Let Me Go (12 page)

He hadn't said a word to her for the last hour. He hadn't even offered her a section of the paper.

The coffee smelled good.

Cooper was sitting in one of the chairs that faced Jack's desk, not really doing anything. He hadn't been doing anything for hours, which made Susan bored even to watch, but seemed to suit Cooper just fine. Susan, meanwhile, had read
The Economist,
two issues of
Palm Beach Illustrated,
and something called the
Robb Report
. The
Town & Country
wasn't actually that bad. Who knew that Christie Brinkley's Hamptons remodel had been such a trial? Susan felt bad for her.

The phone on Jack Reynolds's desk rang. Susan noticed that he let it ring exactly twice, even though he was sitting right there. He picked it up, listened, and then said, “Let him in.”

Susan put the magazine down. She had been in that room waiting for Leo to take her home for over four hours. It was about fucking time. The truth was she didn't feel bad for Christie Brinkley at all. She felt bad for Leo, whose boyfriend stock was currently tanking, and to whom she planned to give the talking-to of a lifetime. She searched the floor for her shoes and put them on, and picked up the paper shopping bag that held her street clothes and purse.

When the door to the office opened, she was ready to go.

But it wasn't Leo who walked in.

It was Archie.

He was coated in filth. Disheveled. Begrimed. Grubby.
Dirty
didn't even begin to describe it. His clothes were creased and crumpled. His hair was a catastrophe. He had soil smeared on his face. Bits of vegetation clung to every part of him. He gave her a nod. “It's time to go home,” he said.

Susan looked at Jack and Cooper. They didn't look back. They were staring at Archie.

“Now,” he said.

Susan gulped and nodded. She didn't know what he knew or didn't know or what had happened or how long he'd been there, but she knew now was not the time to ask any of those questions. She hopped up off the chair and hurried to him, clutching the paper shopping bag to her chest.

Jack had laid the newspaper down on his desk and was looking up at them calmly. “You're tracking dirt on my Persian rug,” he said to Archie.

“Where's Leo?” Archie asked.

Up close, Susan could see blood in his hair. It had collected and congealed, leaving the top of his head matted with dark red. A trail of red traveled along his hairline and disappeared behind his ear. Susan took his hand. It was freezing.

Jack picked up his cup of coffee and lifted it to his lips and took a sip. Then he set it down. “Leo's gone,” he said.

“Wait,” Susan said. “What?” If Leo was gone, why had she been sitting here for four hours waiting for him? She leaned close to Archie. “I saw him last night,” she said, “down by the pool. They said he'd meet me here and take me home in the morning.” Archie smelled like mud. Underneath all the dirt, she could see that he was wearing a tuxedo. He'd been at the party. Had he come looking for her, or for Leo? A small brown leaf unstuck itself from his shoulder and fluttered to the floor. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did you come because of me?”

Archie didn't answer. His eyes were still fixed on Jack. “Give me my fucking gun,” Archie said.

Gun? Susan's stomach did a somersault. She could feel the tension in Archie's hand, every muscle tightening.

Jack got a key out of a box on his desk and he unlocked one of his desk drawers and slid it open and reached in and pulled out a gun. Susan scrutinized Archie's face, searching for some clue as to what the hell was going on.

Cooper walked the gun over, and Archie let go of her hand and took the gun from him, and then Cooper stepped away, and leaned up against the wall next to a framed photograph of a sailboat named
Isabel
.

Susan wanted to get out of here. She hovered at Archie's elbow, tightening her grip on the paper bag as if she might turn and dash away at any time. But Archie's attention was on the gun in his hand. He lifted it to his face and inhaled deeply, smelling it. Then he reached into the pocket of his pants and produced a magazine of bullets and loaded the weapon. He did it like he did it all the time, though Susan realized that she'd never seen Archie fire his weapon the entire time she'd known him.

“I heard you had too many pills and passed out, my friend,” Jack said from the desk. “I thought you'd left.”

Susan glanced anxiously at Archie. It was no secret that Archie had struggled with a pill addiction, and Jack was probably full of shit, but she still wanted Archie to deny it. Archie met Susan's gaze silently, and she looked away, embarrassed.

