Chapter 5: Decker Doesn't Wait
There were three vehicles now.
The black truck and two others — a gray SUV and a white panel van that had no plates on the back.
Priest had counted six men outside the vehicles.
Possibly more inside.
Cole stood at Rudy's front window in the dark and looked at the lights at the end of the road.
"He followed us," said a man named Garrett, who was younger than the others and had a habit of stating the obvious when he was nervous.
"He followed us," Cole confirmed.
"What does he want with a van?"
Nobody answered that.
Cole turned away from the window.
June had taken Lila upstairs.
He could hear the murmur of June's voice through the ceiling — calm, steady, the way June did everything.
He was grateful for that.
"Options," he said.
Priest leaned against the wall.
"We can't go through them.
Not with the girl here.
Not with Rudy and June in the house."
"Agreed."
"We can wait them out.
See if they move before morning."
"Decker said morning.
He won't wait that long now that he knows we're here." Cole looked at the letter in his hand.
He had been holding it without realizing.
"He came with a van because he planned to take her tonight.
The morning deadline was theater."
Garrett said, "So what do we do?"
Cole thought about the letter.
About Rennie in a hospital bed three days ago, making a seven-year-old girl memorize a face from a photograph.
About the two men at two in the morning with a pen.
"I need a phone," he said.
"Not mine.
Not any of yours.
Rudy."
Rudy appeared from the kitchen.
He was a big man, quiet, with the permanent squint of someone who had spent thirty years outdoors.
He held out a phone without being asked twice.
Cole dialed a number he had not called in four years.
It rang five times.
Then a woman's voice, sharp and awake despite the hour.
"This better be important."
"It is.
I need you to pull everything you have on a man named Decker.
No last name.
Operates in the tri-state area.
Has lawyers, has paper, has a network that moves things across state lines."
A pause.
"Cole."
"I know."
"You know what you're asking me to do."
"I know exactly what I'm asking.
I'm asking because there's a child in this house and a van at the end of the road and I need leverage before six in the morning."
Another pause.
Longer.
"Give me two hours," she said.
"You have one."
She hung up.
Cole handed the phone back to Rudy.
Priest was watching him.
"Who was that?"
"Someone who owes me less than Rudy does but has better resources." Cole moved toward the stairs.
"I'm going to check on Lila.
Wake me if those vehicles move."
He found Lila sitting up in the small bedroom at the top of the stairs, June beside her on the edge of the bed.
The lamp was on.
Lila had the blanket pulled up to her chin and was holding something small in her fist.
"Can't sleep?" Cole said.
"I don't want to sleep." She looked at him steadily.
"Is he still out there?"
"Yes."
He appreciated that she didn't flinch.
Most adults would have flinched.
"What's in your hand?" he asked.
She opened her fist.
It was the silver bracelet.
She had taken it off her wrist and was holding it instead.
"Mom put it on me the night she sent me away," Lila said.
"She said it was so you'd know."
"I knew."
"I know you knew.
I saw your face." She looked down at the bracelet.
"She has one too.
Same name.
She said you gave them to her a long time ago.
She said you bought two because you were going to ask her something and then everything went wrong."
Cole sat down on the edge of the bed across from June.
He had bought those bracelets eight years ago.
He had carried one in his jacket pocket for three weeks before the night everything fell apart — the night he was told Rennie hadn't survived, the night Decker had been standing at the end of that corridor with that smile.
He had thrown his bracelet into a river the following morning.
Rennie had kept hers.
Had put Lila's name on it.
Had put it on her daughter's wrist the night she sent her away.
"Your mom is still alive," Cole said.
"I'm going to make sure she stays that way."
Lila looked at him.
"Promise?"
He had not made a promise he wasn't certain he could keep since he was twenty-three years old.
"Promise," he said.
Lila lay back against the pillow.
June pulled the blanket up.
Cole stood.
He was almost to the door when Lila said, "Cole."
He stopped.
"He told my mom something at the hospital," she said.
"Before he made her sign.
I was outside in the hall but the door wasn't all the way closed." She paused.
"He said if she ever told anyone what she knew about him, he'd make sure she didn't finish being sick.
He'd just help it along."
The room was very quiet.
"She knows things about him," Lila said.
"Real things.
Names and places and what was in those packages.
She wrote it all down.
She said she hid it somewhere safe in case she needed it one day." She looked at Cole.
"She said if you ever found me, to tell you: the blue folder.
She said you'd know where."
Cole stood in the doorway.
He did not know where.
May you like
But he knew someone who might.
Downstairs, Rudy's phone buzzed on the kitchen table.
