He took a breath, opened the door, and leaned his head out. Seeing no one, he stepped outside with Wheeler’s body, utterly exposed, expecting to be seen by someone at any moment. But what choice did he have? He carried the corpse down the stairs, groaning under its weight and silently agreeing with Cobb that a first-floor room would have made this far easier. He stumbled once, and Wheeler’s head hit the railing with a dull clang. Jason winced and kept going.
Somewhere across Danvers, sirens sounded.
He hurried over to his car, cursing the fact that the lighting in the parking lot was quite good. He hoped like hell he was right and no one was watching as he opened the trunk with the remote. As carefully as he could, he lowered Wheeler inside, then shut the lid as quietly as possible.
The sirens sounded closer.
He raced back up to his room. Inside, he moved quickly to Ben, knelt in front of his chair, tore tape from his wrists and ankles, and did the fireman’s carry again. He pulled the door shut behind him and tramped down the stairs on legs that were turning to lead, holding on to Ben with one hand and relying on the strength of the handrail with the other. He yanked open the back door of his Camry and wrestled Ben’s unconscious body across the back seat.
The sirens were definitely closer, mere blocks away now. No time to retrieve his laptop or other things from the room. He cursed as he started the car, then pulled out of the lot, forcing himself to drive calmly and just below the speed limit. Two blocks later he passed a police car heading in the direction of the motel.
He was in the clear for the moment, but Cobb was right: Eventually, he was going to have some explaining to do.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
As he drove, Jason kept one eye out for police cars and the other eye on the speedometer, trying very hard to maintain a speed three miles per hour below the limit. It would be extraordinarily bad to be pulled over right now. The unconscious man sprawled across the back seat would be difficult to explain. The dead one in the trunk would be even harder. And the small bag in the trunk, next to the dead body—the bag of things he’d found in his apartment that Cobb had planted there, things that had belonged to Crackerjack’s victims and that surely had their DNA on them—would be downright impossible. He took out his phone and dialed Sophie’s number, praying she hadn’t decided to turn it off for the night. She answered on the second ring.
“Jason?”
“Did you tell your mother where you are?”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
He should have led with something less alarming, but it was too late now.
“Sophie, did you tell your mother that you’re staying with Geri? It’s important.”
“What happened, Jason?”
“Did you tell her?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.”
“So she has no idea? There’s no way she could know?”
“No. We’ve spoken once a day, chatted for a bit. I’ve only let her say quick good nights to Max, claiming that he’s been tired after long, full days.”
He blew out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. She and Max were safe for now. Cobb couldn’t possibly figure out where they were.
“Is Mom okay?” she asked. “Is she in danger?”
“No. I just thought maybe . . . no, she’s not. She’s fine. I promise.”
After a long moment, she said, “So tell me what’s going on then.”
“I can’t. Not right now.” His mind flashed to the dead contract killer in his trunk. “I have something I have to take care of right away.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“You’ll call me immediately after you take care of whatever you have to take care of.”
He sighed. “Okay. I gotta go.”
He hung up after nearly saying I love you by accident, then wished he’d said it anyway. What the hell?
It took a moment to get his bearings. At first, he’d simply wanted to get as far from the Sleep Easy Motel as possible. Eventually, though, he had to decide what to do with Wheeler’s body. He thought about the nearby towns he had known so well growing up—Swampscott, where he was born, and Danvers, Beverly, Salem, Lynn—and realized he had to think about them differently now, see them with fresh eyes. In high school, his concerns had been where to go to hang out with friends or make out with girls. As he grew older, he thought about things like where to buy a new augur belt for a snow blower and which playgrounds would be fun for Max. Now he was forced to think about the best place to dispose of a corpse.
The town dump in Salem? Wasn’t there one in Marblehead, too? How about one of the dumpsters behind the Stop & Shop?
The thing was, he had no idea where security cameras would be. This was the kind of thing most people looking to dispose of bodies probably considered ahead of time.
Eventually, it occurred to him what to do. And Cobb was right; he’d done him a favor breaking Wheeler’s neck rather than slicing his throat and letting him bleed all over Jason’s motel room.
Twenty-six minutes later, just before midnight, Jason was cruising down Ronald Wheeler’s street in Lowell. Traffic had been nonexistent, given the lateness of the hour, and there were very few lights on in the houses on the street. Not a living soul in sight.
Jason backed into Wheeler’s driveway, then stepped out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him. If Wheeler’s body hadn’t been nearly naked, he would have checked it for house keys. But unless the man carried them in a highly unusual place, Jason would have to find another way into the house. He hurried to the front porch and conducted a quick and ultimately fruitless search for a hidden key. He sighed and trotted quickly around to the back of the house, stepping through calf-high grass and over a rusted shovel. On a windowsill at the back of the house he saw the flowerpot in which he was supposed to leave $8,000 after Wheeler had killed Cobb.
At the back door, he tried the knob and found it locked. He picked up a rock and was about to break a window in the door as quietly as he could when he paused, stepped over to the flowerpot, and looked inside. And saw a key. Inside the house, he wiped the key vigorously with his shirt to obscure fingerprints before leaving it on a kitchen counter, then went back and did the same with the doorknob.
