Trust Me (18 page)

Jesse buckled his seat belt. “They’re going the speed limit. You should, too, if you don’t want to get rear-ended.”

God, what am I doing? Anthony needs me, and I’m driving like a little old lady.
She jammed her foot down on the
gas.

“Whoa!” Jesse shouted. “Whoa,” he repeated more softly as she pulled her foot off the gas completely. “Just
somewhere between those two speeds,” he instructed. “Actually maybe we should take Margot. Main streets aren’t
the best idea for you. You’re going to get pulled over any second, and-”

“Shut up, please,” Rae begged.

“I just want to get us there,” Jesse said.

“Me, too. Me, too,” Rae answered.
Just hold on, Anthony,
she thought.
And don’t do anything to make the situation

worse than it already is.

“This isn’t a friggin’ democracy, Fascinelli,” McGee said. “I’ve listened to you go on and on about how killing the
guy isn’t the smart thing to do-but it’s my decision.”

The more I say, the more he digs in,
Anthony thought.
What am I gonna do?
He’d been stalling McGee for a while
now, but it couldn’t last much longer. He turned to Buchanan. He wished he could remember the guy’s first name,
but it wouldn’t come to him. “So you’re okay with McGee offing the guy? That makes you an accessory to murder.”

Buchanan’s gray eyes were blank. He was inlockdown mode. Anthony wondered if Buchanan could even hear
what Anthony’d just said.

“The guy saw us. Buchanan knows there’s no option,” McGee answered.

“And Kolsen? He doesn’t get a vote?” Anthony shot back. He’d already tried this argument once, but he had to
keep talking until he had some kind of a plan to stop McGee. Maybe he could say he had to use the john and then
call the cops. Yeah, he’d get caught, too, but no one was going to die tonight. He wasn’t letting that happen.

If I can’t figure out another way, that’s my backup,
Anthony decided. He’d definitely end up in-Anthony didn’t let
himself complete the thought. If he had to turn them all in, then he’d do it. No matter what happened to any of them.

“Buchanan, go get Kolsen, and you watch the guy for a while. Make sure his blindfold’s still on,” McGee ordered.

Anthony felt a tiny spark of hope. If McGee was worried about the blindfold, maybe he wasn’t as sure as he
sounded that he had to kill the guy.

“Has the guy been trying to get loose?” McGee asked when Kolsen came into the living room.

“No. He knows somebody’s there,” Kolsen answered. “He’s being a very good boy.” Anthony noticed the deep
circles of sweat staining Kolsen’sshirt under his arms.

I’m not the only one who sweats when I’m nervous. He’s trying to look all cool, but he’s as freaked as I am,

Anthony thought.
Maybe I can use that.

“So, Kolsen, McGee thinks our only way out of this is to kill the guy,” Anthony said. “What-”

A loud knock on the door interrupted him.

“Who the hell is that?” McGee asked.

“If we don’t answer, they’ll probably leave,” Anthony answered. The last thing this situation needed was more
people.

“Unless it’s the cops,” Kolsen said, rubbing his hands on the sides of his jeans.

The knock came again. Insistent.

“Kolsen, try and get a look at whoever it is without them seeing you,” McGee said. Kolsen nodded and headed
toward the front of the house.

McGee and Anthony stared at each other. Anthony didn’t say anything. He could see the tension in McGee’s body.

The muscles in his neck were standing out, and his jaw looked locked into place. Anthony’s gut told him if he said
the wrong thing right now, McGee could totally lose it.

Kolsen rushed back into the living room. “It’s that kid, that redheaded kid.”

“Jesse Beven?” McGee asked.

No,
Anthony thought.
No, Jesse, you didn’t.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Kolsen answered. “And he has this girl with him.”

Anthony felt like acid had started pumping through his veins instead of blood. Rae. Had to be. Now he had to
worry about getting them out alive, too.

“The girl-she have long curly hair, blue eyes?” Anthony asked.

