The calendar was there. The block of knives was gone.
“Stop,” the man said, and Abby stopped and then the man walked out of the shadows and into the light and Abby saw him clearly.
He was a child, almost. Eighteen or nineteen, maybe twenty — but probably not. His boyish face was shaded by a black baseball cap with chrome-colored stitching that matched the cylinders on his black revolver, as if he’d coordinated the outfit. The gun was offset by that almost friendly face. He wore the sort of perpetual but false half smile of someone whose job required him to feign interest in the troubles of strangers, like a hotel concierge.
“Hello, Abby,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“You think I’m going to give my name in this situation? Come on. Be better than that.”
Abby looked at Hank. He seemed unharmed — no blood, no bruises — but absolutely terrified. He searched Abby’s eyes but didn’t speak and Abby saw something beyond fear in his face — apology.
“Put the bags on the counter,” the kid said.
Abby did.
“You have a weapon?” the kid asked.
“No.”
“You don’t mind if I verify that?”
“No.”
“Very gracious, thanks.” The kid pressed the muzzle of the revolver to Abby’s head as he patted her down with his free hand. He was wearing thin black gloves, and his touch made her skin crawl and her stomach knot, but she tried not to give him the satisfaction of a visible reaction. He took her phone and felt over her car keys but left them in her pocket.
The gun moved away from Abby’s skull and then the kid stepped back, looked down at her phone, and tapped the screen. The display filled with the image on the lock screen: Luke sitting on a rock overlooking the Pacific, a smile on his face, his tousled hair blown wild by the wind.
“He was handsome, wasn’t he?” the kid said, and then he tossed the phone onto the counter. “A shame what happened to him. I know the expression is ‘Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse,’ but he didn’t really earn that live-fast idea. I mean, at least James Dean was driving, right?”
Abby’s slap came without premeditation. She simply swung.
The kid sidestepped it with ease — damn, he was fast — and laughed.
“I seem to have touched a nerve,” he said. “Apologies.” He nodded at a chair that was pulled back from the table. “Take a seat.”
“What do you want?” Abby asked.
“More original material, for one. You’re asking such obvious questions: Who are you? What do you want? It gets tedious to be the guy with the gun. Redundant.”
The kid looked so unthreatening despite the gun that Abby found herself measuring the distance between them and wondering if she should attack. She just needed to sweep that gun hand away. As long as the bullet went wide when he pulled the trigger, Abby didn’t think it would be hard to take the gun from him. He was looking at her and seeing a small woman who couldn’t throw a punch. She’d blackened the eyes and bloodied the noses of a few guys who’d thought that same thing.
If he tries to tie you, then do it, she told herself. Punch, kick, bite — do anything and everything if he tries to tie you up. But not until then. As long as you can move, then just talk through whatever this is.
“I asked you to sit,” the kid said.
Abby sat. The battery lantern was on the table next to two tumbler glasses filled with whiskey, a bottle standing between them. Gentleman Jack.
She was now facing Hank, and her back was to the door. Hank’s jowly face was drained of color, and he was breathing in short, audible pants. His eyes flicked away from Abby’s, down and to the left, as if he were trying to see behind himself. Abby followed the look and saw that Hank’s portable generator was on the floor behind his chair.
What in the hell is that doing in here? It was a gasoline-fueled backup generator, capable of producing enough electricity to run the lights, TV, and a space heater or two for a few days. The rural road wasn’t a high priority for the Central Maine Power repair crews. Abby had never seen the generator inside the house, though.
Battery lantern on, generator inside? The power’s out, and the kid doesn’t know enough to leave the generator outdoors. But if he wants it, then he thinks we’re going to be here for a while. He’s not just going to take the phones and go. We’re waiting on someone else.
“Get comfortable,” the kid said, as if confirming Abby’s thoughts. “Let’s have a drink.”
Abby looked at the full whiskey glass, then back at Hank’s face, and shook her head. “What’s in it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” the kid said. “That’s a fine-quality whiskey. Not cool enough for the hipsters, you know, it’s not small-batch stuff, but it’s awfully smooth. And the name is nice. The name is... meaningful to me.”
He gave Abby a smile that looked positively warm and kind.
“Gentleman Jack,” he said, and his voice went a little wistful at the end, as if they were all sharing in this strange reverie. “And double-mellowed, it says. That’s a funny joke if you knew my family. But you don’t, unfortunately. Nevertheless, please have a drink, Abby.”
She shook her head again. The kid sighed and leveled the pistol so the muzzle was just inches away from Hank’s knee.
“We can drink,” the kid said, “or we can bleed.”
Abby took the glass. The kid nodded in approval and then spoke to Hank without turning to him. “You too, old-timer. We’re all celebrating.”
Hank took the glass. His hand was shaking, and some of the whiskey spilled over the top and dripped down the backs of his hairy fingers in golden beads. Abby saw for the first time that one of the cords binding him to the chair was actually an extension cord, and it had been cut and stripped so the bare wires glistened.
What in the hell had happened in here? What had Hank endured before making his call?
“Drink up,” the kid said, and both Abby and Hank took a swallow. The whiskey had a mellow burn, but nothing about it tasted unfamiliar or tainted. Abby drank a finger of whiskey and set the glass down. Hank got less of it in, his hand still shaking; some of the whiskey dribbled from the corner of his lip and down his chin.
“Good stuff, isn’t it?” the kid said. He was hardly more than a child. But Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been children too.
“Take the phones,” Abby said. “Take them and go. We don’t know what it’s about. We can’t begin to send anyone after you. We don’t know enough to do that.”
“Who else knows about the phones?”
“Nobody.”
“No? Then who bagged them? They were in a shoe box before.” He smiled at Abby’s reaction. “Don’t like that I know that, do you?”
She shrugged. “Don’t care. I bagged them. I labeled them too.”
“If I need an assistant, I’ll keep you in mind. Now, again, who else has seen them?”
Abby almost answered honestly. She was afraid, both for herself and for Hank, and she had no stake in whatever insanity was transpiring around that car wreck and the lies Carlos Ramirez had told before he was murdered. So tell the truth, her brain commanded. But instead she said, “Nobody else has seen them.”
“And how many people know you have them?”
“One. The guy I took them from.”
The kid studied her intently. “You understand how imperative it is for us to be honest with each other? How badly this night might go if you make one poor decision?”