Corey hesitated on the threshold. He thought about those children in the school yard, playing in the sun. Suddenly, he felt on the brink of tears.
Moving deeper into the house, Leon glanced at him over his shoulder. “You see someone coming?”
Lips pressed together tightly, Corey shook his head.
“Then get in here. You know the drill, C-Note, seven minutes to win it.”
Corey pushed back thoughts of the children. He dug the stopwatch out of his sack and pressed the button to start the timer.
Seven minutes inside. That was their rule. Leon had made it up. He said that seven was a lucky number, so if they measured all of their break-ins by the seven-minute-rule, they would never go down-universal law would be on their side or some other metaphysical weirdness that Leon always seemed to be talking about.
Corey crossed the threshold and shut the door behind him.
The shadowed house was cool and silent. The living room was modestly furnished, but clean and orderly, the residence of someone who’d worked to turn a house into a home.
Leon marched down the hallway, headed straight for the master bedroom, where the jewelry would likely be, and where cash could often be found, too, tucked between pages of a Bible, secreted underneath a mattress, hidden in a nightstand drawer, or concealed in a shoe box in the closet. Corey followed. His gaze scanned across the photographs clustered on the end tables and walls.
A man, woman, and little girl appeared in many of the pictures. They were smiling, happy. And the man looked very familiar. .
No, Corey thought, cold perspiration beading his forehead. God, no.
“Come on!” Leon yelled from the bedroom.
Corey hustled into the room. Leon had found a jewelry box on the dresser and was dumping the glittering contents into his bag.
“Check the closet,” Leon said. “I’ve got a feeling about what might be in there.”
“Wait.” Corey wiped the sweat from his brow. “I know the guy who lives here. He was one of my high school teachers.”
Leon cocked an eyebrow. “So? You graduated from high school last year, you don’t owe him anything.”
“But he’s a good guy, man. We shouldn’t do this here. We should go somewhere else.”
“Good people have fucked up shit happen to them every day,” Leon said. “What else is new? You’re a good little boy, but look what kind of life you’ve got-your moms died a druggie and you don’t even know your daddy’s name. Right? Cry me a river some other time. Toss the goddamn closet so we can clear out of here.”
Face burning, Corey turned away and yanked open the closet doors. It was full of men’s suits and shirts on the left side, and women’s dresses and outfits on the right; the women’s clothing took up far more space. A double-stacked row of shoeboxes filled a shelf above the hangers.
Corey swept the shoeboxes to the floor and tore off the lids. Shoes tumbled out, heels and sandals and flats, oxfords and loafers and sneakers. But at the bottom of the pile, a Nike Air Jordan shoebox held a rubber-banded knot of cash.
“Bingo,” Leon said, peering over Corey’s shoulder.
Corey heard the door creak open at the front of the house. A man shouted in shock and rage.
Terror squeezed Corey’s throat.
We’re caught, he thought. It’s over.
But after the flash of fear, he felt unexpected relief. If he didn’t have the guts to stop doing this on his own, then someone else could make him stop.
But Leon’s eyes had dwindled to hard slits. He pulled the Glock out of his waistband.
“What’re you doing, man?” Corey whispered.
“I’m not going down for this. Neither are you.”
Leon stalked out of the bedroom.
Heart hammering, Corey left the money in the box and hurried after him.
A man was at the end of the hall. Bald-headed, with glasses, a walrus mustache, and a prominent belly, it was the man from the pictures, Mr. Rowland, Corey’s junior-year English teacher. Corey remembered him fondly. Mr. Rowland brought donuts for the class on exam days and let the students select the books they wanted to read for book reports-Corey had once picked an X-Men comic, expecting a rebuke, and Mr. Rowland had actually praised him for his choice.
As Leon approached, Mr. Rowland raised his hands in surrender.
“Look, kids. . take whatever you want,” he said in a tremulous voice. “I–I won’t call the police. No one has to be hurt here.”
