Where Evil Waits (5 page)

“The hell it doesn’t,” he growled, then looked at the pistol, seeming to have forgotten it for a while. “And for the last time, put that fucking gun away. You aren’t going to shoot me.”

A new voice came from the doorway. “But
I
might.”

L
UKE TURNED TO THE
voice.
Ah, Christ.

Aidan Chandler stood at the door to the hallway, bare-chested and wearing green plaid pajama bottoms, holding a .22 caliber rifle in his hands. Pillow lines creased his cheek.

“Aidan,” his mother gasped, and the fear in her voice only made the boy tighten his grip. It was a featherweight Winchester 70 from the gun case downstairs, a collector’s piece from the early 1960s. Luke had taken inventory when he entered the house.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

Luke showed both palms. “I’m the man your mother hired to help you out of a bad situation. But I’m going to reconsider if the two of you keep pointing guns at me.” He slid some steel into his voice. “Put the rifle down, son.”

“Mom?”

Ms. Chandler’s face had lost all color. She knew Luke Varón. She had to know that if he chose to take on an impulsive fourteen-year-old—even an armed one—there was little doubt about the outcome.

“Put the gun down, Aidan.” Her voice quavered. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Then why are
you
holding a gun?”

“I’m not.” For the first time since Luke had entered, she laid the pistol down. “He scared me when he first came in, but that’s all. We’re just talking now.”

“I heard,” the kid said, and Luke noticed a sheen of moisture on both cheeks. Christ, he’d been listening.
Whoever killed Louie Guilford yesterday also killed my husband a year ago.
If Kara Chandler was right—if Andrew Chandler’s killer was still out there now—the implications were huge. It meant Chandler’s death hadn’t come from inside the cartel.

It meant Elisa Moran had died for nothing.

“Is it true, Mom? Someone murdered Dad?” Aidan asked. He was shaking.

He
had
heard. “I think so,” his mother said. “It’s the same person who’s been sending those weird gifts I get. On Monday, he sent me your father’s sunglasses.”

“What?” Aidan said.

“Aidan, we have to get away. I went to Louie and the killer knew. That’s why he killed him. And he killed a woman I went to talk to on Tuesday and he’s not just watching me. He’s watching you, too. The scarf on your bike came from him.”

“Oh, God.”

“Mr. Varón can help us go underground. He can make it look like we’re dead.”

“Varón,” Aidan said, and scowled. “You’re the bastard who got away with that murder in the warehouse.”

“And I can get away with making it look like you and your mom are dead,” Luke said. “Get you out of sight.”

“Forever?” The boy swallowed and looked at his mom. “Are we going to hide forever?”

“Of course not,” she said, but her voice rang with
uncertainty. “Just until we figure out what’s going on and it’s safe again.”

Aidan looked back at Luke. He had the same clear green eyes as his mother. Haunted, probing, distrusting. His hair was tinted red like his dad’s. “I don’t want to go anywhere with him,” he said, jerking the rifle toward Luke.

Luke glared at him. “This would be a good time to listen to your mother, kid. And a bad time to shoot the man who’s going to help you.”

“How?”

Luke glanced at the clock, making sure Knutson had had enough time to get everything in place, then checked his phone. Yes, Knutson was done. He’d sent Luke a tracker to the detonator. “Your boat is rigged to blow,” he said. He started with the truth, then let the prevarications roll out. “We’ll lay your tracks to the water and set off the explosion, then I’ll take you both underground and give you protection. One week, while your mom tries to figure out what the hell is going on. After that—” He shrugged. His best
none-of-my-business
gesture.

But it
was
his business. More so than they could ever imagine.

“And you’re doing this for money?” Aidan asked.

“Why else?” he asked. He conjured up a leer and let it touch Kara Chandler. “Though I might have taken something more from your mom if you hadn’t come busting in with a rifle.”

Aidan Chandler actually hissed. He was a millimeter away from pulling the trigger.