“Couldn’t see the eyes, but yeah, her hair’s like that,” Kolsen said.

“Crap,” Anthony burst out. “It’s my girlfriend.” He figured that might do a slight bit of damage control.

“You told her about tonight?” McGee demanded.

“Whipped,” Kolsen muttered.

Another knock came on the door.

“Let them in,” McGee said. “They’re causing way too much attention out there.”

“I could send them home,” Anthony volunteered.

“No,” McGee shot back. “I don’t want anyone who knows anything about what’s going on out of my sight. Bring
them in. Kolsen, you go with him.”

Kolsen led the way to the front door. Anthony jerked it open.

Rae took an involuntary step back when she saw the expression on Anthony’s face. He looked readyto strangle
her. Instead he reached out and took her hand, sliding his fingertips until they were right over hers.

He has something to tell me, something he can’t say out loud,
Rae thought. Then she put all her energy into
catching the thoughts and feelings pouring into her from Anthony.

McGee has a gun. Going to kill owner.
Those two thoughts repeated over and over, clear and strong. Underneath
was anger at Rae and Jesse. Fear for all of them. Thoughts about his family. Scraps of memories about his father.

The sensation of duct tape pulling off a roll. But the other two thoughts
-McGee has a gun. Going to kill

owner-
dominated all the rest.

Rae looked up at Anthony and nodded. Message received. He instantly released her hand. “Just because you’re
my girlfriend, it doesn’t give you the right to come barging over here,” he snapped.

“I was worried about you,” Rae answered. It was the truth, and it sounded girlfriendlike, which was clearly what
Anthony wanted.

“We’re bringing you two into the living room, and you’re not moving from there,” the guy with Anthony-blond and
scrawny-said. He locked the door behind them, then led the way to the living room. Another guy waited there.

He’s McGee,
Rae thought. She couldn’t be sure,but he looked like the guy in charge.

“What in the hell are you doing here, Beven? And why did you bring her along?” McGee asked.

“Hey, McGee, hi. I came by-we did-because I-we-just wanted to make sure everything, you know, went okay,” Jesse
stammered. “We saw the guy’s car in the driveway, and we figured there might be trouble, that you might need
backup. So we came.”

“And what did you two think you were going to be able to do?” McGee demanded.

“Yeah, what were you going to do?” the scrawny blond guy asked.

“Shut up, Kolsen,” McGee ordered.

Rae glanced at Anthony. His face was blank.
He doesn’t have a plan yet,
she thought.
If he had, he would have

gotten that in when we touched fingerprints.

“Tell us what happened, and maybe we can help,” Rae said.

“Oh, the little girl thinks she can help,” McGee answered. “Well, we got caught. And we have the guy tied up. You
want to go into the kitchen and kill him for us? Because that’s the only way we’re getting out of here without landing
in prison. No matter what your boyfriend thinks.”

“Hey, I found some brews in the fridge,” a guy with scruffy brown hair announced as he headed intothe room.

“Buchanan, you imbecile, you left the guy alone?” McGee asked.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Buchanan answered. “We have him taped so tight, it would take him hours to break
free.” He took a beer and held the six-pack out to Kolsen, who grabbed a can, popped the top, and drained it in
record time.

“Put that down,” McGee ordered Buchanan as he was about to take the first gulp. “We start drinking, and we’re
going to screw up.” Buchanan obediently put his beer on the coffee table. Kolsen set his empty can beside it,
avoiding looking at McGee.

Time to get some info,
Rae thought. She sat down on the couch and casually moved Kolsen’s can away from the
edge of the table.

so screwed
wanted some easy cash / McGee’s crazy/ pictures of grandkids on fridge /

Not the thoughts of a trigger-happy idiot.
Good,
Rae thought.

“Who is this guy, anyway?” she asked. “This place looks like it could belong to some old grandma and grandpa.

Check out the goofy golf trophy on the mantel.”

“I think he does have grandkids,” Kolsen said. “I saw some pictures on the fridge.”

