Abby waited on the kill shot. There was no reason for the kid to hold off on it now. Unless he had a sadistic streak, which Abby thought he probably did.
He didn’t take the shot. Instead, he said, “Go ahead and put it in drive.”
Abby didn’t move. Why make it easy on him? If she was going to die either way, she’d make the little prick take the shot in a crowded spot, where people would hear it and respond to the sound, where maybe surveillance cameras would give the police a lead.
“Abby?”
“Do it here,” Abby said. She could feel the weight of the SIG Sauer in her jacket pocket, where she’d jammed it awkwardly, more concerned about concealment than access when she’d walked into the library. An amateur playing a pro’s game.
“No.”
“You’re going to have to,” Abby said, and as she spoke, her eyes drifted higher on the mirror, and she estimated the distance to the curb and the slope that led over the jogging path and down to the boardwalk and that deep-channel harbor. If she could get it in reverse and keep her foot on the gas, she’d at least be able to take this sociopath down with her.
“You think you’re done?” the kid said, sounding surprised. “That’s a disappointing attitude from someone with your resilience.”
It was less than thirty feet to the curb, and once she cleared that, gravity might handle the rest. If the kid fired, the bullet was going to obliterate Abby’s brain and any control she had over the wheel and the gas pedal, but as long as momentum and gravity worked together, the Tahoe might make the water.
“I was thinking we could go back to the house in Tenants Harbor,” the kid said, and his smile brightened when Abby’s eyes returned to him. “Yes, I knew you were there. Beautiful spot. Love that detached studio too. Made me feel creative. The whole place is nice and peaceful, though, much better than this parking lot. And we’ll need to pick up your guns. They’re likely to concern the Realtor.”
When Abby still didn’t move, the kid sighed and said, “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now, get it?”
Abby pulled the gearshift down. She considered reverse, passed it, and put the car into drive.
“How’d you find me?” she asked.
“Bauer’s phone is in the glove box, and I enabled tracking. I did the same to yours, but you were smart enough to get rid of that one. You didn’t check the Tahoe out fully, though. Poor choice, Abby.”
All day and all night, Abby had believed she was off the grid, hidden. In reality, she’d been exposed and at the kid’s mercy.
“Why’d you let me live?” Abby asked, pulling out of the parking lot and turning right, then left, putting them back on Route 1, headed south.
“Priorities. You were there for the taking if I needed to do it, but the phone was the bigger problem, and I didn’t think you had that. Tell me, where was it?”
“Under the driver’s seat. You didn’t check the Chrysler out fully. Poor choice, asshole.”
The kid laughed, and suddenly the pressure of the gun was gone from Abby’s skull. “I like you,” the kid said. “I really do.”
“It’s not mutual.”
“I struggle at first impressions. Give me time.”
“Okay,” Abby said, and then she added, “Dax.”
It was the only card she had to play, the only thing she knew about him that might make him pause, but he took it in stride.
“There aren’t many people left who call me that, but go right ahead. It’s always been my preference. And, Abby? Keep a close eye on your speed, please. You’re going pretty slow, and it would be a bad day to be pulled over.”
“Where am I driving?”
“I told you.”
“We’re really going back to the house in Tenants Harbor?”
“I think we should. We could use a private, peaceful place like that to talk.”
“Not much to talk about. You’ve won.”
“Plenty to talk about, and if you hadn’t polluted Penobscot Bay with that phone, we might already understand each other better. But I’ve always preferred face-to-face conversations, anyhow. We’re going to be together for a while. Gerry is waiting on your call, and you will need to be alive to make that. Good news for you, right?”
“Gerry?”
“That’s the name of the man who answered the other phone. Gerry Connors. Crusty old bastard. I liked him. For a long time, I liked Gerry just fine.”
“He’s the German?”
“No. He’s not. But we’ll get to the German before we’re done, I think. I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to do that.”
He shifted in the backseat, and Abby looked in the mirror again and saw that he’d hooked his right foot over his left knee, as relaxed as a passenger in a chauffeured car. Which, Abby supposed, was exactly what he was now.
