The woods were wet, dense with the mingled odors of pine sap, wild flowers, damp earth. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes. The lenses were specially coated to offer a clear field of view even in rainy conditions.
Through the trees, he observed that no lights were on in the home, and he didn’t see anyone inside through the windows, either.
He grunted, lowered the binoculars. Maybe he’d been wrong about this. Maybe the men in the van really did work for a heating and cooling company, and maybe they had left for good, their work done.
Maybe there were no dogs inside that needed to be rescued. Maybe They had nothing to do with this house at all.
He didn’t know. Sometimes-most times, it seemed-he found it hard to think through things clearly. A fog often lay across his mind, obscuring his ability to reason logically. In the past, he’d only get that way after knocking back one too many cans of Budweiser, but these days he seemed to be like that all the time-except for the temporary, brief periods of clarity, like he was probably experiencing right then.
You’ve lost your mind, Ed, a harsh voice said. What the hell’s the matter with you? It’s only an empty house, and those guys in the van probably had every right to be there. There is no Them; there never was. There is only the world and the ordinary people in it, and you’ve lost touch with the whole damn thing, and that’s why Maggie took your little girl and left.
Fear rose in him. He could literally taste it at the back of his mouth-sour and acidic, like bile.
This was why clarity of thought didn’t visit him often any more. It scared the shit out of him. It gave him a frightening glimpse of what he had become: a bedraggled recluse who lived in a cramped, filthy trailer full of more dogs than he could possibly manage, nursing absurd delusions and quietly rotting away.
He shook his head. No, no, no!
He swallowed thickly, and the bitter taste faded off his tongue. He spat into the weeds, dragged the back of his hand across his lips.
Then, he raised the binoculars again.
He had to find out what They had been doing in that house. They had been there all day, and it could be only for some nefarious purpose.
Redoubling his grip on the cane, he trudged forward.
34
When Jada awoke, it was so dark in the room that she temporarily forgot where she was. She jerked upright, trembling, her pajamas damp with perspiration.
Mom, Daddy, where are you? she screamed. Mom, Daddy!
Crying, she ran to the door. She beat her fists against it, hoping her parents would hear her, though she couldn’t be sure of how much noise she was making.
It must not have been enough, because no one came to get her.
She’d been abandoned.
Her chest swelling painfully, cheeks wet with tears, she felt a huge sob building in her stomach, and she pulled in deep breaths and struggled to keep it down. Her parents would want her to stay strong. That was what Daddy would say. Stay strong, Pumpkin. You can do it. You can do anything in the world.
The only thing in the world she wanted to do was to get out of there and go home.
There was a light switch near the door. She flipped it up and down a few times, but nothing happened.
She wiped her eyes, sniffled. She would have to handle being alone in the dark. She was nine. She was old enough to deal with it.
She padded to the window. Through the gap, she saw rain falling from the dark sky. “God washing the world clean,” as Grandma Rose liked to say.
She stuck her hand between the slats of wood and touched the glass. It was cool. She could feel the steady thump of the rain as it struck the window. She tapped the glass with her fingers and tried to imagine how the rain sounded.
As she peered through the planks into the murky world beyond the glass, her eyes widened.
Someone was outside.
35
Ed emerged from the woods and entered the yard, which was all sucking red clay, no grass. The dogs trotted ahead, paws leaving tracks in the thick mud.
On this side of the home, the driveway curved to the garage. There were long, narrow windows set in the sectional doors. Steeling himself for a gruesome spectacle, Ed approached the windows, wet boots squishing, and peered inside.
It was too dark to see anything. He panned the flashlight in there.
He found a bare cement floor, nothing on the walls. There were no dogs, maimed, dead, or otherwise.
He sighed with disappointment. Where had They hidden their evil handiwork?
One of his dogs, the same female black Lab/Great Dane mix who’d wandered off yesterday, left his side and circled to the back of the house, ears perked.
“What is it, girlie?” Ed asked in a whisper. “Smell something? Hear something?”
The dog disappeared around the corner. He followed her, the other three canines at his heels.
From his observation point at home, he hadn’t been able to see the rear of the house. There was a long concrete slab that served as a patio, accessible through a set of glass doors, and several windows on the ground floor level.
But the black Lab was watching an upstairs window. She glanced at Ed, looked back up there, and whined, tail wagging nervously.
“What’s wrong, girlie?” he asked. “What’s up there?”
He raised the flashlight, and looked.
What appeared to be bars covered the window.
He frowned, certain that his eyes were fooling him. Squinting against the rain, he took a couple of steps closer to the house, keeping the flashlight aimed at the window.
Yes. They were bars of some kind. What in the hell-
Suddenly, a small hand materialized in the darkness.
He screamed.
Spinning around, slipping-sliding in the mud, a ragged cry roaring from his throat, he fled back into the woods as fast as his sixty-year-old legs would carry him.
36
The rain’s persistent tapping and the lengthening shadows had lulled Simone to sleep, warm thoughts of going home floating through her mind. But Jada’s sudden, muffled cries snatched her out of slumber and lifted her off the mattress.
