A cold beer, a microwaved lasagna eaten out of the box, and eight hours of fitful sleep with his Beretta on his nightstand within easy reach—that was how Gage spent the time between leaving Emerald Beach Village and finally waking for good when dawn's light brightened his bedroom window blinds on Monday morning. He last remembered seeing his green-glowing digital clock reading 4:05, so he'd gotten a couple hours of sleep at least, a miracle considering how wound up he'd been.
Two people dead. A missing teenage girl. A dangerous man in town. His own daughter facing troubles of her own. Where had all this come from?
After a shave and shower, he ate some toast with butter and downed three cups of coffee before he felt at least halfway awake. The gray light filtering through the high windows along the A-frame matched his somber mood. He thought about everything that had happened since he'd gotten that fateful call from Percy Quinn on Friday night telling him Harriet Abel was dead. Was that really only a little more than two days ago? It never ceased to amaze him how his life could be filled with long dull stretches that seemed neither long nor dull when he was living through them—endless walks on the beach, countless crossword puzzles, bottles of bourbon piling up in the paper sack under the sink—but were thrown into stark relief for the tedium they were when contrasted to brief periods of intense activity.
Or was the tedium all an illusion? Was he like a long quiet volcano, its geological simmering so buried beneath the hardened surface crust that it went unnoticed even by him, that eventually had to find some release? A volcano did not question what it was. A volcano just was. It might have been mistaken for a peaceful mountain by others, but whether it blew today, tomorrow, or in a hundred years, it was still a volcano.
That was how Gage felt, eating his toast on that somber Monday morning. Like the pressure was building up to something. He didn't think he could stop it, but he might be able to figure out when it would happen, and how bad it would be.
The first thing he decided to do that morning was talk to Winne Rallins.
In truth, he'd been avoiding her. He wasn't quite sure why. In any other investigation, all the circumstantial evidence and just plain common sense pointing to Winnie Rallins as prime suspect number one would have dictated focusing on her relentlessly until there was reason to do otherwise. Yet he kept pushing her from his mind. Why?
Cleaning up his dishes, hands in the soapy water, he came to the conclusion it wasn't any one thing that put him off her. It was all of them together. Her grief didn't seem fake to him. He didn't think she was talented enough to fake it. She was also physically weak. Very weak. Handling her, when she'd thrown herself at him, had felt like tossing around a paper mâché doll. It was hard to imagine her swinging anything capable of killing her mother, let alone dragging the body into the driftwood teepee.
On some level, he had sensed all this, but now, with how complicated and convoluted the situation surrounding Harriet's Abel's death had become, he doubted himself. Winnie may not have been the killer, but she may have still been connected—a thread that he could pull to see what unraveled. When he pulled up in front of her house two hours later, though, there were no cars in the driveway. The white Tercel was nowhere to be found. In the garage, maybe? He knocked on the front door. No answer. He knocked again and waited a long time, just to be sure, blowing in his hands in the cool wet air. The gray sky, which often broke up or dissolved by midmorning, remained as solid as fresh paint. The ocean, visible between the houses, blurred into the sky as if there was no difference between the two.
Yesterday's events prompted him to check a few windows just to confirm there was no foul play. He saw nothing unusual. While he was coming around the side of the house, back to his van, an old woman in a yellow rain slicker was crossing from the other side of the street.
"Can I help you, young man?" she said. There was nothing helpful about her tone.
"I was just looking for Winnie. I was just worried about her."
"Oh, sure you were."
"Excuse me?"
"You're one of those, aren't you?"
"One of what?"
The old woman, her face as dark and wrinkled as a raisin, shook her head. "Nothing but trouble, that one. Always bringing men back to the house, usually when her mom is out doing her good works like she does. And now look what happened! One of you probably killed Harriet, didn't you?"
"Now hold on," Gage said.
"I'm going to call the police. Snooping around here. I'm going to give them the license plate number on your van too."
"Fine, do it."
The old woman appeared surprised. "Well, I will!"
