He then searched Parker; his hand started slowly down her spine. Fury on her face, she elbowed his arm back.
Eyes on his partner, Suit said, “Let us just move along here.”
Tan Jacket gave a laugh. He took her phone and Hannah’s from Parker’s pockets. She muttered, “My daughter doesn’t have anything. Don’t touch her.”
Suit nodded.
Tan Jacket shrugged and tossed the two phones into the pit, along with another one, taken from his pocket — probably a burner they had no use for.
And a burner it turned out to be. Tan Jacket had brought with him from the woods — where Shaw could see the white Transit parked — a large red can of gas. He poured a good amount into the pit. With a lighter, he set fire to the contents. Shaw watched his father’s gift, the Colt, burn.
Suit stepped back, keeping the gun in Hannah’s direction. He said to his partner, “The camper.”
Jacket took back his own gun and walked to the Winnebago. He stepped inside.
Hannah was staring at Suit. While her mother was livid, the girl was not. Her face was a mask of calm.
She’d be thinking:
Never fight from emotion.
Shaw would have to watch her. Now was not the time for bold moves.
“Where’s my husband?” Parker asked angrily.
“On his way.”
She said bitterly, “He’s paying you. How much?”
“Just hush... Better for everybody.”
She continued, “He’s poor. Whatever he told you, he’s lying. I have money. I have a lot of money. I’ll pay you more.”
“That hush thing.”
“Mr. Shaw,” Hannah whispered.
He saw her eyes were swiveling slowly from him to Suit. The muzzle of the gun had drooped as he glanced toward the Winnebago.
The girl would be suggesting that they take him together.
Fifteen seconds, on his back.
Shaw shook his head firmly.
Her mother perhaps mistook her calm focused eyes for paralyzing trauma. She walked to Hannah, embraced her, glaring and defying Suit to stop her.
Tan Jacket emerged. He was carrying Shaw’s laptop and a handful of burner phones. These went into the pit, and black smoke, astringent, rose as the plastic burned.
“Now,” Suit said, “you all. Into the camper.”
Hannah shot a look toward Shaw once more. He said, “We’ll do what they say.”
Parker, her arm around Hannah’s shoulders, walked to the Winnebago and climbed inside. Shaw looked over the men closely, then he too walked up the stairs and pulled the door shut after him.
66
Moll announced, “I do not like the looks of that man. Worse than I thought.”
“Worse?”
“Dangerous is what I mean. I did not like his eyeballing us. That was not comforting.”
Desmond grunted. Moll guessed this meant he agreed. His flute tunes were more expressive than what came out of his mouth.
Moll was looking over the lake. “Wonder what they catch here.” Avid outdoorsman though he was, Moll didn’t fish. Hooking something was different from shooting it.
“Bass.”
“You know that from looking at the water?”
Desmond said, “No. But anybody asks what do you catch in this lake or that lake, just say ‘bass.’ Who’s to know different?” He’d replaced his gun and took out the flute. Blew a note, then another. Lowered it away from his mouth. “That girl. She was downright hostile. And she thinks more of herself than she is.”
Moll’s eyes went to the camper. He said slowly, “That alarm thing he rigged?” Nodding toward the Kia half hidden in the bushes. “If we’d rolled up the Transit, he would have got a half-dozen rounds off with that Dirty Harry gun of his. And he shoots tight groups, I do not doubt.”
Desmond nodded.
Moll continued, “He might be in there right now making a gun out of a pipe and shotgun shell hidden somewhere.”
“Don’t disagree. I’m not in this to get blasted like a wild boar.”
“Do you know what I am thinking?”
“Hm...?”
“Not to wait for Merritt. Is there any downside to not waiting?”
Desmond’s face suggested he was pondering.
Moll answered his own question. “Do not see much of one.”
“Granted that. And I am more than a little choked that this has turned into ten times what it was supposed to be. So?”
Moll looked to the fire pit.
His partner’s eyes grew rounder. Hungrier. “Hell, we’re going to burn everything up, let me have at her.”
“And get past Motorcycle Man? I’ll pay for your next two visits to the truck stop.”
Desmond said, “Three.”
Moll sighed. Were they really negotiating over this? “Okay.”
Desmond lugged the gas can to the Winnebago and poured the contents on the ground under the engine compartment. The two had burned vehicles before and learned that flames could not breach the tank, but would quickly melt fuel lines under the motor, and fuel would gush out, spurring the fire on. Even diesel would go if the temperature was high enough.
When he finished, he turned to Moll. “Might be more, you know, humane to shoot. We could leave the door open. Get ’em as they come out.”
Moll shook his head. “Motorcycle comes out, with a bow and arrow and pipe bomb. No, they stay nice and tight inside. You know how it goes, a place small as that? The fumes will knock them out before the fire gets them. Be like going to sleep.”
Desmond noted a gardening shed. He opened it up and extracted a flat-head shovel. He carried it to the Winnebago and wedged the tool between the ground and the door latch. He tested it; the door wouldn’t open.
Desmond collected a broom from the shed and lit the bristles from the dwindling fire-pit flames. He carefully touched the burning end to the fuel.
With a muted hush, a bed of blue and orange flame rolled under the camper.
Desmond danced back, and Moll smiled at the sight.
The men sat down on chairs on the porch — like they were buddies sipping whisky and telling tall tales after a day in the field taking their quota of bobwhites or pheasant. They watched the relentless progress of the flames, the torrent of black smoke.
A few minutes later the screams began.
Desmond looked at his partner with a raised eyebrow and muttered, “Fumes my ass.”
Moll stood still, listening to the cries. He looked at the cabin. “Probably some things in there we should take care of. Computers. More phones.”
“Probably.”
The men walked inside. Moll shut the door behind them. He wondered if that would mute the shrieks of agony.
It didn’t.
67
Colter Shaw said to Hannah Merritt, “You scream like a pro. You ever do any acting?”
The girl shrugged. “Like, not really. Middle school I was in Pippin.”
She seemed unfazed by what had just happened. Unlike her mother, who was stunned.
The three were lying on the ground fifty feet inside the thirty percent forest. They’d made their way here after Shaw had popped the escape hatch in the floor of the camper under the bed. He’d cut and installed it himself and had had the suspension of the Winnebago raised to allow for such an exit.
When the pair had finished dousing the ground under the camper with gasoline, he’d raised the hinged bed and pulled open the hatch. “We’ll wait for a few minutes. The more smoke the better. When you’re out, crawl to the left. Stay low. They’ll be expecting us to try to climb out a window. And I want somebody to scream.”
Which Hannah had, at an ear-piercing volume.
Parker tried too, but it came out a squawk. Shaw had actually smiled. Partly to calm them, partly because of the sound.