Page 54 of The Murder Inn

“Now that I finally have the number,” Clay said, “I know that, according to you guys, it’s probably the phone number that Shauna Bulger is using to contact Norman Driver.”

“It makes sense,” Susan said. “We’re guessing Shauna would have found the phone on Marris’s body. It would have had Driver’s number in it.”

“So, what I don’t get,” Clay said, “is why I shouldn’t just put a trace on the number and locate Shauna Bulger myself.”

“Because our plan is better,” I said. “It’s safer.”

“It’ssafer?” Clay squinted.

“Yes,” I pleaded. “Look. If you track Shauna down and try to approach her with a bunch of sheriffs, she might fire on you. She’s really unpredictable right now. She’s hell-bent on killing Norman Driver. If you find her, or a member of the public spots her and calls it in, someone could get hurt in a shootout or god knows what else. The best thing we can do right now is take care of this ourselves, Clay. Quietly and carefully.”

Clay looked at Susan, tapping one stubby finger on his biceps, his scowl heavy.

“We don’t have a lot of time for you to ponder this, Clay,” Susan said gently. “If Driver gets to Shauna first, we’re in big trouble. We don’t know if he had contacts within the police who would do the exact same thing for him—track the phone to find her. And if Shauna dumps Marris’s phone, our whole plan falls in a heap. We need to do this now. Right now.”

Clay looked at me, his scowl collapsing into a defeated pout.

“Why do I have to hit you?” he asked me. “Why can’t Susan do it?”

“Because she’s my girlfriend, buddy,” I said, smiling despite myself. “It’s harder for her.”

“You sure?” Clay asked. “I’ve heard you two argue over who folds the laundry.”

Susan and I laughed. Clay took the zip ties off the workbench by Susan and heaved a huge sigh.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

SHAUNA STOPPED THE car at the side of the road and turned the engine off. The gently descending evening sun only touched the outer trees of the woods on Norman Driver’s property. Beyond them, Shauna could see only blackness. While the front of Driver’s land, with the long driveway and the towering oak trees, was clear, the back half seemed dense. She wondered if there were bodies buried here. Shauna couldn’t see Norman Driver bringing the victims of his drug trade to his own home for disposal, those nosy cops, dutiful citizens, or junkies about to flip that presented him with problems. But, knowing what he had done to Georgette Winter-Lee, perhaps there were other kinds of bodies here. Gloucester had only been Driver’s home for a year or so. Had the same urge that had driven him to attack Georgette taken hold of him here, or was she his only ghost? Shauna didn’t know.

She planned to find out.

The rifle lay on the seat beside her, the shotgun in the trunk, where she had placed it after killing the boy in the woods. She supposed she would need both, having only vague plans about what she would do when she got to Driver’s home. If he was away, she’d lie in wait for him. If he was there, she hoped to prolong whatever scenario unfolded. Make him sorry. Make him confess things. Humiliate him again and enjoy herself.

She turned and reached into the back of the car, tested the lid of the box that contained the evidence that had the potential to bury Driver. It was shut tight.

She had popped open the driver’s side door with two bullet holes in it and was about to step out when Marris’s phone buzzed in the glove compartment. Shauna slid back into the car.

On the screen, a photograph. It was of her friend, Bill Robinson. He was lying slumped against the wall of an old, wood-paneled room. His lip was split, blood running in a steady stream from his mouth onto the chest of his white shirt. Shauna saw that his wrists were bound in front of him with thin black plastic zip ties.

A text message followed the photograph.

Twenty minutes, or I put a bullet in his head.

The number wasn’t the one she knew to be Driver’s, but she figured the text had to be from him. Shauna exhaled, heard the shuddering of her frightened breath. Another message came, this one with a pin dropped at the center of a map. She tapped the pin and the map spun out, revealing a blue, glowing path. She had a decision to make now. Follow directions into what was almost certainly an ambush and try to save her friend. Or lie here in wait for Driver, and sacrifice Bill. Shauna put thephone down on the dashboard and pressed her head against the steering wheel.

The old Shauna, the woman she had been until two days ago, when two intruders came into her house and put a gun in her face, would have rushed to Bill’s aid no matter the consequences. But she was a new person now. Someone who got revenge. Someone who ran from capture. Someone who had killed, coldly and deliberately. What did friendship mean to this new woman?

She put a hand on the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

NICK SAT ACROSS the living room from Vinny at the inn. He’d known guys in the service who looked the way Vinny looked now. The old gangster was gesticulating with his battered hands, his speech steadily growing faster as he described the scene at the diner. Vinny’s eyes were distant. Relishing. Reliving. Nick had played attentive audience to dozens of men like Vinny in his time. Proud killers. He was glad that Angelica and the woman guest with the kid had all moved to a motel in town to get away from the trouble at the inn. The way Vinny was talking would give normal people nightmares.

“So I’m tryin’ not to look,” Vinny was saying, his smile so wide Nick could see his blackened molars. “But I’m watchin’ the plates, and I’m hoping these are the kind of rednecks who just add salt to everythin’, you know? Without even tasting. And what do you know? Soon as the plate hits the table—bam. I got the one guy. He’sloadin’up his plate.Shicka-shicka-shicka.”Vinny made a shaking motion with an imaginary saltshaker. Nick rested his chin on his knuckles on the arm of his chair.

“And it’s like I said.” Vinny shrugged. “I don’t know how strong this stuff is. I bought it for way too much from a pair of truckers, and they couldn’t tell me. Every time they take this stuff, they said, it’s a roll of the dice. Trial and error. Life and death. Kind of exciting, huh? And I mean, that’s the whole point, right? Nobody knows what they’re buying or what they’re dealing. So I’m thinkin’:These guys are either gonna shrivel up like a pair of slugs or they’re gonna get a little giggly like teenagers on mushrooms.Who knows?”

“How long did it take them to die?” Nick asked, his tone even.

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