“No, I know Ben Williams. Or at least I used to. And he would never be capable of anything so horrible. This person you’ve become, though, Rick is it?” She laughed, but it was a sad sound. Deflated. “I don’t know him at all.”
There was a long silence as I tried to think of something—anything—to say that would matter. Before I could, Robert’s phone rang. “It’s Jimmy,” he said.
“What are you going to tell him?” I asked.
“The truth.” Before I could protest, he answered and almost immediately started laying it all out. Bad guys. Hitmen. Denise’s ex who’s involved in it all and claims the police can’t be trusted. It was the short version, but he omitted nothing.
“Well?” I asked, after he’d hung up.
“He’ll buy us as much time as he can, but that won’t be much. There are two dead bodies and a hit and run where I sleep every night, plus they found the two officers stationed outside. Harrison and Colesar. Good guys, known them for seven years. Each shot once in the head. Their car was stashed in a small patch of woods just outside the neighborhood.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I told him it has to do with the case I’m working for the FBI, but eventually we’ll all need to go in and make a statement,” he replied, ignoring my worthless apology. “The longer we don’t, the more questions it will raise.”
“We need a place to regroup,” I said. “Somewhere out of sight and low-key.”
Denise thought for a moment and then said, “I still have a key to my Aunt Irene’s house.”
To be technical, Aunt Irene was Denise’s great-aunt. Though only ten years separated them, she was her mother’s aunt, and the two had been like sisters growing up until Denise’s mom moved to New Jersey when she was twenty-two. Irene stayed behind in Ohio, but they kept in touch. The old-school way, too. Hand-written letters, Christmas cards printed on actual paper. They kept it up until Irene died almost two years ago.
“I thought your cousin Emily would have sold that place by now,” I said. It never dawned on me that I shouldn’t know anything about Irene’s passing or her daughter taking ownership of her quaint, single-family home in the backwoods of Ohio. Information I would know only if I still followed Denise closely on social media, or at least closer than an estranged ex-husband probably should. If she caught my slip up, though, she never let on.
“She tried,” Denise said, offering no further explanation. No doubt location had a lot to do with it. I’d only ever been there once, early in our relationship, when Denise’s mother had invited me along on the annual visit. I was still accumulating brownie points with my in-laws, so I said yes to the eight-hour drive.
There was one road leading to a cluster of three or four houses at the top of a large, forested hill masquerading as a mountain. Bad weather of any kind, including a steady drizzle, made that road treacherous even for alert, experienced drivers. Cell service was spotty at best and Wi-Fi was nonexistent. I was sure technological advances had improved things over the years, but I doubted if it was by much. If indeed the place remained vacant it could be ideal. What clinched it was when Robert said, “Who’s Aunt Irene again?”
If he couldn’t remember who she was, then that meant he hadn’t told anybody at work about the tiny little shack in eastern Ohio. Which meant that anybody close to him who happened to be on Trish’s payroll—if anyone like that existed—wouldn’t know about it, either. Eventually, The Persian—because it would definitely be The Persian—would discover the place in Denise’s old social media archives, even after I had her delete them on the way there. But it would take her a few days. Enough time for us to figure out our next move.
I hoped.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I need to call Jeff,” Robert said, “let him know what’s going on. Maybe he can help.” We were on the PA Turnpike, about four hours from the Ohio border.
“Who’s Jeff?”
“FBI section chief I was working with.”
“Do you trust him?” In the dim blue glow of the dashboard lights, he nodded as he dialed.
“Jeff,” he said after a moment, “This is Rob. Sorry to bother you so—”
As whoever was on the other end of the line spoke, his posture behind the wheel went from casual to on full alert.
“Who is this?” he said. “Where’s Jeff?”
“Robert?” Denise asked, concerned.
The phone still pressed to his ear, he smacked the steering wheel, hard enough to rattle it. Then he did it again. Then a third time. I was amazed he didn’t break anything in the steering column.
“Robert!” Denise shouted his name this time. In the second row, both kids sat straight and on edge as their soon-to-be-stepfather managed to get himself under control and pull the car onto the shoulder of the road. Without a word, he got out, came around to the passenger side, opened the back door and handed me the phone in between Maggie’s seat and my own.
“She wants to talk to you,” he said.
She.
I took the phone. Maggie slid over so Robert could release the catch that allowed the seat to tilt up so I could get out. “Hello, Trish,” I said before she could speak.
“Hello, Rick,” Trish replied. “You’ve made quite a mess of things.”
“Just Ghost’s head,” I said, stepping out of the car. Robert shut the door behind me and Denise got out to stand with him. “Joey’s too, but his was pretty much a clusterfuck even before you got to him.”
“As long as we’re talking about heads, don’t forget your friend, Ian. I believe they’re still picking up pieces of his from that dirty parking lot.”
“He wasn’t my friend.”
“No, you don’t have any friends, do you, Rick? People are just a commodity to you. A means to an end.”
That’s right. Because the minute you allow yourself to get close to someone, share a beer, talk sports, let them show you how to defend yourself in a fight, and shoot a gun without looking like you don’t even know which way to point it, they go and betray you for a big payday and their blood winds up splattered all over the coat of the guy who’s fucking your wife.
“What are you doing answering this phone, Trish? Where’s the man who it belongs to? Did you buy him or kill him?”
“Well, we tried to do the former, but that didn’t work, so we settled on the latter.” I turned to Robert, who was hanging on every word I said and straining to hear Trish’s. The rest of the car was equally rapt.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, keeping my voice low and taking a few steps away from the Chevy. “What’s so special about Robert Baglioni?”
“You mean he hasn’t told you?” Trish asked, amused. “Well that doesn’t seem very considerate. After all the trouble you’ve gone through trying to protect him, futile though it may be. You’d think the least he could do was tell you what all the fuss was about.”
