by Sandra Brown
Honor, looking thoughtfully at the shuttered windows on the back of the house, said, “I was married to a police officer sworn to safeguarding people and property. Do you ever feel guilty about stealing cars or trespassing?”
“No.”
She turned her head and looked at him with a combination of dismay and disappointment.
Both of which vexed him. “If you’re nursing qualms about trespassing and stealing cars, you should have gone with your friend. But, for Eddie’s sake, you wanted to see this through. If you want to see it through and stay alive, you’d better start thinking mean.”
“Like you.”
“Me? No. Mean like the bad guys who transport young girls from city to city to be sex slaves to degenerates. That’s mean. And your darling Eddie might have been part of it.”
He opened the door to the pickup and got out. He didn’t look back to see if Honor would follow. He knew she would. That had been a cheap shot, but it was calculated to snap her out of her conscientious slump.
Besides, he’d had it up to here with Saint Eddie. And who knew? Maybe Eddie had specialized in trafficking girls.
The garage was about twenty yards from the house. Stairs attached to the exterior wall led to quarters above it, but Coburn was interested only in the car he’d seen inside the garage yesterday when he peered through a window in the door. There was an old-fashioned hasp and padlock securing it, but he used a crowbar from the toolbox in the pickup, and within seconds was raising the garage door.
The sedan was at least a decade old, but, despite a layer of dust, the body was in good shape, and none of the tires was flat. The keys were dangling from the ignition. He climbed in, pumped the gas pedal a couple of times, cranked the key, and held his breath. It took a couple of tries and some sweet talk, but it started. The gauge indicated more than half a tank of gas. He drove the car out of the narrow garage far enough to clear the door, then put it in park and got out.
He pulled down the garage door and fixed the broken padlock to make it appear, from a distance anyway, to still be intact. Then he looked at Honor, who was silently fuming, and hitched his chin toward the passenger-side door. “Get in.”
“Has he got an alarm system?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the code?”
“Yes.”
“Is the backyard fenced?”
“Yes.”
“Can we get in without being seen?”
“Possibly. At the back corner of the house, there’s an exterior door going into the garage. It has a keypad, but I know the code. There’s access to the kitchen through the garage.”
They’d already driven past Stan Gillette’s house twice, but Coburn wanted to be damn certain that he wasn’t walking into a carefully laid ambush. He had no choice except to take the risk. He had to get into that house.
Befitting Gillette’s character, his was the neatest house on the street. Basic Acadian in style, its white paint was so fresh it hurt the eyes. Nary a blade of grass defied the perfect edging along the curb and front walkway. Old Glory hung from one of four square columns on the front porch, which provided support for the overhang of the red tin roof. It was so perfect, it could have been ordered already assembled from a catalog.
Coburn drove past it and circled the block again.
“He’s not there,” Honor said, emphasizing it now, since she’d already told him that several times.
“How do you know for sure?”
“Because he doesn’t put his car in the garage except at night. If he were in the house, his car would be in the front driveway.”
“Maybe this is a special occasion.”
Two blocks away from Gillette’s street was a green belt with a small playground. Two cars were parked in the lot. One must’ve belonged to the young mother shooting video of her daughter who was hanging upside down from a bar on the jungle gym, the other to the teenage boy who was hitting tennis balls against a backboard.
No one gave them a look as Coburn pulled the car into the lot. As long as the rural family stayed away from home, he considered the sedan a relatively safe mode of transportation. No one would be looking for it. All the same, it was less conspicuous here than parked on a neighborhood street where it could arouse curiosity.
He looked across at Honor, who he could tell was still pissed at him for the crack he’d made about her late husband. “Ready?”
Her expression said no, but she nodded yes and got out of the car. “We’re in no particular hurry,” he said. “Just a couple out for a leisurely stroll. Okay? Wouldn’t hurt for you to smile.”
“This coming from the man who doesn’t own one.”
They fell into step and walked along the perimeter of the green, unnoticed by those on the playground. The mom was laughing and shouting directions to her daughter, who was still hanging upside down and making funny faces at the camera. The tennis player had iPod earphones in, so he was completely oblivious to his surroundings.
Nudging Honor along with him, Coburn skirted the green belt, then walked into a yard that backed up to it. Honor looked around nervously. “What if a homeowner comes out and asks what we’re doing?”
“Our dog ran off before we could get his leash on. Something like that. But no one will ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because if they see us, they will in all likelihood recognize us and immediately notify the police. I’m armed and dangerous, remember?”
“Okay, so what happens if we hear sirens coming this way?”
“I run like hell.”
“What do I do?”
“You collapse to the ground, and cry, and thank them for saving you from me.”
But the point was moot because no one accosted them, and they reached the back corner of Stan’s house without mishap. Honor raised the cover on the keypad and pecked in the code. Coburn waited to hear the metallic nick, then turned the knob and pushed open the door.
They slipped into the garage, and he pulled the door shut behind them. Daylight coming through three high windows enabled them to see their way to the kitchen door. Honor stepped inside and disarmed the alarm system. Its warning chirp fell silent.