Corey slid behind Leon and turned to hide his face, but Mr. Rowland’s eyes brightened in recognition. “Corey? Is that you? My God, son-”
Leon shot Mr. Rowland in the chest, the gunfire deafening. Corey’s mouth flew open to scream, but no sound came out, his throat feeling completely locked up.
Mr. Rowland gasped and dropped to his knees. A dark bloodstain spread across the breast of his white dress shirt. He clutched his chest, wedding band glinting.
“Please, God. .” he whispered.
With the cold efficiency of an experienced mercenary, Leon stood over him and shot him again, in the head. Mr. Rowland fell backward to the floor.
Corey moaned. His knees folded, and he slumped to the carpet in the middle of the hallway. His stomach convulsed, vomit clawing at his throat, and some of it escaped his lips and dribbled down his chin.
“I had to do it,” Leon said, with a backward glance at Corey. His eyes shone, face glistening with sweat, and it struck Corey that Leon was excited-he had that same frenetic appearance when he was in a shooter’s zone on the basketball court. “This guy knew who you were. He would have gone to the cops anyway soon as we left, we had no choice.”
Corey tried to speak, couldn’t. His head felt as if it were being crushed in a vise.
Leon searched Mr. Rowland’s pockets. He found a wallet; he opened it and took all of the cash. He fished a brushed chrome cigarette lighter out of his pocket, too.
“Looks like an antique, probably worth something, I’m keeping this, uh-huh,” Leon said, and shoved it into his bag.
Corey wiped his lips and finally managed to speak. “I. . I can’t believe you. . you killed him.”
Leon stormed across the room to Corey and jabbed his long finger in Corey’s face.
“We killed him, you and me, get it straight,” Leon said. “You’re the one who knew the guy, I had to kill him. Because of you, he would have gone to the law and identified you and that would’ve led to me, too. We’re equally responsible for this, joined at the hip, suck it up and deal with it. We did it, and that’s the end of it.”
Corey’s gaze dropped away from Leon and fixed on Mr. Rowland’s body, watched the blood leaking from his head and chest and trickling into the plush carpet. As he stared, eyes glazing over, he strongly wished this was only a dream, a nightmare, from which he would soon awaken. .
When Corey blinked, he felt ice crusting on his eyelids and forming a hard ring around his lips. He had zoned out. He wasn’t sure for how long.
It had felt like a lifetime.
He hadn’t let himself recall the vivid details of Mr. Rowland’s murder in many years. He’d restricted himself from reliving that day, as if by refusing to think about it in concrete terms, it would somehow fade away and become something that had never happened.
He had witnessed a good man murdered and done nothing. He hadn’t gone to the police. He hadn’t pressed Leon to turn himself in. They had walked out of the house, returned to Leon’s car, and driven off, and when Mr. Rowland’s wife discovered his body that evening, the police launched an investigation that never circled within ten miles of him and Leon.
It was the last time they pulled a job together. Leon, emboldened by the killing, his first, quickly grew impatient with Corey’s reluctance to hang with him any more. He struck out on his own exclusively, and three months later finally got arrested when robbing a liquor store. Soon after, Grandma Louise died, and Corey relocated to Atlanta and started a new life.
But the past still trap
ped him.
Tears spilled from his eyes and streamed down his face. Sobs shook him.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, tongue thick, throat aching. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
He had never cried for what he had done. He’d been too frightened of what he might feel compelled to do if he let himself break down. After so many years of being repressed, the guilt, pain, and tears were like a great dam pent up inside him. He let it all out, and his tears were so hot they burned furrows through the ice on his cheeks and steamed on the floor.
I’m so sorry, please, forgive me, I’m so sorry.
He cried for Rowland and his family. He cried for himself, for the shame he’d carried for so long.
He would finally confess, he decided. He would find Simone, and he would tell her what he had done, for as his wife and his sworn life partner, she deserved to know before everyone else.
