“Nine o’clock. At the Pike Street construction site.”

Inwardly, Danny groaned. Of course. The irony had appealed to Evan so much, the idea of using Richard’s own space to hide his son. How much better, how much crueler, to have the meet there? He should have guessed.

“What are you supposed to do?”

“Drive in, park my car facing out, and leave it running.” The words started to come more easily. “Walk into the building with the money in a duffel bag. He said he’d take the money and my car, and leave Tommy with me.”

Danny shook his head, one hand massaging his sore neck. “He’ll check the money, and then he’ll shoot you.”

“We should call the police.”

Danny turned fast. “No.”

“You said he’s going to kill me, kill Tommy. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Believe me, Richard, you bring the police, Tommy and Karen die. Evan will be watching. You’d save your life, but it will cost your son’s.”

“What if it was a specialist, or a SWAT team, something like that?”

Danny snorted. “It doesn’t work that way. You call now, you’ll get squad cars, maybe a couple of detectives. They’ll be noisy and they’ll be slow. As for deploying SWAT teams, well, that only happens on TV.”

Richard looked like he wanted to argue, then sighed. He leaned against the wall, let himself slide down to sit on his heels. “All of this only happens on TV.”

Danny felt for the guy. Like his own, Richard’s whole life had been ripped away. In some ways, it had been worse for Danny because he had watched it happening, had to suffer every moment of it. But at least it had left him in a world he understood. Richard was lost.

But understanding this world didn’t change basic facts. Evan held the position of strength. If they were going to stop him, they needed an edge.

“You don’t,” Danny asked, “happen to own a gun?”

“With a kid? No way.”

Danny nodded, tired. It was the first time in his life he’d wanted the answer to that question to be yes. “Okay.” He sat down against the wall beside Richard. In the silence, he could hear the faint ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the living room.

“Why is this happening?” Richard’s voice was faint.

Danny took a long moment to collect his words. He knew the answer. He’d known, on some gut level, since childhood. It had defined the way he’d grown up, the choices he’d made. Even after he’d gotten out of the life, the consciousness of it had haunted him. It was the true reason behind his monthly nightmares, the reason he always looked over his shoulder.

“Because you have something. Your life is blessed. Nothing is out of reach. People like Evan and me, we grew up differently.” He paused, shrugged. “It’s not complicated. It’s happening because you have something and others don’t. And that’s all the reason some people need.”

“People like you.” Richard’s voice was flat.

Danny sighed. “Once.” He thought of Karen, that day at the zoo. His head in her lap as he watched her smile dance against wild blue sky. They’d talked about having children, and he remembered the rush of sweet possibility he’d felt. “Now, all I want is to earn what I’ve got.”

There was a long pause, and then Richard turned to him. “What’s going to happen?”

I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

But what he said was, “We’re going to get your son back.”

“How?”

How indeed? Richard was a civilian, certainly willing to fight for his son, but of limited use in a scrap. Danny had been in a dozen serious scuffles by ten, but he still didn’t like his chances against Evan. The man was a prison-hardened killer. He’d learned to fight in the Golden Gloves and honed his lethal edge with a maximum-security sentence. He was strong, fast, ruthless, and armed. Plus, he was expecting them.

Wait.

Not quite.

“You know what?” Danny turned to look at his boss, a hint of a smile on his lips. “We’ve got one advantage.”

“What’s that?”

“He doesn’t know I’m coming.”

It took a moment, but Richard managed a smile back.

42

Richard was upstairs changing when Danny saw the duffel bag. Black with a dull silver zipper and padded handles, it looked like any other gym bag.

But Danny knew different.

He hefted it, surprised at the weight. Thirty pounds, maybe more. The zipper pulled smoothly over thick teeth, a quality item like everything else in Richard’s world. Danny eased it down slow, not to tease himself, but out of respect to a certain deadness he felt toward the bag and its contents. Once, this would have fired his heart and set his mind racing. Once, he would have been planning how to escape with it, envisioning the things he could do.

Now, as he stared down at the neatly bundled currency, all those Jacksons, Grants, and Franklins staring up at him, he felt only a vague nausea. Paper. Stacks and stacks of green paper. After all the discussion, after all the philosophy, that was what this came down to. These were the answer to Richard’s question. These were the lives of the people they loved, the futures of the people they worked with, the prime movers of darkness. Fate had borrowed the scales from Justice, set blood on one side and these dirty slips of paper on the other, and judged them even.

He thought of Karen’s brown sugar smell, the wet sparkle in her eyes when she laughed, the soft curve of her back. Acid soured his stomach. He zipped the bag and stepped away from its gloomy gravity.

Richard’s footsteps sounded down the stairs. He’d done as Danny asked, changed into loose, dark clothing: jeans and an old sweatshirt.

“You have any black tennis shoes?” Danny asked, gesturing at the white Nikes, their reflective swoosh bright even in the dim light.

Richard shook his head. “Just these.”

“All right.”

The doorbell rang, kids yelling, “Trick-or-treat!” They ignored it, their gaze locked. The bell rang again, and then the kids moved on to the next house, a parade of normalcy.

“Should we bring a weapon?” The question sounded bizarre coming from Richard.

A knife block stood in the center of the kitchen island, and Danny slid an eight-inch chef’s out, feeling the weight. German steel, well balanced and heavy. Perfect for chopping. He tried to imagine slipping it into Evan, blood spilling over his hands like soup.

He put the knife back in the block. “It will just get in the way.”

For a moment Richard looked like he was going to argue, but finally shrugged. “What time is it?”

Danny looked at him. “Time.”

The garage looked the same, and Danny swallowed a wave of guilt as he remembered Evan carrying Tommy’s limp body in his arms. Richard heaved the money bag in the back of the Range Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat. Danny joined him, feeling the first tingles of fear knit his stomach.

Easy, he told himself. Stretch it out. They had forty minutes yet – no point arriving adrenaline-sick and shaky.

The neighborhood streets were bright with the warm glow of porches and the sweeping arcs of flashlights. Children ran from house to house, their cotton capes and rubber monster masks providing a surreal background. Danny clenched and unclenched his fists, popping his knuckles.

“You want to go over it again?”

“I’ll drop you off a couple of blocks away.” Richard spoke mechanically. “Then find somewhere to park and wait. I show up at nine, and do everything Evan says. You sneak in and find Tommy and Karen.”

Danny nodded. “When you’re talking to him, remember not to say anything about Karen. We don’t want him to have any idea I’m there.”

“Right. You free them, tell them to get out. I try to stall Evan until you can jump him from behind.”