"You should. But you should probably know I'm actually a private investigator looking into Ms. Abel's death. The police know full well who I am."
This gave her pause. "Well . . . well, that's different, then. You got some proof? A license or something?"
"Sure, I do."
"You gonna show it to me?"
"Only if you ask nicely."
"What's that? I don't hear so well, so you have to speak up."
Gage took out his wallet and showed her the license. She leaned in close, squinting at it with her cloudy eyes for so long he started to doubt it was authentic himself.
"Seems legit," she said. "What you find out so far?"
"I'm afraid that's confidential, ma'am. Let me ask you something, do you live close?"
"Yes, just two houses down. I've rented it for the last five years."
"Do you rent from an individual or some kind of company?"
"Company. I don't know what this has to do with anything. I need to get home."
"Is it New Shore Rentals, Inc.?"
Her already wrinkled brow wrinkled some more. "How'd you know that?"
"I'm a crack private investigator, remember?"
"Oh. Why are you on crack? You do drugs?"
"Never mind. Had any issues with them?"
"With who?"
"New Shore."
"No."
"Have you met anyone from the company? Been to their office?"
"No. I just mail off the check to a P.O. box."
"Who showed you the place when you first looked at it? Didn't someone from New Shore come out then?"
"Oh . . . Well, no, actually. It was a real estate agent in town. Said he handled all the New Shore accounts for them. What was his name? He was a little guy, big glasses, big mustache with ends curled up. I don't know. Oh, it was a company with a tree on it. I remember that. Oak Tree Real Estate? Fir Tree? Something. I'm sure they're in the book. Look, I gotta go."
She turned abruptly and walked away. Gage waited at Harriet Abel's house a bit longer, hoping Winnie might show up, but she didn't. The wind picked up, stirring eddies of sand along the street under the gray tarp of a sky. He wondered where Winne had gone. He drove down to the casino, on the off chance she'd driven there and was inside but did not see the Tercel anywhere in the parking lot.
Midmorning by this point, he picked up a half dozen donuts from the deli at Jaybee's Grocery and headed to Books and Oddities. Alex was in the middle of arguing with a man in a cowboy hat who smelled of cigarettes and looked like he slept in a barn about why he couldn't buy the stack of paperback westerns—something about all of their covers being used as makeshift ashtrays. After the guy left in a huff, Gage deposited his donuts on the counter. Alex fetched two mugs of coffee from the back and handed one of them to Gage. The mug was in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with the ears as handles.
"You must want something," Alex said, digging into his first chocolate donut.
Gage placed his hand over his heart. "You question the sincerity of my generous carbohydrate offering? I'm hurt."
"I know you too well. What is it?"
"Did you hear about Lettie Carmine? Brianna's aunt?"
"No. What happened?"
While they ate their donuts, Gage caught his friend up on the previous night's events. A kid carrying a skateboard—Gage thought of him as a kid, though he was probably in his early twenties—came in and bought a couple Phillip K. Dick paperbacks, but otherwise the store was empty. When he was finished, Alex wiped his mouth with one of the napkins.
"Well," he said soberly.
"I know, right? Something big is going on here. I'm wondering if Winnie took off. Maybe she's running from something."
"She could just be out."
"Maybe. Or . . ."
He trailed off, not having to finish the sentence for Alex to grasp where he was going: maybe someone had gotten to her, too. Alex nodded. They ate the rest of their donuts in silence, sipping their coffee, both of them pensive.
"You were right about the Ridley name," Alex said finally. "It didn't lead anywhere. A total dead end."
"How about New Shore? Anything on them?"
"Garrison, I can only pull in so many favors. I've been out of the FBI for a while. There's barely anyone there who even remembers me anymore."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Nice. I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise you anything."
"It's all right. I know a crack librarian who might be able to help me. That's crack as in terrific, not on drugs by the way."
"What?"
"Nothing," Gage said, circling around to the other side of the counter. "I need to use your computer to look up real estate companies in town."
