Tell No One

“So you killed them.”

“Yep,” he said without an ounce of regret.

I knew it all now. I just didn’t know how it was all going to play out. “They’re holding a little boy,” I said to him. “I promised I’d turn myself in if they let him go. You call them. You help make the trade.”

“They don’t trust me anymore.”

“You’ve worked for Scope for a long time,” I said. “Come up with something.”

Hoyt sat there and thought about it. He looked at his tool wall again, and I wondered what he was seeing. Then slowly, he lifted the gun and pointed it at my face. “I think I got an idea,” he said.

I didn’t blink. “Open the garage door, Hoyt.”

He didn’t move.

I reached across him to the visor and pressed the garage’s remote. The door came to life with a whir. Hoyt watched it rise. Elizabeth stood there, not moving. When it was open all the way, her gaze settled hard on her father’s.

He flinched.

“Hoyt?” I said.

His head snapped toward me. With one hand he grabbed my hair. He pressed the gun against my eye. “Tell her to move out of the way.”

I stayed still.

“Do it or you die.”

“You wouldn’t. Not in front of her.”

He leaned closer to me. “Just do it, dammit.” His voice was more like an urgent plea than a hostile command. I looked at him and felt something strange course through me. Hoyt turned on the ignition. I faced the front and gestured for her to move out of the way. She hesitated, but eventually she stepped to the side. Hoyt waited until she was clear of his path. Then he hit the gas. We flew past her with a jerk. As we hurtled away, I turned and watched out the back window as Elizabeth grew dimmer, fainter, until finally she was gone.

Again.

I sat back and wondered if I would ever see her again. I had feigned confidence before, but I knew the odds. She fought me on it. I explained that I had to do this. I needed to be the one doing the protecting this time. Elizabeth hadn’t liked it, but she understood.

In the past few days I’d learned that she was alive. Would I trade my life for that? Gladly. I understood that going in. A strange, peaceful feeling came over me as I drove with the man who betrayed my father. The guilt that had weighed me down for so long finally lifted its hold. I knew now what I had to do—what I had to sacrifice—and I wondered if there was ever any choice, if it had been preordained to end like this.

I turned to Hoyt and said, “Elizabeth didn’t kill Brandon Scope.”

“I know,” he interrupted, and then he said something that shook me to the core: “I did.”

I froze.

“Brandon beat up Elizabeth,” he went on quickly. “He was going to kill her. So I shot him when he got to the house. Then I framed Gonzalez, just like I said before. Elizabeth knew what I had done. She wouldn’t let an innocent man take the fall. So she made up that alibi. Scope’s people heard about it and it made them wonder. When they then began to suspect that maybe Elizabeth was the killer”—he stopped, kept his eyes on the road, summoned something from deep inside—“God help me, I let them.”

I handed him the cell phone. “Call,” I said.

He did. He called a man named Larry Gandle. I had met Gandle several times over the years. His father had gone to high school with mine. “I have Beck,” Hoyt told him. “We’ll meet you at the stables, but you have to release the kid.”

Larry Gandle said something I couldn’t make out.

“As soon as we know the kid is safe, we’ll be there,” I heard Hoyt say. “And tell Griffin I have what he wants. We can end this without hurting me or my family.”

Gandle spoke again and then I heard him click off the line. Hoyt handed me back the phone.

“Am I part of your family, Hoyt?”

He aimed the gun at my head again. “Slowly take out your Glock, Beck. Two fingers.”

I did as he asked. He hit the electric window slide.

“Toss it out the window.”

I hesitated. He pushed the muzzle into my eye. I flipped the gun out of the car. I never heard it land.

We drove in silence now, waiting for the phone to ring again. When it did, I was the one who answered it. Tyrese said in a soft voice, “He’s okay.”

I hung up, relieved.

“Where are you taking me, Hoyt?”

“You know where.”

“Griffin Scope will kill us both.”

“No,” he said, still pointing the gun at me. “Not both.”

45

We turned off the highway and headed into the rural. The number of streetlights dwindled until the only illumination came from the car’s headlights. Hoyt reached into the backseat and pulled out a manila envelope.

“I have it here, Beck. All of it.”

“All of what?”

“What your father had on Brandon. What Elizabeth had on Brandon.”

I was puzzled for a second. He’d had it with him the whole time. And then I wondered. The car. Why had Hoyt gone to the car?

“Where are the copies?” I asked.

He grinned as though happy I had asked. “There aren’t any. It’s all here.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“You will, David. I’m sorry, but you’re my fall guy now. It’s the only way.”

“Scope won’t buy it,” I said.

“Yeah, he will. Like you said, I’ve worked for him a long time. I know what he wants to hear. Tonight it ends.”

“With my death?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“How are you going to explain it to Elizabeth?”

“She might end up hating me,” he said. “But at least she’ll be alive.”

Up ahead, I could see the estate’s gated back entrance. Endgame, I thought. The uniformed security guard waved us through. Hoyt kept the gun on me. We started up the drive and then, without warning, Hoyt slammed on the brake.

He spun toward me. “You wearing a wire, Beck?”

“What? No.”

“Bullshit, let me see.” He reached for my chest. I leaned away. He lifted the gun higher, closed the gap between us, and then started patting me down. Satisfied, he sat back.

“You’re lucky,” he said with a sneer.

He shifted back into drive. Even in the dark, you could get a feel for the lushness of the grounds. Trees stood silhouetted against the moon, swaying even though there seemed to be no wind. In the distance, I saw a burst of lights. Hoyt followed the road toward them. A faded gray sign told us we’d arrived at the Freedom Trails Stables. We parked in the first spot on the left. I looked out the window. I don’t know much about the housing of horses, but this sprawl was impressive. There was one hangar-shaped building large enough to house a dozen tennis courts. The stables themselves were V-shaped and stretched as far as I could see. There was a sprouting fountain in the middle of the grounds. There were tracks and jumps and obstacle courses.