“Where’s your father?”
Yasmin shrugged. “I think he said something about going in the basement.”
For a moment the three just stood there. The house was tomb still. They waited another second or two, waiting for some kind of sound or sign. But there was nothing.
Guy was probably dealing with his grief, Tia figured. She should just take Jill and go home. None of them moved. This suddenly felt wrong. The normal pattern was to act this way when you dropped your child off—walking your child to the door to make sure a parent or babysitter was inside.
Now it felt as though they were leaving Yasmin alone.
Tia called out, “Guy?”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Baye. I’m old enough to be by myself now.”
That was questionable. They were at that uncertain age. They were probably okay on their own, what with cell phones and all. Jill had started wanting more independence. She had proved herself, she said, to be responsible. Adam had been left on his own when he was her age, which in the end was not such a ringing endorsement.
But that wasn’t what was troubling Tia right now. It wasn’t a question of leaving Yasmin alone. Her father’s car was in the driveway. He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to tell Yasmin what had happened to her mother.
“Guy?”
Still no answer.
The girls looked at each other. Something crossed their faces.
“Where did you say you thought he was?” Tia asked.
“In the basement.”
“What’s down there?”
“Nothing really. Just some old boxes and stuff. It’s kinda gross.”
So why would Guy Novak have suddenly decided to go down there?
The obvious answer was to be alone. Yasmin had said there were old boxes down there. Maybe Guy had packed away some memories of Marianne and he was right now sitting on the floor and sorting through old pictures. Something like that. And maybe with the basement door closed he hadn’t heard her.
That made the most sense.
Tia remembered that darting shadow, the one she saw when she peered through the window. Could that have been Guy? Could he be hiding from her? That too made some sense. Maybe he simply didn’t have the strength to face her right now. Maybe he didn’t want company of any kind. That could be it.
Fine and good, Tia thought, but she still did not like the idea of leaving Yasmin like this.
“Guy?”
Her voice was louder now.
Still nothing.
She moved toward the basement door. Too bad if he wanted his privacy. A quick yell of “I’m right here” would have done the trick. She knocked. No answer. Her hand gripped the knob and turned. She pushed it open a little.
The light was off.
She turned back to the girls. “Honey, are you sure he was going down here?”
“That’s what he said.”
Tia glanced at Jill. She nodded in agreement. Fear started to play around the fringes now. Guy had sounded so down on the phone and then he’d gone to be alone in a dark basement. . . .
No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to Yasmin. . . .
Then Tia heard a noise. Something muffled maybe. Something scraping or struggling. A rat or something.
She heard it again. Not a rat. It sounded like something bigger.
What the . . . ?
She looked at the two girls hard. “I want you to stay up here. Do you hear me? Don’t come down unless I call you.”
Tia’s hand fumbled for the switch on the wall. She found it, turned it on. Her legs were already taking her all the way down. And when she got there, when she looked across the room and saw Guy Novak gagged and tied, she pulled up short and didn’t think twice.
She turned and started back up.
“Girls, run! Get out of the . . .”
The words died in her throat. The basement door in front of her was already closing.
A man stepped into the room. He held a wincing Yasmin by the neck with his right hand. With his left, he held Jill.
38
CARSON fumed. Dismissed. After all he had done for her, Rosemary simply sent him out of the room like a child. She was in there now, talking to that old man who’d made him look bad in front of his friends.
She just didn’t get it.
He knew her. She was always using her beauty and her mouth to get out of trouble. But that wouldn’t work here. She would look for a way to save her own butt, that was all. The more Carson looked at it, the worse it got for him. If the cops moved in and they were going to offer someone up as the sacrificial lamb, Carson had to be their leading candidate.
Maybe that was what they were discussing right now.
Made sense. Carson was twenty-two now—more than old enough to be tried and convicted as an adult. He was the one the teens mostly dealt with—Rosemary had been smart enough to keep her hands clean in that respect. He, Carson, was also the go-between with the distributor.
Damn, he should have known this would happen. As soon as the Spencer kid bit the dust, they should have gone quiet for a while. But the money had been huge and his distributors were pressing them. Carson’s contact was a man named Barry Watkins who always wore Armani suits. He took him to classy gentlemen’s clubs. He tossed cash around. He got him girls and respect. He treated him right.
But last night, when Carson didn’t deliver, Watkins’s voice changed. He didn’t shout. It just went cold and it felt like an ice pick between the ribs.
“We need to get this done,” he had told Carson.
“I think we got a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“The doctor’s kid freaked out. His father showed up tonight.” Silence.
“Hello?”
“Carson?”
“What?”
“My employers won’t let it be tracked back to me. Do you understand? They’ll make sure it doesn’t reach that level.”
He hung up. The message had been sent and received.
So Carson waited with the gun.
He heard a noise at the front door. Someone was trying to get in. The door was locked from both sides. You needed to know the alarm code to get in or out. Whoever it was started pounding on the door. Carson looked out the window.
It was Adam Baye. He was with the Huff kid.
“Open up!” Adam shouted. He slapped the door some more.
“Come on, open up!”
Carson smothered his smile. Father and son in one place. This would be the perfect way to end it.
“Hold on,” Carson said.
Jamming the gun into his waist in the back, Carson pushed four digits and saw the red light turn green. The door unlocked.