"Hey, you think a couple donuts entitles you to free reign of my top-of-the-line high tech forensic center?"
"For what you have? Yes."
"Well, you're right. Just bring more chocolate ones next time, okay?"
A quick Google search of real estate companies brought up dozens, but there were only a handful of local ones. It only took him a few seconds to find Evergreen Real Estate, which had an office not far from Books and Oddities. Their logo was the letters E.R.E. with a faded fir tree behind them. There was a picture of Martin E. Barnhart, Broker, next to the ad, and he matched the old woman's description: wide face, handlebar mustache, beady eyes behind thick glasses that made them seem even beadier. Gage remembered the building, which housed a dozen professional businesses all with tiny signs too hard to read from the road. As far as he knew, he'd never been inside any of them.
There was a first for everything. After spending a few more minutes with Alex—they talked about Eve, who was still shaken up by the whole thing, and Garrison promised to come over for dinner next week—he headed over to Evergreen Real Estate. The gray-blue building was nondescript and easy to miss, the part facing the highway narrow even while the building itself was quite deep. The parking lot was actually quite large but tucked completely behind the building. He found dozens of cars parked back there, a row of fir trees along the back giving the place a woodsy feel.
It felt cooler, too. He walked with his hands shoved into his leather jacket, leaving his cane in the van. He made sure to leave his jacket unzipped enough that he had easy access to his Beretta. Paranoid? Maybe, but he didn't think so. The building was actually in the shape of a U, with a central concrete courtyard and the businesses along the inside perimeter, a covered walkway all the way around. He passed a chiropractor, a law office, an insurance salesman, a hair salon, and found Evergreen Real Estate at the back, past a maintenance room. The stenciled logo was on the glass portion of the front door.
The blinds were drawn on the door and the side window, but he could still glimpse some burgundy office chairs and an oak side table filled with magazines, softly illuminated by a brass lamp. Too dark to be open, though. He reached the handle, expecting the door to be locked, and was surprised when it turned freely.
Gage felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
A dark office but an unlocked door? A bad sign. He looked over his shoulder and saw no one in the courtyard, though he heard a woman talking out in the parking lot, a one-sided conversation as if she was on the phone. The building did such a good job at blocking highway noise that he couldn't hear it at all; instead, he could just barely make out the murmur of the ocean over the tops of the trees. He took out his Beretta, standing to the side of the door, and gently pushed open the door with his left hand.
He meant to do it slowly, but a breeze smelling of fir swept into the courtyard and banged the door against the doorstop.
The boom echoed in the enclosed courtyard. Nobody came outside, though, and the woman in the parking lot kept on talking. He edged into the office. The entry area was too small to be a reception area but had been turned into one just the same, with a metal desk, a wire rack filled with single-sheet real estate flyers, and the burgundy chairs so close he would only be able to walk between them sideways.
There was no sign of anything amiss. A single open door lay just beyond the desk, to the left. He couldn't see inside, the angle wrong, the room dark. A gaping darkness. He found a light switch next to the front door and turned on the overhead light. Much better. Still, someone could be in that room. He left the front door open. Beretta raised, he crept along the wall. He was halfway to the door when he heard a creak from within the side office.
He froze, his heart beating a fast, steady rhythm.
"Who's in there?" he asked.
There was no answer. Yet he was absolutely sure of what he had heard. What now? He could leave, call for the police, but he didn't want to do that—smarter, maybe, but not him. He crept forward a bit more, at the doorframe now. Only one thing to do. He had to take a quick look. He ducked his head past the frame for a split second and saw, in the shadows of the room, the shape of a person behind a desk.
The person didn't move. The person didn't speak. Was it Barnhart, dead in his chair?
"Speak up, whoever you are," Gage said.
Nobody answered. He called again. Still nothing. There had been no mistake. He really had seen someone. He reached around the corner, found the light switch, and flicked it on. Light flooded the room, cutting a sharp rectangle along the floor into the waiting area. Now there really was only one thing to do. Beretta raised, he looked into the room again, only for a split second, but it was long enough that he saw exactly who the person was.
