Run: A Novel (31 page)

Her method worked. A hundred yards from LeBrock’s drive I caught a glimpse of silver paint through the trees. Two glimpses. Carolyn’s BMW, and another car. An Aston Martin. The photographer’s? My heart jumped. I leaned harder on the gas, and seconds later I was out of the Jaguar and hurrying along his front path.

For the second straight day, LeBrock opened his door before I got there. But this time he was fully dressed—in black jeans, boots, and a faux biker’s jacket, which looked ridiculous on a man his age—and he wasn’t coming to greet me. He actually flinched when he saw me, which scotched a fleeting hope that Carolyn had sent him out to give us a little privacy.

“Going away somewhere, Roger?” I nodded at the gray polycarbonate suitcase he was wheeling behind him.

“No.”

“Then why do you need luggage? And what about Carolyn? Is she here?”

“Change of plan, Marc. Sorry. Carolyn couldn’t make it, after all.”

“No? Then why’s her car on your drive?”

“She asked me to sell it for her. Dropped it here earlier, and took a car service to the airport.”

“But she’s having the fake passport photo done at noon. That’s in, what? Ten minutes? She can’t have left already. She wouldn’t travel under her own name. So spill. What’s really happening?”

“Nothing. I had the photo guy come early. She didn’t want to wait till tomorrow to fly out, is all.”

The lower lid of his left eye started to tremble.

“What’s in the case, Roger?”

“Nothing. Sorry, Marc. I have to go.”

I grabbed the handle, ripped it from his grip, and held him off long enough to ease back the zipper.

The case was stuffed full of neatly-wrapped bills.

“The forty million? You’re running off with my wife, after all? You lying bastard.”

“No.” He lunged for the case, but I shoved him away. “There’s no
we
, here. Just me. Carolyn’s not coming.”

“You stiffed her, too? You piece of shit.”

“I didn’t. This isn’t my idea.”

“Then whose is it? Carolyn’s? She asked to be left behind, vulnerable and penniless?”

LeBrock didn’t reply.

“This makes no sense, Roger. Look, neither of us is blameless. I’m
not looking to pin anything on you. I just want to understand what’s happening.”

“OK. But not here. Come away from the door.”

LEBROCK PERCHED ON THE HOOD
of his Mercedes, and his head dropped.

“Carolyn is in the house,” he admitted. “In the basement. But you can’t see her.”

“Why not? Is she OK?”

“She is. At the moment.”

“Stop this cryptic bullshit. Tell me what’s happening.”

LeBrock took a small leather folder from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Inside, a piece of paper was attached to each cover. On the left, two names:
Roger LeBrock
and
Carolyn Clark Bowman
. On the right, three words:
Death by suffocation
.

“Note there are only two names,” he said. “And one outcome.”

“This is from the guy you were telling me about?”

“He gave it to me this morning. Showed up in my bedroom and handed it to me like a room-service breakfast menu.”

“And you chose to save yourself, leaving Carolyn to die? How could you do that?”

LeBrock didn’t answer.

“Oh.” I raised the suitcase. “Maybe this made the choice a little easier. Did the guy know the cash was in the house?”

“Of course he did.” LeBrock looked up at me, his back stiffening. “He brought me the case to carry it in! Don’t you get how this guy works? It’s not just psychopathic with him. It’s psychological. Think about it. If I walk away with the money, how can I enjoy it? Knowing what I did to get it?”

“And yet you’re doing it anyway.”

“Easy for you to sit on your high horse and judge! You think you’d have done the noble thing? Because let me tell you—you wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

“Yeah? Like when you shot down Carolyn’s chance to leave AmeriTel? So you could live off her fat paycheck? Like a damn pimp?”

“That was different.”

“Prove it.” LeBrock dived across the hood and this time he managed to claw the case away from me. Then he zipped it open the rest of the way and started to hurl handfuls of wrapped-up bills at me. Dozens of them. He didn’t stop till they were heaped and scattered at my feet like bricks at a construction site. “There. That’s five million, at least. Go inside and offer your life in your wife’s place. Or scoop up the cash and drive away.”

“Wait. What about other options? How many guys are in there with her?”

“One.”

“Only one? There’s two of us. Why don’t we go inside and bring her out? And tell this guy to fuck himself at the same time?”

