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Emily hurries into the downstairs office. It hurts to hurry but she hurries anyway, making little whimpering sounds and pressing the fingers of both hands into the lumbar region of her back, as if to hold it together. The most excruciating pain of the sciatica passed after they ate the Dahl girl’s liver—Roddy gave her the lion’s share and she gobbled it half-raw—but it hasn’t gone away entirely, as it did after Castro and Dressler. She dreads future pain if it returns full force, but right now there’s this inquisitive bitch to deal with, not Molly Givens but Holly Gibney.
How much does she know?
Em decides she doesn’t care. With Ellen Craslow added to the equation, she knows enough. Roddy may have gotten her name wrong, but he’s right about one thing: you don’t park your car a quarter of a mile down the street if you’re just coming to ask questions. You only park a quarter of a mile down the street if you want to pry into other people’s business.
They have a state-of-the-art alarm system that covers the entire perimeter of the house and grounds. It doesn’t call the police unless it’s not been shut off sixty minutes after it’s first tripped. When it was installed, burglars and home invaders weren’t their primary concern, although of course they never said that. Em turns on the alarm, sets it to HOUSE ONLY, then turns on all ten of their cameras, which Roddy installed himself in a happier time when he could be trusted to do such things. They cover the kitchen, the living room, the basement (of course), the front of the house, the sides, the back, and the garage.
Emily sits down to watch. She tells herself they’ve come too far to turn back now.
19
Holly approaches the vacant house at 91 Ridge Road. She takes a quick glance ahead of her and to the far side of the street. She sees no one, and with no hesitation, because she who hesitates is lost, veers onto the dying lawn and walks up the left side of the house, putting the bulk of it between her and 93 next door on the right.
Behind the house she crosses a flagstone patio toward the hedge dividing this yard from the Harrises’. She steps briskly, without slowing. She’s in it now, and a colder version of Holly takes over. It’s the same one that threw all those loathsome china figurines into the fireplace of her mother’s house. She walks slowly down the hedge. Thanks to the hot, dry summer and the lack of any lawn and grounds maintenance, at least since the previous owners moved out, Holly finds several thin places. The best is opposite what she guesses is the Harrises’ kitchen, but she doesn’t want that one. The worst is opposite the garage, which figures, but that’s still the one she means to use. At least she’s wearing long sleeves and long pants.
She bends and peers through the hedge at the garage. It’s a side view and she still can’t see if it’s a one- or two-car garage, but she does see something interesting. There’s only one window, and it’s entirely black. It might be a shade, but Holly thinks it might also have been painted over on the inside.
“Who does that?” she murmurs, but the answer seems obvious: someone with something to hide.
Holly turns her back, hugs her shoulder bag against her breasts, and pushes through the hedge. She emerges with nothing worse than a few scratches on the nape of her neck. She looks around. There are a couple of plastic garbage cans and a recycling bin beneath the garage’s eave. To her right she can see the driveway leading back to the street and the roof of a passing car.
She walks to the one window and yes, it’s been blinded with matte black paint. She goes around to the rear and finds what she was hoping to find—a back door. She expects it to be locked and it is. She takes the alligator-skin case out of her bag and opens it. Inside, lined up like surgical instruments, are Bill Hodges’s lockpicks. She examines the lock. It’s a Yale, so she takes out the hook pick and slides it in at the top of the keyway—very gently, so as not to disturb any of the locking pins. The second pick goes in beneath it. Holly twists the second pick to the right until it binds. Then she’s able to trip the top pin with the hook pick… she hears it retract… and the second pin… and…
Is there a third? If so, it hasn’t engaged. It’s an old lock, so it’s possible there isn’t. Slowly, her upper teeth pressed into her lower lip almost hard enough to make it bleed, she rotates the hook pick and pushes. There’s an audible click and for a moment she’s afraid she’s lost one of the pins and will have to start over. Then the door comes ajar, pushed by the pressure of the two picks.
Holly lets out her breath and puts the picks back into the case. She drops the case into her bag, which is now hung around her neck. She straightens and takes her phone from her pocket.
Be there, she thinks. Please be there.
20
Emily can’t wait for Roddy; for all she knows, his slippery mind has skated him off in some other direction entirely. Three concrete steps lead down from the kitchen door to the Harris patio. She sits on the lowest, then lies down. The concrete riser biting into her back is painful, but she can’t think about that now. She cocks one of her legs to the side and puts one arm behind her, at what she hopes will look like an awkward angle. God knows it feels awkward. Does she look like an old lady who’s just taken a serious fall? One who needs help badly?
I better, she thinks. I just better.
21
The van is there, and Holly doesn’t even have to check if it’s been customized with a chassis-lift to allow for a ramp to emerge. Above the rear bumper is a Wisconsin license plate with the wheelchair symbol that means this is a duly accredited vehicle for people with disabilities. The light coming in the back door is fading but more than adequate. She raises her iPhone and snaps three pictures. She thinks the plate alone will be enough to get a police investigation started.
She knows it’s time to go, past time, but she wants more. She shoots a quick glance over her shoulder—no one there—and approaches the back of the van. The windows have been darkened, but when she puts her forehead against one and cups her hands to the sides of her face, she can see inside.
She can see a wheelchair.
This is how they do it, she thinks with a burst of triumph. This is how they get their targets to stop. Then whoever they’re working with—the real bad guy—pops out of the van and does the rest.
She really has to stop pressing her luck. She takes three more snaps of the wheelchair, backs out of the garage, and pulls the door shut. She turns toward the hedge, meaning to go back the way she came, and that’s when a weak voice cries, “Help! Will somebody help me? I’ve fallen and it hurts terribly!”
Holly isn’t convinced. Not even close. Partly because it’s awfully convenient, but mostly because her own mother has played the same oh the pain is so bad card when she wanted Holly to stay around… or, lacking that, to leave feeling so guilty that she’d come back sooner. For a long time it worked. And when it stopped working, Holly thinks, she and Uncle Henry ran a con on me.
“Help! Please, someone help me!”
Holly almost backs through the hedge anyway, leaving the woman—Emily Harris for sure—to emote on her own, then changes her mind. She walks to the end of the garage and peers around it. The woman is sprawled on the steps, one leg cocked, one arm bent behind her. Her housedress is rucked up to mid-thigh. She’s skinny and pale and frail and certainly looks in pain. Holly decides to put on a little performance of her own. We’ll be like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, she thinks. And if her husband comes out, so much the better.
“Oh my God!” she says, approaching the downed woman. “What happened?”
“I slipped,” the woman says. The tremble in her voice is good, but Holly thinks the sob of pain that follows is strictly summer stock. “Please help me. Can you straighten my leg? I don’t think it’s broken, but—”
“Maybe you need a wheelchair,” Holly says sympathetically. “There’s one in your van, isn’t there?”
