Out of the Black (17 page)

“Murphy?”

He shrugged. “It’s something we’ve got to think about, Matt. If we overreach, we all lose.”

“So this is your plan?” I asked. “Arm up and storm his house like a fucking assault team?”

“We’re not going to storm anything,” Leo said. “We can get onto the property without anyone noticing. Then, we wait. Once he shows, we step in, hit him, and get out.”

“You think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Not easy,” he said. “But it’s been done before.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t think it’ll work,” I said. “And I want to talk to him before we do anything.”

“Talk to him?” Leo smiled. “What do you think we’re going to do, run into him on the street? Maybe we can walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, where’s the little girl?’” He laughed. “Th I hadn’

The gates surrounding the Bent Tree Gardens opened at eight o’clock. We were the first ones in, and we parked at the far end of the lot and waited. The sun was up, hanging low on the horizon, and the light reflected bright off the fresh snow outside the arboretum.

Murphy took his coffee cup from the center console, popped the lid off, and sipped. Then he pointed to the bag on the floor and said, “Hand me one of those?”

I picked up the bag and passed it over.

He took out a doughnut and leaned back in the seat. “I can’t believe I’m going along with this.”

“It’s our best shot.”

“You realize the longer we wait, the less chance we have of getting to him.”

I told him I did.

Murphy took a bite of the doughnut then offered the bag to me. I waved it off.

A few minutes later, a rusted green pickup pulled in and parked farther down. The doors opened, and the Vogler
brothers got out. Eddie glanced around the lot then nodded toward us and started for the entrance.

“Are we set?”

“It appears so.” Murphy pushed the rest of the doughnut into his mouth, took a big drink of the coffee, then opened the glove compartment and pulled out a black .45. “I’ll see you inside.”

“Remember,” I said. “Not until I talk to him.” the light1DAK. It was

Murphy looked down at his watch. “How long are we going to give him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Until he shows up.”

“And if he doesn’t show?”

“He’ll show.”

I could tell he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead, he clapped me on the shoulder then opened the car door and stepped out, leaving me alone.

I watched him cross the lot, coffee in hand, then head up the walk to the front of the arboretum. Before he went in, he stopped and took another drink, then he dropped the cup in the trash can outside the door and went inside.

I looked down at my hands in my lap. They were shaking, and I squeezed them together until they stopped.

I thought about what would happen if I was wrong and he didn’t show up. It was too much to think about, and I pushed the thought away.

Pinnell had told me in the cell that he came here every morning, that he couldn’t start his day without walking through these gardens. If that was true, I didn’t see why today would be any different.

Another car pulled in and parked.

Three women, all wearing long coats and pastel-colored pants, got out and walked slowly to the entrance. They leaned into each other as they walked, talking at once.

A while later, a maintenance cart passed by on the sidewalk. There were snow shovels in the back, and the man driving didn’t look up as he circled the building and disappeared around the curve.

My chest had begun to ache.

What if he wasn’t coming? What if he’d followed through on his threat and Anna was truly gone?

What if I’d failed her again?

I felt the darkness form in my stomach and start to spread through me, screaming at me to do something, but the only thing left to do was wait.

I checked my watch.

It was almost nine o’clock, and still no sign of Pinnell. Part of me expected to see Murphy walk out of the arboretum, followed by the Vogler brothers, and tell me they were calling off the entire thing, that we’d waited long enough, that he wasn’t coming.

But they didn’t.

Instead, at two minutes past nine, a black Town Car pulled into the parking lot and parked near the front of the building. A man I thought I recognized from the cell in Pella Valley got out of the front and walked around to the back passenger side and opened the door.

A hand appeared holding a polished black cane, and then I saw a flash of short, silver hair.

Roman Pinnell had arrived.

I watched Pinnell and his driver walk in, but I didn’t move right away. Instead, I stayed in the car for another minute and tried to settle my mind, but nothing I did seemed to help. That scared me. This had to go perfect. I couldn’t fuck it up again.

I took a deep breath, then opened the door and stepped out under a perfectly still sky. I looked around, saw no one, and started walking across the parking lot toward the entrance to the arboretum.

My knee had been numb for a while_">’as, but each time I took a step, I could feel something pop behind the bones.

Inside the arboretum, the air was rich and warm and wet. There were three separate walkways leading away from the entrance, each one lined with trees and flowers and color. The stone walls were high and spaced with full-length arched windows that looked out over snow-covered gardens.

Above it all, long glass panes ran along the ceiling toward the domed center of the building. And under that, an enormous tree, bent and scarred by age, stretched up out of the earth toward the light.

I searched for any sign of Murphy or the Vogler brothers, but the gardens were deserted. The only person I saw was a young girl in thick-rimmed glasses sitting behind the information desk with a book open in front of her.

She didn’t look at me.

I started down the main walkway toward the tree in the middle of the arboretum. There were several smaller paths that led off the walkway and disappeared into the dense gardens.

Pinnell could’ve been at the end of any of them.

When I got to the center, I stopped and fo saw the purpl

When I stepped out from the walkway, Pinnell was standing beside the bench, staring at me.

Neither of us moved.

Then I said, “I want to talk.”

Pinnell didn’t say anything, and at first I wasn’t sure he would acknowledge me at all, but then he turned and eased himself down onto the bench.

I approached slowly, trying to keep as much weight off my bad knee as I could.

