The road in was not paved, but two hard-packed stone tracks with a strip of grass growing between them. Granted, some of the places along this stretch of road were secluded, with lots of trees between home and road. The trees not only offered privacy, but acted as a sound barrier. The lane widened up ahead for a short stretch, enough space for two vehicles to pass, and Matt pulled over as far to the right as he could, then stuck an arm out the window and waved me ahead.
I drove the Explorer alongside his truck, pulled ahead, and stopped. Was I supposed to turn off the engine and get out, or was I about to get more directions? I glanced back and saw Matt was getting out of his vehicle.
It seemed a strange place to stop. We were still swallowed up by trees, and if there was a house nearby, I couldn’t see it.
I put the Explorer in park, undid my seat belt, and opened the door. As I was stepping out, Matt was approaching. He was holding his right arm tight to his side, and I couldn’t see his hand.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“We have to walk in from here,” he said, then pointed with his left hand over my shoulder. “The access is washed out just ahead. That’s another thing I got to get sorted out before I can rent this place out again. You do that kind of work, too, or know anybody who does?”
“No, and yes,” I said.
I turned to see where he was pointing. The road looked okay as far as I could see. He might have mentioned this when we first talked, that this was going to be a job site with access problems. I wasn’t going to be hauling my tools and supplies all the way from here to some house I couldn’t even see. I’d probably need to hire an extra guy just to lug everything around so I wasn’t dead-tired before I’d even started.
I swung around to express my concerns.
“I don’t think—”
That was all I managed to say before Matt whipped up this thing he had been hiding in his right hand. It looked kind of like a gun, but not like any gun I’d ever seen before. And before I could get a closer look he squeezed the trigger and a couple of wires shot out at me and suddenly the most excruciating pain I had ever felt in my entire life was surging through my body, and I hit the ground and I thought, Holy mother of God, I am fucked.
Forty
If it weren’t for traffic, and one red light after another, Tyler would have lost the black Volvo wagon.
But he was able to keep it in sight, pedaling his bicycle as hard as he could. His heart was thumping, and there was sweat forming on his brow that actually felt cool as the wind dried it off. Tyler could never remember riding his bike this quickly, or with such a sense of urgency. He had to talk to this woman.
He had to know what was going on.
About fifty yards ahead, the Volvo made a right turn. Tyler kept pedaling.
As his legs pumped, he thought about what he would say, how he would handle this. Don’t overthink it, he told himself. Just fucking ask her.
Are you Brie Mason?
That seemed simple enough. And if she said no, then the follow-up was pretty simple.
Then who the hell are you?
The Volvo, at another light, made a left turn. Tyler cut across the road, prompting a trucker to hit the horn with such a blast that Tyler thought he’d have a heart attack. He didn’t really know this part of Milford, although he saw some businesses he recognized. A Ford dealership, the Carvel ice-cream place his sister and Andrew took him to the first week he was here.
Then Tyler thought, what if she wasn’t heading home? What if she was heading for the turnpike? Maybe she didn’t live in Milford. She could live in West Haven or Orange or New Haven. Then why the fuck did she buy her groceries at Whistler? Didn’t you buy your provisions close to home? If she got on the turnpike, he’d never be able to catch her.
Then he had to get close enough to read her license plate. He hadn’t thought to look at it when he was running after her in the grocery store parking lot. And now that she was on city streets he couldn’t get close enough to see it clearly. If he could close the distance, at least read and memorize the plate, so what if she got on the turnpike? He could tell Jayne the plate number and let her take it from there.
Hang on.
Tyler thought he was about to catch a break. The Volvo’s turn signal came on. It was heading for a residential street — the sign said Rosemont — with a dead end sign posted at the corner. So there was no way out. The chase was over. A dead-end street was definitely not going to lead to the turnpike.
The black Volvo made the turn, clipped along down the street, and slowed as it neared the end. The blinker went on again and it turned into the driveway of a small one-story house, the very last one on the right side.
Tyler was only half a dozen houses away. He stopped pedaling and allowed himself to coast for a few seconds. He was going to need a moment to catch his breath before he could say a single word to this lady.
He wheeled into the driveway and hopped off the bike while it was still in motion. It skittered across the asphalt on its side and the forward momentum carried Tyler a few steps on his feet. He put out his hands to brace himself, and they slapped into the Volvo’s tailgate window at the moment the woman was getting out of the car.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my!” she said.
Now Tyler was bending over, hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath. The woman’s brief expression of panic turned to something closer to wonder when she realized who it was.
“Oh my!” she said again. “You’re from Whistler’s! Did I forget something?”
Tyler was still panting. He couldn’t get the words out.
“Did you really chase me all that way?” she asked, taking a step in his direction. She was smiling now, almost laughing. “Did I drop my wallet or something?”
Tyler, still winded, shook his head. “Not... wallet.”
“What, then?” She glanced over at his bicycle. “I hope you haven’t wrecked your bike.” She went over to it, grabbed it by the handlebars, and stood it up on its two wheels. “Looks okay.” She studied the underside of the bike, as though looking for something. “I guess bikes don’t have kickstands anymore.” So she gently set the bike back on the ground on its side.
She gave Tyler another smile and came around to the back of the car and swung open the tailgate. She scanned her groceries and said, “Everything seems to be here.”
Tyler said, finally, “Who are you?” And then thought, that was going to be his second question.
The woman froze for half a second, then slowly turned around. “Excuse me?”
“Are you her? Are you Brie? Are you Brie Mason?”
Forty-One
Andrew
During the time that I was on the ground and incapacitated from the Taser — and I didn’t have to be a weaponry expert to figure out that was what I’d been shot with — Matt rolled me onto my stomach, pulled my arms around behind me, and cinched a set of plastic handcuffs around my wrists.
The Taser shot had paralyzed me for several seconds, maybe as long as a minute, and while my mind was telling my body to fight him off, my limbs were not getting the message. While I lay there, wrists bound, Matt went back to his truck, opened the driver’s door, rummaged around for something, and quickly returned.
This time, in his right hand was a real gun, not a Taser. A Glock, it looked like, although guns were not my area of expertise. Whatever it was, it scared the shit out of me. In his other hand, a roll of duct tape.