“You don’t work for him?”
“I did. But I think the relationship is on the rocks at this point.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Sure you do.” He leaned forward. “You’ve already tested him. You offered him the phone for my life once. You’re going to do the same thing again.”
How did he know this? He’d known Abby’s location; he knew her movements, her calls, her words. How was he so damned omniscient?
“By the way, Abby, where is the phone now?”
She could lie, but what was the point? “My jeans. Front right pocket.”
The kid nodded, satisfied. He leaned back in the seat, slouched and nearly uninterested, although the gun was still pointed at Abby’s back. It would be easy to spin the car and throw off his balance, and Abby thought there was a good chance she could do that and buy enough time to get out, but she couldn’t imagine she’d buy enough time to get out and find cover. The kid would shoot before then. Abby could flip the car, of course, but then she was as likely to die as he was.
“Do you know what’s on it?” the kid asked. “Do you actually have a clue what’s on the phone?”
“No.”
“It’s just a phone?”
Abby hesitated but realized there was no point in holding out. “It’s a fake. Looks like an iPhone, but it isn’t. As far as I can tell, it’s not really a phone at all.”
For the first time, the kid showed real interest. He shifted into the middle of the seat, where he could keep the gun trained on Abby’s head and watch all of her movements, and said, “Pass it back to me, please. I’m trusting that you won’t reach for the gun in your jacket instead. Remember, you’re still alive due to my choices and to yours. Make the right ones.”
Abby took her right hand off the wheel, slid the phone out of her pocket, and passed it back. The kid accepted it and leaned away. For a while, he didn’t so much as glance at the phone; he kept his eyes on Abby, assessing her.
“Keep driving, and you’ll keep living,” he said. “Can you do that? Keep driving?”
“Yes.”
The kid looked away then. Down at the phone. The gun was still in his hand, but his attention was compromised.
Flip the car. Just do it, you coward, flip it and take your chances. You’ll have witnesses and people calling 911 and police cars screaming out here…
She kept driving. She couldn’t will herself to flip the car, even though she’d walked away from worse before. She tried to tell herself it was because of the gun in the kid’s hand.
While Abby drove, the kid alternated between glancing at her and studying the phone. He never lowered the gun, keeping it in his right hand as he turned the phone over carefully in his left. When he finally spoke, it was softly, almost to himself.
“Didn’t expect that.”
Abby didn’t respond. The kid was silent for a moment, and then he looked up and said, “You know who’s on the screen, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“A picture of Tara. Interesting. Any idea why that would be there?”
“No.”
“But you’ve taken a swing at it, I see. It looks like you tried her name, maybe?”
Abby nodded.
“Do you know why that didn’t work?”
“No.”
“Guess.” The kid slouched back against the seat, the phone in his pocket now, all of his attention on Abby. “Show me some promise, Kaplan. Offer a strong theory.”
“It’s all fake.”
“What does that mean?”
“That the picture is pointless, maybe. A smoke screen. It’s not how you unlock the phone.” She glanced in the mirror and saw the kid staring intently at her.
“How do you think the phone is unlocked, then?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Give me another effort. I think you’re close.”
“A fingerprint. A PIN number. I really don’t know.”
“Actually, you’re very close. Not bad at all. It’s biometrics, but it’s not a fingerprint. The camera is real, so I’m betting on facial recognition.”
“Do you think it’s really Tara’s face that has to be recognized, though?” They were on a narrow stretch of the peninsula now, Penobscot Bay looming to their left, the sea gray-green under the massing clouds, a tower of battered lobster traps stacked high on a weathered wharf.
“Smart question,” he said, and his voice softened in a way that made her think he hadn’t considered the possibility before. “Is Tara the key that opens the lock, or is she a ruse? And if she is…” He let the sentence drift, then said, “I think she’s the key. Smart play by Oltamu, if I’m right. Tara Beckley would have been anonymous to anyone who took the phone. She was a stranger. That’s quite brilliant, really. The problem is that she stopped being a stranger that night. But he wasn’t counting on that.”