Pinnell watched me, frowned, then opened his hand and waved it over the open seat. “Sit down, Mr. Caine.”

I sat and looked at the koi pond and watched the fish circle in flashes of red and gold and black. I thought about Murphy waiting for me, and I started to speak.

Pinnell cut me off. “I funded the construction of this building,” he said. “All these gardens, actually. Did you know?”

I told him I didn’t.

“The tree out there was here long before these gardens,” he said. “Once there was nothing here but a field of grass and weeds and that one tree. I used to come with my son from time to time. I carved his name into the side of that tree. It’s still there after all these years.”

“My daughter,” I said. “Where is she?”

Pinnell ignored me.

“Of course, when I donated the money for these gardens, I made sure they were built around that tree. There was resistance, but cutting it down was not an option, and in the end—”

“Fuck that tree.”

Pinnell stopped talking and turned to face me.

“Where is she?” I asked. “I’m not alone this time, and if I don’t get an answer from you, I’ll—”

“You’ll do what?” His eyes narrowed. “Blindfold me? Handcuff me to a pipe like an animal? Will you leave me to rot in some damp shed by the river? Will you beat me?” He hesitated. “Is that what you’ll do?”

My throat felt tight, and when I found my voice, I said, “I didn’t want her to get hurt. I went along to make sure she was safe.”

“You went along out of greed and cowardice,” he said. “Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. It’s much too late in the game for that kind of illusion.”

He was right, and there was nothing I could say.

“I gave up pretending a long time ago,” Pinnell said. “I know my role in this life, and it’s something I no longer try to escape.” He looked up and nodded. “On one hand, I am the man who built this building, and others, in an attempt to bring happiness to people, but that is not all I am.”

“I figured that out.” the lightdoo“How do you know that?”

Pinnell kept looking up, seemingly lost in thought. When he came back, his voice was soft.

“I knew the second I saw you here that you weren’t alone.” He turned to me. “You’re not an unintelligent man. At first, I thought perhaps you were, but I misjudged you.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s safe.”

The words filled me with hope, but only for a second. I wanted to believe him, but I’d believed him before, and I couldn’t do it again. This time, I needed more. “Tell me where she is.”

Pinnell looked down and tapped the end of his cane on the ground. “I’ve done many things in life that I’m not proud of,” he said. “But every action I took, every one, was for my family.”

Somewhere, far off, a woman coughed.

The sound echoed.

“But one thing I’ve learned, Mr. Caine, is that you can never fully protect the ones you love. You can build walls around them, hire an army to watch over them, but eventually, something will get through.” He pointed at me. “It could be a blind dog running on luck, like you, or it could be something else. Something bigger, something that sneaks in unnoticed and slowly drains away an entire life before it is ever lived.”

“I don’t see—”

“Or maybe something as simple as a car accident.” He turned to face me. “Perhaps an overworked nineteen-year-old university student runs a red light one morning after her eyes drift shut for an instant while driving to class.”

I felt the air rush out of me.

“There are a great many tragedies in this world, Mr. Caine. Yours is but one.”

“How did you know about the accident?”

Pinnell looked away. “If I tell you where to find your daughter, what is stopping them from killing me?”

I was still thinking about the accident, and it took me a minute to pull myself together.

Once I did, I said, “Nothing.”

“Then you’re asking me to trust you?”

“I’m not asking for anything,” I said. “I’m telling you the situation.”

Pinnell sat up, exhaled sharp. “The way I see it, as long as I have something you want, I’m safe. Forgive me if I’m not willing to give up my one remaining chip on faith.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and nodded. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

“My suggestion would be for you and me to leave here together.” He turned toward me. “I can take you to your daughter, and then we part ways.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Then we are at an impasse.” He tapped his cane on the ground and pushed himself up. “It’s getting late, and I have a busy day. Right now I’m going to walk out to my car, with my driver, and we’re going to leave. If you’d like to see your daughter alive again, I suggest you make sure we’re able to do so with no interference.”

I watched him as he spoke, and I did my best the lightNothings out of to keep the rage building inside me from boiling over. I told myself he was the only one who knew where Anna was, and if I was going to find her again, I needed him alive.

“Good-bye, Mr. Caine.”

Pinnell turned to leave, but I stopped him.

“Hold on.” I took the cell phone from my pocket and held it up. “You might want to sit back down.”

“We have nothing else to discuss.”

He started toward the passage, but he didn’t get far.

Murphy stepped out, blocking the exit. He had his hands folded in front of him. He was holding the .45.

“There is one thing.” I opened the phone and hit Send. There was a series of beeps as the preset id="page_197"

I listened while he talked, not believing.

“You’re lying.”

Pinnell shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

I watched him and I didn’t look away. I thought if I stared at him long enough, he’d slip and I’d know for sure if he was telling the truth.

But he didn’t slip.

Pinnell’s face was stone.

I stepped back and opened the phone and hit Redial. It rang, but I knew no one would answer, not this time. They’d been given specific instructions: one call only. After that, no contact.

Still, I had to try.

I let it ring several times before I hung up.

“I assure you, she’s there.”

“If you’re lying to me,” I said. “If this is some—”

“I know what’s at stake, Mr. Caine.”

“I hope you do.”

Pinnell sighed then moved back to the bench and sat down. He set his cane across his lap and said, “Since I am taking you on your word, I would like it if you took me on mine. We are both working toward the same goal.”