But when she would have moved farther into the kitchen, he placed his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. He mistrusted the ease with which they’d breached the house. So he remained on the threshold, muscles tensed, ready to bolt.
Silences weren’t all the same. They had qualities that he’d been trained to distinguish. For sixty long seconds he listened, until, finally, he determined that the house was truly empty. Then he removed his hand from Honor’s shoulder. “I think we’re okay.”
Most operating rooms weren’t as sterile as Stan Gillette’s kitchen. Coburn figured the sterility was a reflection of the man himself. Cold, impersonal, unyielding, no areas that could become cluttered with emotional junk.
Which, he realized, was also an accurate description of himself.
Shoving that thought aside, he asked Honor where Eddie’s stuff was.
“All over the house, really. Where do you want to start?”
She led him into what had been Eddie’s bedroom when he was growing up. “It hasn’t changed much since the first time I came here. Eddie brought me to meet Stan. I was so nervous.”
Coburn didn’t give a shit, and his indifference must have been apparent because she ended the stroll down memory lane and stood in the center of the room, her hands awkwardly clasped in front of her.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s strange being in this house, in this room with…”
“Without Eddie?”
“I was going to say with you.”
Several responses sprang to mind, but all of them were either vulgar or otherwise inappropriate, and he didn’t have time to deal with the bickering that a lewd comment would inevitably spark. Keeping the comebacks to himself, he pointed her toward a bureau. “Empty the drawers. I’ll start on the closet.”
He gave i
t the same thorough treatment that he had the closets in Honor’s house. It seemed that Gillette hadn’t disposed of anything belonging to his son. Resisting the temptation to rush, Coburn tried not to overlook anything or to dismiss an item until he’d searched it.
Thinking that Eddie’s police uniforms would be a logical hiding place, Coburn examined each seam, lining, and pocket of every garment, looking for something sewn inside. He didn’t find anything except lint.
When an hour had passed and he had nothing to show for it, he began to feel the pressure of time. “Is Gillette usually away from the house during the day?” he asked Honor.
“He has his various activities, but I don’t keep close tabs on his schedule.”
“Do you think he’s out doing one of his various activities?”
“No. I think he’s out looking for Emily and me.”
“So do I.”
Another hour went by, increasing his frustration. He was on borrowed time and it was getting away from him. He glanced over at Honor to ask her another question about her father-in-law’s daily routine, but the question died before he asked it.
She was sitting on the double bed, going through a box of keepsakes, most of which were medals and ribbons Eddie had won for sporting contests throughout his schooling. She was crying silently.
“What’s the matter?”
Her head came up. Tears spilled from her eyes. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter? This is the matter, Coburn. This!” She dropped the medal that she’d been rubbing between her fingers and shoved the box away from her with such force that it slid off the edge of the bed and landed bottom side up on the floor. “I feel like a grave robber.”
What did she want him to say? I’m sorry, you’re right, let’s leave. Well, he wasn’t going to say that, was he? So he didn’t say anything. A moment passed while they just looked at one another.
Eventually she made a resigned sound and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Never mind. I don’t expect you to understand.”
She was right. He didn’t understand why this was so upsetting to her. Because he had robbed a grave once. After thoroughly searching for survivors in the decimated village, where even the pathetic livestock hadn’t been spared, he’d plunged down into a pit where body was heaped upon body.
He’d plowed through the rotting corpses of dead babies and naked old ladies, strong men and pregnant women, looking for clues as to which of the warring tribes was responsible for this particular massacre. He’d been under orders to find out. Not that the answer mattered all that much, because the guilty faction soon would be subjected to retaliation that was just as horrific.
He’d failed to gather any intel. All his search had produced was a canteen of water that miraculously had escaped the hail of bullets fired into the pit from automatic weapons. His own canteen had been running low, so he’d slid the strap of the canteen off the shoulder of a dead man, a boy really, no more than twelve or thirteen by the looks of him, and had slipped the strap onto his own shoulder as he climbed out of the mass grave.
That had been a lot worse than this. But Honor didn’t need to know about it.
“Where’s Stan’s room?”
Two hours later, Stan Gillette’s house was in a state similar to Honor’s when Coburn had finished with it. The yield was also the same. Nothing.
He’d thought perhaps Stan’s computer would contain incriminating information, but getting into it didn’t even require a password. Coburn had searched through his documents file and found little beyond letters to the editor, which Stan had composed either in support of or opposition to political editorials.
His emails were mostly exchanges with former Marines, relating to upcoming or past reunions. There was a progress report on one former comrade’s prostate cancer, the death notice of another.
Likewise the websites Gillette routinely visited were devoted to the Corps, veterans’ organizations, and world news, certainly nothing pornographic or relating to the trafficking of illegal substances.
The hoped-for treasure trove turned out to be a big fat bust.
