No Safe House

Sixty-four Terry

Vince said I’d lead the pack and he’d take up the rear. So I went down the stairs first, followed by Wyatt, then Reggie. Vince, hobbling some, came down last. He and I maintained a solid grip on our weapons.

Vince had taken Reggie’s car keys from her and had the presence of mind to ask Wyatt for his set, too, no doubt figuring that both of them would have keys to the BMW. He was right.

Vince tossed Wyatt’s keys into the shrubs under the front window and held on to Reggie’s. When we all came out of the house, he hit the remote to unlock the BMW. “Go on and get in,” he said to the couple. “We’ll be right along.”

Reggie got behind the wheel and Wyatt settled in behind her.

I said to Vince, “You think they’re telling the truth? That Jane’s still okay?”

Grim faced, he said, “Gotta hope.”

“You could have told me about the guns being hidden up there instead of money.”

“I knew you’d figure out what to do. If you’d known ahead of time, you’d have been too nervous.”

Like I wasn’t already?

“Vince,” I said, reaching out tentatively and resting my hand on his arm. He glanced at it and I took it away. “I wasn’t going to say this again, but damn it, you really could call the police now. You’ve got these two. You can hand them over.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.

“You have to,” Vince said, his voice sounding weak. “Because I can’t do it alone. If it’s just me, they’ll get the drop on me. I’m feeling like shit. Coming down the stairs there, things were spinning some.”

I locked up the house while he limped to the car and got in the back next to Wyatt. Following his lead, I kept the gun down and close to my thigh so as not to attract the attention of anyone passing by. As I was getting into the front passenger seat, Vince was handing Reggie her car keys.

Reggie took us north out of the neighborhood and got on 95 heading east, but very soon she took the Milford Parkway north to the Merritt, then went west. She got off at Main, went north, passing Sikorsky on the right, then hung a left on Warner Hill Road. We made a left onto Colbert, and soon she was rolling the BMW up the driveway of a nondescript white bungalow, tapping a button on a remote clipped to the visor. Ahead of us a garage door rolled up.

Nobody had said a word the entire trip.

“Take the keys,” Vince ordered me.

Reggie removed them and handed them over. I tucked them into the pocket of my pants as I got out of the car.

“Close the garage,” Vince said, and she hit the button to make the door rattle down behind us.

In the garage, there was another door that led into the house.

“This your house?” Vince asked.

Wyatt nodded. “We live here.”

I tried the door, but it was locked. “Which one is it?” I asked Reggie, holding her keys in front of her.

She pointed. “That one.”

I inserted it into the lock and turned. The door was unlocked, but before I could push it open, Vince said, “Wait.”

“There’s no one else here,” Wyatt said. “There’s no other car.”

“Go in first,” Vince told him, and Wyatt did as he was told. I went after him, then Reggie, and as always Vince was last.

We’d come into a laundry room off the kitchen. Just ahead of us, a set of stairs led down.

Vince shouted, “Jane!”

“She can’t talk,” Wyatt said.

His face went dark. “Where is she?”

Reggie said, “Downstairs.”

“Let’s go.”

We went, in our regular formation, to the basement. We were in a wood-paneled rec room with a Ping-Pong table, a couple of old couches, and a big-screen TV on the wall. There was also a long desk set up with three laptops on it, and stacks of what looked like tax forms. For their IRS tax refund scam, I guessed.

“In there,” Wyatt said, pointing to a door on the far side of the room. “It’s a bedroom.”

“I’ll watch them,” I offered, training my Glock on the two while Vince crossed the room.

He put his hand on the doorknob, held it there for a second, as if afraid to see what was on the other side. But then he gripped it and swung it wide.

We all looked.

At the empty chair, with lengths of rope scattered around it on the floor.