“We can’t. You don’t understand. Carolyn’s tied up in my safe room. The guy’s cut off the air supply. Right now, the door’s open, which means she’s still OK. But he’s holding a dead-man’s switch. Can you believe I paid extra for that? Anyway, all he has to do is let go, and the door closes. Automatically. And once it’s closed, there’s no way to open it from the outside. Literally, no way. The thing’s impregnable. And totally airtight.”

“OK. Then we call the police. They have negotiators. And hostage rescue teams. They deal with this kind of thing all the time. That’s got to give her a better chance than walking away and leaving her. Unless you think the guy’s bluffing?”

“The one thing this guy doesn’t do is bluff. Ask Melanie Walker’s husband.”

“Then I’m calling 911.” I pulled out my phone.

“No point. There’s not enough time. Because regardless of the dead-man’s switch, the guy’s closing the door at noon. The only question was who’d be inside. Carolyn, or me? Now it’s Carolyn, or you.”

“Noon?” I looked at the phone. “That’s six minutes away!”

“Then you better make your choice.” LeBrock picked up the case and climbed into the Mercedes. “Let’s see how strong those morals are now, buddy.”

I looked across at the door to the house.

Then started to grab up the money.

L
EBROCK’S BASEMENT WAS LIKE A PRIVATE OUTPOST OF THE
Container Store.

The stairs opened into the center of a broad, brightly lit space. In one direction all I could see were rows of shelves, perfectly fitted to the height and length of the walls, and filled to capacity with color-coded boxes and baskets and buckets. But on the other side of the staircase there was just a single object. A giant cuboid. Fifteen-feet wide. Twenty long. Ten high. Plain, gloss white surfaces.

The safe room?

I kicked myself for not asking LeBrock to explain how it worked. Where the controls were. Or even to tell me the name of the bastard who was holding my wife hostage.

“Hello?” I hurried around the far side of the smooth, white perimeter. “Whoever you are? I need to talk to you.”

“Marc?” Carolyn’s voice was shrill with stress. “Is Roger with you?”

I ran faster, turned the corner, and found the door to the safe room. A six-inch-thick slab of steel, which looked like it had been stolen from a bank vault. It was set on rollers, top and bottom. And it was still open. I breathed again. But I couldn’t see much more because my way was blocked. A man was sitting on a Barcelona chair in front of the doorway, his immaculate black suit merging against the leather so that his head and the front panel of his shirt seemed to be floating in space. His hair was parted in a neat, anonymous style, but his skin was waxy and his face immobile, like he was made out of parts from a mannequin.
Even his eyes moved only once, homing in on mine and holding me in an unblinking stare.

His left hand was resting on his lap but his right was out of sight, tucked away in his trouser pocket.

“Is Carolyn Bowman in there? I just heard her. Is she all right?”

“Where’s Roger?” Carolyn yelled. “Is he coming back?”

“Be my guest.” The guy smiled. “See for yourself.”

I peered around the door frame. Carolyn was dressed in an outfit I hadn’t seen before. A casual gray dress with a matching cashmere cardigan and low-heeled sandals. They’d have made good travel clothes. Except that she was standing on tiptoe, hands above her head, chained to a ventilation duct.

“Marc?” Her face was white with panic. “Has Roger gone? Has he left me here?”

“Five million dollars.” I tore my gaze away from Carolyn and stepped back toward the guy in the suit. “Five million. Maybe a little more. I didn’t have time to count it. But it’s yours, if you let my wife go. Every cent.”

“It’s no good, Marc,” Carolyn yelled. “You don’t understand. You have to find Roger!”

“The five million?” The guy stood up. “Do you have it here?”

Had LeBrock been lying? Had he even tried to save Carolyn?

“I can get it in two minutes.”

“Good. Then you can have the same deal as LeBrock. I close this door. You walk away, and take the money with you.”

“No!” Carolyn’s chains clattered as she tried to rip them free of the duct. “Marc, you fool! You’ve messed everything—”

“Quiet!” the guy interrupted. “Or, Marc, you take your wife’s place, and
she
walks away with the money. Only, I wonder how much she’d enjoy the rest of
her
life, knowing the price you paid for her freedom?”

Carolyn stopped moving and the chains fell silent. I wanted to throw myself on the guy, knock him down, and beat his head against the shiny concrete floor. But then I remembered the switch LeBrock had mentioned. The guy’s hand was still in his pocket. Could I take the chance?