He hurried through the dark house and, at the front door, grasped the knob through his shirt and opened the door. He was starting to think he should have worn gloves. At the car outside, he popped the trunk and looked down at the body inside . . . and his legs almost gave out on him. This man was dead because of him. He had also certainly shed untold pieces of trace evidence and samples of his DNA inside the trunk. God help them both.
Without a lot of leverage, this part was going to be difficult. He bent over and worked his hands beneath the body and was concentrating so hard on his labor that he didn’t hear movement behind him.
“What are you doing?”
He nearly cried out as he spun around to find Ben watching him with confusion in his sleepy eyes.
“Jason?”
“Ben,” Jason began in a whisper, “I can explain . . . I think. Just not right now.”
“What?”
“Keep your voice down. Please. I’ll explain it all, but right now I really have to hurry.”
Ben blinked groggily, looked down at the body in the trunk, then back up at Jason. He suddenly looked wide awake.
“Seriously, Ben, you should probably just get back in the car and wait for me.”
Ben looked into the trunk again. “That’s not Ian Cobb.”
“No, it’s not.”
Ben looked at the dead man a moment longer. “You’re going to be a while if I don’t help you.” He took hold of Wheeler’s feet. “But I’ll definitely need some answers once we get the hell out of here.”
Jason nodded gratefully as he slid his hands under the dead man’s shoulders. He whispered, “One, two, t
hree,” and together they lifted the body out of the trunk and shuffled up the short walkway, up three stairs to the porch, and into the house. Jason used his foot to nudge the door closed.
“I’m a lawyer,” Ben said, sounding almost surprised, as if he’d just remembered. “If we get caught, I’ll be disbarred. Two hundred thousand dollars in tuition down the toilet. Years of my life wasted.”
“I’d worry more about the years of your life you’ll waste in prison. Try not to touch anything.”
“I already figured out that much. Who are we carrying?”
“Can I just tell you later?”
“Okay. What do we do with him?”
“I’m not sure. He’s got a broken neck.”
“Did you—? You know what? Just tell me later.”
They stood in the foyer, looking around the dark house.
“The stairs,” Jason said, nodding toward a flight of steps leading up to the second floor. “We’ll position him at the bottom of the stairs, with his feet higher than his head.”
“Like he fell and broke his neck.”
“Exactly.”
“Think it will fool people?”
“I’m hoping. He’s not the kind of guy whose death is going to make many folks lose much sleep, especially the police.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a hit man.”
“You know what? Don’t bother telling me anything else. I don’t want to know. Let’s just hope you’re right and no one looks too hard at this.”
They dragged the body to the stairs and positioned it as realistically as possible.
“Looks terrific,” Ben said. “Hey, I could sure use a beer. How about you? Ready to go?”
Jason followed Ben across the foyer. At the door, he resisted the urge to take a last look at the man who would still be alive if Jason had never knocked on his door.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Ian Cobb stood in the dark living room of Sophie Swike’s house, staring down at the older woman who had fallen asleep on the sofa with the television on. What was her name? Janet? No, Janice. He’d never been tempted to hurt a woman, but he’d really disliked this one when he met her. Still, it would be an unnecessary complication, one he should avoid if possible.
He and the woman were alone in the house, which was disappointing. He’d found empty beds in the two rooms down the hall, as well as the ones upstairs.
He realized he still had his lock picks in his hand, so he slipped them into their little leather case, then slid the case into his back pocket. He almost hadn’t gotten the chance to use them. After he’d picked the deadbolt on the back door a little while ago, he was about to let himself in when he’d glanced into the dark kitchen and saw, on a nearby wall, a home-security panel that hadn’t been there the first time he’d broken into this house. He cursed silently before noticing the green light on the panel, indicating that the system wasn’t armed.
He eased himself into the armchair by the fireplace and watched the sleeping woman. He really didn’t want to wake her and force her to divulge the whereabouts of her daughter and grandson. He honestly didn’t like the idea of hurting a woman if he could avoid it, even this one, and he wasn’t necessarily ready to deal with the complications that would arise from the torture and eventual death of Jason’s mother-in-law.
How had he gotten here? What the hell had he done? Everything had been sailing along smoothly. He and Wallace had a good thing going . . . until they grabbed the wrong guy—a guy who looked so damn much like Johnny, and whose life had too many commonalities with Cobb’s own to be ignored. A guy his inner voice told him was special. A guy with an Inside Dark of his own. If only Cobb could have ignored those whispers in his brain. If only he could have killed Jason and forgotten all about him. Everything would be as it had been. And Cobb wouldn’t be in this damn situation.
He knew that Jason had to die. Still, it wouldn’t be easy for Cobb to watch that happen. He remembered seeing Johnny’s dead body after the accident. It had been cleaned and scrubbed but the damage done in the crash was horrendously evident. He couldn’t stand seeing his brother that way, pale and dead and broken. Why the hell had he refused to keep doing what Johnny needed him to do to feel better? When Johnny drove himself into that concrete bridge, it might as well have been Cobb behind the wheel. He’d killed his younger brother. And now, he knew, he had no choice but to kill Jason.
