Fully Loaded - Blake Crouch [5]
She searched for the door handle in the dark, and kept searching and kept searching. At least on this side, there didn’t seem to be one. She moved to the other door, slid her hand across the vinyl. Nothing. Reaching forward, she touched the partition of vinyl-coated metal that separated the front and back seats, thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me.
Ten minutes later, flushed with embarrassment, Laura broke down and dialed her home number on Martin’s cell. Even from inside the car, she could hear their telephone ringing through the living room windows. If she could get Tim to come outside unnoticed and let her out, Martin would never have to know about any of this.
The answering machine picked up, her voice advising, “Tim and Laura aren’t here right now. You know the drill.”
She closed Martin’s cell, opened it, hit redial—five rings, then the machine again.
The moment she put the phone away, Martin’s cell vibrated.
Laura opened the case, opened the phone—her landline calling, figured Tim had star-sixty-nined her last call.
Through the drawn shades of the living room windows, she saw his profile, pressed talk.
“Tim?”
“Thank God, Laura.” Marty’s voice. “Someone’s in the house.”
“What are you talking about? Where’s Tim?”
“He ran out through the backyard. Where are you?”
“I um…I’m outside. Went for a late walk.”
“You on your cell?”
“Yeah. I don’t understand what’s—”
“I’m coming out. Meet me at the roundabout and we’ll—”
Martin’s cell beeped three times and died.
The whiskey had made Tim thirsty, and Martin was taking his sweet time in the bathroom.
Tim went over to the sink, held a glass of water under the filter attached to the faucet.
He heard the creak of wood pressure—Marty walking back into the kitchen—and still watching the water level rise, Tim said, “Let me ask you something, Marty. You think whoever left that message knows they left it?”
“Yeah, Tim, I think they might.”
Something in Martin’s voice spun Tim around, and his first inclination was to laugh, because his brother did look ridiculous, standing just a few feet away in a pair of white socks, a shower cap hiding his short black hair, and the inexplicable choice to don the yellow satin teddy Laura had been wearing prior to his arrival.
“What the hell is this?” Tim asked, then noticed tears trailing down Martin’s face.
“She’d gone to the movies with Tyler Hodges.”
“Who are you talking—”
“Danielle.”
“Matson?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a junior in high school, man.”
“You know what she did with Tyler after the movie?”
“Marty—”
“She went to the Grove with him and they parked and the windows were steamed up when I found them.”
“Look, you can have the tape from our answering—”
“They’d trace the call,” Martin said. “If you were to encourage them.”
“We wouldn’t.”
“I can see the wheels turning in your eyes, but I’ve thought this through quite a bit more than you have. Played out all the scenarios, and this is—”
“Please, Marty. I could never turn you in.”
Martin seemed to really consider this. He said, “Where’s Laura?”
“Upstairs.”
Martin cocked his head and shifted into his right hand the paring knife he’d liberated from the cutlery block.
“Don’t fuck with me. I was just up there.”
“You need help, Marty.”
“You think so?”
“Remember that vacation we took to Myrtle Beach? I was twelve, you were fourteen. We rode the Mad Mouse roller coaster eight times in a row.”
“That was a great summer.”
“I’m your brother, man. Little Timmy. Look at yourself. Let me help you.”
As he spoke, Tim noticed that Martin had gone so far as to put on black glove liners, and there was something so clinical and deliberate in the act, that for the first time, he actually felt afraid, a sharp plunging coldness streaking through his core, and he grew breathless as the long-overdue shot of adrenaline swept through him, and it suddenly occurred to him that he was just standing there, leaning back against the counter, watching Marty shove the