Glass House (40 page)

She mounted the steps and opened the screen
door, then unlocked and opened the door that led to the kitchen.
She set the briefcase down as she stepped inside.

Hanley was offering three agents total.
Walking Megan to her car, he detailed the coverage protection in a
blurred description. Something about an agent at the front, one at
the back, and another inside. All within the hour. Megan had tried
to follow him – agents
setting up
and
watching the
sides
and
surveilling and protecting the entry points.
It wasn’t any use.

The thought of it all did make her pause,
though. Megan turned and bolted the door behind her, rattling the
knob to check it and then slipping the chain into place for good
measure. She eyed the blinds above the sink and pulled them slowly
down, peering under them at the alley before they were fully
closed. She saw nothing. She shut them all the way.

She moved to the rear bedroom after that.
The curtains there were already drawn, the room dark despite the
hour. Then on to the small, five by five alcove hall that fronted
the bathroom, the master bedroom, and the living room. She checked
them all, completing the survey of her home’s first floor, testing
each door and covering every window but one at the front of the
house. She walked the floor again after that.

When she was done, Megan went to the door
that led to the attic stairs. She opened it, glancing up but not
climbing to the attic where Ben once got thrilled at finding the
catalog ad and purchase papers for this very house. She listened,
head angled up the steep steps. Nothing.

Megan sat on the second step from the
bottom. She was staring out the single uncovered window, looking
across the living room and watching the day turn to dusk, and the
dusk turn toward dark.

As she waited for the agents to arrive, she
wondered already how long they’d be there. How long they’d pin her
down in this place, or any other, when what she really wanted was
to leave for good.

Hanley had told her the answer to that, too,
but it was as vague in her recollection as the rest of the things
he’d said. She was pretty sure it was through tomorrow. Something
about getting enough time to find Waldoch and trail him and see
what he was doing. Where he went. Who he talked to. Get a read on
Waldoch’s mood and –

Megan jerked, startled at the sound of a
knock at the front door. Hand to her pounding heart, she moved
carefully across the room, pulling aside a curtain over the window
beside the door and peering through.

“Jesus,” she muttered. She unlocked and
opened the door, stepping aside for Finn.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she
said.

He frowned. “You didn’t think I’d come by,
when you still had those?” He was pointing at the jewelry on
Megan’s ears and neck. “They’re a little hot, remember? I figured
you’d want to ditch them, but maybe you’ve grown fond of them.”

Megan was shaking her head as she took the
earrings out, collecting them in one hand. “I completely forgot.”
She passed the earrings to him and reached to work the necklace
clasp. “I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem.” Finn studied the room.
“What’s with the gloominess?”

“I’m waiting.”

“For a séance?”

Megan closed the door. “For federal
agents.”

“Federal agents,” Finn repeated, nodding.
“Not my favorite choice for company, but sort of impressive
sounding. What have you stirred up exactly?”

“Something you don’t need to be involved in.
Not anymore.”

“A little late there. Remember?” He held up
the earrings and necklace. “Thief turned law student turned
thief?”

“Turn it back to law student and stop there.
Be done with all of it, and be glad you are.”

“Come on – how bad can it be beyond
what’s happened already?”

“Bad enough,” a voice behind them
answered.

Megan and Finn spun to the new sound and saw
a man emerge from the attic stairwell where Megan had been sitting.
He stepped slowly from the darkness there, the black shape of a
suppressed pistol coming first, in inches. Then an outstretched
arm. And finally a whole person.

It was Waldoch.

“After all,” he said, “Ms. Davis associates
with the worst sort of crowd.”

Up
and Out

“You’ll need to move away from her, Finn,”
Waldoch said, adding as an incongruously polite afterthought,
“Samuel tells me it’s Finn, so may I call you that?”

“No,” Garber replied. “No, you may not.” He
was squared to the wall, his shoulders parallel to its length. The
door to the porch was to his right, the small hall and attic
stairs, Waldoch emerging from them, to his left, and Megan directly
in front of him, facing the wall he stood against.