“Where's Star?” Archie asked Jack.

Star? Susan practically coughed. That's why Archie had come? To find the stripper? She adjusted her grip on the bag. “Please,” she said. “Let's go.”

Archie just stood there, his gun in his hand at his side.

Jack's grin widened slowly. “You want another crack at her?” he asked.

“Where is she?” Archie repeated.

“She's working,” Jack said, and he made a humping motion with his hips to illustrate.

Susan waited for Archie to respond. Jack's comment hadn't registered on Archie's face at all, but she knew that it had bothered him. Archie didn't like men who talked disrespectfully about women. He didn't even like men who talked disrespectfully about Gretchen Lowell, and she murdered people for sport.

“I'll be right back,” Archie said to Jack, and then he turned and put his hand on Susan's back and shepherded her toward the door.

“Wait,” Susan said, pulling away from him. She wanted to go, but she did not want to be herded, and she certainly was not going to leave without Archie. “Tell me what's going on.”

Archie glared at her. His brown eyes looked bleary. He had that look, that look that said,
Don't ask me questions—just follow my lead
. “You're going home,” he said.

Cooper was still leaning up against the wall. He cleared his throat. Susan looked over at him. He said one word: “Go.” She didn't even see his lips move. It was hard to know for sure he'd even spoken.

Susan's skin itched.

She had the feeling then that everyone in the room knew something that she didn't. She adjusted the bodice of the dress, feeling the tender heat of the rising welts under her armpits. She was tired. She wanted to go home. She looked at Archie and nodded reluctantly.

He took her by the elbow again, keeping the gun drawn. He kept his hand on her elbow the whole time as he escorted her out of the office and down the hall, the paper bag crinkling in her arms. They followed the muddy footprints he'd left on the way in. Susan was aware of people behind them, eyes on her back, footsteps in tandem with theirs. But she never turned to look, so she didn't know how many it was, or who. Archie held the door open for her and they stepped outside into the light. The white vinyl tents shimmered with dew, the gas heaters had been collected together and the gold chairs stacked. The sky was tinged with the apricot glow of dawn. Archie led Susan down the wide path through the manicured front lawn. The torches on either side had all been extinguished. Here and there, napkins littered the ground. A lone wineglass sat empty, abandoned on the grass. They followed the path to the curved driveway and then walked along the private road over the bridge to the gate. They stood there for a moment, waiting. There was a security camera mounted on a gatepost and Susan and Archie looked at it looking at them. After a moment, there was a metallic hissing sound and then the gates yawned open.

“Get on the main road and then keep walking,” Archie said.

Susan looked at him, incredulous. “By myself? What about you?”

“Someone will pick you up,” Archie said. “Don't talk to anyone about Leo except for Henry and someone named Sanchez.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going back to check on some things,” Archie said.

Susan saw through his evasiveness. “You're going back to check on Leo and that stripper,” she said. She knew the stripper's name; she just didn't use it. “I'll go with you,” Susan added. “Leo's my boyfriend.” Archie flinched when she said it. He always did. It's why she'd used the word—
boyfriend
.

Archie pressed his lips together. “Leo needs to know you're safe.”

The road beyond the gates was quiet. No traffic. The morning air was crisp and cold. Susan hugged her arms.
Boyfriend
. Now she felt bad. Her eyes went to the blood along Archie's hairline. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“
I
need to know you're safe, Susan,” Archie said. “I have to go back. Please go now.”

Susan nodded numbly. She didn't know what to say.
See you soon? Call me later? Don't get yourself killed?
So she didn't say anything. She cradled her paper bag of clothes and walked through the gate. She heard the mechanical gears of the gate closing the moment she'd cleared the property line, and she looked back, but Archie had already turned and was walking back over the bridge to the island.
Sanchez. Sanchez.
She was suddenly very cold and she dropped the bag and dug out her red sweatshirt and put it on over the gold dress and zipped it up and put up the hood. She got her phone out of her purse and checked for reception. One bar. She picked up the bag again and started down the road, her eyes fixed on the phone screen in her hand. Two bars, and she'd call Henry. The road didn't have sidewalks, so she shuffled along the edge, her ballet flats scuffing against the pavement. There was no one around. Newspapers, safely ensconced in plastic bags, poked out of the mailboxes that lined the road. The dried leaves that had fallen during the night blanketed the grass, waiting for the leaf blower. Crows squawked in the fir trees. Two bars.

