The plan was simple. They’d force her off the road, grab her, and get her into the Transit. Then they’d park in the shadows and get to work. Did she know where Allison Parker had gone?
She’d say either yes or no.
Moll could tell if she was being honest, either way.
“Would you hang up the damn phone and move,” Desmond muttered, eyes on her.
They couldn’t do anything until she got to her car and left.
The woman just puffed and talked, puffed and talked.
“Check out her—”
“—belt,” Moll said. “I saw it.”
The reference was to a canister of pepper spray.
Victims fighting back was always a risk, ranging from karate to spray to firearms, but never insurmountable. Just something you took into account and handled.
The woman nodded and swayed, as if ending a conversation and mentally moving on from the caller.
At last.
Then Desmond stiffened. “Shit.”
He’d been looking in the side-view mirror. Moll did the same and saw the cruiser—a county deputy’s vehicle—moving slowly toward the Transit.
Both men instinctively slipped the guns into compartments under the front seats. They looked like built-in DVD players. Moll had made them himself.
Moll and Desmond remained calm. They hadn’t been drinking and there was no evident blood on the bed of the van. Luminol would reveal some traces of Edgar’s blood, but using those fancy lights would require a warrant or probable cause.
They’d pulled over simply to make a phone call and send some texts. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of traffic deaths, I heard, Officer. My friend and I are always careful.
But the car cruised past, the deputy paying them no mind. He pulled up to the front of the clinic, and the receptionist disconnected her call, ground out the cigarette and climbed into the front seat. She and the deputy exchanged a ten-years-married kiss.
The man put the car in gear and they drove off.
“Well.” Moll grunted. He sent a text delivering the bad news. Tonight, at least, the shelter was a dead end. He tucked the phone away.
They retrieved their guns.
Moll pulled slowly onto the state route and headed back toward his house in Ferrington.
Desmond pulled out the willow branch and began fiddling with it, tapping it again with his black knife.
Moll thought about poor Edgar, becoming less human every hour. Hehadto get to Ralston and take care of it. By now it would be VapoRub in the nose to handle the stench. Though the sawing would be easier.
Tomorrow. Please tomorrow. Let’s get this finished.
He was tired... and hungry. Chain burgers, not fine barbecue, had figured in the day’s calories.
Desmond was sighting down the branch. “You had no problem with the banker’s wife.”
This again?
“No, the job is a hit. Pure and simple. Your dick cannot figure in this picture. And that wife? You got to her before I even knew what you were up to. And we had to burn the cabin after. For the evidence.”
Thonk, thonk, thonk...More pounding on the willow branch. This part of the project took a long time, Moll knew.