“Mom! Daddy! Where are you?”
Simone felt as if her heart had been clawed out of her chest. Jada sounded so frightened, so alone. She had to do something to let her child know that she was near, that everything would soon be okay.
“I’m here, baby!” Simone shouted to the ceiling, hoping beyond reason that Jada would hear her. She screamed as loud as she could, throat raw: “Mommy’s right here!”
“Mom! Daddy!”
“Right here!” Simone yelled. She spun blindly around the dark room, looking for some means to communicate with Jada.
She heard, faintly, a pounding noise, as if Jada were beating against a door.
Simone balled her cuffed hands into fists, raised them, and slammed them repeatedly against the wall as if striking a gong. She prayed Jada would feel the vibrations through the walls and floor, and would be comforted that she wasn’t alone, that her mother was close by.
But Jada fell silent.
Simone pounded the wall a few more times, the percussion reverberating through the house, pain barking through her hands and arms with each strike. But she feared the clattering rain was deadening the vibrations.
“Baby?” She struck the wall. “Mommy’s here!”
Silence.
“Honey!” She hit the wall again. “Mommy’s down here!”
Only the pattering rain answered her.
Breathing hard, hands tingling, Simone turned away from the wall. She charged the door, and, shouting, kicked it with as much power as she could muster. The door twanged in the frame, but the impact threw her off balance. She slammed to the hardwood on her shoulder, fresh pain sizzling through her muscles.
Meanwhile, Jada hadn’t called out again.
Simone pulled in a hitching breath. I can’t take this any more, damn it. I can’t take it, I can’t wait. I have to get out of here!
She rose on limp legs. Lifting her sore arms, she wrapped the chain that linked the handcuffs around the doorknob. She jerked, once, and the knob rattled slightly.
Emboldened, she braced her left foot against the door and pulled so savagely it felt as if her arms would tear from their sockets.
Come on, come on, come on!
The chain slipped free of the knob, and she tumbled backward and fell hard on her tailbone, an accordion of pain spreading across her lower back.
The doorknob was still in place, as impregnable as ever.
She sniffled, wiped tears out of her eyes. All of the assorted wounds and aches she had suffered that day suddenly intensified, as if a button had been pushed in her brain: her jaw from the slaps to the face; her abdomen from the punch; the back of her head from the vase smashed against it; the spot on her forearm from the burning cigarette butt; her wrists from the tightly cinched cuffs; her fists from banging the wall; her shoulders and tailbone from falling. Every tender point of pain throbbed in agonizing sync with the others, and she decided to sit there for a while, immobile, for she worried that if she moved again, she would black out.
A strange, guttural scream came from outside, somewhere near the back of the house. It sounded like some sort of wild animal, perhaps a bear.
A chill dripped down her spine. What the hell was that?
She hesitated. Then she got up, the movement making her head spin.
Woozy, she lurched into the bathroom. She peered through the slats on the window near the vanity, but she did not see anything of interest, no animal or person. There was only the wall of forest, the trees quivering in the downpour.
But something-or someone-had been out there.
She cocked her head to the glass and listened, but heard only the rain.
She questioned whether she had heard anything at all. What if she was beginning to hallucinate? From her studies, she knew the effects that extreme stress and isolation could produce. Even the most tightly wrapped individual, when subjected to enough pressure, could crack like an egg.
No. She shook her head firmly. She had spent perhaps seven or eight hours in this room, and though they had been the most harrowing hours of her life, she had not reached her breaking point. Not yet. She could handle much worse than this.
Soon, she got an opportunity to test her resilience. Leon came back, and he looked mad enough to kill her.
37
Speeding away from the shopping mall on Buckhead’s mazelike residential roads, straining to see through sheets of rain, Corey was vigilant for government-issue sedans and marked police cruisers. He’d seen none yet, but the possibility of one lurking just around the corner kept him on edge.
He was still stunned at how the drop-off had turned into a complete fiasco.
By then, the agents would’ve found the briefcase he had left in the bookstore. They would’ve counted the cash. They would be cooking up a compelling theory-in their minds-as to exactly why he had left fifty thousand dollars hidden in a public place, when as recently as yesterday he had been spotted having a beer with a fugitive who had asked him for money.
Thinking about it curdled his stomach.
He couldn’t figure out what had prompted Falco and her partner to follow him. Had they been tailing him since that morning? Or had they flagged his bank accounts, been tipped off by the large withdrawal earlier that day, and then decided to track him?
It had to be one or the other.
He’d sensed after their conversation that Falco had found his story dubious. In her eyes, he had just confirmed her doubts in the worst way.
In her eyes, he was aiding and abetting a known felon.
Windshield wipers ticking, he braked at a STOP sign. He checked both ways for suspicious vehicles, found none, and arbitrarily made a right, which carried him deeper into a labyrinth of tree-lined streets, the oaks and pines as blurry as watercolor images in the storm.
Worse than his situation with the Feds was his predicament with Leon. Now Leon would think he had betrayed him. What would he do to Simone and Jada in retaliation?
