The Darkest Evening of the Year

her cell.
    Then one day, slipping her locket around her neck, remembering sweet Nickie who had come to her out of an autumn meadow, she knew what she must do. She found a good breeder. She bought two puppies.
    Fred and Ethel had brought hope back into her life. With hope she could again consider what meaning her life might have, and so she founded Golden Heart.
    Now in the withered meadow, Brian’s cell phone rang. Vanessa had further directions. They were less than an hour from bringing Hope back into Brian’s life.

 
    Chapter
60
    T he single-lane blacktop led half a mile off the county road before arriving at the simple, painted steel-pipe gate that barred passage.
    If the pearly fog grew thicker, even in daylight the white gate might be hard to see in spite of the red reflectors affixed to it. In the headlights, a line of those ovals glittered as if the gate were a trophy rack mounted with the heads of giant rattlesnakes.
    Billy Pilgrim put down the driver’s window and pressed the button on the call post.
    After only a short delay, Harrow replied. “Who’s there?”
    “It’s Billy.”
    Harrow knew him by a few other names, as well, though not by the name Tyrone Slothrop.
    “You’re cutting it tight,” Harrow admonished.
    “I saw this beautiful young girl in a car with a bumper sticker that said ABSTINENCE ALWAYS WORKS , and I didn’t kill her.”
    After a silence, Harrow said, “You always make me laugh, Billy. But not now, okay?”
    “Juliette Junke says I’m working too hard. Maybe that’s it.”
    “We’re gonna talk workloads now ?”
    “No. I’m just saying.”
    “You have the bag of stuff from Amy’s house?”
    “Yeah, but I’ll bring it to you later.”
    “Later when?”
    “Like you said, I’m cutting it tight. I’ve got to get set up. I’ll bring the bag when I bring you the bitch and McCarthy.”
    “Are you all right?” Harrow asked.
    “After this, I’m taking some time off. Do some reading, see if I can find that young mother with the two kids in the tandem stroller.”
    “Young mother who?”
    “Listen, I’ll get set up right away. I’ll bring the bag of stuff from Redwing’s house later.”
    The gate swung open, and Billy drove through.
    In the event of clear weather, he had the sniper rifle, which would have allowed him to conceal himself at a distance and shoot out a couple of tires on Redwing’s Expedition at the designated point in the road, taking them by surprise. They wouldn’t have had a chance to see him with a gun and throw the SUV in reverse, backing out of sight at high speed.
    In this fog, however, Billy didn’t need the rifle. He could wait closer to the road. He would use the Glock machine pistol to blow the tires, to persuade Redwing and McCarthy to get out of the Expedition, and to shoot the dog through the side window.
    Past the gate, the road rose and fell and curved for nearly a mile before it topped a final rise and descended the last two hundred yards to the lighthouse.
    Harrow wanted Redwing to cross this crest, see the lighthouse, and realize that she had been lured to her death, and to worse than death. At that moment, Billy would disable the Expedition.
    Right now, fog shrouded much of the lighthouse, but the tower was huge, and it loomed even in this murk.
    Billy pulled off the pavement, drove among a cluster of hillside pines, parked, switched off the headlights, and killed the engine.
    When he marched Redwing and McCarthy to the caretaker’s house, quite a program would unfold. The boss had showman-ship.
    After the pair were chained in the kitchen, Harrow would no doubt tell Billy to wait for him in the lighthouse. That was where they discussed business, not in front of Vanessa.
    Because Billy was the last man left who could link Redwing and McCarthy to the boss, Harrow would kill him in the lighthouse.
    Billy wanted his midlife crisis to be in the middle of his life, not at the end. He wouldn’t wait in the lighthouse to be killed.
    Instead, he would go to the garage and remove the spark plugs from both of Harrow’s vehicles. Then he would return to his rented SUV and drive out of there, around the gate in the road, away.
    No more Billy Pilgrim. Done, over, finito. He would be Tyrone Slothrop for a week, a month, perhaps for the rest of his life.
    He would not be able to continue criminal activity in California, Arizona, or Nevada, or in select South American countries, because he was well known there in too many circles as an