Patrick didn’t make it back until around ten.
I’d called him as soon as I hung up, pretty much out of my mind with panic, imagining Brandon being held by that man, my sweet little boy, and Elena, who didn’t even know what she had stumbled into.
All I could think of was how afraid Brandon must be.
When I finally saw the car lights pull up in front of the house and then heard the key in the front door, I basically ran into Patrick’s arms, hurling myself around him and burying my face in his chest, unable to stop the nerves and tears.
“I know,” he said, brushing my hair gently. “It’s going to be okay.”
“We can’t let him hurt him, Patrick,” I said, afraid to lift my head and look him in the eye. “Whatever happens, I just want my son. Nothing else matters.”
“And we’re going to get him,” he said. “I promise.” He put his hands on my shoulders and gently eased me away. What I saw was a confident smile. “Okay?”
Not even sure I believed it, I nodded.
“Okay. So we have less than five hours. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do.”
“You have the pages?”
“I have them.” He took out a clear plastic folder. Inside I could see three water-stained, handwritten pages, clipped out of the original diary. The last days of a girl murdered over twenty years ago. I looked at the one on top. I saw the name written with a kind of squiggly, girlish underlining underneath it.
Streak.
“These are all there are?”
“This is what they kept as insurance so that no one would come after them. My father told them they would be released. According to Mrs. O’Byrne, they were never even going to keep them. They were going to turn them over to the police with the ransom. The ransom was basically Landry’s confession. They figured that would be enough to exhume Deirdre’s body and check for Landry’s DNA. For twenty years she had no idea who her daughter’s killer was until she heard that interview.” He set the folder down on the coffee table. “The diary was lost in the storm. If it hadn’t washed up on the Jersey shore, and some couple brought it back to her, she’d have no proof.”
“I’m sorry.” I brushed the tears out of my eyes. “I’m sorry for what she had to go through all these years. I’m sorry that we got mixed up in it. She deserves a whole lot better than just turning these over to that bastard just to get back my son.”
“All she asked was that no one else be hurt on account of these . . .”
“I understand how she feels. I hope I get to meet her one day.”
“You will.”
He sank into the chair across from me.
“Patrick, he said if he saw any sign of the police, he’d kill them both. I can’t take that risk. Once we have him back, I don’t care what we do. We have to turn ourselves in. But now . . . I just want the two of us to get out of this and not do anything crazy.”
“You mean the three of us,” Patrick said.
I shook my head. “He said just me, Patrick. No one else. Even you, he said, otherwise he’d show me what it was like to see my boy killed in front of my eyes.” My eyes flooded up again. “That’s too much for me to risk.”
“You know there’s not even a chance that I’d let you go there alone.” Patrick’s blue eyes shone resolutely. “He’ll kill you, Hilary. And then he’ll kill the nanny and then your boy. You can tie him to Rollie’s murder. I want Brandon back safely as much as you, but there’s just no way.”
“I can’t lose my son, Patrick. I can’t.”
“We’re not going to lose him. Landry wants those diary pages as much as you want Brandon. But I’m not going to let him walk away either. And not just for Deirdre.”
“What do you mean?”
“Knowing what we know now, is there any way that what happened down in South America looks like an accident? It’s entirely possible this guy is covering up at least two murders. Not to mention Rollie McMahon. So we have to decide how we get your son back and still do what’s right. To Landry. Because that’s the price. That’s all Mrs. O’Byrne wanted for her daughter’s memory. To make him pay. So that’s what I’m gonna do . . . Get your son back, hopefully without landing us in jail. And get him. Both of them. Wait here . . . I’ll be right back.”
Patrick got up. I heard him open a door and go down to the basement. A minute later he came back up carrying the nylon bag with the money in it. He dropped it to the floor. Then he went into the kitchen and came back with a large black garbage bag.
“We have a lot to go over,” he said, unzipping the case and transferring the bundled cash into the garbage bag. “So let’s get prepared.”
From his waist he also took out a gun and placed it on top of the diary.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said, nerves shooting down my spine.
“I hope so too.”
“You ever use that?” I asked, pointing to the gun on the table.
“Not in years.” He finished transferring the cash, then looked at me. He smiled, I knew trying to bolster me, but there was resignation in it, and duty; we were crossing a line in the sand for him too.
“But fortunately I know a bunch of people who have.”