"The punch was to get your attention," Faye said. She felt perfectly cold and steady inside.
"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'll kill you. Do you believe that?"
Abby stared at her. It was hard to process anything. The woman slapped her hard across the face with her left hand.
"Do you believe that?" the woman said.
Abby nodded.
"Okay. We're going to go to your bedroom, and you're going to lie on the bed facedown. You got that? You so much as clear your throat, and I'll fill your head full of bullets."
"What are you going to do?" Abby said. Her voice sounded thin to her and puny.
"Anything I have to," the woman said.
"You do what you're told, you'll get out of this alive. You don't, and you won't."
"Why?" Abby said.
"Why are you doing this?"
The woman smiled without any hint of laughter.
"Love," she said.
"Love?"
The woman jerked her head toward the front stairs.
"Your bedroom up there?"
"Yes."
"Then move," the woman said.
As they went up the stairs, Abby could hear a dog bark somewhere and then someone whistling for it and then quiet. The quiet was oppressive. The house was thunderously empty except for her and this violent woman. They reached her bedroom.
"Lie on the bed," the woman said.
Abby did as she was told. The woman took a pair of handcuffs from her purse, and holding the gun in her right hand, she snapped one cuff on Abby's left wrist and the other to the headboard of the bed. Then she stepped back and put the gun in her purse and looked around the room. There was a phone on the bedside table.
The woman unplugged it and put it in the hall. She looked out the window at Abby's backyard. The next house was fifty feet away. The window was closed. The woman lowered the window shade.
"Nobody can hear you," she said to Abby.
"What are you going to do to?"
"You'll be all right," the woman said.
"It'll only be a while."
Then she shut the door and went downstairs, leaving Abby alone in the darkened bedroom.
FIFTY-ONE.
Molly came into Jesse's office with two cups of coffee and a brown paper bag. She put a cup of coffee on his desk, took a raspberry turnover from the bag, handed it to him, and sat down opposite the desk.
"You busy," Molly said.
"Well, I was thinking of taking a ride "to Charlestown again, see if I can find Harry Smith, aka James Macklin."
"The guy's a phony?"
"And a bad one."
"You going alone?"
"I thought I might bring a Boston detective with me."
"There's more going on here than I know about, isn't there?"
"Suit will fill you in. You make the turnover?"
"The Paradise Bake Shop helped me," Molly said.
"I got time to eat it," Jesse said.
Molly smiled.
"Figured you might like something soothing... or you can talk if you want," she said.
Jesse took the turnover out and had a bite. He chewed it while he pried the lid off the coffee cup.
"Don't need to talk," he said.
"Fine with me," Molly said.
"Got a call from Citadel Security.
They said the Stiles Island Patrol hadn't called in for a couple hours now. Asked us to check."
"Send somebody out?" Jesse said.
"Pat Sears and Billy Pope," Molly said.
"Good. There another turnover?"
Molly fumbled in the bag and took out a second turnover and handed it to him.
"Jenn didn't help things," Molly said.
"No."
"Kay Hopkins has a lot of say in this town," Molly said.
"You'll have to take her seriously, Jesse."
"I do what I can do, Molly."
"I know, but Jenn assaulting her..."
"Jenn does what she can do."
"That's a funny situation," Molly said.
"If you'll excuse my saying so. You're divorced, but you're not really separated."
"Yes, it's odd," Jesse said.
"Would you marry her again?" Molly said.
"Tell me if I'm out of line."
"You're okay," Jesse said.
"Yeah, I'd marry her again if I knew it would be monogamous."
"How could you know?"
"If she promised, I'd believe her."
Molly made a face.
"Your marriage monogamous?" Jesse said.
"Be no marriage if it weren't," Molly said.
"How do you know?"
"Because I'd leave in a heartbeat."
"No, I mean, how do you know your husband isn't cheating on you?"
"He wouldn't."
Jesse nodded. Molly frowned at him. Then she smiled.
"You trust her?" Molly said.
"I trust her not to lie to me again."
"She lied to you before."
"Yes."
"So how can you know now that she wouldn't do it again?"
"Same way you do," Jesse said.
"But you have a history..."
"And when I was living that history, I knew I couldn't trust her.
Now I know I can."
"And the other women? Abby? Marcy Campbell?"
"I'm a single guy," Jesse said.