She didn't hear the car until it was right upon her. She stepped onto the grass as it rolled past her on the right. A black, industrial-looking van. No markings. It pulled over to the side of the road just ahead of her and waited. Susan froze. Archie had said that someone would pick her up, but he didn't say it was going to be Ted Bundy. She would call for a cab if she had to, thank you very much. She was scanning her phone contacts for Henry's number when she heard the van backing up. It was rolling in reverse right toward her. She didn't have time to react. She was too startled. Too sleep-deprived. Too flummoxed. When the van got so close she could have kicked it, it stopped, and the back door opened. A man in jeans and a sweatshirt and a day's worth of beard held out his hand to her.

“FBI,” he said. “Get in.”

 

CHAPTER

17

 

Archie sat on
the stone steps of the Tudor mansion, feeling pleasantly high. He remembered this now. The shudder of warmth under his skin; the way his bones seemed to soften; that feeling of wet cotton lining his skull. All the small discomforts to which he'd grown accustomed—the stiffness in his ribs, the prickly sensations of his scars, the burn of acid in his throat, the stab of pain when he inhaled deeply—all melted away to something peripheral. He didn't even mind the itch in his throat anymore. It was amazing what two little pills could do. A few years ago, it would have taken a handful to reach the same effect. His tolerance had changed.

He reached up and touched his head, winced, and then looked at the gritty dry blood on his dirty fingertips. Too late for stitches. He'd have another scar.

Now he just had to find out how he'd gotten it.

The front door opened and Jack Reynolds came out and sat down next to Archie on the step. Jack had a round red ceramic mug of coffee in each hand, and he held one out to Archie. Archie took it. The hot mug reminded him how cold he was. He took a sip and let the steam coming off the coffee warm his face. The Vicodin made his tongue feel thick.

“I remembered that you take it black,” Jack said.

“Yep,” Archie said.

The orange glow of daybreak had given way to a blindingly blue morning. Archie liked the sound of dawn, the way that every noise seemed bright after the hush that had settled overnight. The grass glistened with dew. The trees were ablaze with fall colors.

“Are you planning on spending all day on my stoop?” Jack asked.

Archie took another sip of coffee. “I'm not leaving until I see Leo.”

Jack frowned over his coffee cup. “I have houseguests.”

The Russians. Archie had been counting on that.

“I know,” Archie said.

Jack looked at Archie for a long time. His eyes were attentive, thoughtful, but beyond that Archie had a hard time reading them. Jack was a handsome man. Even Archie, who knew he could be obtuse about such things, couldn't miss that. As Archie aged, he saw himself fade and slacken in the mirror. As Jack aged, he only got better-looking—distinguished, people called it. His face was chiseled, his temples gray; he had that square-jawed sitcom father from the fifties look. Just your friendly drug kingpin next door.

Archie felt a ripple of relaxation move up his spine to that wet cotton in his skull.

Jack took a sip of coffee. He squinted at Archie, the picture of conviviality. If he knew something violent had happened at his house, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

“Take a shower,” Jack said. “You can join us for breakfast.”

 

CHAPTER

18

 

Archie leaned into
the steaming water, letting it run over his head and down his back, rinsing the blood out of his hair. The shower was the size of his entire kitchen, with slick black granite walls, and a built-in granite bench on one side. Archie didn't know what the bench was for—maybe some people got tired while they took showers and had to sit down. There were three polished nickel spigots. A large one, about the size of a hubcap, over the center of the shower, a hand spigot on a metal hose looped on the wall, and another spigot installed into the granite at knee level, that Archie could only imagine was for washing feet, although why someone would get into a shower just to wash their feet escaped him.