“Hey, Jake.”

He turned at the sound of the voice. “Hi, Jacques.”

It was Jacques Harlow, the father of one of Randy’s closest friends and the party host. Jacques came up next to him. They both looked out at the party, at their sons, soaking it in for almost a full minute without speaking.

“Can you believe how fast it went by?” Harlow said.

Jake just shook his head, afraid to speak. His eyes never left his son.

“Hey, how about coming in for a drink?”

“I can’t. I just had to drop something off for Randy. Thanks though.”

Harlow slapped his back. “Sure.” He headed back toward the porch.

It took another five minutes. Jake enjoyed every second. Then he heard the footsteps. He turned and saw Myron Bolitar. Myron had a gun in his hand. Jake Wolf smiled and turned back to his son.

“What are you doing here, Jake?”

“What’s it look like?”

Jake Wolf did not want to move, but he knew that it was time. He soaked up one last look at his son. That was what this felt like. The last time he would see him like this. He wanted to say something to his son, offer some words of wisdom, but Jake wasn’t good with words.

So instead he turned and raised his hands.

“In the trunk,” Jake Wolf said. “The body is in the trunk.”

CHAPTER 52

Win stood a few feet behind Myron. Just in case. But he could see right away that Jake Wolf was not about to make a move. He was surrendering. For now. There might be something else, something later. Win had dealt with men like Jake Wolf. They never really believe that it’s over. They look for an out, an escape hatch, a loophole, a legal maneuver, something.

A few minutes earlier, they’d spotted Van Dyne’s car in the Roosevelt Mall lot. Myron and Win had run ahead, leaving Lorraine Wolf and Erik Biel in the car. Erik still had a few nylon cuffs he’d bought at the same store where he’d picked up the ammunition. So they cuffed Lorraine’s hands behind her back and hoped like hell that Erik wouldn’t do something stupid.

Not long after Myron and Win disappeared into the dark, Erik got out of the backseat. He moved toward Van Dyne’s car. He opened the front door. He didn’t know what he was doing exactly. He just knew he had to do something. He slid into the driver’s seat. There were guitar picks on the floor. He remembered his own daughter’s collection, how much she loved them, how her eyes would close when she strummed the strings. He remembered Aimee’s first guitar, a crappy thing he’d bought at a toy store for ten bucks. She’d been only four years old. She banged on it and did a wonderful rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” More like Bruce Springsteen than something you’d see from a preschooler. He and Claire had clapped like mad when she finished.

“Aimee rocks,” Claire had declared.

They had all been smiling. They had all been so happy.

Erik looked out the windshield, back toward his car, back toward Lorraine Wolf. Their eyes met. He had known Lorraine for two years now, since Aimee had first started dating her son. He liked her. Truth be told, he had even semi-fantasized about her. Not that he would have ever done anything about it. Not like that. Just a harmless fantasy for an attractive woman. Normal stuff.

He looked in the backseat now. There was sheet music, handwritten. He froze. His hand moved slowly. He saw the handwriting and realized that it was Aimee’s. He picked it up, brought it closer, holding it as if it were strands of porcelain.

Aimee had written this.

Something caught in his throat. His fingertips touched down on the words, the notes. His daughter had held this paper. She had scrunched up her face the way she always did and delved into her life experiences and produced this. It was a simple thought, really, but suddenly it meant the world to him. His anger was gone. It would be back. He knew that. But at that moment, his heart just felt heavy. There was no anger. Just pain.

That was when Erik decided to pop the trunk.

He looked back over at Lorraine Wolf. Something crossed her face. He didn’t know what. He opened the car door and stepped back into the night. He moved toward the trunk, took hold of the hatch with one hand, began to lift it. He heard rustling from the field. He turned and saw Myron come flying into view.

“Erik, wait. . . .”

Erik opened the trunk then.

The black tarp. That was what he saw first. Something wrapped in black tarp. His knees buckled, but he held on. Myron started toward him, but Erik held up a hand as if telling him to stay back. He tried to rip the tarp. It wouldn’t give. He pulled and tugged. The tarp held in place. Erik started to panic now. His chest heaved. His breath caught.

He took out his key chain and dug the end of a key into the plastic. It made a hole. There was blood. He slit the tarp and reached his hands in. They grew wet and sticky. Erik desperately pulled at the tarp, ripping at it as if he were trapped inside, running out of air.

He saw the dead face and fell back.

Myron was next to him now.

“Oh my God,” Erik said. He collapsed. “Oh thank you. . . .”

It wasn’t his daughter in the trunk. It was Drew Van Dyne.

CHAPTER 53

Lorraine Wolf said, “I shot him in self-defense.”

In the distance Myron could hear the police sirens. Myron stood next to the trunk with Erik Biel and Lorraine Wolf. He had called the police. They’d be here soon. He looked across the field. He could see distant silhouettes of Win and Jake Wolf. Myron had run ahead. Win had taken care of securing their suspect.

“Drew Van Dyne was in the house,” she went on. “He pulled a gun on Jake. I saw it. He was yelling all kinds of crazy stuff about Aimee—”

“What stuff?”

“He said that Jake didn’t care about her. That she was just some dumb slut to him. That she was pregnant. He was ranting.”

“So what did you do?”

“We keep guns in the house. Jake likes to hunt. So I got a rifle. I pointed it at Drew Van Dyne. I told him to put down the gun. He wouldn’t. I could see that. So . . .”

“No!” It was Wolf who had said that. They were close enough to hear. “I shot Van Dyne!”

Everyone stared at him. The police sirens sounded.

“I shot him in self-defense,” Jake Wolf insisted. “He pulled a gun on me.”

“So why did you stick the body in the trunk?” Myron asked.

“I was afraid no one would believe that. I was going to bring him home, dump him in his own house. Then I realized that would be stupid.”