“Those are your choices,” he went on. “Only you’ve got less money
on the table than LeBrock had, so I’m giving you less time to decide. You mentioned two minutes. Let’s go with that.”

“No. Listen—”

“Did LeBrock fill you in on the details? In case you’re thinking of anything stupid.”

“Yes, but—”

“Then the clock’s running. You have a minute fifty-five.”

“Wait. Let’s talk. There must be something else you want? How about this? I design management information software. I’m working on a new project, right now. It’s going to be huge. You could—”

“A minute fifty.”

“OK. What about art? I have a Lichtenstein. An original. It’s worth a fortune. You can have—”

“One, forty-five …”

I COULDN’T BARGAIN WITH HIM
. I had to concede that. Could I kill him? Knock him unconscious? Maybe. Maybe not. But what about the switch?

I needed to paralyze him. Completely. In the next hundred seconds. But how?

The answer was simple.

I couldn’t. Not without help.

I started to walk away, much as LeBrock must have done earlier. But I paused when I was level with the door. The guy was standing between me and Carolyn, with the chair still behind him. Carolyn’s face was pale. It was half hidden by her wild hair. A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. It defied gravity for a moment. Then started to roll down her cheek.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I was wrong. About everything. This is all my fault. I should be—”

“Screw you, Marc!” More tears appeared. “You fool. You Judas!”

I took a step back, then another, until my back was touching the basement wall.

“Why are you dragging this out?” Her tears were streaming now, dripping down and soaking the front of her cardigan. “Just go!”

I gazed at Carolyn for another second then dropped my shoulder and charged, driving my head into the guy’s chest and knocking him backward. The chair pivoted on its hind legs and we flew over it, crashing onto the floor. Pain jolted through my knee. And the safe room door began to close.

I pushed myself up and started to scramble away but the guy grabbed my lapel, pulling me back down. The edge of the door reached my shoulder. It started digging into my flesh. Desperate, I gouged at the guy’s eyes. His grip slackened and I tore myself free, springing back and tumbling over the chair again.

The guy screamed. I leapt to my feet and saw the door had shunted him sideways. It was crushing him against the steel frame. His legs thrashed frantically. His hands clawed the concrete, unable to grip. The door motor continued to hum. It grew louder, rising in pitch. The guy’s movements ebbed away. And then the mechanism was silent, locked in place, and he was finally still.

“Carolyn? Are you all right?”

She didn’t reply.

“Carolyn!”

“I’m fine. Marc? What happened?”

The dead-man’s switch had fallen from the guy’s pocket. I picked it up. Pressed the button. It had no effect. I grabbed hold of the door and heaved, but couldn’t move it even a fraction of an inch. So, conscious of the seconds ticking away, I planted my foot on the guy’s chest and squeezed through the narrow gap.

I’d always imagined safe rooms to be spartan holdovers from the Cold War, full of metal shelves, canned food, and army cots. But LeBrock’s was a combination of boutique hotel and industrial chic. He had leather furniture. Blond-wood fixtures. Paintings on the walls. Even a bowl of potpourri.

“Don’t touch me.” Carolyn’s body was rigid. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her cheeks were still slick with tears. “Stay away from me.”

“What about your chains? You want to stay like that?”

“The police can deal with them. Just call 911, and leave.”

“No.”

“Just go. I can’t bear to look at you. Have you got any idea—”

“Yes, Carolyn. I do. LeBrock told me everything. That’s why I came back. Why I didn’t leave you here, like he did. And why I’m not going now. Not on my own.”

“Roger told you?”

“Last night. We talked. I know I screwed up, Carolyn. But I have a way to fix it. We can get out of this. Together.”

“
You
have a way?” Her voice was shrill. “Excuse me if I’m not convinced, Marc. What’s your plan? Just tell me it doesn’t involve memory sticks or computers.”

“Carolyn, don’t be a bitch. Stop fighting me on this. Did you see where the guy put the key?”

“He didn’t use a key. It’s a padlock, Einstein. It pushes closed.”

I stepped back toward the door, reached down, and felt for a pulse in the guy’s neck. Just in case. Behind me, I heard Carolyn sob. Then I checked the guy’s pockets. Found a set of keys. Fished them out. And identified the one that fit the lock on Carolyn’s chains.