Envy the Night

29

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Past Madison and gaining on Stevens Point, maybe two hours away if he could keep this speed up. Grady was driving hard and staring at the clock, willing it to tick a little slower.

He wanted to call Frank, see if the kid had his phone on today, if he’d answer. There was news to share, damn it. Atkins hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d press charges over another phone call, though, and Grady had the sense that Frank was done talking to him anyhow. He had a plan of some sort, was putting something in motion.

If Duncan was good for the murder, as the fingerprint suggested, then this thing was shaping up exactly as Grady had feared: Devin Matteson was headed out to that lake to settle the score, and Frank Temple had placed himself in the way.

By the time he passed the first exit for Stevens Point he couldn’t wait for news anymore, grabbed the phone and called Atkins again.

“He’s still gone,” Atkins said, without bothering to exchange a greeting. “I’ve also tried to find the guy you mentioned, Ballard, but he’s MIA as well. Thing is, there’s a boat down here now.”

“Where?”

“At Temple’s cabin. There was a small boat the first time I came out, little aluminum thing, but now there’s a fancy bass boat on the beach. I called in to check the numbers, and it comes back to Ballard.”

“But they’re not inside.”

“No, they’re not inside,” Atkins snapped, his tone icy. “There was a truck here this morning, too, registered to that girl at the body shop, and now that’s gone and this damn boat is here and none of them are where I can find them. This is fantastic, Morgan. I’ve got a murder warrant ready to go, and these assholes know where the guy is, and now I can’t find them.”

“You got anybody else involved?”

“Couple of the locals are running around, trying to turn the girl up. Said she was just in at some nursing home visiting her father, so I guess she’s all right. But I’m the only one out here at the lake.”

“You probably ought to have some help.”

“I’ll get help when I find out where the son of a bitch is, Morgan. And I can’t do that until your buddy shows his face again.”

“Wait there,” Grady said. “If Ballard’s boat is there, they’ll probably be coming back to it.”

“I’m going to wait for maybe twenty minutes, and then I’m going back to check Ballard’s house. But I’ll give it another twenty.”

Devin Matteson made them all ride in the van, first instructing Nora to write a note that said, Out of gas, back soon, please don’t tow, for display in the windshield of her truck. She hadn’t thought much of it then, but after she was in the van and they were in motion, the note began to disturb her. It would keep anyone who found the truck from immediate concern and imply that Nora had been under her own power when she left the vehicle behind. Those were only temporary effects, of course, but the fact that Devin had considered them made something bitter bloom in her stomach. He was good at these things, kidnapping and murder, so good that the little moves like that note came to him effortlessly, it seemed. Came the way things did after a lot of practice.

AJ was driving and sat alone in the front, Nora in the middle row beside Devin Matteson, Frank all the way in back with the man called King. Devin and King and AJ were all wearing guns. AJ had two, actually; he’d paused long enough to take Frank’s gun out of the truck before they left. It lay on the floor in front of the passenger seat now. She could hear it slide around when they took sharp curves.

Devin Matteson’s true condition began to show itself during the van ride. He’d looked bad initially, unhealthy, but once they were in the van Nora saw that he’d held it together well for that first encounter. Now he seemed to struggle with every turn and bend, wincing at the motions, patting his chest lightly with his hand. By the time they’d gone five miles his face was bathed in sweat, his breathing audible across the van.

There was nothing between her and the end of this but twenty minutes in the van, another twenty in a boat. The fear should have been intense, cloaking her, forcing her into hysterical sobbing. That seemed right, at least. Instead, she was just sitting here, swaying gently with the van’s motion, listening to the rasping breaths of the man with the gun beside her, numb.

They were going to die. While she believed the story Devin had told, at least the portion about Vaughn, she couldn’t believe that meant any change in her fate. She’d seen these men face-to-face, watched them commit crimes. After all that, they weren’t going to simply head home after finding Vaughn, trusting that she and Frank would pretend none of this had happened.

So we’re going to die. She almost nodded as if confirming the silent, internal voice. It was true. If things went according to plan for these men, there would be more killing before the end of the day, and it wasn’t going to stop with Vaughn.