Thomas Ridley.
He may have been a fairly nondescript fellow, but it was the same guy. Middle age, gray suit, bald except strands of wispy hair.
As if there was any doubt, Ridley finally spoke.
"Hello, Garrison," he said. "Perhaps you would be so kind to join me in here, instead of playing this rather amusing game of hide-and-go-seek."
Gage debated about what to do. If it was a setup, Ridley could have taken him out any number of ways. Gage had been careful but not that careful, leaving himself exposed to a surprise attack from multiple places in the room. Why would he have expected to be ambushed in a real estate office in an office building in the middle of the day? There would be witnesses up the wazoo. For just a second, he considered the possibility that Martin E. Barnhart and Ridley were one and the same person, just Ridley bearing a fake mustache, but he didn't think so. They looked too different, Barnhart's face much rounder and heavier, a rosiness to the cheeks.
"What are you doing in there?" Gage asked.
"Come in and let's talk about it."
"Maybe I should call the police instead."
"Maybe you should. But then you will miss hearing my business proposition."
"What?"
Ridley sighed. "Please, this is getting tiresome. Why don't you come in and sit down?"
Gage hesitated. The best thing, the most logical, self-preserving thing to do, would have been to bolt for the exit. But Gage wasn't the sort of person to flee. In the end, he walked into the room. He wasn't stupid, though. The Beretta was aimed at the man's face, a face so calm and serene that he could have been a banker about to discuss interest rates and mortgage points.
"Where's Barnhart?' Gage demanded.
"Gone, it seems," Ridley said. "Are you going to shoot me?"
"What?"
"I'd appreciate it if you put your weapon down. You can still hold it, if you like, but I find that tense situations often make people's trigger fingers do unfortunate things."
"How about you tell me where Barnhart is, or I guarantee that something unfortunate happens?"
Ridley made a tsk tsk sound, his mouth settling into the slightest of frowns. In the dim glow from the lamp in the corner, his suit was the color of dirty dishwater, the jacket ill-fitting, the shirt underneath wrinkled. The man's hands were under the desk, hidden from view. A yellow legal pad lay on top, a phone number written on it and nothing else. It was a wooden desk, not real wood but the cheap pressboard kind bought at Wal-Mart or the office supply store equivalent of Wal-Mart. What was under the desk? Gage had an idea. The man's eyes, even in their flat, corpse-like state, never wavered; the stare remained fixed on Gage.
"If you are under the impression," Ridley said, "that I also have a weapon pointed at you, then you are correct, sir. It's not the small Ruger you saw back at the bookstore. It's a Smith & Wesson Model 29, chambered in .44 Magnum, quite capable of puncturing the thin sides of this desk and also your right aorta, where it is currently pointed. It has been pointed at you since you opened the front door. I doubt the sheetrock in the wall would have protected you either. It is, after all, the most powerful handgun on Earth. Or at least Dirty Harry thought so."
"Who are you?" Gage snapped.
"Oh?" he said, "haven't I introduced myself? I thought I did that back at Alex's quaint bookstore. I'm Thomas Ridley."
"No, you're not."
The man raised his eyebrows, so faint they looked more like dimples than hair. "I'm not?"
"No."
"But it's the name on my driver's license."
"It's fake."
"Well, that's certainly a bold statement. Are you going to lower your Beretta or not?"
"How about not?"
Ridley shook his head. "Well, that would be rather unfortunate. You may very well hit me if you shoot, but I assure you, Garrison, I will hit you—and you will die when I do. Do you really want to die today? I'd rather not die today, but if that's what happens, I will accept the outcome as if it is my time. Can you do the same? Accept that it's your time? What will Zoe think if you die today? Alex? Eve? How about the police detective's daughter, Ava? You two seemed to hit it off. How would she feel if you died today?"
