I’ve got you, he thought. I’ve got you now.
Sure, he’d lied to the lieutenant. He’d need to get around that. Need to explain why he had worked alone, why he’d kept everything to himself. It wouldn’t make him friends. But then, who gave a damn? Results spoke for themselves. Hell, once the papers started treating him as a hero, there wouldn’t be much the department could do but follow suit.
He could see himself sitting on the porch of that cabin west of Minocqua, a cup of coffee in one hand, a dog beside him, Marie humming as she made breakfast. And all he had to do to get there was bring in a drug dealer from the Shooting Star, four hundred grand in stolen cash, and two civilians dumb enough to try to keep it.
It was almost too easy.
ANNA WATCHED TOM close the phone and set it on the lip of the window. He faced away from her, staring out at the city night. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he reached up to cover her fingers with his own.
“What did he say?”
“He wants his money. He says that if we give it to him, he’ll leave us alone.”
“He’ll kill us anyway.”
“Once he has the money, there’s not much reason to.”
“Yeah, but…” She paused, searching for words to capture the feeling she’d had as Jack fled their kitchen. The squirming certainty that he had planned to shoot them, maybe even wanted to. “I think this is personal for him. Like it would be revenge or something. Maybe revenge on Will.” A thought struck her. “You know what else? He’s probably expecting the whole thing. All the money.”
“Shit. He talked about four hundred grand, before you came in.” He rubbed at his forehead. “This is fucked.”
She looked over at the gym bag, the sides sagging from the weight. She had an urge to upend it over the bed, let the money rain out. Stack and stacks of bundled bills. “Zucchini.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Remember that? When a party got boring, or one of us was trapped in conversation, we’d say ‘zucchini,’ figure out a way to work it in, and the other would know to rescue them. To find a way to get them out of there.” She smiled at the memory. “You were always good at that.”
He looked at his glass, at his taped hand. “I think we’re a little past zucchini.”
There was something in his voice so close to defeat that it broke her heart. “We’re smart people,” she said. “We can figure this out.”
“You think?” He said it like he was trying for a joke, but it didn’t play funny.
She started pacing. Short, tight little laps, the edge of the bed to the door, pivot, back again. “Okay. So what are our options? We can meet Jack tomorrow and give him the money, hope that he’s okay with it being short.”
“And that he’s telling the truth about not killing us.”
“Right. If he doesn’t kill us, we’re clear. We don’t have to deal with cops and lawyers and all of that. And we’re out of debt.”
“Not my big concern right now.”
“It’s not greed, baby. I’m not picturing a mink coat. I just want-”
“I know,” he said, sounding tired. “I know.”
“We could go to the cops.” She stopped, cocked her head. “What if we went to them right now? They could stake out the mall and arrest him there.”
Tom shook his head. “We don’t know for sure he’ll be there personally. He’s not alone. Someone sent him a text warning him you were coming into the apartment. Besides, even if he is there, he could probably spot cops.”
“So what? Even if they don’t catch him, if he sees the cops, he’ll know that we don’t have the money anymore.”
“Yeah. Except that he just told me that if we give it to the police, he’ll kill us.”
She blew a breath, closed her eyes. Paced some more.
After a long moment, Tom said, “Still, I suppose that’s the right thing to do. Go to the police, tell them everything. Stop pretending to be criminals, and just take our medicine.”
The way he said it, it sounded like it was a matter of dinging someone’s car in a parking lot. But it couldn’t be that simple, could it? “The right thing to do is the one that leaves us safe.”
“The cops would protect us.”
“What if they don’t catch Jack? What if he lays low for a year or two? Not like we’ll be in Witness Protection.”
He moved to the chair and sat, his legs crossed at the knee. “We’re screwed if we go to the cops, and screwed if we don’t. So what if we blow out of here? Go to Detroit, like you said?”
“What about the house? Your job?”
“I’ll find a new one. We can sell long-distance. We could rent instead of buy, use fake names-”
“How do we get a fake ID? How do we get jobs or open a bank account without a social security number? I don’t know how to do those things. Plus” – she shrugged – “this is our home. Sara lives here. Our friends.”
He sighed. Nodded.
“There has to be a way,” she said. “This is our life. This can’t be the way it goes. It’s not right.”
“Not right?” He snorted. “Let’s agree on one thing, okay? Let’s stop playing the fucking victims. We took the money. That changed everything.”
“Still. There has to be a way.”
“I don’t see it,” he said. “And even if we get through this, we’re not in the clear. We still have to deal with-” He went ramrod, eyes widening.
“What?” She looked at him, then over her shoulder, just to make sure someone hadn’t come in. “What is it?”
Tom stared straight ahead for a long moment, eyes squinting the way they did when he was working something out. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, brooding.
He said, “I’ve got an idea.”
16
WHAT CAME FIRST WAS EXHILARATION, a rush of energy. Like solving a brainteaser, that moment when something clicks, and you realize that the way two brothers could be identical and yet not be twins was if they were triplets. A new way of looking at a familiar problem.
He tested it, probed with his mind, thinking What if this and What about that. It seemed solid. Not bulletproof, but solid. Certainly a safer plan than anything they had on the table already.
Anna said, “What is it? Tell me.”
He did. Speaking the words made it more real, not entirely a comfortable feeling. He watched Anna, saw her eyes narrow, the tiny crow’s-feet appearing. When he was done, she said, “I think that would work.”
“I don’t know. Like Jack said, this isn’t our world. Maybe we should just go to the police.” Tom closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. The darkness felt safe, like huddling under blankets on a snowy night. He made himself open his eyes. “Thing is, if we do this. I mean… What are we if we do this?”
“Alive.” Anna spoke quietly. “Free.” She cocked her head. “Rich.”
“Oh, forget the money.”
“Really, Tom? Forget the money?” An edge sliced her former softness to ribbons. “You don’t care if we have to declare bankruptcy? Lose our house? If we can’t have a child, a family? Have to hire a lawyer, go to court, see our pictures in the paper? If we have to spend the next ten years digging ourselves out? I’m getting a little tired of you making it sound like this was my idea. We decided together. Nobody talked you into it.” She shook her head, blew a breath. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t take it either. I hate this situation. I’d give up the money in a second to get our old life back. But that is not an option. It’s just not. So either we can be strong and come through this to a better place, or we can panic and lose everything.”