When Tom Scott emerged from the police cruiser Lucy had mixed emotions. She didn’t really want the Rousseaus to get in trouble, but she couldn’t condone drug dealing, and that was what she suspected they were up to.
She gave Tom a big smile and a wave, expecting him to move his car when he saw who she was, but that didn’t happen. He only gave her a glance and went straight over to Rusty and J.J. Lucy figured the best course of action was to stay in her car, continuing the pretense that she was only there to pick up some lobsters.
She didn’t even turn her head to observe their discussion; she wanted to make it clear she was minding her own business, but she could see them in the rearview mirror. Scott was clearly the one in charge. She could tell from J.J.’s and Rusty’s bowed heads and restrained gestures that they were not challenging him, but that was to be expected. Nobody argued with a cop, not even at a traffic stop, unless they wanted to get into more trouble. So she sat and waited for Scott to move the cruiser.
The men finally appeared to finish their discussion and Lucy watched as Tom walked across the yard toward the two cars, expecting him to finally move the cruiser and wave her on. Instead, he stopped next to her and yanked the door open.
“Out,” he said.
“What’s this all about?” she asked, unfastening her seat belt. “I’d really like to get home with my lobsters.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, roughly turning her around and shoving her against the car. “Hands behind your back.”
Lucy had seen enough movies to know what that meant—she was about to be handcuffed. She turned her head, and started to protest.
“I said, hands behind your back,” growled Scott.
Reluctantly, she obeyed and discovered that being handcuffed was a lot more uncomfortable than it looked, especially if you were wearing a bulky parka. The next step, she supposed, was to be placed in “the cage” in the back of his cruiser. But instead, Tom pulled her in the other direction, toward the lobster pound office, where she was thrown into a hard, wooden chair. Her upper arm, which had taken the brunt of the impact, felt sore and bruised.
“Don’t move,” he warned her.
Confused and frightened, Lucy nodded.
He opened the door to leave, but stepped back as an enraged Claw Rousseau came charging in.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Claw bellowed at him. “This is my place! You got no business here!”
Scott grinned at him. It wasn’t a very nice grin, thought Lucy, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as she could.
“You know how it works. You’re behind.” Scott shook his head. “The retirement fund’s not growing the way it’s supposed to. You missed last month, you haven’t paid anything yet this month. What’s going on? I thought we had a deal.”
“We’ve got a deal,” said Claw, looking nervously past Scott to Lucy. “You’ll get it, don’t worry. But you’ve got to let her go. She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Scott glanced at Lucy, and she cringed in the chair. “You know who she is? She’s a reporter. She’s been snooping all over town.”
Claw raised his hands to protest, but Scott cut him off.
“Look, right now, she’s my problem. I’ll take care of her.”
Lucy swallowed hard. That didn’t sound good. She strained to hear as Scott lowered his voice and led Claw across the room, toward the door.
“You’ve got problems of your own. I just picked up some interesting information on the radio—a couple of your associates from Boston have been spotted on the turnpike. They might be headed here, you think?”
The door flew open again and Lucy jumped in spite of herself. The thumping in her chest slowed when she realized it was only Rusty and J.J.
“Did you hear?” Claw’s tone was urgent. “The guys from Boston are coming here.”
Rusty looked stricken, as if he’d been punched in the heart.
“They want Russ Junior,” he said.
J.J. wrapped an arm around his smaller brother’s shoulder.
“We’ll take care of ’Ti-Russ,” he said. “We’ll put him on the boat, send him up the coast. These guys are city boys. They won’t find him.”
Lucy struggled to follow their conversation. ’Ti-Russ, she knew, was short for Petit Russ, Rusty’s son. She remembered him as a sturdy little fellow on Toby’s youth soccer team. He’d be in high school now, she thought.
“That’s no good.” Rusty’s eyes were wide. “They don’t find Russ, they’ll kill us, or our wives and kids. Burn down the house—they don’t care. They just want to send a message.” He buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe he was so stupid, what he got us into.”
“He’s a kid. Kids are stupid.” Claw shrugged. “We’ll get the money; they’ll go away.”
Lucy remembered Toby and Eddie refusing to tell her who was dealing drugs in the high school. Now she had a pretty good idea that it was ’Ti-Russ. What had he done? Helped himself to part of a shipment, shorting the buyer and putting his whole family in peril?
“So where are we gonna get the money?” demanded Rusty, his voice breaking.
“Take it easy,” said Scott. “It’s under control. The drug task force is on to them—it’s just a matter of time before those guys are out of the picture. You lie low, keep your young entrepreneur under wraps for a while. Go on, get started. Get on out of here.” He glanced at Lucy. “I’ll take care of Miss Snoopy.”
The three men seemed to confer silently for a moment, then Claw nodded, and they shuffled out of the room. Not one of them looked at her.
Left alone with Scott, Lucy’s situation hit her with a thudding certainty. She knew way too much. Scott was going to kill her, just as he’d killed Tucker.