"I like women. I like sex with women."
"But you love Jenn."
"Yes."
"For me the two things sort of merge," Molly said.
"Love and sex?"
"Yes."
"You must be female," Jesse said.
"Irish Catholic female," Molly said.
"The ultimate."
They were quiet for a moment.
"All of this is none of my business, is it?"
"No, it's not," Jesse said.
"But it's nice to talk about it with someone who has no stake in the outcome."
"Well, I love you too, Jesse."
"Yeah, but not that way."
"No, I love my husband that way."
"Damn," Jesse said. And they both laughed.
FIFTY-TWO.
As soon as JD cut the ropes, Marcy peeled off the duct tape that covered her mouth, picked up her purse without a word, and went into the small lavatory. She locked the door and used the lav, washed her hands and began to examine her face in the mirror. The tape had taken all her makeup and most of her lipstick with it. There was a big red mark across the lower part of her face where it had been. Marcy washed her face in the basin, and dried her face carefully.
She didn't have enough makeup in her purse to repair the damage.
All she could do was put on fresh lipstick and comb her hair. Then she stood silently with her forehead pressed against the mirror and her eyes closed. She felt safe in here, though she knew she wasn't. But she simply couldn't stay in here, cowering until what ever happened happened. She was better off than she had been. At least she wasn't tied up anymore. Harry and the Indian had told this man not to hurt her, and he seemed to do what they told him. If she had just given into impulse this morning and not come to work... that was pointless. What was going to happen was what mattered. She took in a deep breath and let it out and looked at herself in the mirror.
Okay, Marce, here you go. She opened the lavatory door and walked out into the office. JD was staring out the office window at the guard shack and the bridge. He glanced over his shoulder at her.
"Feeling better?" he said.
"Yes." Her voice was hoarse.
JD turned back toward the window.
"You need to stay in here and be quiet," he said.
"I got to concentrate. You give me a problem, and I'll kill you."
"Harry and the other man said I was not to be harmed."
"I know what they said. They meant if you were good. You give any of us trouble, and any of us will kill you. You understand?"
"Yes."
> "You can't get off the island, and you can't make a phone call, so sit down and relax and don't bother me."
"I won't bother you," Marcy said.
JD turned back to the window. Marcy glanced around the office. She didn't want to sit on the couch where she had lain so long tied up. She went and sat behind the desk. It was, after all, her desk.
If he wanted to sit there, he could tell her. JD continued to stare out the window. His back looked stiff. He was nervous. The office was very still. She tried to breathe softly, looking at JD. He was a small man, and he had about him a kind of skinny softness. It wasn't fair.
She was a big woman and strong. She worked out every day at her health club. Yet this puny soft man was stronger than she was and could force her to do what he wanted. Of course, he had a gun. But even if he didn't, he could overpower her. It didn't seem right. But that's how it was. Clearly, God wasn't a woman.
"Can you tell me what's going on?" Marcy said.
JD shook his head.
"Well, what are you doing? Why are you all here?"
"Shhh!" JD said.
She felt a surge of anger. He was so dismissive. He didn't even turn his head. All women felt that anger if they let themselves.
Though most women didn't find themselves, literally at least, in this kind of situation.
"For God's sake, you could at least look at me," Marcy said.
JD turned slowly.
"You shut the fuck up, lady, or I'm going to come up alongside of your fucking head."
She felt the thrill of fear run through her. He wasn't just a sexist pig; he was a sexist pig with a gun, and she was his prisoner. Remotely, almost unconnected with the reality of her situation, the eternal footman of her consciousness made an ironic little snicker.
Her situation was probably just a slightly intensified version of all women's situation, the footman said. Everywoman!
"Jesus Christ," JD said.
Marcy stood behind the desk so she could look past him out the window. A Paradise patrol car was driving across the bridge.
Marcy felt a surge of excitement. Help was coming.
When the police car was halfway across, the bridge began to ripple. The ripple turned into a heave. And, as the sound of the explosion came rolling into the real estate office, the bridge went up and the police car with it, somersaulting slowly in among the pieces of the disintegrating bridge. One of its doors blew away and the hood tore off, and the car languidly turned over and planed into the gray harbor and disappeared.
Marcy stood motionless, staring, as bridge debris continued to spin down and splash into the harbor. JD was for a moment as transfixed as Marcy, watching the explosion settle. Then he began punching numbers into his cell phone.
