relationship.”
“If you let us live, if you let me and Bill go, I’ll make a deal with you.” Heather’s voice was earnest now, insistent. “I’ll find help for you. Someone you can talk to.”
That lump ached in his throat. “I think I might like that.”
“It would help you so much!” Heather said excitedly.
She thought saving him, Lucky realized, would save them.
“Is Bill really okay?” she asked. “Can I see him?”
“Soon.”
The single word sounded foreboding, a hint to death. Lucky thought about correcting himself but decided to let it stand.
Heather’s head dropped.
“I haven’t hurt him,” Lucky told her. He patted her shoulder. “Except when I strangled him into unconsciousness. But that’s the only time.”
Lucky dropped to his knees in front of the bound, blindfolded woman.
“I have one more question for you,” he said intensely. “It’s about something I saw downstairs. The picture of your daughters.”
Heather’s legs were trembling. Lucky placed his hands on her knees to calm her.
“Underneath that picture,” he said softly, “on your fireplace mantel, there’s a small Lemax fire station. Can you tell me where you purchased it?”
“What?”
“The Lemax fire station,” Lucky went on. “It has a dalmatian looking out through a window, and you can see a fireman’s pole inside through the open door. This model was introduced in the late nineties, and I’ve only seen it online. Once at PutzPo, but I didn’t buy it at the time.”
“I don’t, I don’t . . .”
“Heather, I need you to think.”
“What’s PutzPo?”
“Putz Exposition,” Lucky clarified. “Christmas Village enthusiasts are called Putzers, a word that originated from Moravian culture. PutzPo is a convention held every two years.”
“I don’t know where we got it,” Heather told him. “I think we found it in a box in my mom’s house after she died. You can just take it!”
Lucky was offended. He removed his hands from her knees.
“I would never,” he told her firmly, “take something from someone’s home.”
But those words, Take something from someone’s home, reminded him again of William. He regagged Heather and checked the camera app for William’s house. A gray night view of a quiet empty driveway. Lucky hadn’t expected to see Renee’s car there, but the fact that it wasn’t made him feel better. She’d known he’d be away—Lucky had told her he was looking at a new development in central Virginia as a potential model for a site up north, and the trip would be overnight.
Which gave her a chance to see William.
Renee wouldn’t bring him to the house, not with Marybeth there, but she could go to his.
And she hadn’t.
“Hey, Bill,” Lucky said as he entered the office and knelt before the other man and removed his gag. “Got anything for me?”
“No.”
“You told me what happened during the shooting, that you’d left your gun at home. But what happened after it was over?”
“I tried to help the wounded,” Bill replied grudgingly. “But they were already deceased.”
“And you have no idea where Melissa and Jake went?”
“No.”
“You said you and Heather go there all the time. But no other regulars were there that night? No one else you recognized?”
He didn’t answer.
“Bill?” Lucky prodded.
“We used to go there all the time,” Bill said softly.
Used to.
The small words stopped Lucky, the way the past tense was already assumed. Was it because Bill had heard the diner was going to be closed down after being the site of a double homicide? Was it because Bill and his wife had already decided that they could never revisit it?
Or because Bill thought he’d never see his wife alive again?
Guilt was a low throb in Lucky’s chest, like the echoes of a hammer falling.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
“We can end this in two minutes,” Lucky told him decisively. “You and Heather will go free. Just tell me something I can use about the diner.”
“Heartbreak Diner was almost empty,” Bill said. “But I know one of the people there, one who survived.”
“Who?”
“Rodrigo,” Bill said quietly. “He’s the cook. I don’t know his last name. Or maybe that is his last name.” Bill’s shoulders slumped. He shook his head sorrowfully. “That’s all I know.”
Lucky couldn’t tell if Bill was acting, and he wasn’t sure what other information he could gather. Nobody else in the article had been identified by name, not the other customers, not the investigating officer.
Lucky felt like he’d been asked to search a catacomb by candlelight and all these people—Bill, Heather, Rodrigo—were flickering shadows ahead of him.
Then again, there was always the reporter who wrote the story about the diner for the Washington Post. Lucky could question her, find out what she knew . . . but that was risky. Given Bruce Parks’s involvement, there was already a potential connection to the Winterses. Questioning and killing a reporter might initiate a minor investigation. And she’d have to be killed.
Unless, Lucky considered, he tried a different approach with the reporter. Pretended to be a journalist for another paper, a small local one. Ask for information about the story, see if she’d be interested in sharing. Lucky knew she might not confirm any of the names of anyone in the diner, but he could get the name of the cop from her. Not that he wanted to go through the police, but “Rodrigo the Cook” wasn’t much of a lead.
Then again, this route would take longer. A day or two to hear back from the reporter, a day or two to hear back from the cop.
And Jake and Melissa could already be a country away by then.
