“I told him it was a down payment for a property. But he doesn’t believe me. George is a stickler for proper paperwork and receipts and documentation.”
Sommer sighed, looked off toward the family room. “I’ll show him some documentation,” he said.
And Belinda thought, What the hell, I’ve tried everything else.
Slocum got out his cell phone, hit a button, put the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Daddy,” Emily Slocum said.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Did you want to talk to Aunt Janice?”
“No, I just wanted to talk to you.”
Darren Slocum kept his eyes on the house up the street, hoping Sommer would return shortly. These situations made him very uncomfortable. He had no illusions about what kind of person Sommer was. He knew full well what he was capable of. Ann had told him what had happened on Canal Street, what she’d seen him do. Sitting out here in the car, wondering just how far Sommer might take things, it worried him.
But if Sommer got his money, if this went without incident, this could be the end. You’re all paid up, he’d tell him. Go find someone else to sell your stuff out here. With Ann dead, Slocum wanted out. No more purse parties, no more bringing in prescription drugs for Belinda to sell. No more home construction stuff for Theo Stamos.
Slocum wanted out. Out of this business. And out of Milford.
He figured his days as a cop were numbered. His bosses were still looking into that stolen drug money, the cash he’d used as start-up money for their business. Even if his bosses couldn’t nail him for it, the stench around him was only going to get worse. Maybe he’d hand in his badge. If he walked away, odds were they’d deep-six the investigation. Getting him off the force would satisfy them. He’d move. Maybe upstate New York. Pittsburgh. Get a job in security or something.
In those moments when Slocum felt shame about the path he’d decided to take, the choices he’d made, the people with whom he’d aligned himself, he phoned his daughter. A man who loves his daughter, he told himself, can’t be all bad.
I am a good man. My little girl means more than anything to me.
So, waiting for Sommer to show, he placed the call.
“Where are you, Daddy?” Emily asked.
“I’m sitting in a car waiting for someone,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You must be doing something,” he said.
“Aunt Janice and I were on the computer. I was showing her how many friends I’ve got and what their favorite things are. I wish you’d come home.” Her voice was so sad.
“I will, soon. Once I wrap up a few things.”
“I miss Mom.”
“I know. I do, too.”
“Aunt Janice said we should go on a vacation. Me and you.”
“That’s a good idea. Where would you like to go?”
“Boston?”
“Why Boston?”
“That’s where Kelly says she might go.”
“Kelly Garber’s in Boston?”
“Not right now. She’s at her grandma’s.”
“Well, I think it’d be good for me and you to go someplace, and if you want it to be Boston, that’s okay with me.”
“They have an aquarium.”
“That’d be fun,” Slocum said, watching a set of headlights coming up the street. “See all kinds of fish and sharks and dolphins.”
“When do I have to go back to school?”
“Next week, I guess,” Slocum said.
The car was stopping across from the Morton house, pulling over. The headlights went off.
“Sweetheart,” Slocum said, “Daddy has to go. I’ll call you again later.”
Belinda led Sommer into the family room. George shifted in his leather recliner when he sensed her approach. He grabbed the remote, hit the mute button again.
“Hey,” he said, seeing only Belinda first.
“Someone here to see you,” she said.
George peered up and saw Sommer standing there. “Well, hello. I don’t believe we’ve-”
Sommer grabbed hold of George by the back of the neck, hauled him out of the chair, and propelled his head directly into Judge Judy. The plasma TV shattered.
No one got out of the car right away after the headlights went out. But Slocum thought he could make out the driver looking at the Morton house. Thinking about what to do, maybe.
Slocum thought, Who the hell is this?
The flat-screen TV shattered. George screamed. Belinda screamed.
Sommer dragged George away from the TV. The top of his head was bloodied and he was flailing his arms about wildly, trying to strike out at Sommer, getting in the occasional slap that might have worked with a mosquito but wasn’t going to have much effect here.
“Where is it?” Sommer asked.
“What?” George whimpered. “What do you want?”
“The money.”
“My study,” he said. “It’s in my study.”
“Lead the way,” Sommer said, but held on to George by twisting a fistful of shirt at the back of the neck.
“You didn’t have to do that!” Belinda shouted at Sommer. “He’s bleeding!”
With his free hand, putting his palm directly on her right breast, Sommer shoved her out of the way. Belinda stumbled back against the doorjamb.
“It’s in a safe, is that right?” Sommer asked.
“Yes, yes, it’s in the safe,” George said, steering them into his study and around his desk. “It’s in the wall, behind that picture over there.”
“Open it,” Sommer said, shoving George across the room until his face was forced into the portrait of his father.
Sommer let up on the pressure slightly so George could swing the picture out of the way to reveal the safe with the combination lock.
“So this is the kind of people you’re doing business with,” George spluttered at Belinda.
“You stupid bastard!” she screamed at him. “You brought this on yourself!”
George put his fingers on the dial, but they were shaking. “I… I don’t know if I can do it.”
Sommer sighed. He switched his grip on George from his right to his left hand, then pulled him out of the way so he could twist the dial himself. His hand was rock steady.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Okay, okay, okay, spin it a couple of times around to the right, then left to twenty-four, right to eleven-”
I’ll be damned, Belinda thought. He used my birthday.
Just as George was about to call out the third number, which Belinda was now able to predict, there was a ringing in the room.
A cell phone.
Belinda kept hers on when she was home, but it wasn’t her ring tone. George always turned his off when he wasn’t out somewhere. So it had to be Sommer’s. But with one hand on George and the other still spinning the dial, he didn’t have much choice but to ignore it.
The driver’s door opened. Slocum squinted, trying to get a look at who it was.
The person started crossing the street.
“Get under the light, get under the light,” Slocum whispered through gritted teeth.
