No Safe House

Seventy-three

Vince did it quickly.

Went back downstairs. Three people, three shots.

Made them count.

Did them all with the same gun that had been used to shoot Joseph in the garage.

No one left to talk now.

He went back up to the kitchen, looked for where Reggie and Wyatt kept their liquor, and stumbled upon a bottle of Royal Lochnagar scotch.

“That’ll do,” he said to himself.

He didn’t bother looking for a glass. He opened the bottle and drank straight from it.

There were things he could do, he thought, but none particularly appealed to him. That small matter of the missing money from the Cummings house didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

He could go after Bert. Track him down. Vince didn’t figure he’d be that hard to find, but really, did it matter?

And then there was Braithwaite, the goddamn dog walker. He’d given Bert and Gordie the slip, got Gordie killed. Vince figured Braithwaite was on the run now, too. He might be trickier to find. Vince didn’t know his habits, didn’t know who his friends were. But with enough effort, he believed he could hunt Braithwaite down.

But the hell with it. What was the point?

He’d rather drink this scotch.

Finally, there was the matter of Eldon. His body, still up there in his apartment. There was no one left to help Vince deal with that matter. If it was to get done, he’d have to do it himself.

Didn’t have the energy. He could feel the cancer eating away at him these last twenty-four hours.

Too bad about Eldon, and his boy.

“Damn,” Vince said under his breath.

He wondered whether he should do it right here. Put the gun in his mouth, pull the trigger, be done with it.

Jane was free. And she was well-fixed, too. He’d made it clear what he wanted her to do. Get rid of the drugs, guns, anything like that. Stuff that could be traced, identified. Dump it in the Housatonic. But keep the cash. Keep it all. Get yourself a safe-deposit box, in an actual bank.

Maybe take off for a while. Go to Europe. Take that asshole musician with you. Live it up. Have the life you deserve. Let this be my gift to you, my way of saying sorry for everything. For not being there for your mom when she needed me. And for all the other shit.

When the folks who’d left money with him learned what had happened — and they would, Vince was sure of that — and realized the only person who knew where their loot could be found was dead, what the hell could they do? Invade every house in Milford?

They’d have to write it off. That’s what they’d have to do.

He set the bottle down on the counter. He’d made a decision. He really didn’t want to do it here. He’d take Logan’s SUV, drive back down to his beach house, and do it there. Maybe take his shoes and socks off and walk a few feet out into the sound, feel the water lapping about his ankles.

Yeah, that’d be nice.

Vince had to go back downstairs to find the keys on Logan’s body. Coming back up was a struggle. It took everything he had.

He left the house with only one gun — the Glock Terry Archer had found in his attic — as he went back into the garage. He went over to the garage door button, pressed it to open.

The door slowly rose.

There was a car parked across the end of the driveway. A plain black Ford sedan. An unmarked police car, Vince figured.

And that woman standing in the middle of the drive, looking into the garage, was a cop, he bet.

A black woman, stocky, about five-three or so. She had a gun in her hand, too. Both her hands, actually. She had her arms straight out and that gun pointed straight at him.

“Police!” she said.

Vince just stood there. With the BMW out of the garage, she’d be able to see Joseph’s body on the floor behind him.

“Drop your weapon!” she shouted.

He glanced down at the end of his arm, saw the gun, but did not let go. He looked back up and said, “I think I know you.”

“Sir, put down your weapon.”

“I remember you asking questions years ago, back when I got shot. Wedmore, right?”

“Yes, sir, I am Detective Rona Wedmore, and I am telling you, drop your weapon.”

But Vince held on to it.

“There’s quite a mess in here,” he said. “This guy behind me, and three more in the basement. I did it. Plus a guy who worked for me. Eldon Koch. You’ll find him sooner or later. And his boy—”

“Drop it!”

Would have been nicer standing on the beach when it happened. But this would do just fine.

Vince raised the gun, fast. Pointed it right at her.

Didn’t even have his finger on the trigger.

Bam.