Then he would tell the police, and let them handle him as they saw fit. He would not carry this burden anymore. He would see justice served, even if it meant giving up his freedom.
But first, he had to get out of there.
He blinked away his tears, shifted. His head was nestled against his outstretched arm. A mantle of ice was forming where his cheek touched his shirt sleeve.
From his position on the floor, he could see beneath the bottom of the wire rack that stood nearest the freezer door. In the dim cone of overhead light, he thought he made out a faint outline in the wall against which the rack stood. Like the seam of some kind of panel.
Slowly, he sat up, ice crackling across his clothes and falling from his hair. His hands and feet tingled, but he could move them.
He checked his watch. It read 9:51. Amazingly, he’d been adrift for only a couple of minutes.
With effort, he got up and approached the shelves. He peered between the rear of the rack, and the wall.
There it was-a rectangular panel perhaps three feet long and a foot wide. The crevice was too narrow for him to fit his arm back there. He retreated a few steps, to get a full view. The shelves were stuffed top to bottom with frost-wreathed, cardboard boxes, frozen foods of all kinds.
He began to pull the boxes off the shelves and heave them onto the floor behind him. His breath plumed in front of him as he worked, and blood pumped hard through his veins, warming his limbs again, alleviating the tingly sensation, warding off the numbness.
Once he had cleared away most of the boxes, he had a complete view of the wall panel. It had a small knob in the upper right corner, and a sign hung in the center, a white background with ice-crusted red letters:
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY USE FIRE AX
Hope rose in him. He grasped the knob of the panel, and pulled it. It was stuck.
“Don’t play with me,” he said.
Two more hard pulls, and it squeaked open. A gleaming ax with a red head, sharp steel blade, and shiny yellow shaft stood inside, held in place with a clip.
The ax was heavy, and felt good in his hands.
He turned to the door and started swinging.
51
At 10:16, Corey hacked his way out of the freezer and stumbled onto the warehouse floor, ice crumbling from his shoes.
He let the ax drop beside him. Hunched over, hands on his knees, he sucked in the blessedly warm air, and felt waves of heat spread through his lungs and muscles. Latent ice crystals fell off him and melted on the concrete, and behind him, the ruptured freezer door bellowed cold mist, like some mortally wounded beast.
He’d spent nearly an hour trapped inside, but because he’d kept in almost constant motion, he didn’t think frostbite had affected him. Except for the bruise on his temple, he felt good-rejuvenated, even, though this had to be the longest, most grueling day of his life.
He found the cell phone and BlackBerry sitting on a small table against the wall. He holstered them both.
Todd was nowhere to be found. Maybe he would return soon, but Corey was not going to wait around.
He believed he knew where his family was being held, and no one was going to stop him.
Part Four
52
When Jada awoke, Giant was sniffing her.
She’d fallen asleep sometime after she had seen the shaggy-haired man and the big dogs outside the bedroom window. She’d tapped her fingers against the glass, and the man had looked directly at her and shone a flashlight in her face-but then he’d run away, as if frightened by the sight of her, leaving her puzzled and alone.
Then, more darkness had steadily seeped into the room. Hugging herself, she’d lain back on the mattress and slipped her thumb into her mouth. She hadn’t intended to sleep, but she drifted off.
She’d dreamed of Mom. Her loving face, her gentle voice, her warm touch. Mom was whispering to her in the dream. It’s going to be okay, baby, everything’s going to be fine, Mommy’s going to come and take you away from this place. . Jada had been comforted.
And then she came awake to find Giant bending over her, his huge round face floating above her like a moon as he sniffed the front of her pajama top. He was so close she could see the dirt-packed pores on his pudgy cheeks, so close the awful stench of him made her stomach buckle like she was going to puke.
She screamed.
Eyes widening with alarm, Giant jerked up and crawled away from her. While she was sleeping, a small lamp had been placed near the center of the room, and he clumsily knocked it over with his big foot.