"Jesus Christ," JD said.
"Jesus Christ."
FIFTY-THREE.
"Eploded?" Jesse said on the radio.
"Twenty calls at least," Molly said.
"At least five people said there was a police car on the bridge when it went."
"You raise Pope and Sears?" Jesse said.
"No."
Jesse thought a minute. He was halfway to Boston, nearly to the dog track.
"Okay, everybody on the force is now duty. Assemble them and stand by."
"Call the Statics?" Molly said.
"Let's see what we've got first," Jesse said.
He turned on the blue flasher, which he often did if he was in a hurry. He also turned on the siren, which he rarely did. He U-turned, bumping the car over the curbstone and listening to the protesting screech of the tires as he stepped hard on the accelerator pedal. In fifteen minutes, he was sitting in his idling car looking at the empty space above the water, where half of a steel girder dangling from the near abutment was all that remained. Some wreckage had washed against the near shore and bobbed against the rocks. There was no sign of the police car, not of Pope or Sears.
Several cars full of sightseers had arrived, and some pedestrians had gathered as well.
Jesse got on the radio.
"Molly, the bridge is gone. Everybody there?"
"Everybody but Eddie Cox," Molly said.
"His wife says he's out shopping. I left a message."
"Send a couple of guys down here to secure the place from the tourists. You hear from Pope and Sears?"
"Will do, Jesse. No response from Pope and Sears."
"Okay," Jesse said.
"Send me two guys to secure this end of the bridge. Everyone else stand by at the station."
"Will do, Jesse. What do I tell Betty Pope and Kim Sears if they call?"
"Tell them what we know, Molly. Don't speculate. Tell them I see no sign of them, and you can't raise them on the radio, and people report a police car was on the bridge when it blew."
"That's going to be pretty hard to hear, Jesse."
"I know. Refer them to me if you'd rather."
"No, you got enough, Jesse. If they call, I'll talk with them. What happened?"
"Don't know. The only odd thing is there's maybe a dozen people down here already milling around looking at the wreckage."
"That's not odd," Molly said.
"Yeah. But there's no one at the other side. Not even the guy from the guard shack. Anything yet from the Stiles Island Patrol?"
"No. Want me to call the Statics yet?"
"You better, at least give them a heads up."
"Okay, Jesse. John and Arthur are on the way in a cruiser."
"Thanks, Molly. I'll get back to you."
Jesse sat back and thought about Wilson Cromartie, who preferred to be called Crow. And James Macklin of Dorchester, who had flirted with him not very long ago. He stared at the debris washed by the rough water against the near shore. And he knew, as if he'd seen them, that Macklin and Cromartie were on Stiles Island. It was what exactly he was supposed to do about it that still needed work.
FIFTY-FOUR.
The bank employees were herded into one corner of the vault, and half the safe deposit boxes had been opened when Macklin heard the bridge explode. He looked at Crow. Crow continued to take everything out of the open security box and dump it into his duffel bag. He dropped the key into the open box, took another key from his pocket and with the bank manager supplying the second key, opened the next box. Macklin's cell phone rang. = "Yeah."
"JD, Fran had to blow the bridge."
"I know, I heard it. It'll happen just like I said. They'll mill around for a while. Then they'll get a boat and come to the yacht club landing. When they get about halfway there, Fran will blow it."
"What do you want me to do?"
"What did I tell you to do, JD?"
"After Fran blows the boat landing, I call you and wait for instructions."
"Good, JD, you and Fran come to the bank. Help us load."
"Should we leave the bridge unguarded?"
"The bridge is gone isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Then you don't need to guard it. And after Fran blows the boat landing, you won't need to guard it. Only way they can get to us is with a chopper, and it'll take some time for them to round one up.
Am I going too fast for you, JD?"
"No, I'm just being careful."
"You were careful you'd be down home drinking bourbon and Coca-Cola. Just do what I tell you."
"What do I do with the broad?" JD said.
"Leave her there, we got no need for her."
"Maybe we'll need a hostage," JD said.
Macklin smiled.
"JD wonders if we need a hostage," Macklin said to Crow.
"Tell him not to think anymore," Crow said, without looking up from the lock boxes.
"Crow says don't think anymore," Macklin said.
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