When She Was Bad

7

“Irene, I’m not taking you with me,” said Pender. The two were seated across from each other at the round maple-topped kitchen table, under the rose-pink glow of a stained-glass chandelier shaped like a tulip. “It’s much too dangerous.”

After her shower, Irene had changed into a pair of roomy black cargo pants with plenty of loops and snaps and pockets, a navy pullover, and a pair of black-on-black Chuck Taylor high-tops; her damp hair was wrapped in a high towel turban. “Wrong, wrong,” she said, making two check marks in the air; she had just finished her second cup of high octane dark roast. “One: you have to take me with you-otherwise I won’t tell you where they are, not that you could find it by yourself even if I did. And two: you’re exaggerating the threat level. Lyssy’s frightened and confused, but he’s not dangerous.”

“Oh really?” Pender’s big bald head, rosy in the glow of the chandelier, wagged stubbornly from side to side. “Try telling that to Mick MacAlister.”

“That was self-defense. If MacAlister hadn’t gone for his gun he’d still be alive-you told me that. But as far as shooting someone in cold blood? If Lyssy were capable of that, we’d both be…” Her voice trailed off as a new possibility occurred to her. “Oh, no! Please say it ain’t so, Pen.”

“Okay, I’m lost.” He spread his hands helplessly. “What am I supposed to say ain’t so?”

“That you were planning to just…gun him down. Sneak up on him and gun him down. That that’s why you don’t want me there this time around-you don’t want any witnesses.”

Pender had to force himself to keep his eyes trained on hers. “I’m not saying that’s not an option-I mean, if the opportunity presents itself. But if that looks to be the safest way to get Lily out of that cabin unharmed, your being there or not is not going to make a difference one way or the other.”

“But it will!” Irene exclaimed. “I can talk to them-they’ll listen to-” Then, with a sinking feeling: “Hold on, Pen-I never said anything about a cabin.”

“Not until now. But don’t feel bad-I was about seventy-five percent sure when you said I couldn’t find it on my own anyway. I’m thinking, that’s got to be out in the wilderness someplace-which would account for why they ransacked your kitchen. Then I remembered about…what did Lyman and Dotty call that place? El Guard-o, something like that?”

Irene’s fingernails dug painfully into her palms. Don’t be too hard on yourself, she thought-he’s a cop, this is his metier. “Please, Pen-I owe it to Lily to be there. If I’d fought for her a little harder in the first place, she wouldn’t be in the situation she’s in. I let that child down once-I won’t do it a second time.”

On the off chance she was bluffing, Pender countered with a bluff of his own. “You’re not leaving me much of a choice,” he said, slowly removing his cell phone from his pocket. “I have to call in the cops-they’ll be able to figure out where the cabin is.”

“No!” Irene raised her voice for the first time. “If you bring in the police, it’s going to be Bonnie and Clyde all over again.”

“We don’t know that.” Even more slowly, Pender’s sausage-thick fingers drew out the antenna. “There are plenty of nonlethal alternatives-tear gas, flash-bang grenades, Tasers, rubber rounds. Deadly force is always supposed to be a last resort in these situations.”

Irene sneaked a peek at Pender over the rim of her half-empty cup. Between the cold shower and the hot coffee, she was starting to feel more like herself again. And more critically, to think like herself again. “Okay, well, you’re the expert,” she said. “If you think calling the police is the best thing to do, who am I to question you?”

“All right, then.” He pretended to press the green Call button, then stared down at the phone in his palm, waiting for her to fold.

“That’s a nine followed by two ones,” Irene prompted.

“Ah, shit.” Pender jammed the antenna closed against his palm and dropped the phone back into his pocket. “Remind me never to play poker with you.”