The Husband

windows.
    "You were supposed to come in your Honda," he said.
    "It broke down."
    "Where'd you get the Escalade?"
    "Stole it."
    "No shit."
    "None."
    "Park it parallel to the house, so I can see straight through the front and back seats."
    Mitch did as told, leaving the doors open as he repositioned the vehicle. He stepped away from the SUV and waited with the trash bag, the phone to his ear.
    He wondered if Null would shoot him dead from a distance and come take the money. He wondered why he wouldn't do that.
    "I'm disturbed you didn't come in the Honda."
    "I told you, it broke down."
    "What happened?"
    "Flat tire. You brought the swap forward an hour, so I didn't have time to change it."
    "A stolen car—the cops could have chased your ass here."
    "No one saw me take it."
    "Where'd you learn to hot-wire a car?"
    "The keys were in the ignition."
    Null considered in silence. Then: "Enter the house by the front door. Stay on the phone."
    Mitch saw that the door had been shot open. He went inside.
    The entry hall was immense. Although no finish work had been done, even Julian Campbell would have been impressed.
    After leaving Mitch to stew for a minute, Jimmy Null said, "Pass through the colonnade into the living room directly ahead of you."
    Mitch went into the living room, where the west windows extended floor to ceiling. Even through dusty glass, the view was so stunning that he could understand why Turnbridge had wanted to die with it.
    "All right. I'm here."
    "Turn left and cross the room," Null directed. "A wide doorway leads into a secondary drawing room."
    None of the doors were hung. Those separating these two rooms would have to be nine feet tall to fill the opening.
    When Mitch reached the drawing room, which offered an equally spectacular view, Null said, "You'll see another wide doorway across from the one you're standing in, and a single door to your left."
    "Yes."
    "The single leads to a hallway. The hall passes other rooms and leads to the kitchen. She's in the kitchen. But don't go near her."
    Moving across the drawing room toward the specified doorway, Mitch said, "Why not?"
    "Because I'm still making the rules. She's chained to a pipe. I have the key. You stop just inside the kitchen."
    The hallway seemed to recede from him the farther he followed it, but he knew the telescoping effect had to be psychological. He was frantic to see Holly.
    He didn't look in any of the rooms he passed. Null might have been in one of them. It didn't matter.
    When Mitch entered the kitchen, he saw her at once, and his heart swelled, and his mouth went dry. Everything that he had been through, every pain that he had suffered, every terrible thing that he had done was in that instant all worthwhile.

Chapter 66

     
    Because the creep arrives in the kitchen to stand beside her during the last of his phone conversation, Holly hears him give the final directions.
    She holds her breath, listening for footsteps. When she hears Mitch approaching, hot tears threaten, but she blinks them back.
    A moment later Mitch enters the room. He says her name so tenderly. Her husband.
    She has stood with her arms crossed over her breasts, her hands fisted in her armpits. Now she lowers her arms and stands with her hands fisted at her sides.
    The creep, who has drawn a wicked-looking pistol, is intently focused on Mitch. "Arms straight out like a bird."
    Mitch obeys, a white trash bag dangling from his right hand.
    His clothes are filthy. His hair is windblown. His face has lost all color. He is beautiful.
    The killer says, "Come slowly forward."
    As instructed, Mitch approaches, and the creep tells him to stop fifteen feet away.
    As Mitch halts, the killer says, "Put the bag on the floor."
    Mitch lowers the bag to the dusty limestone. It settles but does not flop open.
    Covering Mitch with the pistol, the killer says, "I want to see the money. Kneel in front of the bag."
    Holly doesn't like to see Mitch kneeling. This is the position that executioners instruct their victims to take before the coup de grace.
    She must act, but the time feels not quite right. If she makes her move too soon, the scheme might fail. Instinct tells her to wait, though waiting with Mitch on his knees is so hard.
    "Show me the money," the killer says, and he has a two-hand grip on the pistol, finger tightened on the trigger.
    Mitch opens the neck of the bag and withdraws a plastic-wrapped brick of cash. He tears off one end of the plastic, and riffles the