“She’s dead?”
“Sure.”
“The money is right here.” Forrest went to a door that Hobart had not seen before, cut into the decorated wood that rose seven feet from the marble floor of the big open room. He opened it and Hobart saw it was a closet. Forrest came back with a satchel like a gym bag and handed it to Hobart.
Hobart took it with his left hand, squatted to set it on the floor, and unzipped it.
For Forrest, Hobart’s movements were bad news. He was keeping Forrest in his line of sight, keeping his right hand free and unencumbered. Hobart was clearly aware that this was the perfect time for Forrest to alter the terms of their deal.
Of course, Forrest thought. Hobart did this routinely, for a living. He knew every aspect of his business, including the twinge of buyer’s remorse a client might have after the person who had been threatening his happiness was dead and buried. From the moment when Hobart completed a job until he took the money and got out of sight and out of reach, he was in danger, and he knew it.
Hobart finished assuring himself that the whole bag was filled with stacks of hundreds. He zipped the bag and stood up with it in his left hand. “Good enough,” he said.
Forrest held out his right hand again to shake Hobart’s, but Hobart ignored it. Forrest felt uneasy. Hobart had already realized that if he shook, both of his hands would be full, but only one of Forrest’s would. Even that, thought Forrest. Hobart was absolutely unblinking. There was no overconfidence, no forgetfulness.
Forrest said, “Was getting Emily Kramer hard?”
“You and I agreed on a price, and you just paid it. The time and trouble I had to put into it is my problem.” Hobart started to move toward the front door. Forrest noticed that as he stepped in that direction, he didn’t move his eyes from Forrest’s.
“Don’t go,” Forrest said. “When we were on the phone, I mentioned I had another job.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll put this in the car, and then we’ll talk about it.”
Forrest could tell there was no point in saying, “You can leave your money here in the foyer,” or trying to dissuade or distract him from his intention. He was the expert at this. Hobart’s money wasn’t safe until it was in his trunk, and he had the only key. Car trunks could be popped or their locks hammered in, but not without Hobart’s knowledge.
But Hobart was back already. He came in and shut the door. “All right. Tell me about it.”
“It’s my wife, Caroline.”
“You want me to kill your wife? Why?”
“It’s a long story. I offered to provide for her in a breakup, but she would rather destroy me.”
“She could do that?”
“It doesn’t matter, really. Leaving somebody around who wants to do that to me would be insane.”
Hobart looked around him and up toward the vaulted ceiling and then his eyes followed the curving staircase to the second floor. “Are you planning to burn this place, too?”
“What? Why?”
Hobart shrugged. “I assume she has some kind of evidence on you, right?”
“No, just suspicions and resentments and an inexhaustible supply of anger. If I let her go, she’ll spend all her time and my money paying people to dig up something or fake it. I can’t let her do that. You can’t let her do that. If people look hard enough at me, they’ll probably find something that relates to my business with you. Neither of us wants that.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s in the wine cellar. She was out of control-threatening to call the police, threatening me with everything she could think of, and refusing to listen to anything I said.”
“Is she tied or restrained?”
“No. I just put her in there and locked the door. She’s been in there for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Let’s see. I put her in there about four this morning, so I guess it would be about sixteen hours.”
“All right. I’ll take care of it. What you’ll want to do later is tell the cops an intruder did it, stole something, and left. Figure out something you want stolen.”
Forrest felt vindicated. It was so much like the idea he had thought of that nothing came to mind to say at first. Then he chuckled. “It won’t be hard to find something expensive that only she ever liked. Just don’t pawn it or something, okay?”
“I know better than that. Do I need a key?”
Forrest couldn’t let him do it that way. He had to be around when Hobart did it. He had to shoot Hobart over Caroline’s body. If he shot Hobart anywhere else, it wouldn’t look as though he had been trying to save Caroline or that he had surprised Hobart in the act. If he did it up here in the foyer or outside, it might just look as though he had shot the man in the back. Revenge wasn’t a legal reason to kill someone. “I’ll come down and show you,” he said.
“Okay.” Hobart followed Forrest into the hallway toward the kitchen. Hearing Hobart’s footsteps behind him made Forrest nervous and uneasy. He had to hide his feelings. Hobart would be good at detecting fear.
He went down the steps to the basement, hoping the gun under his sport coat wasn’t making a lump that Hobart could see. He went to the door of the wine cellar.
Hobart put on a ski mask, then nodded at Forrest.
Forrest was disconcerted. He started thinking that there was no practical reason for a man to wear a disguise with a woman he was about to kill, but Hobart was a killer, and maybe that was how he liked it. A man like him must be crazy, must get something out of it besides money. Maybe the mask was part of it for him. Forrest unlocked the door and stepped back.
Hobart nodded at him again.
“Caroline?” he said through the door. “I’m back. You can come out.”
There was a delay that seemed long to Forrest, and he began to hate her even more.
“Caroline,” he called. “Caroline. I’m letting you out.”
After about five more seconds, he reached for the door, but the doorknob turned. The door opened inward, and she stepped into the doorway. She looked profoundly tired. Her hair was tousled, and there were wispy strands that seemed not to have proper places in her hairdo. She squinted a bit in the light. “Who are you?” she asked Hobart.
“He’s a friend of mine,” Forrest said. “I invited him.”
“To what?”
“He’s here to prove to you that you shouldn’t have behaved like my enemy.”
“You hate me this much? You bring a man with a mask on? What is he going to do-kill me?”
Forrest turned to Hobart. “Same pay as before. Go ahead.”
“Oh my God!” Caroline said. “You did bring him to kill me.”
“What did you expect?”
“I wasn’t trying to harm you. I was trying to keep you out of jail. This is crazy!”
“We’ve already had that argument. Go ahead. Kill her.”
“Okay.” With a smooth, relaxed motion, Hobart reached into his coat, pulled out a pistol, and raised his arm to aim it at Caroline’s forehead.
Ted Forrest edged slightly away so he could be a bit behind Hobart. He just had to wait until Hobart pulled the trigger on Caroline, so the right man killed her with the right gun. He reminded himself that the report would be very loud, and he would have to be quick, to move through the shock of it, not taking time to blink or flinch.
Hobart pivoted and fired through Ted Forrest’s brain. The sound was bright and sharp, and a blood spatter appeared on the stone wall beyond Forrest before he fell.
Caroline shrieked once and then stood frozen, staring down at the horrible sight of her husband’s body on the floor. After a few seconds, she raised her confused, terrified eyes to Hobart. “Why did you do this?”
“None of your business. If you scream or follow me to the stairs, or do anything for the next fifteen minutes, I’ll kill you, too. Do you understand?”
She nodded, her head barely moving.
He knelt and patted Ted Forrest’s pockets. He took Forrest’s gun and cell phone, then stood and moved to