All this over a murder, she thought. No, wait, it wasn’t even a murder. He didn’t kill Devin, he just tried. And now how many others will die because of that? How many innocent people are going to atone for one man’s attempted killing?

The interior of the van darkened as they drove north, the sun pushed beneath ivory clouds that looked a good deal more ominous to the west. She watched the shadows play across the seats and tried to think of a way to stop this. The moves that came to mind were all in hindsight, though, things she could have done and had chosen not to do. Atkins of the FBI sat somewhere in Tomahawk, awaiting her call. If she’d called him instead of getting in the boat with Frank and Ezra . . .

Ezra. The thought of him was the closest thing to comfort she could come up with. He was capable, always in control, and, if what Frank had said about him was true, the sort of man who could deal with these bastards. The odds weren’t with Ezra, though. He was without warning, he was without preparation, he was without the support of favorable numbers. He was also all she had to hold her hope.

The van rumbled over a stretch of rough pavement, and she looked back out the window, saw with surprise that they were already on County Y, minutes from the cabin. It was all going to happen fast now, too fast. She sat up straighter, wanting to turn and look at Frank, but King’s hand came down immediately, pressed hard into her shoulder, brought her back into the seat.

The van came to a stop, and she looked up again and saw the lake through the windshield, the water darker and tossed by a gusting wind. For a moment the lake held her attention, but then she heard AJ swear softly, and when she leaned to the left for a clearer view she saw that there was a car parked beside Frank’s cabin. A white Buick sedan, nobody sitting inside.

“Whose car?” Devin said, leaning close to her, his face shiny with sweat.

Silence.

“Whose car?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Frank didn’t speak. Maybe he knew who it was. Someone he’d arranged to meet at the cabin before all of this had started.

That idea died an immediate death when Atkins, the FBI agent, walked around the corner of the cabin. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand, and when he saw the van he folded the papers and tucked them into his back pocket, cocking his head and studying the van and AJ behind the wheel.

“Who is that?” AJ said.

Nora didn’t answer, just stared at Atkins as if he were the ghost of a loved one, someone you’d known you’d never see again no matter how badly you hoped for it. At that moment, Atkins reached into his suit jacket. AJ tensed, but then Atkins’s hand was back out, with a badge in it. Nora’s muscles went soft, liquid. What was he doing? Don’t pull a badge, pull a gun.

“Handle it,” Devin said, and then he pressed the gun into Nora’s stomach as AJ opened the door.

“Not a sound,” Devin said. “King? Don’t let either of them make a sound.”

AJ stepped out into the wind, said, “Is there a problem, sir?” and then slammed the door.

“No,” Nora said softly. She couldn’t let this happen. Couldn’t let AJ talk his way out of this, send their best chance at rescue off in that Buick, oblivious. King’s hand descended onto her shoulder again, tightened into the nerves, held her against the seat.

AJ was walking toward Atkins with a leisurely stride, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other cupped to his ear as if struggling to hear over the sound of the wind. Atkins walked forward to meet him, still holding the badge in the air, waving with his free hand at Frank’s cabin.

“Oh, shit,” Frank said, and King’s hand left her shoulder and went to Frank’s throat as AJ closed the gap to a few feet and Nora finally realized what was about to happen, that AJ’s goal had never been to fool Atkins with talk. She screamed then, and Atkins jerked, looked toward the van and took a fumbling step backward and AJ’s hand came up out of his jacket and into the FBI agent’s stomach.

Atkins hunched, as if caught by an unexpected stomach cramp, and then AJ’s hand rose higher and Atkins rocked back onto his heels and kept going, landed on his back with the handle of the knife rising out of his sternum as if AJ had planted a flag there. It was the last thing Nora saw before King slammed his rough hand across her mouth and pulled her backward, dragging her head behind the seat, telling her to shut up or she’d die, too.

It was like that, with her back arched and her neck strained to its limits, staring into the backseat upside down, that her eyes finally found Frank’s. King’s gun was shoved against Frank’s head, but Frank seemed unaware of it. He’d turned his eyes away from the scene outside for only a moment, just long enough to meet hers, and what she saw there was nothing like what he had to be seeing in her own face, not fear or sorrow but the dark shadows of rage.