He’d missed the first few seconds of the conversation. “Yeah,” I said. “She sounds okay, but she’s scared.”
“She says the house is being watched. That’ll be Ricky. What the hell does she want?”
“Me,” I said. “And the book. Ricky must think he killed Claire, or she’d be asking for her, too.”
“What book?”
I patted my chest to reassure myself that it was still in my jacket pocket. “A kind of diary Harry kept. It proves he’s been alive all these years.”
I started moving toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Augie asked.
“Going for Donna.”
“What’s the plan?” he asked as I kept walking.
“No idea, but hanging around here isn’t part of it.”
He followed me all the way to my car, grabbing my arm as I was opening the door of the Subaru.
“Hold on,” he said. “You think if you give her that book, that’s going to be the end of it? Think about what you know. What she knows you know. You think she’s just going to get in her car and drive off? You go off half-cocked, you’ll end up getting you and Donna both killed.”
I stopped.
“Tell me how to handle it.”
“First,” Augie said, “I’ll take care of Ricky.”
“How you going to do that?”
“I’ll figure that out,” he said. “Give me a five-minute head start to see where he is, get in position.”
“Five minutes,” I said.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
We decided we’d both drive to within a couple of blocks of my house, then I’d wait while Augie found a spot he could watch Ricky from. I’d give him five minutes to call me, then drive to my house.
When we were a quarter mile away, I pulled over. Augie rolled up alongside in his Suburban, held up all five fingers of one hand, then drove off.
I kept my eyes on the dashboard clock. Two minutes. Three minutes. It seemed more like three hours.
Hang in there, Donna.
I looked at the clock again. Four minutes.
I wasn’t waiting any longer. I put the transmission into drive.
My phone rang.
“I’m ready.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a house. Looking out the living room at Ricky in his pickup. He’s on the other side of the street from your place, two houses down.”
“How did you get in a—”
“I broke in. Go.”
I went.
A Ford Crown Vic was parked in front of our place. Just up the street, facing this way, Ricky’s black pickup. Through the tinted windows, I could just make out someone behind the wheel. I turned into the driveway, got out, noticed a hand pulling back the living room curtain an inch.
Should I knock? It was my own house, and Phyllis could obviously see me coming. So when I got to the door, I turned the knob and entered.
Phyllis was waiting for me, standing ten feet away from the door, weapon drawn, held in both hands to try and keep it steady. Her face looked drawn and haggard, and she seemed to have aged ten years since I’d last seen her. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, but it didn’t feel all that warm in here.
I glanced into the living room, saw Donna sitting on the couch, her mouth a jagged line across her face.
“Take out your gun,” Phyllis said.
I reached around for my Glock, removed it from my holster.
“Put it there, right there,” she said, pointing to the table in the front hall where we set our keys and dropped the mail. I did as she asked. “In there,” she said, pointing to the living room. I moved slowly.
“You okay?” I asked Donna. I thought it odd she didn’t stand up. She sat there, holding her right wrist with her left hand.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
“She hurt you?” I said, looking at her wrist.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Sit down,” Phyllis said.
I took a seat that allowed me to see Phyllis and Donna, and catch a glimpse of the street through the sheers.
“Smartest thing for you to do, Phyllis,” I said, “is walk out that door, hop in the truck with your son, and turn yourself in.”
“The book,” she said.
I reached, slowly, into my jacket and tossed it at Phyllis’ feet. She knelt and picked it up.
“It’s not very interesting reading,” I said as she stood, the gun still pointed at us.
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “I am. But I have to do what I have to do.”
“You think you’ve just about got the well capped now?” I asked. “What did Ricky tell you? That he got Dennis and Claire? That I’m the last one left who knows what happened? Now that you’ve got that piece of evidence in your hands, and you’ve taken care of Donna and me, you’ve got this under control?”
Her jaw trembled slightly. “Something like that.”
“Claire’s alive,” I told her. “Ricky didn’t hit her. And she’s home now, with her father. So now Sanders knows. And I’ve talked to Augie, and he knows. You’ll end up killing half of Griffon before you’re done, Phyllis.”
The color was draining from her face. “You’re lying.”
“No,” I said calmly. “I’m not.”
“We... we never wanted anyone to get hurt,” she said. “It was that boy’s fault. He had no business coming into our house.”
“Ricky killed Hanna Rodomski, didn’t he?” I asked. “When he found out the girls had tricked him.”
“She wouldn’t tell him where Claire went,” Phyllis said. “Sometimes he gets angry. But most of the time he’s a good boy. He’s a police officer. He does good things all the time.”
I wanted to know whether Ricky had told her about what had happened between him and our son, but I couldn’t bring that up, not now, with Donna present. What she was going through, at this moment, was traumatic enough without learning that everything we thought we knew about what had happened to Scott was wrong.
“I’m sure that’ll be taken into account,” I said. “Don’t make things worse by hurting anyone else. Everything has to end here. You and Ricky will have to answer for the things you’ve done, and it’s not going to be easy, but this can all come to an end quietly, or it can come to an end very badly.”
“You brought help, didn’t you?” Phyllis asked.
“I’m all alone,” I said.
“You’re lying!” she said, waving the gun. “Someone else is out there.”
I got half out of my chair, pulled back the sheer so we had an unobstructed view of the street. “You see anyone?”
Phyllis glanced out. “I don’t believe you.”
I sat back down, looked at Donna. Her face was rigid.
“Phyllis, give it up.”
“I could... we could take her with us,” she said, waving the gun at Donna. “Until we got somewhere safe.”
“Think it through, Phyllis. You have secret bank accounts somewhere? False identities in place? That doesn’t strike me as your kind of thing.”
I looked out the window again. Something had caught my eye. Something to do with Phyllis’ Crown Victoria.
“I’m somebody in this town,” Phyllis said. “I’m Phyllis Pearce. I know things about people.”
I looked back at her. “You think you know enough to get out from under this mess?”
This time, when I glanced out the window, I squinted. Something was dripping from below the trunk of the woman’s car, close to the bumper. Enough that a small puddle was forming at the back of the car.
I said to Phyllis, “Seems like a funny place for a car to be leaking oil.”
She said, “What?”
She moved closer to the window and glanced out. “Oh no,” she said quietly.
Phyllis was holding the gun, at that moment, down at her side, her back to both Donna and me. I was thinking: This is my chance. Jump her now.