The Bodies Left Behind

with it. And then the tires. She used up all the ammo and threw it in the stream.”
    “Wonder why nobody found it. Maybe it was one of those other creeks.”
    “I’d love to get my hands on it. . . . And I don’t like the idea of unaccounted-for firearms. Anybody over at the house still?”
    “Pete Gibbs’s there. And Arlen has a couple of his boys. Might be somebody from Crime Scene too.”
    “Thanks, Tom.”
    “Wish you’d get some rest.”
    “All in good time.”
    She hung up and pulled on sweats, then called Gibbs at the Feldman house.
    “Pete. It’s me.”
    “Oh, hey, Brynn. How you doing?”
    “Ugh.”
    “I hear that.”
    She asked if any Crime Scene people were still there.
    “Yep. A couple of ’em.”
    “Do me a favor. See if anybody’s recovered any pistols.”
    “Sure, hold on.”
    After a moment he came back on the line and reported that all they’d found were a few more shell casings that’d been missed last night. No weapons.
    She sighed again. “Thanks. How you doing?” He sounded shaken. She assumed it was Munce’s death, but there was another source.
    “Kind of an unpleasant thing happened,” he said ruefully. “I had to break the news to one of the Feldmans’ friends. She hadn’t heard. Man, I hate doing that. She broke down. Went totally bonkers.”
    “A friend?”
    “Yeah. Took her nearly a hour to calm down. Though she was one lucky lady, I’ll tell you. She was supposed to come up last night but something happened at work. She couldn’t get on the road till this morning. Imagine if that hadn’t happened.”
    “Where’d she drive up from?”
    “Chicago.”
    “You get her number?”
    “No. Didn’t think to. Should I have?”
    “I’ll call you back.”
    Brynn sat back on the bed, considering this.
    A second houseguest was coming to visit last night? Another woman, and also from Chicago?
    Wasn’t impossible. But wouldn’t Michelle have mentioned her? And why wouldn’t the two women drive up here together?
    An absurd thought began unraveling . . .
    Embarrassingly absurd.
    Yet Brynn couldn’t quite dismiss it. All right, she’d been assuming all night that Michelle was the Feldmans’houseguest. But when she considered the question now, she realized that she had no evidence that she actually was.
    In fact, Brynn thought, what if she was a stranger who wanted to pretend she knew them? I gave her all the information she’d need to play the role. “Are you their friend from Chicago?” I asked her. “What’s your name?” Which told her I didn’t know anything about her. “Did you practice law with Emma?”
    I’m an actress.  . . .
    But, no, this was crazy. What would her motive be for lying?
    Brynn gasped as another thought occurred to her, answering that question with horrifying clarity. On the interstate—at the Snake River Bridge—she’d recovered handguns from the men: Hart’s Glock and Comp’s SIG-Sauer. With the weapon that Michelle claimed to have found that meant the two men had brought three semiauto pistols and a shotgun.
    Even for professional hit men that seemed excessive.
    And why had Crime Scene found all that brass with the metal detector but not the missing pistol?
    My Lord, what if the gun wasn’t Hart’s or Comp’s, but Michelle’s?
    But why would she bring a gun with her?
    One answer: because she’d been hired by Stanley Mankewitz to kill Emma Feldman and had brought along Hart and Comp, intending to kill them at the scene.
    And leave their bodies behind, the fall guys.
    Then Brynn recalled Michelle reaching into herjacket at the interstate. She wasn’t reaching for the knife; she was going for the gun she’d been carrying with her all night.
    Which meant she still had it.
    On the first floor the pipes stopped squealing as Michelle shut off the water.

    WITH A GRIMACE toward the empty gun lockbox, Brynn ran into the hallway and stepped into Joey’s room and took him by the shoulders.
    “Mom, what’s wrong?” His eyes were wide.
    “Listen to me, honey. We have a problem. You know how I tell you never to lock your door?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, today’s different. I want you to lock your door and not open it for any reason. Unless it’s me or your stepdad or Grams.”
    “Mom, you look funny. I’m scared.”
    “It’ll be okay. Just do what I tell you.”
    “Sure. What—”
    “Just do it.”
    Brynn closed the door. She ran down the stairs as quietly as she could, intending to get to the only guns