She started playing what-if, wondering what would happen if her father suddenly materialized in the seat next to her, if she told him that she knew everything and that he had been given a second chance, what would her father do? Death was probably a great educator. If he could do it over again, would her father come clean to Mom? Would he live his life with Sugar?
That would be what Kat would want for him. That would be what Kat would want for her mother too.
Honesty. Or how had Sugar put it? The freedom to be authentic.
Had her father been close to coming to that realization? Had he grown tired of the lies and deceptions? When he arrived at that club with flowers for Sugar, had he finally found the strength to be authentic?
Kat would probably never know.
But the larger question, when she let herself go there, when she let her mind wander away from the far more important task of saving Brandon and his mother from whatever evil this was, ended up being more present-day. Suppose her dad did indeed materialize in the seat next to her. Suppose she told him she had seen Jeff again, that she was convinced they had a chance, that when she saw Jeff, she understood what Sugar had meant about giving up anything for just a few more seconds with him.
What would her father tell her to do?
The answer was so obvious now.
It didn’t matter why Jeff ran off, why he changed his name, none of that. Sugar wouldn’t care. Dad wouldn’t care. Death teaches you that. You would give anything, forgive anything, for just one more second. . . .
When this was over, Kat would drive back up to Montauk and tell him how she felt.
The sun was setting, coloring the sky a deep purple.
Up ahead, the black SUV finally exited the turnpike onto Route 222.
Kat followed. It couldn’t be too far now.
• • •
Brandon asked “What do you want with my mother?” one time too many.
Titus clocked him in the mouth with the butt of his gun. Brandon’s teeth broke. Blood flowed from his mouth. Brandon ripped off his T-shirt and pressed it against the wound. He stopped talking then.
When they hit Route 222, Titus checked his watch. They were less than forty minutes away. He did a few calculations in his head—the size of the fire, the visibility, how long it would take local firefighters to arrive, especially if he called them and told them he had it under control.
An hour, at least.
That was all the time he would need.
He called Reynaldo. “Have you finished spreading the gasoline?”
“Yes.”
“Is she still trapped in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“Where are Rick and Julio?”
“They’re in the yard. One in the front, one in the back.”
“You know what has to be done.”
“I do.”
“Take care of it. Then set the fire. Make sure it burns all the way to the ground. Then get to the boxes and finish cleaning up.”
• • •
Reynaldo hung up the phone. Bo stood by the barn. He’d be safe. That was the important thing now. Rick was in the front of the house. Reynaldo walked toward him.
“Did you speak to Titus?” Rick asked.
“Yes.”
“Are we going to set the fire?”
Reynaldo had the knife hidden in his hand. He stabbed him fast and deep in the heart. Rick was dead before he slid to the ground. Reynaldo took out a book of matches. He headed back to the house, lit one, and dropped it on the front steps.
The flames leapt to life, traveling in a fast, blue line.
Reynaldo kept walking. He reached the back door. His gun was by his side. He aimed and shot Julio in the head. Reynaldo lit another match and threw it by the back door. Again, flames exploded in a glorious blue wave. He took a few steps back so he could see both exits.
There was no other way out. He saw that right away. Dana would burn to a crisp in the fire.
He watched the flames climb higher and higher. He wasn’t a pyromaniac or anything like that, but you couldn’t help but be enthralled by the sheer power of the blaze. It quickly ran through the house, eating everything in sight. Reynaldo listened for her screams. He had hoped to hear them. But there were none. He kept his eyes on the doors, especially the kitchen one, hoping that the fire would drive her out, that a flaming figure would whirl into sight, driven by agonizing pain, pirouetting in a final death dance.
But that didn’t happen either.
Reynaldo lifted Julio’s body and tossed it into the flames. He and Rick would end up charred but perhaps identifiable. That might help. If anyone would take the fall, it would be the dead.
The blaze was at full power now.
Still no screams, no sightings.
He wondered whether the fire or the smoke had killed Dana. He might never know, of course. He was sure, however, that she was dead. He could see no way she could have escaped.
And yet, as he turned away from the wreckage, he felt a funny sense of unease.
Chapter 43
When Dana Phelps saw the flames, she hurried down the awful path she had taken too many times before.
Where, she wondered, would be the last place he would look for her?
Back with the boxes.
It was odd about what we consider luck, fate, timing. Her husband, Jason, had grown up in Pittsburgh and was an avid Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fan. He loved cheering his teams, but he understood better than most how random the whole world was. If there had been full replay rules with HD cameras back in the seventies, many believed that we would see the ball hit the ground before Franco Harris made the catch on the Immaculate Reception. Did it? If so, would the Steelers have then lost that game and not won four straight Super Bowl titles?
Jason loved asking questions like this. He didn’t care about the big stuff—the work ethic, the schooling, the training. Life, he suspected, hinges too often on chance. We all want to convince ourselves that it is about hard work and education and perseverance, but the truth is, life is much more about the fickle and the random. We don’t want to admit it, but we are controlled by luck, by timing, by fate.
In her case, the luck, the timing, the fate had been blood on Bo’s paws.
Checking the dog for injuries had slowed Reynaldo down just a few seconds, but it was long enough. It was long enough for her to drop the phone and run into the kitchen and realize that he would quickly find her because of her bloody footprints.
So what did she do?
There was no time to consider a bunch of cute plans or alternatives. The idea was there and, if she did say so herself, near genius. She walked straight to the cellar door, opened it and tossed her socks down the stairs.