“A minute, maybe two,” Nat says. “They’ll call back. They always call back,” he says, but Nat has no point of reference other than what he’s seen on TV; he’s trying to convince himself as much as the rest of us.

I kick the dead guy once more. His head rolls left and right, the pencil wedged in so tight it doesn’t even wobble.

“I’m going to be sick,” Diana says and rushes off to the bathroom. Nat stays in the living room for about five seconds before following her.

A minute goes by. Then another.

“You were wrong,” I say.

“Give it time.”

“I’m going to kill these people,” I say, and that’s true too. Schroder doesn’t respond. He’s probably thinking it’s time to try and get some handcuffs on me. But he’s also thinking that these guys tried to kill him, and he knows he owes me one.

“Look, Edward, you have to stop kidding yourself here. This isn’t something you can deal with.”

“I’m doing okay so far.”

“Yeah? Tell that to your in-laws. Tell that to the dead officer outside. After everything you’ve said about being nothing like your father, you’ve got blood on your hands now.”

We’re blood men—that’s what Dad said.

“I didn’t do a damn thing,” I say, but he’s right. I got my wife killed by speaking out. The police officer outside is dead because of me. All this blood on my hands, some of it innocent, and I know I’m still not done.

The cell phone rings. My in-laws appear as if they’d been waiting around the corner. I answer it.

“I killed a cop for you,” I say, before the caller has a chance to say a word. “I’ve killed two of your men already. This can all end. I’ll bring you the money and you give me back my daughter.”

There’s a pause on the line. “She’s still alive. For now,” the man says. “An even trade. One hour. Come alone. If we see anybody else we’ll kill her.”

“Where?”

“I’ll call you at the time. Don’t want you having a chance to set something up.”

He hangs up and I explain it to Schroder, who is about as happy as Nat and Diana—who look like the world has fallen apart around them.

“You can’t do this alone, Edward. We need backup,” Schroder says.

“They’ll kill her if you make that call. I’m playing this safe, and that means paying for her. You owe me.”

“He’s right,” Nat says to Schroder. “Give them the money and we get Sam back. It’s like Eddie said, it’s that simple.”

“Except it’s not that simple,” I say, “because there is no money.”

“What?”

“This money they’re asking about, I don’t have it. If I was there, if I had the money, I’d be using it to get my daughter back. Can the police department raise the cash?” I ask Schroder.

“The department wouldn’t go for it,” he says.

“Even if it meant saving Sam’s life?”

“It doesn’t work that way. If it did, people would be getting kidnapped all the time. We’d be throwing cash at every criminal in the city.”

“What about the damn bank?” Nat asks. “This is all happening because of what happened there. Surely they’d give us the money. They have to! They owe us—they bloody well owe us!”

“I’ll make a couple of calls and see what I can do.”

“If Eddie doesn’t have the money, then who does?” Nat asks.

“Maybe there wasn’t any money,” Schroder says, and I think of the bricks of cash lying on Kingsly’s bed.

“There has to be,” I say. “It’s too much effort for them to go to if there wasn’t.”

“So who took it?” Schroder asks.

“What about the probation officer? You said he found the body, right?” I say.

“Yeah, he found the body, but you’re making a dangerous assumption here. He’s not a suspect in the killing. He has no motive to kill his client.”

“That’s my point. He wasn’t a suspect, but he could have taken the money.”

“No, the killer would have taken the money.”

“Maybe Kingsly was killed for an entirely different reason. Maybe the killer didn’t see the money.”

“Something you want to share, Edward?”

“We can spend the next hour here making guesses,” I say, “but at the moment the probation officer is the only thing we have.” I reach down and pick up the dead man’s shotgun. “Let’s take a drive.”

chapter forty-one

Schroder’s chest is burning and it’s tight and he swears there’s still water in there. Still, all things considered, he’s much better off now than he was twenty minutes ago. When he gets more time he’ll think about those moments between when he stopped breathing and when he started up again. He’s never been a religious person, but that hasn’t stopped him from hoping there’s something when all of this is over, maybe not a heaven in the traditional sense, but something close to it. If there is, he didn’t get to see it, or even glimpse it. For him there was nothing. No memory—not even a memory of darkness. Or a memory of nothing. That’s all there was. Drowning, and then not drowning anymore. Whoever said drowning was a peaceful death had no idea what they were talking about.

He follows Edward to the car. He can’t stop coughing. He walks slightly off balance like a man with an inner-ear infection—or like a man who has been brought back from the dead.

Edward’s car is still parked outside, and they take it since it doesn’t resemble an unmarked police cruiser. But first Edward grabs the paper bag out of Schroder’s car. Inside it are two sets of car keys and a wallet and another cell phone. They go past the patrol car with the dead officer inside. Partly it’s his fault what happened; Edward was right about that—if he’d pressed those in charge to get more people watching Edward’s daughter, maybe this could have been avoided. His notebook is wet but he’s able to get the probation officer’s name out of it, along with an address.

Edward drives because Schroder isn’t up to it. The only thing he really wants to do is curl up in the backseat and fall asleep. Nat gave him his cell phone, and he uses it to call Landry. He explains as much of the situation as he feels like explaining—not telling him where they’re heading—and listens as Landry updates him.

“Theodore Tate has been trying to get hold of you,” Landry says. “Where’s your cell?”

“Lost it. He leave a number?”

“He said he’d keep calling back every twenty minutes. Warden gave him permission to use the phone. He can reach you on the number you’re calling from?”

“Okay. Text me the number for the warden’s office and I’ll call.” He hangs up.

“You going to call the bank manager?” Edward asks.

“No.”

“You said before that—”

“I know what I said, and that was only to keep your in-laws happy. There’s no point in calling the bank. They won’t play ball. If I thought there was any chance at all that they’d help—no matter how small—I’d call them. Shit, this is a goddamn mess,” he says, more to himself than to Edward. “And I’m doing the wrong thing right now.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Edward says. “Anything else and my daughter is dead. We’re doing what it takes to get her back.”

“Within reason,” he says.

Edward doesn’t answer.

“They matched the prints from the car,” Schroder says. “We got two names—and I’m pretty sure they’ll match the two dead men you’ve left behind.”

“You know who they work with?”

“They’ve worked with lots of people. We’re making progress. It’s only a matter of time until we have more names.”

“A matter of time. How much time? Five minutes? Five hours? Five days?”

The cell phone beeps. Landry’s text has come through with the number for the warden’s office. “Look, Edward, if I didn’t get your point I wouldn’t be here right now.”

He dials the number and it rings a couple of times before it’s answered by the warden. The warden doesn’t seem thrilled by the fact he’s still at the prison when he should be at home, but he doesn’t give Schroder too much grief about it.