“And after?” said Kyle.

“Then it’s time for me to lie low. That’s why I already packed my bag. Just get me to a bus station, and I’ll be on my way.”

“You don’t want to maybe stay around a bit?”

“Too dangerous. They’ll be hunting me for sure.”

“Who?”

“The senator, his mother, that little killer the cops told you about.” He glanced to the side as if suddenly scared and lowered his voice. “Not to mention the first Mrs. Byrne, if she ever got an inkling of the truth. Trust me on this, that would be a frightening thing indeed.” “Tell me about it.”

“No, boyo, I’ve been too long here already. Remember the scare at Ponzio’s? It’s time I get back on the road.”

“Dad?”

“Kyle, son, I’ve got no choice. But you can come along if you choose. I’ve enough for two tickets. Have you ever seen the way the country unfurls on a slow trip west?”

“No.”

“It’s a grand sight, boyo, something to share and build on. But those considerations are for after. We need to focus on the here and the now. It will be dangerous in there. You need to keep your wits about you. And we’re agreed on the plan?”

“Sure,” said Kyle, “we’re agreed.”

“And everything’s clear?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Now, that must be the gate. I’ll duck down so the cameras don’t catch me.”

Kyle pulled up to the gate, leaned over and pushed the button to the squawk box. There was no response, so he pushed it again. And again. He waited, figuring that a fourth time might be rude, but after a few moments he thought what the hell and pushed it once more. He looked around for the camera, saw it turning like a robot’s head above the gate. He gave it a wave, and at that very moment the gate slowly swung open. Kyle drove through.

The lawn was wide and open as it rose toward a cold stone monstrosity of a mansion with huge gray pillars and wings wrapped around it like a great Gothic bat. Lights dimly illuminated the circular gravel drive, leaving dark blobs of shadow across the pillars and the front door. The windows in front were all dark. Kyle drove into the circular drive, stopped in a gulf of shadows between two weak patches of light, killed the engine. He tapped his father’s knee, and his father sat back up in the front seat.

“I guess this is it,” said Kyle. He looked into his father’s eyes once more before he opened the door. The car beeped, and he pulled out the key to silence it. He pocketed the key as he climbed out of the car and slammed shut the door. He leaned into the open window.

“Whatever happens in there, I’m really glad you came back.”

“As am I, son.”

“Whatever happens, know that I love you.”

“Nothing but good will happen, don’t you worry.”

“Okay,” said Kyle. “I won’t.” Pause. “I suppose I’ll need the file now.”

“Of course, yes,” said his father as he raised his hand and offered the black folder. When Kyle took hold, it was the first time he had touched the file since he had given it to his father in his old house. He had to tug twice till the old man released it.

“Good luck, boyo,” said Liam Byrne. “And remember the plan.”

“I’ll remember,” said Kyle before straightening up, looking at the creepy old place. He heard something rustling to the left of the house. His breath caught, and his head turned quickly. He could just make out a small garden there, but nothing else. A squirrel, most likely. Or a chipmunk, a frightening little chipmunk. He took a deep breath to settle his nerves. This was delicate work, he couldn’t be so jumpy. Calm down, boy, he told himself.

Inside the car his father put on a set of headphones connected to the receiver. Kyle tapped his chest, his father raised a thumb. It was time. He took another deep breath, and then, with file in hand, he headed across the drive, up the stairs to the portico, past the pillars and to the front door. He knocked a couple of times, heard nothing, reached to the handle, pressed down the latch.

The lock released, the door opened. Kyle Byrne stepped inside, into the darkness.

CHAPTER 54

BOBBY PEEKED OVER the hedge and saw the Byrne boy get out of the car.

He could pop the little bastard now, one pump, one shot, and he’d be free to take care of the two Truscotts inside. Ram the shotgun up their throats and fire away and away and away, spattering their flesh and blood on the walls and columns until it was only the spatters that were getting ecstatically spattered. His breath quickened as he imagined it.

But taking out the Byrne boy now would be sloppy. They might hear the gunfire from outside and call the police. They might hide the money before he made his grand entrance. Even as Bobby lay in the mud, his clothes stained with rotted vegetables and his hair stinking of garbage, even as the flies buzzed around him as if he were a pile of feces, he prided himself on not being sloppy.

But wait a second, there was someone else in the car. How could he have missed it at first? Because the second man had been ducking down to avoid the camera at the gate, that’s how. Bobby watched as Byrne leaned toward the car window, reached in, and pulled out something. A file. The file. So this was the other man, the accomplice. And what was the accomplice putting on now? Earmuffs? No, headphones.

Which meant that Byrne would be wearing a wire. How delicious was

that? A wire. The only disappointment was that Bobby hadn’t thought of it first. The whole enterprise would be recorded for posterity.

The Byrne boy straightened up with the file in his hand, hesitated for a moment before heading for the front door of the mansion. Bobby would wait until he got inside, then scuttle over to the car and kill the accomplice. He’d do it quietly, silent as a ninja, just a quick slice of the neck so as not to alert the primary players inside. When Byrne entered the house and closed the door behind him, Bobby rose to his knees, opened the bag, pulled out a knife the size of a squirrel’s tail, a knife still stained with Malcolm’s blood. With blade in hand, he slithered through an opening between two of the boxwood plants and crawled toward the car.

Halfway there he stopped and stared. It was the man in the car, there was something familiar about him. Round face, a mop of gray hair, something knowing in the tilt of the head. At the house, before the fire, Bobby had seen only the outline of the figure, and yet even that had seemed familiar. But now he knew he had seen this face before. Where? Where?

When the answer came to him, his body tensed with such excitement that he almost stabbed his own chest with the knife.

It was impossible. He was dead. Robert had even gone to his funeral. But Robert hadn’t killed him, he knew that, despite what he had led his aunt to believe, so the impossible was indeed a possibility. And in its own perverse way, it made so much sense. How else could the boy have gotten his hands on the file? How else could the boy have known exactly what to do with it? Because he had been guided all the time by the venal hand of his father.