Jocelyn glanced down at Trent. His breathing was shallow, his eyes at half-mast. She used one hand to slap his cheek lightly. “Trent,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. She nodded her head toward Pantalone. “Stay with me,” she said again. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
He said nothing but nodded. Again, his eyes fought to stay open.
Pantalone let the call go to voicemail, but it rang again only seconds later. “Norm again.” He silenced the ring.
“Davey,” Jocelyn said. “The police are outside. They got your number from your boss. Whoever is calling is the police negotiator. They’re calling to talk to you. You need to answer.”
She was only speculating, of course. She knew that Trent hadn’t alerted any of his colleagues about the Pantalone situation. But she imagined that between Pantalone shooting Trent and almost shooting his coworker, the police had been called.
“No,” he said, shaking his head vehemently.
“If you don’t answer, they’re going to come in, and believe me, they’ll be coming in hard.”
“I’m not talking to them. They’ll just try to trick me.”
“Davey, this isn’t about tricking anyone. You shot a cop—he’s going to die if we don’t get him help. You can make this situation better for yourself if you let us go right now so my friend can go to the hospital.”
He ignored her and walked over to the window. He looked down at the street. “Oh shit,” he said.
She felt a measure of relief—they were out there. She pressed harder on Trent’s wound and prayed this wouldn’t take long. She was freezing, covered in Trent’s blood, and even though she was outwardly calm, she was terrified. The chirp of another cell phone sounded from Trent’s coat pocket. Pantalone strode over and pointed the gun at Trent’s chest. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s his phone,” Jocelyn said. “They’ll call me next.”
“Give it to me,” Pantalone demanded.
She fished inside Trent’s pocket until her hand closed around it. She held it out to Pantalone. He stared at the blood smeared across the cover, his upper lip curling in disgust. “Throw it over there,” he said, pointing to the corner of the room where the sawhorses and other tools lay scattered about. Jocelyn leaned across Trent’s body and slid the phone along the wood floor and into the corner of the room.
“Yours too,” he said just as her cell phone began to vibrate. She had set it to vibrate before they went to interview Pantalone. Pulling it from her back pocket, she looked at the screen. Kevin was calling. Thinking of Knox, she pressed answer and slid her phone over to where Trent’s phone lay. Trent’s phone rang several more times before stopping.
Pantalone’s pacing began again in earnest. Droplets of sweat fell from his face, making tiny wet circles on the floor. He took his hoodie off and tossed it onto the floor.
“You don’t like the sight of blood,” Jocelyn said.
“I can handle it.”
“Was it hard when you shot Sydney? Seeing the blood?”
He went to the window again. Jocelyn hoped he would stay there long enough for a sniper to take him out, but then she remembered that the damn houses were so much taller than the surrounding houses. It would be hard for a sniper to find a good position.
Pantalone shrugged. “I don’t know, not really. I never killed anyone before. It was . . . easier than I thought. Except she was late. She didn’t come at six-thirty like Francine said she would. I almost left, but I knew if I didn’t do it . . .” he trailed off.
“She would make you pay.”
He turned back to look at her. “Yeah. Everything had to be done just the way she wanted.”
“Is that why you covered Sydney’s head? Did Francine tell you to do that?”
He moved away from the window, leaning his back against the wall beside it. “She wanted me to rape her and put her pants over her head. She wanted . . . wanted to embarrass Sydney.”
He pressed down on his hat again. His other hand tapped the barrel of his gun against his outer thigh. “But I wasn’t into that,” he said. “I’m not like that. I don’t rape girls.”
Such a gentleman. It was just like a criminal. Murder was okay, but he turned his nose up to rape. “Where did you get the gun—the one you shot Sydney with?”
“It was my grandfather’s. It was some old-ass revolver. When he died, my mom took it. Then she died . . .”
The more talking he did, the less he pointed his gun at her head. Jocelyn forged ahead, thinking of Knox, wishing he was still alive so she could finally deliver the answers that had eluded him for so long. “What did you do with it?” she asked. “Is that it?”
He glanced down at the gun in his hand and laughed. “This? Nah. Got this from some kid in the Northeast. I threw my grandfather’s gun in the Schuylkill. Francine said if they ever found it, they’d know right away who killed Sydney. So I went right down to the riverbank, walked up Kelly Drive a ways, and tossed it in.”
“But you kept the jewelry.”
He shook his head and took a sideways glance out the window. Beneath Jocelyn’s hands, Trent shivered. “No, not me,” Pantalone said. “Francine kept it. She wanted it, she said. Whatever Sydney had on her, she said. So I took it back to her. Then there was nothing to tie me to it. Nothing but her.”
“She held that over you.” Jocelyn put a palm to Trent’s cheek. His skin was cool and clammy.
“She tried. At first I didn’t mind. I thought I . . . I thought I loved her. She was the first girl, I mean the first woman I ever fucked.” He looked at his feet and scratched at his beard. “She was wild, man. Kinky as fuck. You know, when you’re seventeen, a stiff breeze will get your cock up. Just thinking about what she let me do to her got me rock hard. Then I went away for the vandalism and shit. That was fucked up. When I got out, for a long time, I still wanted to be with her. She kept me around like, what’s that called when someone won’t shit or get off the pot?”
“She strung you along?”
He poked an index finger in the air. “Yeah! That’s it. She was just stringing me along. She wasn’t going to leave her husband. After that Asian girl died, the way Francine just wanted to be around him even though he cheated, I realized she was never going to just be with me.”
“She was using you.”
A look of pain crossed his face. “Yeah. You know, at first I wanted to do whatever she wanted. I didn’t care what it was. I wanted her to love me back. She got me, you know? All that shit with my mom—the drugs and the men—Francine wasn’t disgusted by it at all. She liked me anyway. She really got me. She tried to help. She did help. I wanted to do the same for her, but she took shit too far.
“The longer I stayed away from her, the clearer my head got, you know? I felt like maybe she wasn’t the greatest thing ever. The next time I saw her, she just seemed old and kind of, I don’t know, pathetic. All she cared about was hurting people. I mean it was fun at first, but you know, it was like all the time with her. She never shut up about it—complaining about everyone and saying what she wanted to do to them. I don’t know. I just got tired of it. I had this job, finally had some money in my pocket, my own place. I didn’t want to do her dirty work anymore. For once, I just wanted her to go away.”
“But she didn’t want to go away.”
He laughed. “I was so dumb, you know? I never knew all I had to do to get her was push her away. As soon as I tried to get rid of her, she was all over me again. But by that time, she just gave me the creeps, especially after that shit with the bees. I saw her after that girl died. She looked so happy. Like for-real happy. Like she would get after . . .” his cheeks flamed red. He looked away from her.