“Not very friendly,” Waldoch was saying. He
gave a shake of the head. The pistol in his hand had moved between
Megan and Finn as he stepped into the edge of the room, but it hung
on Finn now. “Move away from her.”

Finn slid down the wall a foot, Megan taking
a step back and turning toward Waldoch as he did.

“Russell, are you there?” Waldoch said,
watching them.

Russell Haas appeared in the archway between
the dining room and the living room. He was holding a .45. He
looked toward Waldoch. “Clear on the alley in back.”

“Jesus, Jeremy,” Megan said at that. “This
is ridiculous.” She stepped past Finn and reached for the door to
the porch. It was already opening as she touched the knob, and
Megan pulled back, watching with eyes wide as Samuel Chilcott
appeared in front of her.

He was worlds away from the man Megan first
saw a few days before. The disheveled clothes were gone, replaced
with cleaner versions of essentially the same things. The beard was
shaved clean. He wore jeans and a tee shirt, fitting and not
stained this time, no words written on the shirt. Megan couldn’t
help but glance down. Chilcott was wearing shoes, the filthy socks
with holes, if they were still there, at least hidden away.

His groggy, just-awake near-bewilderment was
also gone. Chilcott came in angry, the appearance of it on his face
looking mild but, Megan was certain, the reality of it much
greater.

And he was bigger somehow. Oversized in his
own small house, where he was slumped in his chair and the shitty
surroundings, Chilcott was impossibly larger here, centered in the
frame of the one door that seemed to have been a possible way out
of Megan’s own house.

He looked past her. He looked over at Finn,
against the wall.

“You played me,” he said. The high and soft,
northeastern accent. Megan had forgotten that already, though she
didn’t know how, hearing its stretched sound again.

“No hard feelings?” Finn tried.

“Motherfucker.”

Chilcott reached around Megan. She saw he
held a pistol, too, a black blur of metal that shocked her as it
rose in his hand and came down toward Finn’s head.

There were two distinct, thudding sounds.
The first one was muted and eerily hollow as the pistol caught Finn
high on his forehead, at the hairline. The second was the louder
and more ringing sound of Finn’s head in turn finding the wall
behind him. He flew into it, struck it, and staggered, reaching to
a table and nearly knocking it over as he gripped it for
support.

Megan stepped toward them, Chilcott turning
to face her, grinning and ready for it. Waldoch let out a soft and
admonishing, tongue-clicking noise, like he was tut-tutting a child
who was too aggressive on the playground.

“Easy there, my dear,” he said with a smile
as she stopped. “You don’t want to be coming between old
friends.”

Waldoch looked at Chilcott. “How’s the
front, Samuel?”

“Cleared it,” Chilcott replied. He’d moved
to stand over Finn, who stooped and blinked, his arms propping him
on the table. A line of blood seeped from above his left eye,
dripping a steady line down his face and into a pool on the table’s
wooden surface, like wax from a red, melting candle.

“We have no more than fifteen minutes,
unless I miss my guess,” Waldoch said. “So let’s be quick. We have
places to go.”

Chilcott pulled Megan out of the way and
shut the door, twisting the bolt. With Haas cutting off the dining
room and its lead to the back door, and Chilcott blocking the
front, Waldoch moved over to Megan, taking his time. The smile he’d
found at her jump toward Chilcott never left his face.

Megan eyed him without turning away from
Chilcott. Her gaze followed Waldoch as he came near, tracking him
until Jeremy was standing directly in front of her.

“I heard you, you know,” he said. “I heard
you drive up. Heard you work your way through to the front of the
house.”

Waldoch began pacing around Megan, the
pistol in his hand pointing casually, almost lazily at any spot he
chose. When he was in front of her, he raised it and traced its
suppressor-swollen tip under her chin. Her head angled back at the
touch.

“I heard you secure the doors and cover the
windows,” he went on. “Protecting against me, presumably.” Megan
pulled away, and Waldoch started his circle again. “Not so
effectively, I’d say.”