If I see a cop on my tail, if I even suspect that you’ve involved them in this private business matter of ours, I’m going to kill your family, and I’m going to make it exquisitely painful, worse than anything you can imagine. .
Tension twitched like a live wire across his shoulder blades, down his arms, and into his hands. He wanted to scream.
Peering through the rain-smeared windshield, he recognized that he was in a familiar area: a neighborhood that featured some of Buckhead’s swankiest residences, behemoth houses that stood on rambling parcels of land behind wrought-iron gates and tall fences. In the early days of their marriage, when they were living hand-to-mouth in a one-bedroom apartment in Marietta, he and Simone had used to cruise this neighborhood on sunny Sunday afternoons and imagine someday building a dream home of their own.
That day had since come for them. He wondered if, after what had happened in the past twenty-four hours, it had also passed.
It was only a quarter to five, but the purple-black storm clouds had awakened the street lamps. He pulled into a cul-de-sac near the gated drive of French-chateau style estate and parked at the edge of a pool of light.
He would have called Leon and pleaded his case, but whenever Leon had called him on the prepaid cell, his number was blocked. He would have to sit tight and pray that Leon didn’t go nuts-always a strong possibility, since the guy already teetered on the edge.
He cracked a knuckle. He just couldn’t think about it.
In the meantime, he took out his BlackBerry and called Todd’s cell.
The phone rang three times before Todd picked up. “I’m afraid this is a bad time, sir.”
Todd’s voice was stiff, tense. What was going on?
“Listen, man, we’ve gotta talk,” Corey said. “The drop-off was a disaster, the Feds tracked me there, and I ran away from them before Leon got the money-”
“Yes, sir, I’ll e-mail you later this evening with the revised terms of the agreement. I apologize for the inconvenience. We sure appreciate your business, sir. Bye now.”
Todd hung up. Corey lowered the phone, bewildered.
The answer hit him: the FBI was checking out Todd, too.
And why wouldn’t they have? They might have watched Corey drive from the bank earlier that day to meet Todd at his condo. Besides, as Corey’s business partner and friend, Todd would have been on their short list for questioning, anyway.
He hoped Todd didn’t tell them what was really happening. Based on Todd’s loathing of cops and his own shady activities, he’d assume that Todd would keep his mouth shut.
Later, perhaps when the heat cooled a bit, they could touch base again.
As Corey deliberated his next step, yellow light strafed over him. Pulse kicking up, he whipped around in his seat and saw an unmarked white sedan cruising in his direction, a beacon spinning on the roof.
Not a police officer-a rent-a-cop. Residents of a neighborhood as pricey as this one would have retained a private security force.
The sedan crawled past him and moved on down the block, but Corey interpreted the security vehicle’s appearance as a forewarning. He shifted into Drive and peeled away from the curb.
The next step was obvious. He had to find new transportation.
38
A few minutes past six o’clock, Corey parked around the corner from Otis Trice’s house, sliding the sedan under the dripping boughs of a hickory tree.
Otis lived in East Point, a southwest Atlanta suburb, in a quiet neighborhood of ranches and split-levels with large, well-tended lawns, huge leafy trees, and gentle hills. It had taken nearly an hour to drive there from Buckhead in the evening’s rainy, rush-hour traffic, but he had been determined to endure the hellish trip.
The truth was, he had nowhere else to go.
He couldn’t go home. The FBI might be watching his house. Likewise, Todd was out. Ditto his mother-in-law
-he could not even begin to imagine telling her what was going on.
With the princely sum of twenty bucks in his wallet, a hotel of any kind was impossible, and with the FBI presumably monitoring his financial accounts, he couldn’t use any of his debit or credit cards for risk of giving up his location.
How the hell had Leon managed to elude the Feds for three years? He had been on the run for less than three hours and felt his wires unraveling. The only thing keeping him glued was the hope of holding Simone and Jada in his arms again.
He checked the prepaid cell for at least the tenth time. It was still on, the battery at three-quarters strength. But Leon hadn’t called, and the prolonged silence worried him.
Before getting out of the car, he scanned the rearview mirror and the street ahead. Although he hadn’t noticed a tail during the drive, he didn’t want to lead the cops straight to his friend’s front door, either.
He got out and dashed around the corner, rain leaking under his collar, one hand pressed against the gun riding his hip.
Otis lived in an immaculately maintained brick ranch with an attached garage. The square lawn was as neatly trimmed as the greens on a golf course, bordered by a bed of white hydrangeas that bobbed in the rain. A silver Cadillac was parked in the driveway, and warm golden light glowed at the front windows.
Corey rang the doorbell. He hadn’t called ahead, not trusting himself to explain his situation on the phone.
Otis answered the door. He wore pastoral clothing: a long-sleeve black shirt with a white clerical collar, black wool slacks, oxfords with a mirror-shine. A silver crucifix pendant hung from his necklace.
Corey remembered that it was Wednesday night. Otis would be preparing to lead Bible study at his church.
“Brother Webb,” Otis said, as gracious as ever, as if he had been expecting Corey’s visit. “Come inside, please. It’s so good to see you this evening, indeed it is.”
Cornered Page 15
