Promise Me (Myron Bolitar 8)

Erik was still holding the gun on Lorraine Wolf. “What is it?” he asked Myron.

“Drew Van Dyne. He’s home.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we should talk to him.”

Erik gestured at Lorraine Wolf with his gun. “We can’t just leave her here.”

“Agreed.”

The smartest move, Myron realized, would be to get Erik to stay here and keep an eye on Lorraine Wolf, not let her warn anybody or clean up or whatever. But he didn’t want to leave her alone with Erik. Not like this. Not in the state he was in.

“We should bring her with us,” Myron said.

Erik pressed the gun against her head. “Get up,” he said to her. She obeyed. They led her outside. Myron called Detective Lance Banner as they headed for the car.

“Banner.”

“Get your best crime lab guys over to Jake Wolf’s house,” Myron said. “I don’t have time to explain.”

He hung up. In other circumstances, he might have asked for backup. But Win was at Drew Van Dyne’s home. There would be no need.

Myron drove. Erik sat in the back with Lorraine Wolf. He kept the gun pointed at her. Myron glanced into the rearview mirror and met her eye.

“Where’s your husband?” Myron asked, making a right turn.

“Out.”

“Where?”

She did not reply.

“Two nights ago, you got a call,” Myron said. “At three in the morning.”

Her eyes found his in the mirror again. She didn’t nod, but he thought that he could see agreement.

“The call came from Harry Davis. Did you answer it or did your husband?”

Her voice was soft. “Jake did.”

“Davis told him that Aimee had been there, that he was worried. And then Jake ran to his car.”

“No.”

Myron paused, considered the answer. “What did he do then?”

Lorraine shifted in her seat again, looking straight at Erik. “We liked Aimee very much. For God’s sake, Erik, she dated Randy for the past two years.”

“But then she dumped him,” Myron said.

“Yes.”

“How did Randy react to that?”

“It broke his heart. He cared about her. But you can’t think . . .” Her voice died off.

“I’ll ask you again, Mrs. Wolf. After Harry Davis called your house, what did your husband do?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “What could he do?”

Myron paused.

“What, you think Jake drove up there and grabbed her? Come on. Even with no traffic it’s half an hour from Livingston to Ridgewood. Do you think Aimee would just wait on the street for Jake to come along?”

Myron opened his mouth, closed it. He tried to picture it now. Harry Davis had just rejected her. Would she just stand there, on that dark street, for half an hour or more? Did that make sense?

“So what happened?” Myron asked.

She said nothing.

“You get this call from Harry Davis. He’s in a panic about Aimee. What did you and Jake do?”

Myron made a left. They were on Northfield Avenue now, one of Livingston’s bigger roads. He hit the accelerator harder.

“What would you have done?” she asked.

No one replied. Lorraine locked eyes on Myron’s via the rearview.

“It’s your son,” she went on. “His entire future is on the line. He had this girlfriend. This wonderful sweet girlfriend. Something happened to her. She changed. I don’t know why.”

Erik squirmed, but he kept the gun on her.

“All of a sudden she wants no part of him. She has an affair with a teacher. She goes knocking on doors at three in the morning. She’s erratic and if she talks, she could bring your whole world down. So what would you have done, Mr. Bolitar?” She turned to look at Erik. “If the situation was reversed—if Randy had dumped Aimee and started acting like this, threatening to destroy her future—what would you have done, Erik?”

“I wouldn’t have killed him,” Erik said.

“We didn’t kill her. All we did . . . We worried. Jake and I sat up and talked. We wondered how to handle it. We tried to plan it out. First, we’d have Harry Davis change the computer records. Put them back the way they were, if he could. Make it look like there’d been a computer glitch or something. People might suspect the truth, but if they couldn’t prove it, maybe we’d be safe. We tried to think up other scenarios. I know you want to call Randy a drug dealer, but he was just a contact. Every school has a few. I won’t defend it. I remember when I went to Middlebury, I won’t mention his name, but a man who is a leading politician now, he was the supplier. You graduate, it’s over and done with. But now we needed to make sure that it didn’t come out. And mostly we wanted to figure out a way to reach Aimee. We were going to call you, Erik. We thought maybe you could reason with her. Because it wasn’t just Randy’s future. It was hers too.”

They were getting close to Drew Van Dyne’s house now.

“That’s a nice story, Mrs. Wolf,” Myron said. “But you left out one part.”

She closed her eyes.

“Whose blood is on your carpet?”

No answer.

“You heard me call the police. They’re on their way there now. There are tests. DNA and whatever. They’ll find out.”

Lorraine Wolf still said nothing. They were on Drew Van Dyne’s street now. The homes were smaller and older. The lawns weren’t quite as green. The shrubbery dipped and teetered. Win had told Myron exactly where he’d be standing, otherwise Myron would have never spotted him. He pulled to a stop and looked back at Erik.

“Stay here a second.”

Myron put the car in park and moved behind the tree. Win was there.

Myron said, “I don’t see Van Dyne’s car.”

“It’s in the garage.”

“How long has he been here?”

“How long ago did I call?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

Win nodded. “There you go then.”

Myron looked at the house. It was dark. “No lights on.”

“I noticed that too.”

“He backed into his garage ten minutes ago and he hasn’t gone into the house yet?”

Win shrugged.

There was a grinding noise. The garage door opened. Headlights shone in their faces. The car zoomed out. Win took out his gun, preparing to shoot. Myron put his hand on his friend’s arm.