“Eric doesn’t believe that, Danielle. He was afraid you’d try to pin this all on him and run off with Mark. It’s the classic double-cross. Think Out of the Past. Think The Killing, which it might interest you to know was directed by a young unknown named Stanley Kubrick.”
Danielle shook her head at him. “I don’t know what any of this means.”
“It means your boy has been fitting you for a pair of hot pink Jimmy Choos.”
“Now I really don’t know what you mean. But you’re wrong about us, Mitch. We’re together. We’ve always been together.”
“I’m not buying that, Danielle. You see, I’ve just spent quality time with someone who knows the real Eric. And she told me his so-called mission in life is all one big, pesticide-free scam. That he’s strictly about himself.”
“What are you talking about now?” Eric demanded angrily. “Who are you talking about?”
“A girl who deserved to be treated a whole lot better than you treated her,” Mitch answered, feeling the man’s entire body tense up. “You talked a lot about yourself in bed, Eric. You talked too much.”
Danielle peered at her husband warily. “Eric, what is he?…”
“N-Nothing, hon.” Eric’s voice suddenly cracked like an adolescent schoolboy’s. “A perfectly innocent situation. Just this girl who was hung up on me years and years ago.”
“Which girl?”
“Allison Mapes,” Mitch informed her.
“She’s the little teenager who used to go to the green markets with you.”
“Right, I-I was mentoring her.”
Mitch let out a hoot. “He was putting it to her for months and months, Danielle. She told me he couldn’t get enough of her.”
Danielle gaped at Eric in horror. “You were cheating on me with that child?”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Mitch continued, “I was plenty surprised myself. Eric’s such a do-gooder. Up at dawn every morning. He works hard. He cares about the land and the-”
“Oh, shut up!” Danielle screamed. “Just… shut… up!” She’d begun rocking back and forth in the pew, hugging herself tightly as tears streamed down her cheeks. “She was a child, you pervert. She was… my God, how old was she?”
“Fourteen,” Mitch answered as he lay there in Eric’s vise-like grip. “That does constitute statutory rape. And he could still go to jail for it if Allison wanted to press charges. Mind you, that’s the least of your legal worries right now.”
“Bastard!” Danielle spat, rocking back and forth like a distraught mourner.
“Hon, I’m not proud about that chapter of my life,” Eric confessed tonelessly. “But I’ve healed myself. We’re talking about something that happened a long, long time ago. It’s been over for years.”
“He’s right about that,” Mitch conceded. “Allison’s good and through with him-mostly because Eric wasn’t straight with her. Kept bragging about how rich he’d be one day. How he’d divorce you and marry her. But as soon as he’d had his fill he dumped her. Nearly destroyed her, too. She’s doing a lot better these days. Not great, but okay.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about her,” Eric muttered sourly.
“Well, yeah. We just spent the night together.”
“You did what?”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Eric,” Mitch pleaded. “Because then I’ll start wondering whether you were hoping to take up with her again after you made your big score. And I’m not sure I can handle any more weirdness right now.”
“That wasn’t going to happen,” Eric told Danielle earnestly. “Don’t listen to him, okay? He’s strictly playing with your mind. You can see that, can’t you?”
Danielle stared at him dumbly. She seemed dazed, as if she’d just staggered away from a head-on collision with a bus. “How could you do that to me?”
“He’s a ruthless, scheming murderer, Danielle,” Mitch pointed out. “Everything about his life is a total lie. What made you think he’d be honest with you?”
“We’re in this together,” she said hopelessly.
“You’re wrong, Danielle. Eric betrayed you with Allison. And he figured you were betraying him with Mark. This may not be the ideal time to mention it, but you two have some serious problems with your marriage.”
“If you don’t shut your big mouth,” warned Eric, biting off the words angrily, “I swear I will slit your throat right now!”
“Eric, you’re almost enough to turn me off of do-gooders entirely. But not quite, because I’ll let you in on a little secret-I believe in people.” Mitch gazed up toward the balcony now, smiling hugely. “I believe we do the right thing most of the time. I have to believe that, Eric. Because if it’s not true, then where are we? We’re… well, we’re you.”
“Hon, d-don’t listen to this guy!” sputtered Eric, who was now quivering with rage. “This will be okay. We can still get away.”
“And do what?” Mitch persisted, goading him, inflaming him still further. “Forget about your farm. Your so- called mission is history. Where will you go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll pretty much have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and-”
“I told you to shut up!” Eric screamed, an animal roar coming from his throat as he punched Mitch in the ear with all of his might, pitching Mitch over to the floor with a hard slam.
Now Mitch’s head was ringing.
And Danielle was sobbing, “No, Eric! No!”
As Eric kept screaming, “I told you! I told you!” His eyes blazing at Mitch like a wild man’s. Now the wild man was on top of Mitch, pummeling him in the head with left-hand punches. “I toldyo u!” Danielle screaming at him to stop. And now he had that Leatherman raised high overhead in his right hand. “Say goodbye, you fat son of a bitch! Because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll!…”
CHAPTER 28
That chopper was a blessing.
As it moved in closer overhead, the whirring of its rotor blades masked the sounds they couldn’t help making no matter how hard they tried to be silent.
First, there was that old stairway up to the cloakroom. Its wooden treads went snap, crackle, pop even though they tippy-toed. Then there was the door at the top of the stairs. Des got to it first, Soave and Yolie right behind her as she turned the thumb latch. She eased the bolt slo-o-owly open but there was still an audible click. And those door hinges hadn’t been oiled since Hoover was in the White House. They squeaked and groaned as she eased the door open, flooding the stairway with bright daylight.
As Des paused there in the empty cloakroom, blinking in the sunlight, she could hear a steady murmur of conversation inside the sanctuary. No raised voices. No footsteps.
They were okay.
Her SIG drawn, she inched her way across the cloakroom toward the foyer itself. There were two stairways up to the balcony, one on each side of the foyer. She had to find out whether those foyer doors were open or closed. If they were closed then the three of them could split up now, unseen by anyone inside the sanctuary. If they were open then they’d have to take the same stairway up and fan out once they reached the balcony. That would make their job harder because they’d be exposed that much longer-should Eric or Danielle chance to look up. Not an impossible job. Just a riskier one. Because if they didn’t have the element of surprise on their side then they had nothing.
Only a disaster waiting to happen.
Soave and Yolie remained behind her in the cloakroom, their SIGs drawn, as she poked her head through the cloakroom doorway into the foyer itself and…