She was so scared she couldn’t move, and her throat had closed up with such terror she thought she had probably stopped screaming, too.
Giant plopped onto the floor near the mattress and put his finger to his lips. Smiling faintly, he lifted his T-shirt, exposing his hairy chest and bloated belly, his skin ghostly pale in the light.
Her mouth hung open in a frozen scream. She was breathing so hard her chest hurt.
Giant pointed at several crude-looking, heart-shaped tattoos spread across his stomach. There was a girl’s name printed in the center of each heart: LaTonya. . Ariel. . Kisha. . Ashley. .
As she stared, paralyzed with fright, he pointed at her, and then tapped his stomach. She read his lips slowly form her name: Jada.
He licked his lips, and grinned.
She broke her paralysis, leaped off the mattress, and ran. She went through the door nearest to her: the closet. Scrambling inside, she backed against the wall, knees knocking, fingers clenched and digging into her palms.
She screamed. Mom, Daddy, help me!
She didn’t know if they heard her, didn’t know if anyone heard her. This was like the worst nightmare ever.
There was an empty hole where the doorknob should have been that let a thin cone of light inside. Through the hole, she saw Giant shuffle toward the door, and she felt the floor trembling under his heavy footsteps.
Mom, Daddy, please, help me!
She pressed against the wall. A board brushed across the back of her legs, fell to the floor.
Giant stooped and peered at her through the hole in the door, eye shining, bulk blotting out the light.
She crouched on the floor and pulled her knees against her hitching chest, curling into a ball.
Giant began to open the door. Light sifted inside.
She shrieked hopelessly for her parents.
Giant stuck his head inside. He looked down at her. He licked his lips, and one of his hands dropped down to his private parts and squeezed.
She covered her head with her arms, wishing desperately that she could simply fold into nothingness, vanish.
Dear God, help me, she prayed, please, please, please. .
The closet suddenly darkened again. She looked up. The door had swung shut, and she felt Giant’s footsteps thudding away.
A painful, pent-up breath came out of her.
Maybe Mr. Leon had called Giant out of the room. Mr. Leon scared her, too, but he seemed to want to keep Giant away from her.
She didn’t dare get up to look and see. For the moment, sh
e was safe where she was, and reluctant to move.
As she sat on the floor, trembling, she felt something rattle behind her. Turning slightly, she reached behind her and traced her fingers across it.
It felt like another door.
53
As Jada screamed upstairs, fear propelled Simone to the bedroom door. She beat her fists against it, shouting at Leon to get up there and do something.
Leon had left her alone in the room some time ago, to do whatever it was he did when he wasn’t in her presence. She’d thought she overheard him speaking to someone-his partner, presumably-and she thought she’d caught him saying Corey’s name and something about a freezer, but she was so weary, and his words so muffled by the rain, that she couldn’t be sure.
A couple of minutes after Jada began screaming, she quieted. Simone waited in front of the door, hands sore and throbbing, uncertain whether her daughter’s sudden silence was a good thing or not. Then she heard Leon’s quick footsteps approach, and she backed away to the mattress.
He came inside the room carrying a folding chair. He winked at her.
Simone glared at him. “What the hell is going on up there? Why was my daughter screaming?”
Leon placed the chair on the floor near the battery-powered lamp, and eased into it. He fired up a cigarette, took a slow pull.
“Everything’s cool with the munchkin,” he said. “Billy gave her a little fright, but she’s all right, ain’t nothing but a thing in the spring.”
“You promised me that sick bastard wouldn’t touch her.”
“He didn’t touch her. He only sniffed her.” Leon snickered. “Technically, he didn’t disobey my orders, he knows I’m the Alpha dog, the Omega, there’s none greater.”
Her mind reeled. That pervert had sniffed her baby? He’d gotten close enough to Jada to do that?
She felt cold.
“Leon, I want my daughter in here with me,” she said firmly. “You can’t control your partner. Clearly, he’s testing the boundaries. God only knows what he’ll do next.”
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