“Yes.”
“Then let’s try that question again. You seem to struggle with even basic addition. I didn’t realize your academic record was as poor as your driving record.” Whatever he saw in Abby’s face then made him smile. “Yes, I’ve acquainted myself with your history. Mr. Bauer here has been helpful in that regard.”
Abby looked at Hank, who gazed back with apology, his face sickly white.
“One more time,” the kid said. “How many people know you have them?”
Again, Abby thought about telling the truth. Again, she decided against it. “Well, it would be two people, I guess,” she said. She nodded at Hank. “He makes two.”
“Will two become four if you think on it a little longer?”
“No. That’s all.”
“You sound convincing. And yet my friend Hank here said you took them to Boston. Which means you’re lying to me now.”
Hank’s exhale whistled between his teeth. “I didn’t say—”
The kid moved the gun to Hank’s temple without turning his head or body, the gun landing on its target point with the accuracy and fluid speed that came only with practice or natural talent. Or — far worse for Abby — both.
“Hank?” the kid said. “I’ve still got the floor.”
Hank was quiet. Abby tried to remember what exactly they’d said in the phone conversation they’d had when she was on the train. Did she tell him that Shannon Beckley had seen the phones? Did she say that she’d called Meredith? For that matter, had she called Meredith? No, Hank had called him. Right? Why couldn’t she remember something so simple? She was having more trouble thinking than she should have. Her mind felt foggy and slow.
She looked at the whiskey bottle. The kid followed her eyes.
“Let’s finish those drinks, shall we?” he said.
“No,” Abby said.
The kid lowered the muzzle of the revolver so it nestled in Hank’s eye socket.
“All right,” Hank said, and he reached for the glass. His one visible eye was wide and white with panic. “Come on, Abs,” he said. “Please. Just do as he says.”
“Those are the words of a man who wants to see the morning,” the kid said, and he smiled as Hank gulped the whiskey, sloshing more of it down his chin. “But this can’t be a one-man party. Abby? It will be that glass or this gun. You pick.”
Abby took the glass and drank more of the whiskey. It put a high and tight feeling in the back of her skull. It would not have been an unpleasant sensation in other circumstances. But now it was terrifying.
It’s going to slow you down. Even if he didn’t put anything else in it, the booze alone will slow you down if you don’t do something in a hurry.
There was something else in it, though. She could feel that already. This was the steroid-injected version of the fear that haunted any woman who was handed a drink made by a stranger — the taste was just right, nothing there to warn you of what was on the way, of oncoming blackness and horrors that you might not remember even if you lived to see morning.
“Nothing like a little whiskey on a cool dark night,” the kid said. “Tell you what, though. Let’s do something about that chill in the air.”
Still keeping the gun in his right hand, he reached into his back pocket with his left and pulled out a length of coiled parachute cord. The same kind that bound Hank to his chair. Abby tensed, but the kid just smiled and tossed the cord onto the counter.
“We won’t need that, right? You’re not running?”
“No.”
“Good. It’s getting cold in here. I’m going to run the space heater if you don’t mind.” He walked behind Hank, knelt by the generator, and flicked the battery on. Red lights glowed. He switched the revolver from his right hand to his left and jerked the starter cord. The motor growled but choked out. The cord demanded more of his attention than he wanted to give, and when his eyes darted away, Abby slipped her right hand into the pocket of her fleece and closed it around the key fob to the Chrysler. Its surface was smooth, but she was familiar with the four buttons on its face and knew which one operated the remote start. All she had to do was press it twice. The car was parked facing the house, and it would throw its lights toward the door, but, more important, the engine would turn over. She thought that would make the kid look in that direction. It would probably be a very fast look, but it would happen.
That would likely be the last chance Abby would have to move.
The generator caught on the second pull and clattered to life, belching out a cloud of exhaust. The kid plugged in a space heater, and the ceramic coils inside glowed red.
“Damn power outages,” he said. “They’re a bitch out here in the woods.”
He straightened, reached in his back pocket, withdrew a plastic mask, and pulled it over his face. It looked like the masks the fire crews wore at the speedway when they knew the fumes and smoke might threaten their lungs.
Abby understood things then. The kid intended to get plenty of booze in their bloodstream and let exhaust fumes fill the room; when it was over, he’d untie them. They’d look like a couple of clueless dead drunks.
“It’s not worth this,” Abby said. “Whatever you think we understand... we don’t.”
“I agree,” the kid said, voice muffled by the mask. “Want to stop me? Tell me the truth about who has seen those phones.”
Abby said, “This was why he didn’t roll the van.”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t wrong. Ramirez was attempting to hit them the whole time.”
“Remarkable detective work,” the kid said. “Keep this one around, Hank. She’s brilliant. She walks into your house, sees you tied up by a man with a gun, and suddenly realizes that there’s trouble afoot.”
He took a step closer to Abby and lowered himself so he was eye level with her. “Tell me who knows about the phones.”
“I already did.”
The kid shrugged and adjusted the generator’s choke until the engine was fighting between firing and flooding. The exhaust smoked blue in the white light of the lantern.
Her thumb tightened on the key fob, but she didn’t press it yet. If the kid intended to use the gun, he wouldn’t have gone through the effort of hauling the generator in here. The carbon monoxide from the generator wouldn’t knock them out for a while yet, even in a small space. Abby had time. Not much; it was going to be an awfully small window of opportunity and she’d have to move awfully fast, but she still had time.
“This is a stupid idea,” she said. “It won’t fool anyone. You want police to believe we just got drunk and passed out with the generator running? You’ll get caught. You’ll go to jail.”
The mask muffled his laugh. “You’d be surprised how many friends I’ve got around jails,” he said. “Some in cells, some in uniforms.”
Who the hell is this kid? “They’ll be able to tell that Hank had been tied up,” Abby said. “It’ll be obvious.” Her words came slowly and thickly, but the kid seemed to give them careful consideration. Then he spoke in a gentle voice, as if breaking news that it pained him to share.
“I don’t think you two are important enough to warrant intense scrutiny from a medical examiner.” He lifted his free hand, palm out, to make it clear that he’d meant no offense. “Now, I might be wrong. But... two hill-jack insurance investigators sitting in a shitty cabin, power out, heater cooking, and their blood full of alcohol? No, I don’t think it’s going to get the level of forensic study that you’re hoping for.”
“There’s a generator plug on the back deck,” Abby said. “Hank installed it. Nobody will believe we sat here with it inside.”
The mask nodded up and down. The voice from behind it said: “Your critique is duly noted.”