“Rodrigo is all I have for you,” Bill said. “I swear it.”
“I believe you,” Lucky said, and he pulled out his knife from its sheath around his ankle.
“Is Heather really okay?” Bill asked.
Lucky pressed the knife into Bill’s hand. “Count to one hundred and cut yourself free,” Lucky told him. “Go ahead and call for your wife.”
Lucky left the bedroom, loosened Heather’s gag. Heard Bill calling “Heather” as he walked down the stairs. Heard Heather calling back. Such relief in their voices, Lucky thought.
Such love.
Lucky drove for an hour after leaving Bill and Heather Anders. He checked into a motel room just outside DC, unlocked the door to his room.
He lay on the bed and wept.
Maybe it was the decrepit room or the unreturned message he’d left with Renee, but Lucky suddenly felt terribly, heartbreakingly, lonely.
He hadn’t felt this alone since the army, Lucky’s mind turning to his last days in the service, when he’d stood outside a building in a small village named Arzo. The Afghan villagers behind the line of his fellow soldiers, all of them in a heavy silence after the deafening sounds of gunfire.
Lucky undressed in the middle of a circle of dumbfounded stares. He was always hot during the day, the sun shining off sand and stone, the dryness in his mouth, the way his lips tightened. He unstrapped his helmet and removed it, ran his hands through the ring of sweat around his head, his wet hair. He was sweating more than he had since his very first patrol months earlier, when he returned to the barracks and found his T-shirt drenched.
Lucky let his jacket drop down over the rifle he’d laid on the ground. Sat down and untied his boots, the laces that traced up his shins. Pulled off his socks and rubbed the soles of his feet into the hot dirt. This entire country was dirt. Closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky.
No one said anything.
And no one entered the building from which Lucky had emerged, the house where a pair of brothers lived, brothers suspected of sheltering Taliban soldiers. Lucky’s unit had come to Arzo to interrogate them, found the brothers with their families, the house filled with men—uncles and cousins who’d maintained taut silence while Lucky’s patrol questioned them.
No answers had been given, and Lucky’s patrol had walked out. There was a restlessness in the unit, the emotional preparation for battle, and then that exhausted relief that it hadn’t happened.
Lucky was tired from the exhaustion, of the suspicious way the Afghans regarded him, the secrets he knew those men were keeping. He’d been the last to leave and the first to return, to steal away from his unit and return to that house, to the quiet defiance.
There had been nine men in that house when he raised his rifle and asked them for information.
No one had any, and no one was left alive.
Lucky was sent back to the United States, and he expected to be placed in a military prison. Instead he was met at the plane by a large man, bald and white with hands the size of adult human skulls.
That man walked Lucky to a car at the other end of the tarmac. The military police didn’t stop them.
His name was Victor Winters, and he’d heard that Lucky had a talent for killing and a lack of remorse. And those were two traits he valued. He had a proposition for Lucky: come work for him or go to prison.
And so Lucky was under his control, and he remained that way, even after Victor’s death, nearly twenty years later.
But now he was finally close to leaving.
Everything inside him wanted to break his cover story and leave this room and hop in his car and drive to his house and climb into bed with Renee and hold her. Fall asleep with her in his arms, her leg draped over his waist, her hair on his shoulder.
His phone buzzed, and excitement rushed over him, one of those coincidences that seem nearly cinematic, a loving answer found in the darkest moment of despair. Renee reaching out to him.
But it was the wrong phone.
“Lucky Wilson?”
One of those faceless female voices from the Winterses.
“Yes.”
“We talked yesterday about a property for sale?”
“I remember.”
“I heard one of the other buyers made an offer. Might be near closing.”
One of the other assassins.
They’d found Melissa and Jake. The job was almost over.
“Okay,” Lucky said. “I understand.”
“The buyers still may be open to other offers. But everyone’s having a hard time reaching them.”
Lucky softly exhaled. They might have found where Melissa and Jake were hiding but hadn’t been able to bring them in.
“I can try,” Lucky said. “What’s the phone number?”
“Four one oh, four seven three, seven two four nine.”
Lucky wrote the numbers down on a pad of motel stationary.
“Remember the offer we made earlier. It’s still good.”
He could still be free.
Lucky hung up and deciphered the numbers he’d written. The first three digits were an area code used throughout Maryland, the remaining were a numerical code indicating the town where Melissa and Jake were.
I-S-F-R-A-H-W
He reversed it. W-H-A-R-F-S-I . . .
Wharfside.
The phone call had dried Lucky’s tears, but that grief was still inside him, aching, as if his ribs were a cage a wild animal had thrown itself against.
There was no other way out, nothing Heather had been able to advise, although Lucky very much wanted to seek counsel with her again and wondered if there was a way that was possible. He doubted it.