Ridley may have been talking about how all these people felt if he died, but that's not what Gage heard. What he heard, in the man listing all of the people in town who were close to him, was another threat. Outside, Gage heard a car alarm beep several times in the parking lot, then fall silent. He heard footsteps on the concrete patio, receding away. These sounds made the utter stillness inside the real estate office all the more stark. The air in the room smelled slightly musty, as if the windows next to the desk, covered with closed blinds, had seldom if never been opened.
"I'll lower my gun," Gage said, "if you put yours on top of the table—pointed away from me."
Ridley nodded. "That is a fair compromise. I accept your offer. I'll even make the first gesture, if it makes you more comfortable."
He brought out his left hand first, ever so slowly, palm raised to show Gage nothing was there. His right came next, even more slowly, the Smith and Wesson turned slightly away even as he did so. It was indeed a big gun, with an obscenely long barrel, the kind of piece someone usually only carried these days when they wanted to show off, a big contrast to the Ruger. What kind of arsenal did this guy have? Ridley placed the carbon steel flat on the desk, pointed at a forty-five degree angle away from Gage. His hand remained on the wooden handle, gripping it lightly but firmly, his index finger still on the trigger. It would have only taken the slightest jerk to the left to get the piece pointed at Gage again, but it was still a nod toward a truce and Gage had to acknowledge it.
He lowered his Beretta, not quite all the way toward the floor, but far enough that he, too, would have had to make a quick adjustment.
"There now," Ridley said. "That wasn't so hard, was it? You know, I wanted to talk to you. I actually unlocked the door for you. I was afraid you might go away if I didn't." He gestured toward one of the plain black reception chairs on the other side of the desk, near Gage. "We're two professionals here. I'd like to talk to you on that level, one professional to another. Please sit."
Gage didn't even look at the chair. He just stood there.
"All right, fine," Ridley said. "Stand, then. It's fine with me either way. I'll make this quick. I'd like to—"
"Where's Barnhart?"
"I told you. He's gone."
"But where?"
"I don't know."
"I get the sense you're lying."
"Well, your sense is wrong in this case."
"Is he dead?"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Ridley said, waving his hands as if the words themselves were bothersome smoke. "No need to get so dramatic. The man is merely missing, though I'm sure he's just out on a showing or some other errand. Believe me, I'd very much like to talk to him. That's why I've been sitting here. Of course, you came along first, which is no surprise. You're a smart fellow."
"Tell me where Barnhart is," Gage said again.
"Now, now, let's not get tiresome. I'll find him eventually, but honestly, I don't know his location at the present. I assure you, though, I'm very good at finding people—it is one of my most exceptional skills. He won't be missing for long. Now, do you want to hear my offer or not?"
"What?"
"The offer. I'd like to make you an offer for certain services. You are a private investigator, are you not? I assume you do work for payment?"
Gage smiled. "You actually think I'll work for you? Who are you, really?"
"I'm the person who is going to make your life a lot easier. Please just hear me out. Two minutes. That's all I ask. Can you do that, can you give me two minutes of your time with an open mind?"
Ridley raised his gun hand from his weapon and steepled his fingers on top of the desk. It wouldn't have been very far for him to reach for the pistol, but it still put him at a disadvantage to Gage. Or did it? It might have been a last test, a way of seeing if Gage would make the first move. Was this guy really so confident in his abilities that he was certain he could pick up his pistol, aim, and fire, all before Gage could get off a shot himself?
Perhaps he was. The Beretta felt heavy in Gage's hand, like a lump of useless metal. He heard a door close out in the complex somewhere, a voice, then silence. Air whistled faintly through the vent above him; he felt the air on the back of his neck. He didn't know who this man was, or what he wanted, but he was absolutely certain that there was no way he would take money from him. He did want to know what the offer was, though, because even that was an act of disclosure.
"Two minutes," Gage said.
"Good. It won't take long, because it's a very simple offer. I'd like to pay you $250,000."