He came around, stopping before her once
more. “Here’s a little secret,” he said softly then. “I even heard
you open the attic door. But you didn’t go up, and you really
should have. And you didn’t check for Mr. Haas or anyone else in
the basement, either.” His voice was a mocking whisper.

Megan didn’t respond, and Waldoch didn’t
wait. He strolled away, wandering nonchalantly into the living
room, as though he were there for cocktails and was wondering when
someone might start serving some. He stopped next to Haas, at the
edge of the dining room.

“You should have looked harder, Megan,”
Waldoch said. “Better yet, you shouldn’t have come home at
all.”

He turned and studied the two of them, Megan
in front and Finn, hand to his bleeding head, behind. “We’re going
for a trip,” he told them.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Megan said.

“I wasn’t asking for a vote on it.”

Megan was two steps toward him when his
pistol came back up. Haas was starting into the living room to stop
her.

At the movements, Finn straightened without
hesitating. Chilcott was still beside him, his attention focused
only on Megan, and Finn gathered a fist – the blood from his
hand staining the creases between his fingers – and drove it
hard into Chilcott’s groin, doubling the man instantly.

Finn swayed uncertainly, but only once. He
reached a hand to the wall to steady himself, then stepped over and
looped his arm around Chilcott’s neck. He pulled, the arm clenching
like a pincer around Chilcott’s throat. Chilcott rose at the force
of it, his face reddening, and the two men fell together against
the wall behind them.

Finn could see Megan turning, Haas coming
behind her. Waldoch’s gun was mute, his gaze jumping from one
figure to another in the sudden commotion.

Finn drove his weight down on Chilcott’s
back once, then again, the big man absorbing the blows but choking
from the pressure on his neck. Then Finn straightened him against
the wall.

He twisted away from Chilcott, letting him
loose. His elbow up and pointed, Finn rammed it into Chilcott’s
stretched out form at the sternum, driving out whatever air was
left in him.

Chilcott let loose a gasp. His pistol fell
to the floor with a clatter.

Finn bent and swept it up, turning to
Waldoch and Haas at the far side of the living room. He fired
aimlessly once, the light cough came, and he watched the shot go
wide. He fired again.

Russell Haas shuddered and stopped in his
tracks, his head and shoulders jerking once. He tipped forward and
stumbled a half-step that direction, then back the same distance.
He twitched, and with a line of red just trailing down into his
eye, his knees collapsed, folding him to the floor.

Finn swung the pistol toward Waldoch, but
Chilcott was on him before he fired the shot he needed. Chilcott
had one clamping hand on Finn, squeezing hard, high on Garber’s
shoulder, where the bone met his neck. Finn yelled at the pain, his
arm stretching out, uncontrolled, the pistol falling from his
grip.

Megan was at the door. She had the lock
undone and the door cracked open when Chilcott reached toward her.
He slammed it closed and pushed her back.

His shoulder screaming, Finn turned to
Waldoch, coming toward them once more. Finn reached around Chilcott
and took Megan by the hand. Pulling her with him, he turned sharply
for the alcove hallway.

They were at the doors there – bedroom,
bathroom, bedroom, attic – before anyone was close enough to
catch them. They slipped through the door to the attic, Finn
shutting it behind them and turning a bolt on their side.

Finn started to climb the steep stairs,
tipping forward and using his hands and feet both, for balance.
Megan was doing the same beside him. Pounding started on the door
below them. It was rhythmic and forceful, like someone was trying
to break through.

Finn and Megan reached the top. He checked
the room, looking for a way out, but Megan was already heading to
the windows that overlooked the front yard.

She angled her head, pressing her face close
to look down the street that ran in front of her house. “Please be
there,” she whispered. “Please have heard something.”

Finn bent and looked. The roof to the front
porch was below them, and it ran far enough over to reach a tree.
They could drop to the ground.

“We need to go,” he said. He twisted the
window’s latch and lifted. It slid easily in its tracks.

“Please be there,” Megan said.

“Who?” Finn whispered sharply. “Who’s gonna
be there?”

“Police. There’s always a police officer on
the –”