It’s about risk management, too, and trust me, when it comes to murder for hire, a first-timer is just what you want, every time. One and done, is the way I see it, because no matter how clean a professional hit man may be, no matter how meticulous he is, if he gets his hands dirty enough times, some of that grime will get stuck under his fingernails. Too many bodies buried under one patio, and the neighbors are bound to get a whiff of something nasty, metaphorically speaking. But lots and lots of patios, with just one body tucked away under each? That’s a hell of a lot easier to manage. My method is better for the instigator, and better for the contractor, too. If everyone does their job right, it spreads the stink around.
If not, well... I’d tell you what happens if not, but then I’d have to kill you. (Or get someone else to do it. You know the drill.)
55.
Mack
Why was Hailey just sitting there? Gulliver was scratching up the side of the Cherokee, desperate to get to her, but she was just frozen there behind the wheel like a zombie. The least she could do on the worst day of Mack’s life was tomove.
He left her to it, and though he knew it was futile and always had been, Mack tried the interior door to the house, so he wouldn’t have to open the garage again. And then, by some miracle, he suddenly found himself in his own back hall.
He laughed. He couldn’t help it.
Gulliver scrambled to the threshold, utterly bewildered at this new portal into their home. After a minute even Hailey came to bear witness, appearing beside him like a specter.
“I don’t believe it,” Mack said. “I haven’t tried it from this side since Thanksgiving, have you?”
Hailey didn’t answer.
“What?”
She looked afraid, and so Mack was afraid too. Even more afraid than he had been two minutes ago. “Wha—aat?” he said again. He could hear his own syllables crescendo into hysteria.
“Why is the car smashed?” Hailey whispered, and Mack saw that she was looking past him. Gigi and Mabel were behind him.
“How are you here?” Gigi demanded from the kitchen doorway.
“What happened to the car, Mack?” Hailey asked again, and he moved back into the garage toward the Cherokee, around to the far side. For the first time he saw how bad the damage was.
“Shit,” was all he could think to say.
“How did this get unbroken?” Mabel wanted to know, looking at the gashes on the kitchen side of the door. “Did you fix it, Daddy?”
Hailey pulled the broken, fixed door half closed on Mabel’s question, and stood against it, between Mack and their daughters. That’s when he realized: Hailey was afraid ofhim. Of Mack.
“Jesus,” he said, finally understanding that she thought he was a murderer. “I didn’t—” Mack saw small ankles behind Hailey’s, little fingers trying to pull the door open. “I didn’t do what you’re thinking.”
And shedidthink it, Mack could tell by the way she was looking at him, with fear yes, but with awe and curiosity too. She’d thought he would really kill for her. Mack turned this over in his mind; this was something. Maybe heshouldhave killed for her, maybe he still would have to. But so far, he hadn’t.
“I hit his mailbox,” he told her. “I... I tried to talk to the guy. I don’t know what I was thinking... I don’t even know why I went there. I mean, I wanted to warn him, and I pulled up alongside and... I can’t even remember what I said exactly. And he just freaked out.”
“But the man is okay?”
“Yes. Yes, he’s fine. He was just... scared. I tried to explain why I was there, but it... I mean, it’s crazy, right? So I’m trying to follow him to explain, but obviously I’m in the car, and he’s running away and it’s icy and—”
“If the man is fine, why did you come back here like this?”
“Like what?”
“All freaked out!”
“Becausehefreaked out. And I sort of... I kind of chased him, I guess.” Mack thought of the animal look in the man’s eyes that had appeared as soon as the Cherokee had pulled up alongside him, as soon as Mack had opened his mouth. Mack had only said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” and the guy was already a deer in headlights. Except there were no headlights: it was getting light by then, and the street that had been dark and deserted was suddenly as bright as the surface of the sun. That hadn’t made the man feel any safer, though, so when Mack said—stupidly, he realized now—“I’m in kind of a weird situation,” the guy had probably already decided he was nuts.
“You chased him?”
“I saidsort ofchased him.” He did not tell Hailey that he’d driven into the snow-covered grass as he followed the guy, trying to explain, or about the terrible grinding noise the tires made that sent the man streaking across someone’s lawn, stumbling through the snow. “Wait!” Mack had shouted, but the man had not. He disappeared into a patch of trees—he was smart enough, Mack had realized after a minute, not to lead some crazy stranger back to his house.
Still, Mack had not given up. He had held his nerve and waited at the end of the street for the guy to come out of the trees, hoping to catch him in his rearview mirror. If he could only get his address, Mack could find him, approach him some other way.