Abby didn’t speak, but that didn’t stop the kid from talking. It seemed nothing would stop the kid from talking. He liked conversation, and he liked to watch people. He reminded Abby of some demented dentist, poking and prodding, testing nerves, coaxing a reaction.
“I wonder if he told her what he was doing,” the kid mused. “Was she just a face, or does she know something? If he was feeling urgency…maybe Tara knows a lot more than we think.”
“Too bad she’s gone,” Abby said.
“Don’t rush to judgment on that. I received an encouraging update on her condition this morning.”
Fuck, Abby thought, and she was so defeated by that news that she let the speed fall off. The kid leaned forward and tapped her head with the gun.
“Pick it back up. Speed limit or five miles over, no more.”
Abby accelerated to five miles over the limit. She tried to look indifferent to the discussion of Tara, but all she could think about was whether the kid had heard her talking to Shannon, whether he knew what Abby had disclosed to her.
“In fact,” the kid said once he was satisfied with Abby’s driving, “the news about Tara is particularly encouraging after seeing this. She can move her eyes, Abby. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Abby was silent.
“Okay, maybe you’re not a member of Team Tara. Rather coldhearted, but to each her own. As a proud member of Team Tara, though, I’m especially encouraged after seeing the phone, because a lot of facial-recognition systems depend on active eyes. While once she might have been useless, now…”
He let the thought hang unfinished, then said, “Do you get it yet, Abby?”
Abby didn’t want to engage with him again. Each time she did, she felt like the kid was seeing more of her brain, learning her heart. It was through his strange dialogue that he opened you up somehow, laid you bare on the table and decided whether there was anything in you worth keeping alive. If he decided the answer was no, that was the end.
“I think you do, but you’re in a sullen mood. Understandable. It’s been a tough couple of days for you. I’ll explain what you already know, then, since you’re not willing to play along. If I’m right, Abby, then what we have is a lock…” He lifted Oltamu’s phone. “And Tara Beckley, bless her miraculous survivor’s will, is the key.”
He put the phone back into his pocket, braced his gun hand on his knee, and said, “That makes our next move pretty easy, doesn’t it? We’ll need to bring the lock to the key. Usually it would work the other way around, but we’re in very atypical circumstances. Tell you what, Abby—we’re going to detour. Forget the house and turn around. Right up here will work.”
He nudged Abby with the gun. They were approaching the Tenants Harbor village center, which amounted to a general store and the post office on the left, a volunteer fire department up ahead, and the school and the library somewhere off to the right. The street was empty save for one man in a rusted pickup filling plastic gas cans at the general store’s pump. He didn’t even look up when Abby pulled in behind him and then backed out. She didn’t leave the parking lot, though. The clouds had obscured the sun and now the first drops of rain fell, fat and loud as they splattered on the hood.
“Where am I going?” she said.
“Southbound,” the kid answered. “Boston or bust.”
Abby kept her foot on the brake, and this time the gun muzzle found her ribs, a jab with more force.
“Don’t sit here waiting to be noticed. Get on the move.”
Abby eased her foot off the brake. She wasn’t sitting there hoping to be noticed or expecting to find help in this isolated fishing village.
She was thinking about I-95 southbound in the rain. They’d hit the Boston area around rush hour, although every hour seemed like rush hour in Boston. Cars and trucks squeezing you from all sides, tens of thousands of drivers oblivious to the killing power controlled by their hands and feet.
And a sociopath with a gun in her backseat.
This was the first time she’d shared a car with anyone since Luke. Always, she’d made sure to drive alone in the days after that, making any excuse. No excuse offered itself now.
“Let’s go,” the kid said, and Abby moved her foot to the gas.
The Tahoe rolled out of the general store’s parking lot and passed the post office; the North Atlantic was visible briefly to the right, then gone. Abby drove on through the gathering gray as the coastal fog swept in. She told herself this would be fine, this was the simple part, whatever came next was the trouble.
Faster, Abby, Luke had whispered just before the end. Faster.
Or had it been Slow down? It was so damned hard to remember.