Good kid.

Luke looked at Kara. “The other gifts you received—where are they?”

She opened the bottom drawer of the dresser. “Here.”

“Bring them. Don’t leave any behind. I need a bag for these things—a grocery bag or something. Aidan, go put on a shirt—long-sleeved so you don’t get scratched up in the woods. And tennis shoes. Don’t bring anything else. No iPod, no cell phone. Nothing.”

Mother and son both stared.

“Unless you weren’t serious,” Luke said.

Kara Chandler looked at her son. “Go, Aidan. Do what he says.”

“And leave the rifle here,” Luke said.

Aidan scowled at him, then tossed the rifle onto the pillows. “Wasn’t loaded anyway.”

“I know,” Luke said. “I collected the bullets.”

Aidan scoffed, then hurried out, and Luke found Kara Chandler studying him as if she didn’t understand. “A bag for those things,” he reminded her, and she went into the closet, came back with a pillowcase. Luke watched her gather up the macramé bag she’d brought into the alley, then stuff the items from the dresser drawer into the pillowcase—a pen, a necklace, a watch—several greeting cards. He cringed at how many fingerprints had probably been compromised. Still, better to take them. He’d want to get a good look at each item.

“You need something small and personal,” Luke said, “something it would be easy to drop and that someone will recognize as yours.” He skimmed her hair. “Your hair is usually up. Bring a hair clip.”

She fingered through a box on the dresser and came up with a clip, followed Luke out the bedroom door. Then she pulled up short.

“Oh, God,” she said. Carrying the damnable pistol again, she used her free hand to dig into the pocket of her jeans. She
pulled out her iPhone. Luke hadn’t heard it but now noticed it was vibrating. He came to look over her shoulder.

She slid a finger across the screen. A text message, from a number with no name.

“No,” she whispered, and Luke took her arm. She began to tremble.

“Open it,” he said, and she touched the screen of her phone. A picture came up.

Ah, Christ.

It was a photograph of Louie Guilford from today’s paper. And a message that said, “How is Aidan?”

Ms. Chandler’s knees gave out. “Whoa,” Luke said, propping her up against the wall. Aidan came from his bedroom, took one look at his mother being manhandled, and lunged.

“Back off, stud,” Luke said, strong-arming him.

Aidan realized his mom wasn’t fighting and grabbed the phone. He went white, then read the text message. “Oh, God.”

Luke took back the phone and closed the message, spent five seconds in her privacy settings disabling all location services, and blew out a breath. What the fuck was going on? He didn’t know, but one thing was damn sure: Kara Chandler was coming with him.

“Come on,” he said, and herded her to the stairs, leaving Aidan to follow. Halfway down, though, he pulled up short. Headlights swung in the driveway.

Fuck.

“We have to go,” Kara said, as Luke peeked out through the blinds. He recognized the shape of the car.

“Too late,” he said. “Police.”

MESSAGE SENT 1:58 a.m.

Sasha stood on a bridge over the Chattahoochee River
and looked at the phone in his hand. A wave of satisfaction washed over him. It was late, but that was by design. Showing his dad the photo of Louie Guilford had been worth the time, and he liked the idea of Kara receiving the picture in a moment when she was alone and vulnerable.

And how had he done? Was she awake now and pacing the floors? Was she crying over Louie Guilford or still worrying about Penny-of-the-Purple-Scarf? Had she been sleeping, perhaps, and awakened by the soft
ping
of her phone with Guilford’s photo, or would she not see the message until tomorrow, and receive his picture along with her morning coffee?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she realize Sasha wasn’t finished yet. He still had more gifts for her. He was saving the biggest one for her birthday.

He turned off the phone and took out the battery. It was a cheap prepaid phone that he bought by the dozen and never used more than once. But even the cheap prepaid phones might have GPSes, so he accounted for that. He always disposed of them somewhere out of the way, the minute he was finished sending Kara a message.

