Don’t tell her, that pragmatic voice said. If you do — if you tell her this man is an investigator, that he’s here because you hired someone to look into Rico’s case — she might panic and decide to kill you.
Theresa felt Rico watching her from the photographs.
I can’t take it any more. Please, Mom. Please help me.
The doorbell rang.
‘He’s an investigator,’ Theresa said. ‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Police? FBI?’
‘I don’t know. He works for someone else, a man named Ali Karim. Karim owns a security company in New York. Manhattan. I hired him to look into what happened to my son.’
‘Why? What did you find?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You found something, some piece of evidence.’ Clouzot’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but the calm veneer was gone. The woman was scared. ‘Tell me.’
‘Nothing. I just — ’
‘Just what?’
‘I… I couldn’t live with it any more, not knowing what happened to him. To Rico.’
‘Did you tell this Karim person your real name?’
‘No.’
‘What you did back in Philadelphia?’
The doorbell rang again.
‘No,’ Theresa said. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Lie to me and your son dies.’
‘ I’m telling you the truth. I — ’ Theresa cut herself off when she felt the gun muzzle dig deeper into her head.
‘Yell at me again,’ Clouzot said, ‘and I’ll kill you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Clouzot said nothing. Theresa blinked the sweat from her eyes. The wooden blinds rattled in her trembling hand.
A moment later she saw the man move away from the front door. Instead of heading to his car, he walked to the top of the driveway and peered inside one of the garage’s bay windows.
Theresa felt the woman’s rapid breathing against her nape, heard the hitch in her throat when the man turned and made his way back to the house.
‘Let go of the blind,’ Clouzot said.
Theresa did. Clouzot released her grip and backed away. Theresa didn’t dare move.
Two beeps as the woman pressed the keys for a pre-programmed number on her cell and then Clouzot spoke into the phone: ‘If you don’t hear from me within the next five minutes, take Rico away and kill him.’
Fletcher couldn’t see inside the house. The blinds on the nearby windows had been drawn, and the front door, made of solid mahogany, contained no small perimeter windows.
No matter. Both the doctor and his wife were home. Both vehicles were parked in the garage. He rang the doorbell again, about to follow it with repeated knocking, when the heavy door cracked open.
7
When Theresa saw the man standing on her doorstep, she immediately wanted to scream for help — scream as she threw the door wide open and pointed at the sick bitch Clouzot, who was pressed up against the wall only a few feet away, listening. The owner of the black Audi was at least six foot five and as broad-shouldered as a timber beam — the kind of strong and powerful man she imagined could lift a small car or run through a wall without so much as suffering a single scratch.
‘Mrs Herrera?’ the man asked. He had a foreign accent — British, maybe Australian.
‘I’m Theresa Herrera.’
He eyed her suspiciously, and then she remembered how she looked — face and clothes drenched with sweat, hands and limbs trembling.
‘I’ve got that rotten stomach flu that’s going around,’ she said. ‘I take it that was you who rang the doorbell a moment ago.’
The man nodded. ‘Ali Karim sent me.’
From the corner of her eye Theresa saw Clouzot’s handgun. It was aimed at her, and there was no doubt in Theresa’s mind the woman would use it.
If you don’t hear from me within the next five minutes, Marie Clouzot had told her partner, take Rico away and kill him.
Theresa pressed her face closer to the door’s opening and said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t answer. When I’m not lying in bed I’m lying on the bathroom floor. I’m afraid now isn’t a good time.’
‘May I speak to your husband?’
‘He’s not here.’ She remembered he had looked inside the garage and seen both cars. She said, ‘He’s gone out for the evening with a friend and won’t be back until late, I’m afraid.’
The man took off his glasses, the lenses wet with melting snow. He had bright blue eyes.
‘My husband,’ Theresa said, the words drowning in her throat. She swallowed and started again. ‘My husband and I… we’ve decided not to retain Mr Karim’s services.’
The man showed no reaction. He glanced past her, inside the foyer. For a moment she thought he was going to push the door open and rush in.
Instead, he said, ‘May I ask what changed your mind?’
‘Finances.’
The man snapped his attention back to her.
‘We simply couldn’t afford Mr Karim’s fee,’ she said. ‘The bank denied us a second mortgage — they called only a couple of hours ago. I’m sorry you came all the way out here. Please tell Mr Karim I’ll gladly reimburse him for any expenses he’s incurred.’
‘There’s no need.’ The man dipped a hand inside his coat, staring at her with an unsettling intensity. It had a hypnotic quality, as though he had somehow entered her head and was listening to her true thoughts.
Then, incredibly, as if he knew what was happening inside her house, his hand came back with a 9-mm handgun.
Theresa stared at it with equal measures of fear and relief. Her expression was hidden from Clouzot. There was no way the woman could see her face — or the man’s handgun.
In an act of bravery — Please, God, please let this work — Theresa looked sideways, to the corner where the Clouzot woman was hiding. She held her gaze there for a moment as she said, ‘Again, I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’
‘Have a good night, Mrs Herrera. I hope you feel better.’
The man reached forward, about to grab her or maybe to push the door inward, when the gunshot rang out.
Chris Mooney
The Killing House
8
Fletcher had caught the palpable relief on Theresa Herrera’s face when he removed his sidearm — a SIG SAUER P226, the same reliable and powerful 9-mm weapon used by the Navy’s SEAL Team Six. She was staring at it as he placed one foot on the threshold, about to throw the door open, grab the Herrera woman and pull her out