He let the number hang in the air, his eyes flat, his fingers still. He betrayed no emotion himself, but then neither did Gage. It was also the first time since the Gray Man had strolled into Alex's store that Gage felt like he was at an advantage. If this guy thought he could be bought off with money, then he really didn't know Gage at all.
"Well?" Ridley said.
"It's a lot of money."
"Would you like to know what services I expect rendered for it?"
"Oh, I have a hunch."
"You might be surprised."
"Listen—"
"Crossword puzzles."
"Excuse me?"
"Crossword puzzles," Ridley repeated. "You like them, don't you? In fact, I'm told you are a master. I'd like to put together an anthology of the hundred best crossword puzzles ever created. We'll track down and acquire the rights to them, of course, but we need someone to spend, oh, a month or so of their time meticulously assembling a collection for us. It will take all of your time, meaning you will have to put aside anything else you're doing until the job is done. That is our one nonnegotiable requirement, that you remain in your house for the duration of this project except for brief runs for life's necessary errands—the grocery store, that sort of thing. There is a bit of urgency with this project, so it will demand all of your mental faculties. Of course, you'll already have a head start, since surely you already have quite a few in mind that you'd like to—"
"Cute," Gage said.
"What's that?"
"I said that's cute," Gage said. "A very clever way of saying you want me to drop my investigation of Harriet Abel's death. And Lettie Carmine's, too, I'm guessing."
"Investigating what?"
"Don't play coy. Who's your employer?"
"Why do I have to be employed by anyone? Perhaps this is my own project."
"You said our."
"I don't follow."
"You said our," Gage said. "As in we. As in plural. That is our nonnegotiable requirement. Who are you working for?"
The Gray Man, his fingers still steepled, leaned back in his chair ever so slightly. With someone else, the movement would hardly be noticeable—the chair did not even squeak, after all—but with the Gray Man it was akin to a flinch.
"You don't know me as well as you think," Gage said.
"Ah."
"There's nothing that will put me off this case. Tell that to your employer."
"I see."
"Now how about you tell me where Barnhart is?"
"If there's one thing you can be sure about me, Garrison, it's that when I tell you something, it's the truth. I don't know where Martin E. Barnhart, proprietor of this establishment, is at present. I also am sincere in my offer and what it entails. A quarter of a million dollars to put together a collection of the world's hundred best crossword puzzles. Take it or leave it."
"Leave it," Gage said.
"Well, that's a pity. I do wish you'd reconsider. It will be very difficult to find a man of your talents to take on this particular task."
"I'm sure you'll manage."
Ridley nodded. His eyes, watery gray pools, remained fixed on Gage, the seconds passing, the tension in the room rising.
"Oh, I'm not sure we'll bother. I think this task was uniquely suited to the individual."
"There you go again, using the word we. Who's we?"
"None of your concern," Ridley said, and there it was, the tiniest flash of irritation. He was getting under the man's skin. Whether that made him more or less dangerous, Gage didn't know for certain, but his guess was that it actually made him less dangerous. For most people, anger made them unpredictable, and the anger combined with that unpredictability often led to terrible outcomes. With this man, though, Gage got the sense that the emotion might cloud his judgment, dampen his abilities, increase the odds of him making a mistake. "Here's what you should be concerned with. If that money doesn't go to the crossword project, then it will most likely be targeted at other projects slightly lower on the list."
"Uh huh. Such as?"
"I'm sure you can use your imagination."
"An anthology of the hundred best chicken pot pie recipes?"
Ridley regarded Gage for a long time before edging away from the desk. He kept his hands slightly raised, where Gage could see them. He took a few steps to the blinds, leaving his back to Gage, totally exposed. His gun could have been a million miles away for all the good it could do him. The light shining through the cracks in the blinds cast horizontal black lines across his suit and his face. He opened them a crack, staring outside.
