“Just hush... Better for everybody.”
She continued, “He’s poor. Whatever he told you, he’s lying. I have money. I have a lot of money. I’ll pay you more.”
“That hush thing.”
“Mr. Shaw,” Hannah whispered.
He saw her eyes were swiveling slowly from him to Suit. The muzzle of the gun had drooped as he glanced toward the Winnebago.
The girl would be suggesting that they take him together.
Fifteen seconds, on his back.
Shaw shook his head firmly.
Her mother perhaps mistook her calm focused eyes for paralyzing trauma. She walked to Hannah, embraced her, glaring and defying Suit to stop her.
Tan Jacket emerged. He was carrying Shaw’s laptop and ahandful of burner phones. These went into the pit, and black smoke, astringent, rose as the plastic burned.
“Now,” Suit said, “you all. Into the camper.”
Hannah shot a look toward Shaw once more. He said, “We’ll do what they say.”
Parker, her arm around Hannah’s shoulders, walked to the Winnebago and climbed inside. Shaw looked over the men closely, then he too walked up the stairs and pulled the door shut after him.
66
Moll announced, “I do not like the looks of that man. Worse than I thought.”
“Worse?”
“Dangerous is what I mean. I did not like his eyeballing us. That was not comforting.”
Desmond grunted. Moll guessed this meant he agreed. His flute tunes were more expressive than what came out of his mouth.
Moll was looking over the lake. “Wonder what they catch here.” Avid outdoorsman though he was, Moll didn’t fish. Hooking something was different from shooting it.
“Bass.”
“You know that from looking at the water?”
Desmond said, “No. But anybody asks what do you catch in this lake or that lake, just say ‘bass.’ Who’s to know different?” He’d replaced his gun and took out the flute. Blew a note, then another. Lowered it away from his mouth. “That girl. She was downright hostile. And she thinks more of herself than she is.”
Moll’s eyes went to the camper. He said slowly, “That alarm thing he rigged?” Nodding toward the Kia half hidden in the bushes. “If we’d rolled up the Transit, he would have got a half-dozen roundsoff with that Dirty Harry gun of his. And he shoots tight groups, I do not doubt.”
Desmond nodded.
Moll continued, “He might be in there right now making a gun out of a pipe and shotgun shell hidden somewhere.”
“Don’t disagree. I’m not in this to get blasted like a wild boar.”
“Do you know what I am thinking?”
“Hm...?”
“Not to wait for Merritt. Is there any downside to not waiting?”
Desmond’s face suggested he was pondering.