Ice-cream Truck
“I t’s like the Writing Desk puzzle,” Constance says. “No one ever knew what it was. Lewis is crazy sometimes, but I adore him.”
“So we’re never going to know why they are six keys, not seven or five?” Jack asks.
“Trust me, Jack,” I tell him. “It doesn’t matter. We just want to find them.”
“Yeah,” Constance says, turning pages on the phone in her hand. “Sometimes I don’t know what we are doing at all. Wouldn’t it be easier if Fabiola and Lewis tell us what the precious thing is?”
“I am a dead man,” Jack chuckled. “Don’t ask me.”
“Wait,” Constance stopped, staring at the phone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“The logs on this phone are a bit strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“All calls received or dialed were last done this morning, but the last call was made twenty minutes ago.” she raises her eyes toward me.
“What does that imply?” Jack asks.
I know what it implies. “Tom,” Constance and I say in one breath.
“But he said he would call his children,” Jack says. “What’s wrong with that?”
“His children are in Scotland, remember?” I say after having snatched the phone from Constance again. “This is a number in London.”
Jack shrugged, hands gripping the wheel.
“I never trusted him,” Constance says, glancing back at him, sitting next to Fabiola and Lewis, staring out the window.
“You think he works for…” I begin to say, but then stop. Jack is cussing out loud.
“Oh, no!” Constance says, staring ahead.
I look and see the police have blocked the road ahead. “Can we go back?” I ask Jack. “Scoot over; I’ll drive.”
“No point,” Jack says, looking in the rear mirror. “They’re behind us as well.”
“And we’re in a narrow alley,” Constance says. It’s the first time I can sense fear on her tongue.
“We’ve been ambushed,” I let the words spill out of my mouth.
In the back, Tom sticks his head out of the window and waves, “Hey, it’s me, Tom. Just kill them.”