Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [67]
"You see this?" I said, exiting the hallway on the first floor and lifting the shoe box above my head. "It’s all he keeps in his entire house that would clue anyone in to what he is."
In a mechanic’s suit like mine, Walter sat on top of Orson, who was now cocooned inside the rug.
"There are more pictures than this," I said. "Pictures of me doing horrible things to people. In a self-storage unit or a safety-deposit box. You know what happens when this son of a bitch can’t pay the bill ’cause he’s dead? They clear out his space and find pictures of me digging a heart out of a woman’s chest." Now you know.
Walter looked at me, but he didn’t ask for elaboration. Standing up, he walked across the hardwood floor into Orson’s study. He lifted the decanter of cognac and poured himself an immoderately full snifter.
"You want one?" he asked, warming the brandy with a delicate swirling motion of the glass.
"Please." He poured me one, too, and brought it into the living room. We sat down on Orson’s futon before the hearth, swirling and sipping our brandies in silence, each waiting for that euphoric calm, though it never fully came.
"Will he tell us?" Walter asked finally.
"Tell us what?"
"About the pictures of you, and the man who wrote on Jenna’s arm."
I turned my head and found Walter’s eyes, my cheeks candescent with the liquor.
"Absofuckinlutely."
We carried him out the front door and down the steps. The moon shone bone white through the leafless, calligraphic trees. The alcohol numbed my face, diminishing the sting of the cold.
The rug wouldn’t fit into the trunk, so we unrolled it and let Orson slide into the dark, empty cavity. I checked his breathing, and though it was steady, they were damn shallow breaths. A light cut on in the house across the street. The figure of a man came to a bay window.
"Come on, Walter," I said. "This is just about the worst place we could be right now."
We headed back down the mountain the way we’d come and turned right onto Main Street. I stared out my window as we passed the campus, its brick walkways lighted but empty. Farther on, I caught a glimpse of the white gazebo, where I’d stood in the snow just yesterday, in search of the man who now lay unconscious in the trunk.
"We got him, didn’t we?" I said, and the brandy drew a smirk across my face.
"I’ll celebrate when he’s got a hundred pounds of cold dirt on top of his face, and we know where the man is who threatened my daughter."
Downtown Woodside was hopping for 10:30 at night. In spite of the cold, students filled the sidewalks. I could see a hundred miniature clouds of breath vapor, and hear their hollering through the glass. Dueling bars on opposite sides of the street had students milling outside the doors in long, anxious lines, waiting to reach the mirthful warmth inside. It made perfect sense to me. It was too cold in this town to do anything but drink.
Seven point eight miles from Beans n’ Bagels, Walter eased off the pavement, pulling onto the soft, wide shoulder of 116. He drove through the grass for a hundred yards and stopped in the shadow of two oaks.
"Your shovel’s back there," he said. "I saw it against that tree." He leaned back in his seat and killed the engine. I turned around and looked through the back windshield. Up and down the highway, bathed now in blue frozen moonlight, nothing moved.
"How’s your face?" he asked.
"My nose feels broken, but it’s not." It was hot to the touch, the skin across the bridge having tightened from swelling. My left eye had nearly closed, but, surprisingly, it didn’t hurt.
"You wanna help me get him out?" I asked.
Two door slams echoed through the pine forest and up the slopes. An owl hooted somewhere above us, and I pictured it sitting on the flaking branch of a gnarled pine, wide-eyed, listening. I was tipsy from the brandy, and I staggered a little en route to the rear of the Cadillac.
Walter inserted a key and popped