This time, he hadn’t gone as far as usual: He still had to catch Megan tonight and time was ticking. But this would do—a secluded old bridge in Sandy Springs. It would be the first time a message had been sent from the Atlanta area, but even if Kara did have a way of tracking it, which was doubtful, it wouldn’t do her any good. The phone would be in pieces at the bottom of the river and Sasha would be long gone.

Besides, Kara wouldn’t go to the police now. Not after what happened to Louie Guilford. And not after he’d made it clear that Aidan was in his sights, too.

Sasha dropped the battery and the cell phone onto the pavement, crushed both with the heel of his shoe, and tossed them over the bridge and into the river. He wiped off his palms and hurried back to his van.

Megan was waiting.

P
OLICE?
K
ARA’S BREATH STOPPED.
She stepped down two more stairs to look out the window with Varón, but the doorbell rang. Oh, God.

“What do they want?” Aidan asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” said Varón.

“They found Penny Wolff,” Kara said. “They must have. They must know I was there.”

“You don’t know that.” Varón cupped both her shoulders, turning her square to him. “Listen to me—last chance. Do you still want to go underground?” he asked, and Kara could hardly think. Too many images in her mind… Penny Wolff, with the scarf piled on her lap and a coil of wire, her throat marked and her eyes bulging… Louie, lying on the sidewalk bleeding with the boys looking on… And the picture of him on her phone:
How is Aidan?

Varón’s fingers bit into her upper arms. “Kara,” he said, and her first name coming from his lips startled her into looking up at him. “Do you want to go through with this?”

Reality rolled back into grasp. “Yes,” she said, taking
Aidan’s hand. He seemed taller and older than he’d been just yesterday. And yet, still a child. “Can you do this, Aidan?”

“We have to,” he said, “before he kills someone else.”
Me.
He didn’t say it, but Kara knew the thought was there.

Varón took the pillowcase and handed it to Aidan, along with the macramé bag. “Take these,” he said in a hush, then turned back to Kara. “Aidan and I will go down the back stairs and wait in the dining room. You find out what the police want. Don’t offer any information about Penny Wolff.”

“I have to tell them—”

“She’s dead, Kara, there’s nothing you can do to change that. Listen to me. You’ve always had reason to hate Penny Wolff. You went to her house and were probably the last one to see her alive. Your son is carrying her bloody neck scarf in that bag.”

Kara closed her eyes. He was right. “What if they’re here to arrest me?”

“They aren’t. There’s only one car and no lights or sirens.”

Yes. The arrest of an Assistant District Attorney would be a bigger deal than that.

Varón’s hands came to her face. He rubbed his thumbs over her brows, then drew them down over her lashes and cheeks, hard. “Easy,” he said when she tried to pull away. He ruffled her hair. “It’s the middle of the night. You need to look like you fell asleep in your clothes.”

Oh. Yes, of course. She wasn’t thinking clearly. The world was spinning and her one source of stability was Luke Varón.

The doorbell rang again. Varón held his hand open in front of her and for a second she didn’t understand. Then
it dawned on her that she still held her pistol. This one was loaded, but up to now, he’d never made a move to take it from her.

So this was the moment: Trust Varón or not. She turned and looked at Aidan holding a bag of disguises she’d already gathered and a pillowcase filled with bizarre evidence of some terrifying murder scheme, and knew there was no choice.

She gave the gun to Varón.

He pocketed it but didn’t gloat. Instead, he braced a knuckle beneath her chin. “You can do it,” he said.

Yes, she could. She had to.

Varón and Aidan headed down the back stairs through the kitchen and into the dining room. From there, Kara knew he would be able to hear her conversation. She went down the front stairwell in a strange fog that made her feel only partly in control. Varón appeared to be doing what she’d asked him to. But with the smallest tilt of thought, his actions could just as easily be interpreted as holding her son hostage at gunpoint while listening to make sure she followed his instructions with the police. She tamped that thought down—
she
had contacted
him
—and headed toward the front door. She started to straighten her blouse, then thought better of it: Damn Varón, but he was right. If she hadn’t been in the midst of planning a felony with a known criminal, she’d have been asleep. She should look like it.