Finally, the only place that hadn’t been searched was the garage. Coburn had never lived in a place with a garage, but he knew what they were supposed to look like, and this one was fairly typical, except for one major difference: its extraordinary organization.
In the extra bay, a spick-and-span bass fishing boat sat on its trailer. Hunting and fishing gear was so nicely arranged it looked like a store display. Along the back of a work table, carefully labeled paint cans had been perfectly lined up. Hand tools were neatly arrayed on a pegboard wall. A power lawnmower and edger, along with a red gas can, were sitting on a pallet of bricks.
“Shit,” Coburn said under his breath.
“What?”
“It would take days to go through all this.” He nodded toward the small loft that was mounted just under the ceiling in one corner. “What’s up there?”
“Mostly Eddie’s sporting gear.”
A ladder constructed of two-by-fours had been built into the wall. Coburn climbed it and stepped onto the loft. “Hand me a knife.” Honor got one from the work table and passed it up to him. He used it to slice through the packing tape on a large box. Inside, he found an archery target, baseball, basketball, soccer ball, and football.
“Watch out.”
One by one, he tossed them down. A bowling ball was in the bottom of the box. The finger holes were empty. Coburn opened a second box to find uniforms for each of the sports, a baseball glove, a football helmet, shoulder pads. He searched them all. Found nothing.
When he came down, Honor was holding the football, turning it over in her hands. She ran her finger along the leather lacing. Smiling, she said, “Eddie was quarterback of the high school team. His senior year, they went to district. That’s when we started dating. That season. He was too small to play college ball, but he still loved the game and would go out and throw passes whenever he could get somebody to catch them.”
Coburn held out his hand. Honor gave him the football. He plunged the blade of the knife into it.
She cried out and reflexively reached out to take the football back, but he worked the knife to increase the size of the hole, then shook it so that anything inside it would fall out. Nothing did. He tossed the deflated ball onto the work table.
When he came back around, she slapped him. Hard.
“You’re a horrible person,” she said. “The coldest, most heartless, cruelest creature I can imagine.” She stopped on a sob. “I hate you. I really do.”
At that moment, he pretty much hated himself. He was angry and didn’t know why. He was acting like a complete jerk and didn’t know why. He didn’t understand his compulsion to want to hurt and rile her, but he seemed incapable of stopping himself.
He took a step toward her and made it intentionally intimidating. “You don’t like me?”
“I despise you.”
“You do?”
“Yes!”
“Is that why you sucked my tongue down your throat last night?”
She seethed for a count of five, then spun away from him, but before she’d taken a single step he reached out and brought her back around. “That’s what you’re really pissed about, isn’t it? Because we kissed.” Lowering his face closer to hers, he whispered, “And you liked it.”
“I hated it.”
He didn’t believe that. He didn’t want to believe it. But he forced himself to appear indifferent to whether she had liked it or not. He released her arm and stepped away from her. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Humans are animals, and animals mate. They also sneeze and cough and fart. And that’s about as much as that kiss meant. So relax. You didn’t cheat on your dead husband.”
She hiccupped a sound of affront, but before she could articulate a response, he took out his cell phone and turned it on. By now Hamilton would know about this morning’s close call on the shrimp boat. Coburn wanted to know what the fallout of that had been.
He placed the call. Hamilton answered immediately. “Coburn?”
“Good guess.”
“You pulled a fast one this morning.”
“By the skin of my teeth.”
“Which was enough. Where are you?”
“Try again.”
“I’ve set it up with Tom VanAllen for you and Mrs. Gillette to come in. He’s as solid as Gibraltar. It’ll be safe. I give you my word.”
Coburn held Honor’s stare. His cheek still stung where she’d slapped him, where hours ago her daughter had left the wet imprint of a goodbye kiss. He wasn’t used to dealing with people who wore their emotions on their sleeves, and these Gillette women had made it an art. No wonder he was cranky.
“Coburn?” Hamilton said, repeating his name for the third time.
“I’ll call you back,” he said, and clicked off the phone.
Chapter 32
He lied to you.”
Tom VanAllen made a motion with his shoulder that could have been either a shrug of indifference or of concession. “Not outrightly.”
“He deliberately misled you,” Janice said. “What would you call it?”
He would call it lying. But he didn’t want to use that term with Janice to describe how Hamilton had manipulated him. Essentially, he was defending Hamilton’s manipulation, and he hated himself for it. But to admit how gullible he’d been would make him look even more ridiculous to his wife.
He’d come home to help her with Lanny, who’d kept them up most of the night moaning. It was a distress signal they knew well. Those pitiable sounds were his only means of communicating that something was wrong. Sore throat? Earache? Muscle cramp? Headache? He wasn’t running a fever. They checked him daily for bedsores. Because they didn’t know why he was suffering, they couldn’t do anything to relieve it, and, as parents, that was torture.
Maybe he’d only been afraid, and their presence at his bedside had comforted him, because eventually he’d fallen asleep. But it had been a rough night. That, coupled with Tom’s professional crisis, was making both of them feel particularly whipped today.