"I read a book recently," he said. "It was about the sex trade in Mexico and South America. I have to admit a morbid fascination for these types of books, as gruesome as they are. It's why I bought In Cold Blood in Alex's store. I confess that it's not the first time I bought that book. I read it as a teenager, and it had a profound effect on my reading habits from that point on. Anyway, most people don't realize what a massive industry the sex trade is. Billions of dollars, really, almost as big as the drug trade now."
"Fascinating," Gage said.
"Yes, it is. Most people also don't realize how easy it is to snatch a young woman off the streets here in the United States and ferret her away to another country. Get her hooked on heroin. Make her dependent on her handler. Turn her into an object completely geared toward providing sexual pleasure just so she can get her next fix. It isn't long before there's nothing left of her original personality, and even if she's given a chance to escape—if she even knows where she is—she doesn't take it. Weirdly, she even starts to like it."
He let the blinds closed, turning to face Gage. His expression, unreadable, unknowable, had not changed. The gauzy light from the window behind him gave his wispy hair a golden glow. Gage felt his right hand involuntarily grip the gun tighter. The Gray Man's gaze never drifted in that direction, but Gage still got the sense that the man noticed. He got the sense that not much escaped the Gray Man's attention, not much at all.
"So that's a threat, then?" Gage said.
"Excuse me?"
"If money doesn't work to get me to stop, you're saying your people will use other means. I get it."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I was simply relating an anecdote—admittedly one in poor taste. My interests also range into the area of the Spanish Inquisition and the torture devices they used. Those Spaniards, they really could think up some terrible stuff. How do you think a modern man of Spanish ancestry would hold up when put into one of those machines? Gruesome, surely, but still fascinating. But you seem like a man who might share my interests, or at least relate to them, given your . . . past. So much violence. When it happens over and over again, it can't be by chance, can it? There must be something in you that draws it in."
"Here's what's going to happen," Gage said. "I'm going to take you down to the police station. I'm going to tell them you just threatened my daughter, and you're going to tell them who you really are."
"I could certainly come down to the police station," Ridley said, "but I assure you nothing would come of it but a lot of wasted time and some embarrassment for you, so I don't think I will. I just want to give you one last chance to reconsider my offer."
Gage, his heart loud in his ears, lifted the Beretta and pointed it at the man's chest. He did it slowly, no need to rush with Ridley's piece so far away. Still, he was ready for the man to make a move, to jump for his gun. He wanted him to do it too. He knew this because he felt a sinking disappointment when Ridley did nothing of the kind.
"I've had enough," Gage said. He nodded toward the door. "Let's go."
Ridley didn't move.
"Now," Gage said.
"I think . . . not."
"You think not? Really?" Gage adjusted the Beretta. "Maybe you're confused. See, I'm the one with the gun in his hand. That kind of gives me the edge here. So let's not let this get ugly. Just get moving. No sudden moves. I'm a pretty good shot, so I'll probably just take off your hand, but who knows. Anything might happen."
Ridley crossed his arms and leaned back against the window, his back rattling the blinds. Having his hands tucked away put him at an even greater disadvantage. No way he could lunge for his gun and get a shot off before Gage put a couple slugs in him. If the man was concerned about this, he didn't show it. They could have been discussing the repair addendum on a recent house sale, two real estate professionals just chatting on a slow day.
"It's true," Ridley said, "anything could happen. Although in my experience, there's a big gulf between could and actually does. A huge gulf, really. You could shoot me right now. This is a true statement. My gun is there, on the desk. I am unarmed. Even for a man of lesser shooting ability—and I know that word doesn't describe you—it wouldn't prove difficult. You just aim and fire. But you won't."
Gage said nothing.
"You see, Garrison," Ridley said, "that's why your command is rather meaningless. You could shoot an unarmed man who has done nothing physically to provoke it, but you won't. The law certainly won't see any justification for it, but it's not really about the law. It's about you."
"Don't be so sure," Gage said.
"Oh, I don't need to be sure. It's not about what I believe. It's about you—your beliefs, your values, your code of honor, whatever you want to call it. Your predictability is as certain as the rising sun. You also know that if you kill me, it will also mean that my offer disappears along with me, and any of my fellow . . . associates who come along later, will be more focused on other projects whose outcomes may not please you."