The doorbell rang a third time. Kara gathered her poise and opened the door.

Two uniformed officers stood on the stoop and, God help her, she recognized both of them. One was Drew Connelly, a twenty-something patrolman who had once been assigned as her escort during three days of a particularly
high-profile trial. He had developed something of a crush on her. The other was Paul Langford, a near-retirement beat cop.

Langford stepped forward. “Counselor,” he said, “we’re sorry for disturbing you at this hour. But we’re doing some legwork on a missing-persons case.”

Missing person?
Not murder. Then they didn’t know yet that Penny Wolff was dead.

Kara worked to keep her heart from pounding through her chest. She was Kara Chandler, Assistant District Attorney. Not Kara Chandler, accomplice to hit man Luke Varón and perpetrator of fraud and a dozen other soon-to-be-committed crimes. She rubbed her forehead. “What’s going on?”

Langford said, “A woman named Penny Wolff has disappeared. You remember her?”

They knew she did. They knew a helluva lot more than that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.

Kara touched her stomach. It seemed to be liquid.
You can do it.

She tried to recall what she
shouldn’t
cover up. The name Penny Wolff would be familiar to her. Penny’s husband had confessed to killing Kara’s. And it would be crazy to deny that she’d seen Penny, especially since she’d made no effort to cover her trac—

“Investigators found your phone number in some of her things.”

“My number?” That’s why they were here. Kara had written it down and told Penny to call her if she remembered anything else. She summoned her poise. “Oh. Well, that’s because I went to talk to her. Tuesday night.”

The two officers looked at one another. “What time?”

“About seven thirty.”

Langford scratched his head. “Why?”

Kara straightened. “This week is the anniversary of my husband’s death,” she said, and Langford nodded. “Penny lost her husband in the ordeal, too. It just seemed…” She lowered her head. “John Wolff never meant any harm to my husband. It seemed time to acknowledge that.”

“Huh,” said Langford. “So you two… er… talked for a little bit?”

“Yes. And I gave her my number. Are you telling me that she’s missing now, Officer?”

“She is. Her living room was all torn up and her kid left behind. You haven’t heard that? It’s been on the news.”

He was suspicious. Stay the course. “I’ve been a little distracted this week. No, I hadn’t heard. Is her child all right?”

“Yeah. She’s with a relative now. How were things when you left her?”

“I was only there a few minutes. Penny was fine. Her living room was fine and she said the baby was in a playpen. Penny showed me out the front door when we finished.”

Connelly jotted that into a notepad. Langford said, “Was your conversation with her… er… hostile?”

“Not especially,” Kara lied, and clamped her jaw shut. Say no more.

“Was there anything she was worried about? Anything strange going on with her?”

“If there was, she didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Do you know whether she had any plans for the rest of that evening?” Connelly asked.

“We didn’t talk about that.”

There was an awkward pause while the two cops glanced at each other, apparently deciding whether or not
what she was saying was worth bringing her in to talk to the detectives. They didn’t know Penny was dead yet; that much was certain. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be following leads in the middle of the night.

Connelly licked the tip of his pencil. “What was she wearing when you saw her?”

The question always asked of the last person to have seen a missing person alive. Kara closed her eyes. “A dark gray skirt and light blouse. Cream. And she had a scarf—”

“Ms. Chandler?” Connelly said. “Are you all right?”

No. She wasn’t all right. She drew a deep breath, the room filling with secrets and lies, pressing down on her from every angle. She could almost feel Varón listening in.

You can do it.

“She was wearing a purple scarf with stripes,” she said. “I hope she’s all right. She’s been through enough.”