“Me, too,” Buchanan added.

Rae ran her fingers around Buchanan’s can. /get me outta here/Dad’s going to kill me/supposed to be in and out/in
and out/and now guns/gotta get out/

So, okay, they weren’t dealing with wanna-be gangsters here. Kolsen and Buchanan were just looking for a way
out.

If I can give them an alternate to McGee’s plan, they’ll leap at it.
Rae’s hand tightened on the beer can, denting it.

But what is your plan B, Rae?
she asked herself.

“The longer we stay here, the more dangerous it is.” McGee pulled a gun free from the back waistband of his
jeans. Rae knew he had it, but the sight of it made her dizzy. “I’m taking care of this right now. We’ll need to put
some trash bags or something down to get most of the blood, and we’ll need to wipe down everything we could
have possibly touched. Then we gotta figure out where we can dump him. Maybe we can take his car and leave it at
some dive bar or something.”

He has this way too planned out. It could happen any second,
Rae thought. “Are you even sure the guy saw you?”

she burst out. “I mean, it was dark, right?”

“And you took him down really fast,” Anthony told McGee.

Kolsen sat down on the couch next to Rae. It was as if suddenly he’d realized he no longer had the strength to
stand. “Anthony’s right. He might nothave seen us. We could just lea-”

“Maybe he can ID us, maybe he can’t,” McGee answered. “But since we have no way of knowing, we have to
assume that he did.”

“There is a way of being sure,” Rae said.

“Like what?” McGee challenged.

“I… I was kind of messed up this summer. I had to stay in this mental hospital, and my therapist taught me how to
hypnotize myself as part of my treatment. It helped me remember stuff I didn’t even know I knew.” Rae took a deep
breath, thinking frantically. “I can do it to other people, too. I could hypnotize the guy, find out what he knows.”

It was a ridiculous suggestion. But of the five other people in the room, four were looking to get out of there
without any violence.

“Rae hypnotized me once,” Anthony volunteered. “She made me remember how I used to suck two of my fingers
when I was a little kid. I’d make this sound when I did it, too-kind of a goi-ng goi-ng.”

Rae flashed Anthony an approving glance. He’d been right to go with something embarrassing. It made it seem
more likely to be true.

“You really think you could do it?” Buchanan asked eagerly.

“Yeah,” Rae answered. “And if Grandpa didn’t see anything, why not leave him be?”

“Yeah,” Kolsen agreed.

Rae looked at McGee. He met her gaze directly, staring at her as if he could read her soul through her eyes. Finally
he nodded, then he stuck his gun back in his waistband. “You can try it. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. That’s it.”

“Okay. Anthony, you want to help me?” Rae asked as she stood up.

“Yeah,” Anthony said at once, moving to her side.

“I’m coming, too,” McGee stated.

“You can’t,” Rae said. “You can’t because if there are too many distractions, he’s not going to feel comfortable
going under.”

“I won’t say anything,” McGee answered, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll be able to sense the presence of too many people in the room. I’m sure he’s already
completely terrified. It’s going to be hard enough to get him to enter the hypnotic state as it is.”

Rae didn’t know where all this bull was coming from, but she was glad it kept spilling out of her mouth.

McGee gave a reluctant nod. “Kolsen, go get the phone out of the kitchen.” Kolsen jumped to his feet and left the
room. He turned to Rae. “You leave your purse in here. And we’ll keep an eye on Jesse for thetwo of you, in case
you decide to leave.”

“We’re not going to leave,” Rae answered, speaking directly to Jesse.

Kolsen came back with the phone. “Okay, go ahead. But I’m timing you,” McGee told Rae and Anthony.

Anthony wrapped his arm around Rae’s shoulders, the heavy weight warm and comforting, and led her out of the
living room and down the hallway. “I cannot believe you’re here. You are an even bigger idiot than I thought,” he
whispered. But he didn’t drop his arm.

“You’re the idiot,” Rae whispered back. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t here first.” But she didn’t pull away.