No Safe House

Seventy Terry

Trying to recall what happened over the next few minutes is, even now, not unlike trying to remember a dream. I try to see it clearly, but it’s like viewing an image through wax paper. Everything is slightly out of focus, softened, fogged. I can’t say I was clinically in a state of shock, but at the very least I was stunned. I could not believe what had just transpired.

I could not believe I’d killed a man.

It did not seem real.

Yet, at some intellectual level, I knew this was happening, that it was real. But I still felt disconnected from the events. I seemed able to listen and observe, but unable to act. I was paralyzed.

I remember Vince talking to me.

“You saved Jane’s life. That’s what you just did. You saved her. You did the right thing.”

“I have to call the police,” I whispered.

“No, you don’t have to do that. You know why? Because as far as they’re going to be concerned, you didn’t do that. You see who’s holding the gun now? That’s me. It’s going to be my fingerprints on this gun. Not yours.”

“My fault,” I said. “Didn’t tie him up good. The knife—”

“Don’t worry about any of that shit,” Vince said. He still had his hand on my shoulder. “You really are my number two. You came through.”

Someone else was touching me. Jane. She had a hand on my arm. “Yeah, Teach. He’d have killed me. He’d have done it.”

“So... it was justifiable,” I said. “So if I tell the police—”

“Thing is, pal,” Vince said, “we’re not quite done yet.”

He said to Jane, “The two of you go. Now.”

“No,” Jane said. “Come with us.”

“I don’t want you here,” he said. “I want you to get away as fast as you can. It’ll be okay. I’ll see you soon.”

Vince moved his hand from my shoulder to hers. They stood inches apart. Jane was crying.

“No, you won’t,” she said. “I can tell.”

“Don’t worry. And you’re going to be just fine. Do what I tell you.”

She fell against him and he wrapped his free arm around her. “I love you,” she said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Shh,” Vince said. “You get Terry out of here. Right away. There’s still the other car here. I can get the keys off Logan. I’ll be okay.”

I wanted to wake up. Please let me wake up.

“I think you better drive,” he told Jane. “Terry’s kind of out of it.”

“Why?” I asked Vince.

“Huh?”

“Why do you have to do it?”

He smiled sadly. “It has to end here. If I leave with you and Jane right now, it’s not over. It’s gonna spin out of control in a hundred directions.” He paused. “Trust me.”

Jane was tugging on my arm. “Come on. We have to go.”

I got into the Beemer on the passenger side.

Maybe, once I got home, I could still call the police. Confess my crime. They’d understand, wouldn’t they? That I had to do it? To save Jane’s life? But what would the cops think — what would a jury think — when they considered everything that had come before? Vince and I effectively kidnapping Wyatt and Reggie ourselves? Making them bring us back to this house? Tying them up?

That wouldn’t play well.

Jane got in the driver’s seat next to me, then looked at Vince. “Keys?”

Vince said, “Terry?”

I glanced over. “What?”

“The keys?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’ve got them. In your pocket,” he said.

I reached down into my pants pocket, found the set I had taken from Reggie when we’d arrived. Jane took them from me and started the car.

Vince extended a hand to a button mounted on the wall. “I’ve got the door,” he said.

He pressed the button and behind us the garage door noisily rose. Jane looked down between the seats, got the automatic shift into reverse, then twisted around so she could see out the back window to back the car out of the garage and down the driveway.

I kept eyes forward.

Vince watched us for five seconds, then hit the button to send the garage door back down. Just before it closed, I saw Vince go through the door that took him back into the house.