With a last glance at the sleeping woman, Cobb stood and walked quietly into the kitchen, where he remembered from his last visit having seen a cordless phone on an answering machine base. He lifted the receiver, studied it for a moment, then pressed the “Menu” button and navigated to the call log. There were only six outgoing calls over the last few days, and all were to the same number with a 781 area code. In fact, almost every call as far back as Cobb looked was to that number. It told him two things: first, it was almost certainly Sophie’s cell number, and second, that Janice needed to get a life. There were a few calls to other local numbers, but they were from the previous week, before Sophie had whisked Max away to wherever she had taken him. Cobb then navigated to the incoming call log and saw a surprising number of calls from a multitude of area codes from around the country. Most had lasted only a few seconds, just long enough to leave a voice mail. Media calls, Cobb realized. Two numbers jumped out at him, though: Sophie’s cell and a number with an 802 area code, which Cobb happened to know was the only one used in Vermont. There were two calls over the last couple of days from that second number, both coming in close to 8:00 p.m., and both lasting for several minutes—long enough for Janice to chat with her daughter a little before saying good night to her grandson.
Sophie should have stuck to her cell phone, Cobb thought with a satisfied smile, because if the 802 number was listed, it shouldn’t be difficult to find an address to go along with it. On his smartphone, he called up a reverse white-pages website and entered the number. And there it was. An address in Woodstock, Vermont, for a Geraldine Hurd. Cobb opened Facebook on his phone, searched for a Geraldine Hurd in Vermont, and found a “Geri Hurd” in Woodstock. Fortunately, Geri didn’t keep her friends private, and it took him only a moment to find Sophie Swike’s name among them.
Cobb had no doubt he’d find Jason Swike’s family in Woodstock, Vermont. He wasn’t looking forward to killing a woman and a child, but he’d do whatever it took to make Jason come to him. And besides, it wasn’t like he had a hard and fast rule against it. It was more of a guideline, really.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
On the drive back to Danvers, Jason explained everything to Ben, who needed a few minutes of silence to process the fact that he had been stunned into unconsciousness and held captive by a serial killer. The silence ended when he said, “So I’m clear on this, you just walked out and left me there?”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Lucky for you. What the hell am I wearing?” he asked, looking down at Wheeler’s coveralls.
“Those belonged to . . . the guy we just left.”
“How did I—”
“Cobb put you in them.”
After a brief pause, Ben said, “Where are my clothes? That charcoal pinstripe suit was—ah, forget it.” A moment later, he said, “Listen, I know I just helped you cover up a murder, but are you sure it isn’t time to call the police?”
“Don’t you think I’d call them if I could, Ben? If I thought it would do any good? You think I like wondering when Cobb will kill again, knowing that if he does it will be on my head? You think I wouldn’t risk going to jail if it were only me I had to worry about? But it’s not. Sophie and Max would be in danger.”
He took a long breath. Ben waited him out.
“Besides, I’d probably be exposing my family for nothing. Why would the cops believe me? Detective Briggs is already convinced that I belong behind bars for something. And all the evidence points to me, not Cobb.” Ben said nothing. “And I know what you must be thinking. I’m choosing my family over
strangers. And you’re right. I am.”
Neither man spoke for a few seconds. “Okay,” Ben finally said, “so that’s a no on calling the police. Got it.”
“So now I—”
The ding of his cell phone interrupted him. He pulled the phone from his pocket and saw that another text had arrived from Wheeler’s phone even though Wheeler was lying dead at the bottom of his stairs at home. It was obviously from Cobb.
Then a thought struck Jason like a hammer blow. Cobb had sent multiple texts from Wheeler’s phone, which meant that Jason’s number was the last one contacted by it. Sure, Cobb had the phone with him, but if the cops looked into phone records, they’d certainly wonder why someone like Wheeler had texted Jason Swike close to the time he died.
Damn it. He had to hope that the cops truly weren’t interested in delving too deeply into the death of acquitted killer-for-hire Ronald Wheeler. But the phone was yet another bit of leverage Cobb had over Jason.
And he now saw that more than merely a text had just arrived. A video accompanied the brief message, which read, The whole video is too long to send but you should get the drift from these few seconds.
Jason glanced back at the road to make sure he wasn’t about to run off the highway, then started the video. It was less than half a minute long. At first, a tree filled the screen. Then the camera moved past the tree and slowly zoomed in on something not far away. Jason recognized the motel parking lot. On his little screen, Jason carried a mostly naked body down the stairs of a motel, then deposited it in the trunk of his car.
He realized that when Cobb had left the motel earlier, he must have parked around the corner and walked back to the parking lot through the trees.
From the passenger seat, Ben was leaning over and looking at the screen.
“Damn.”
The phone rang in Jason’s hand. He didn’t need to look at the display to know who was calling.
“What?”
“I’m glad you got away before the cops arrived,” Cobb said.
The Inside Dark Page 24
