Chapter 34
34
PATRICK
C ujo.
Kieran Ingram was the first man to call me that, and he used it as a sign of respect. I was a mad dog. I was his mad dog. He could point me toward an enemy, and I would tear the poor fecker apart, limb from goddamn limb.
But the meaning changed when Da died. Cujo meant I was sick. I was damaged. I was everything corrupt about the Crew I’d sworn to.
Fiona can’t know all that. But she knows she wants to hurt me. She wants to pierce my heart.
Which is exactly what I tried to do to her. I knew what I was saying, telling her she was young, telling her she was naive. I placed a wedge, and I pounded it hard, knowing she’d never accept what I said.
There’s one long moment when we can both say we’re sorry. We can both take back our words.
But I’m a mad dog. A savage. I can’t fix this .
And she doesn’t want to.
The time-bomb is ticking, ticking, ticking. But it doesn’t explode. Instead, it eats a gulf between us, chewing away at everything we ever had, leaving a gaping canyon neither one of us can cross.
I stare at the mayhem around us. The water beyond the Cadillac’s nose is deep enough to swallow a frustrated golfer’s clubs, but it’s not a lake. It can’t hide bodies or a car.
It’s something of a miracle we haven’t been found already. If the golf course wasn’t on the edge of a busy college campus, someone would have already phoned in the noise. Any cop who drives past the splintered front gate will investigate the situation.
This is one of those times when my broken brain is an asset. It can replay every single frame of the movie we’ve just shot. I can watch every step Fiona and I took. I can see we never touched the Caddy. I know we’ve left no fingerprints behind.
We’re too far from the clubhouse to worry about a security camera. There’s probably one trained on the gate. They’ll run the Land Rover’s Pennsylvania plate. Maybe show up with a warrant at my place down in Philly. I need to swap plates now .
I stalk to the gun I forced Fiona to drop. It’s a snub-nosed Ruger, with a textured grip. It could be useful down the road, especially since there’s nothing to connect it to this slaughterhouse. I drop it in the pocket of my trousers.
“Let’s go,” I say to Fiona.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She sounds like she’s twelve, instead of twenty-four.
She squawks when I swoop her into a fireman’s carry. She tries to elbow my face, but she can’t get any leverage. She kicks like a mule, but she can’t make contact with her feet either.
I drop her onto the Land Rover’s passenger seat, hard enough to clack her teeth together because I can’t risk her getting any brilliant ideas about running away. I slam her door closed and don’t waste any time circling around and getting behind the wheel. It’s easy enough to flip the switch that child- locks the doors—great for families, I hear, but better for kidnappers.
Neither of us says a word as I drive across town. I follow the speed limit like I’m a priest taking communion to my elderly granny. I treat yellow lights like they’re red. I count to five at stop signs.
When I get to Beacon Street, I stop in front of the apartment. I ignore my open space at the fire hydrant. I turn on my flashers so I don’t cause an accident.
Flicking the button to release Fiona’s door, I say, “Get out.”
She stares straight ahead, as if she’s been struck deaf.
“I swear to God,” I tell her. “I will throw you over my shoulder and drop you in front of that goddamn door.”
That makes her look at me. “Of course you will,” she says, etching each word with acid. And then she nails my coffin shut: “ Daddy. ”
She’s not trying to seduce me. She’s not even playing bait and switch.
She’s shoving an ice pick into the base of my brain and dripping in venom after.
As if there could be any doubt, she gets out of the car then, closing the door like she’s cradling a basket of eggs. She walks up the steps like a queen on parade, like she’s reviewing the troops of her own private army.
It takes every last fiber of my shredded self-control to keep from flooring the Land Rover as I turn off the flashers and pull away. Two miles down the road, I turn into a public parking garage. I navigate three levels of the ramp before easing into a space between a twenty-year-old Camry and a sleek BMW sedan.
The Camry owner takes care of his car. He’s made it last, even in Massachusetts, where winter salt and sand eat everything on the road. So I’ll fuck over the Beemer’s owner instead.
Pennsylvania only requires plates on the back of a car, which leaves the BMW’s front looking empty after I swap the plates. Fuck it. The owner will notice. That means I need to make another stop.
I exit the garage and drive a few more well-regulated miles before I pull into another garage. This one’s less crowded. I have to work fast, but I switch the Beemer’s plates with the ones on a family minivan.
That’s good enough for now. I only have to get far enough to sell the fucking car.
Who am I kidding? I’m leaving this one at a chop shop. And the shops I know best are all down in Philadelphia.
I’m nearly at Boston’s city limits when I realize Fiona left her stiletto heels behind.
I toss one out the window as I merge onto the interstate. The other one goes when I cross into Connecticut. After that, it’s a long, mind-numbing haul, sticking to the speed limit every mile of the road.