"Trust me," Gage said, "if it's about whatever values I have versus saving my daughter's life, there's no contest."
"Oh? Go ahead then."
Gage aimed the Beretta between the man's eyes and tightened his finger on the trigger. It wouldn't take much, a little squeeze, and that would be it. Would another Gray Man come along after him? He surely would. There was always another one waiting in line after him, all the same, really, just more manifestations of the violence that always lurked around the perimeter of Gage's life. That part was true, and Gage had done his best to make peace with it.
But he couldn't pull the trigger. Not yet. Even with all those veiled threats, he couldn't, and he hated himself for it.
"Here's what I'm going to do," Ridley said. "I'm going to walk over to that desk. I'm going to pick up my weapon and very slowly put it back in my jacket. You will, of course, keep your beloved Beretta pointed at me the entire time. I assure you, I will do nothing. There's a number written on that legal pad. I'm sure you saw it when you walked in—it's a service out of India. I assure you there's no way to trace it back to anyone, but I also assure you that the messages are monitored continually. Just call that number and leave a message that you agree to our offer. Then you can commence on the crossword puzzle book."
"It's never going to happen," Gage said.
"All the same, I'd like to give you until tomorrow at eight a.m. to change your mind. After that . . . Well, as I said, there are other projects."
As Ridley walked back to the desk, he kept his hands high, and he made no sudden moves. He stared impassively at Gage the entire time, no threat, no menace, just the same dull flatness. He picked up his piece not by gripping the handle but with two fingers on the chamber, lifting it up as he might something that he preferred not to touch, and carefully slipped it into the holster. Then, with his hands hanging limply at his sides, far from the gun in his jacket, Ridley took his gray self around the desk. He stopped a foot from Gage, who blocked the door.
"I'm going to walk past you now," he said. "My hands will be raised.
"You're not going anywhere," Gage said, moving directly into the doorway.
"You will have to shoot me, and I think we've already concluded that won't happen."
"There are other ways to stop you. I don't need a gun."
"Oh? Well, you can certainly try. Putting yourself in such close physical proximity does pose certain . . . risks."
"Really?" Gage said. "You're saying you can take me?"
"I'm saying first impressions can sometimes be very mistaken. Haven't you ever heard the expression of not judging a book by its cover? I guarantee you I have not underestimated you, despite your limp and rather . . . frumpy appearance." He took a step forward.
"Don't," Gage said.
"Garrison, think this through. Whether you try to remove me from the equation with a gun or by making me your prisoner, it won't change the outcome. I'm a client of Barnhart's. I just came looking for him to discuss business, a vacation property. The man's accounts will back me up on this."
He took another step. This time, Gage held his ground. Only about six inches separated the end of his Beretta from the man's gray blazer. Ridley took another step and closed the gap completely, the gun dimpling his suit exactly where his heart would be. If he had a heart. Gage was beginning to wonder.
"You see," Ridley said, "the real problem for you isn't that you won't shoot a nonthreatening man. The real problem is that you still believe, deep down, that you are the best hope for protecting those you love from harm. It's misguided, I assure you, but it is what you believe. You know that unless you let me go right now, you risk removing yourself from the situation. And you can't have that."
He took a step. At first, Gage thought he was going to step right into him, a war of wills, but at the last second Ridley slipped to the left like a wide receiver twisting his shoulders to evade a tackle. Gage had been expecting a move like this, but even so, the man moved so deftly that it still surprised Gage, and by then he was halfway past him. Gage would have had to throw himself at the man to take him down—or pull the trigger.
He felt his finger twitch. It would be so easy.
Yet he didn't.
The Gray Man, hands raised the entire time, took a few more nimble steps, and then he was past Gage and into the tiny lobby.
"If you find Barnhart before I do," Ridley said, "tell him I'm looking for him. There are matters about my account that we really must discuss."
Then he was gone.