Langford nodded. “You both have. Tough week, huh?” Everyone knew that Kara had been with Louie Guilford when he died last night. Her family’s friendship with the Guilfords was well known. The boys had always called the adults “aunt” and “uncle,” and Seth and Aidan were more like brothers than friends.

“Yes,” she said. “Tough week.”

“Let us know if you think of anything that might help us, okay?”

“I will. Of course.” Relief hovered just out of reach as they moved toward the door. Almost there. Then Langford turned around.

“Ms. Chandler, I was wondering… Where have you been tonight? I didn’t expect you to be dressed at this hour.”

She strung out a little indignation. “I spent most of the day with Sally and Seth Guilford. It was draining. I guess I fell asleep on the couch.”

“Sure,” Langford said, and backed off. “Okay. Good night, then.”

She shut the door behind them and tipped her forehead against it. Langford was no idiot. He was going to call the lead detective on Penny Wolff’s case right now, and by morning—if not before—Kara would be called in for questioning.

She forced herself to take a deep breath, feeling as if she was aboard a runaway train. She didn’t know where it was going or why she was on it. She only knew it was running too fast to make sense of the twists and turns, and that with every curve it picked up speed.

Now, the train was headed for a gorge, with Luke Varón driving.

“Let’s go.”

Varón’s voice. She turned and looked at him, a known murderer with his suit coat hooked slightly on a gun holster, as if he’d had his hand on it the whole time she was talking to Langford and Connelly—and her son standing right next to him. The reality of that threatened to steal what little strength she had left in her limbs. She wanted to close her eyes and open them again and have Varón disappear, along with this whole insane idea about trying to take Aidan into hiding.

But when she closed her eyes, she saw Penny Wolff. And Louie Guilford.

And Andrew.

Varón watched the cruiser pull away. He turned around. “We’re going down to the dock. You two walk on the path to leave tracks; I’ll head through the woods.”

Kara took Aidan’s hand and they followed him through the house toward the back door, Varón showing knowledge of the floor plan that took Kara by surprise.
I know. I collected the bullets.
He must have come straight to the house after they’d spoken in the alley. Rigged the boat—or had one of his minions do it—found his way inside, and made himself at home waiting for her.

Very efficient. If she weren’t so scared, she’d be impressed.

She locked the back door, leaving things as she would have had she not expected to die in an explosion. There was no doubt that police would question her taking the boat out in the middle of the night, especially since she’d just spoken to two of them, but whatever reasons they suspected for her actions wouldn’t matter.

She’d be dead.

She and Aidan kept to a path with railroad tie steps, a hundred yards down a hill to the dock, while Varón skirted into the dark of the woods. The air smelled of damp pine straw, the temperature such that beads of perspiration collected along on the back of her neck. They got to the edge of the dock and stopped, looking for Varón.

He emerged from the black spread of trees a few minutes later, a wraith, holding something in his hand. A wedge of moon turned his face into dark planes and angles.

“Get your hair clip,” he said. “The two of you walk to your boat and unhook the line. Drop the hair clip on the dock, then get in the boat and start the engine. Once the boat is ready to go, take off your shoes and set them on the dock upside down. Climb out and push off the boat. Then pick up your shoes and come back here in your socks.”

Kara tilted her head. “You’ve got it all planned out, don’t you?”

“That’s why you hired me.”

Yes. Yes, it was.

Heart pounding, Kara did as instructed, Aidan following close behind. A moment later they stood in the woods beside Varón with their tennis shoes in hand and watched the boat float out into the water. It seemed as if it took forever, but finally Varón said, “Good enough.” He turned to them. “Put your shoes on. We’re going to need to move.”

Apprehension rippled through Kara’s bones. This was crazy. But they put on their shoes and Aidan picked up the pillowcase. Kara took the macramé purse containing the whole of their identities and slung it over her shoulder. Varón pointed his hand at the boat.

“Good-bye, Chandlers,” he said, then pressed a button.

Fffrumph.