Part 20:
And the window had a crack in the bottom right corner. He stared at the crack. He went back out into the living room. Emma looked up from the yarn. Who was that? Work. On a Saturday? Sometimes on a Saturday, kiddo. Okay. She went back to her bracelet. He sat down on the couch. His hands were steadier than they’d been in Sharp’s office, but only a little.
He called Delia. Delia picked up on the second ring. Tell me. A woman. 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. Old logging road off 12A, north of Northfield, quarter mile in. Hold. She was gone for maybe a minute. He could hear her typing, and he could hear voices in the background. And once he could hear Marcus Pell saying something short that had the cadence of a curse word. She came back on.
All right. We’re going to need the next several hours, Ryan. Can you come in tonight? Emma? Bring her to Rosa. Delia, I know. I know it’s Saturday. I need you tonight. I need to walk you through the meet, and I need to put you in the vest, and I need Marcus’s team to do the approach survey before dark. Because that road is going to be very different in the dark than it is in the light, and we are not going to have time to do it tomorrow.
The vest? The vest. A bulletproof vest. A Kevlar vest. Yes. Delia. Ryan. Did you think these people were going to hand you an envelope and shake your hand? I thought they might hand me an envelope and shake my hand. I know you did. That is why I am telling you to come in tonight. He looked at Emma through the open door of the bedroom.
She was holding the bracelet up to the light, checking the pattern. I’ll come in, he said. Give me an hour. 1 hour. She hung up. He sat on the bed for a second with his hands on his knees, then he got up and went out into the living room. Em. Yeah. Abuelita’s going to watch you tonight. She looked up. Why? Work thing. I have to go in.
On a Saturday night? Yeah. Daddy? Yeah. What do you do at your job? He had known this question was coming. He had been waiting for it for almost a month. He sat down on the floor next to her. He picked up a piece of the yarn. I help them figure out who’s been stealing things from the company. She looked at him.
Okay. It’s not dangerous, kiddo. I sit at a desk. I look at papers. Then why are you going in on a Saturday night? Because we almost figured it out. And when you almost figure it out, sometimes you have to work fast. Okay. She took the piece of yarn back from him. Daddy? Yeah. You’re not in trouble. No, Em. I’m not.
Pinky promise. She held out her little finger. He hooked his around it. She squeezed hard, the way she always did, like she was trying to make sure the promise could not come undone. Pinky promise, he said. He dropped her at Rosa’s at 6:18. Rosa met him at the door in her slippers. She did not ask why. She had stopped asking why a long time ago.
She kissed Emma on the top of the head and put a hand on Ryan’s arm for 1 second, which was as close as Rosa came to saying anything tender, and then she waved him off. He drove out to the building outside Montpelier. He got there at 7:02. The parking lot was fuller than it had been on any other Saturday, and there were two cars he didn’t recognize, and Marcus was at the front door.
“Late,” Marcus said. “Traffic.” “No traffic on a Saturday.” “Inner traffic.” Marcus almost smiled. They went inside. The conference room had been rearranged. The big table was still in the middle, but it now had maps on it, topographic maps, satellite images printed off that morning. There were four people in the room that Ryan had not seen before, two women and two men.
All of them in the casual clothes of people who had been called in on a weekend, all of them looking at Ryan with the mild curiosity of people trying to figure out whether he was going to be a liability. Delia was at the head of the table. Celeste was two seats down from her in a black sweater with her hair tied back. She looked up when Ryan came in.
“Ryan.” “Celeste.” “Sit.” He sat across from her. She slid a mug of coffee over to him without asking. He took it. He was starting to get used to coffee just appearing in his hand when she was in a room. “Let’s walk it,” Delia said. They walked it. The logging road ran east off 12A into mixed pine and hardwood forest.
It had been used years ago for pulling timber out to trucks parked on the shoulder of the highway. It was now half overgrown and unmaintained. Quarter of a mile in, the road opened into a small clearing where loggers had once staged equipment. The clearing was maybe 60 ft across. There was one way in by vehicle and one small footpath out the other side that went up a ridge and came out on a fire road a mile to the east.
Marcus’s team had walked it that afternoon. They had photographs. “This is a bad location for them,” Marcus said. “Good for us.” “How?” “If they wanted to make you disappear, they would pick a different kind of road, something with standing water or something with a drop-off where they could push a vehicle. They picked this because it’s private and close to the highway, but it’s too close to the highway.
They are not professional killers, Ryan. They’re thieves. They are going to try to scare you. They’re going to show you that they know where you live. They are going to take the records. They are going to give you the envelope if you seem cooperative, and they are going to tell you to leave the state.
