Snakes and Ladders Read online

She remembered enough of her online Spanish classes that she knew what he had said: “No, I’m going to call the police.” She had a heart-stopping moment of déjà vu: her dad trying to get her out of that train car where everything had started to fall apart—“We’ll go get a doctor!”—and the conductor’s shout—“No, I’ll call 911.”

  “I’ll go get help,” she said again, and turned and ran.

  She heard a few shouts from the crowd, but no footsteps pursuing her. When she reached the highway, she kept to the shadows of trees and bushes, just in case anyone changed their mind and decided to come after her. She turned at the intersection that Mitchell had indicated and slowed to a fast walk, trying to press a stitch out of her side with a balled fist. The road climbed away from the highway, and she had slowed to a trudge by the time she crested the hill. She could hear the wail of an approaching ambulance.

  She looked down the road where it continued down the other side of the hill. Lights shone from a few houses, and somewhere nearby a dog gave a single sharp bark. There was no car parked by the side of the road.

  She sank down onto the curb and began to cry.

  She looked up when she heard the sound of an approaching car, too exhausted to scurry into the bushes by the road. The car glided to a halt in front of her and the driver’s window whirred down.

  “I was parked in a driveway a couple of houses down,” said Mitchell.

  She pushed herself to her feet and, wiping tears from her eyes, climbed in.

  73

  Lizzy gave Mitchell directions to William Penn University Hospital. As Mitchell drove—he drove the way she would expect an old man to drive, although she admittedly didn’t have a lot of experience riding in cars with old men—she tapped on her phone. As they neared Essington, she said, “I need to make a stop first.”

  “Getting rid of the gun?”

  “Stop doing that,” she said angrily.

  “Sorry.”

  “Do you need me to tell you the directions?” she asked peevishly.

  “Yeah. Just to be on the safe side.”

  A few minutes later, he turned into the parking lot of a hotel on the banks of the Delaware River. A tarp-wrapped tiki bar overlooked piers extending over the water.

  She pulled the gun out of her pocket and wiped it vigorously with the edge of her jacket. Pulling the sleeve of her jacket over her hand, she tossed it into the back seat, then got the magazine out of another pocket and wiped it down. When she was done, she glanced at Mitchell.

  “Can you see what the plan is?”

  He hesitated. “Not in any detail.”

  “You take the gun and I’ll take the magazine. We go to the end of the dock and throw them in the water. I want you to throw the gun because you can probably throw it further than I can.”

  He nodded. “And you tossed it in the back seat so I couldn’t easily get to it and put the magazine in it and have a weapon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you’d be able to incapacitate me before I could do that.”

  “Probably. But I’d rather not have to.” She opened the car door. “Don’t forget to cover your hand up when you pick up the gun so you don’t leave fingerprints.” She climbed out of the car.

  Mitchell got the gun out of the back seat and followed Lizzy to the end of the pier.

  She glanced around, although the darkness beyond the dim lights on the pier would have hidden any observers. “Can you tell if anybody’s out there?” she asked.

  He glanced around. “No.”

  “I mean, could you, like, pick up their brain waves?”

  “Oh.” He shook his head. “No.”

  She sighed. “That would be handy if you could.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, throw it out there.”

  Mitchell flung the gun as far as he could, although he could tell that Lizzy was disappointed it didn’t go further. She drew back her arm to throw the magazine, but winced.

  “Want me to throw that too?” he asked.

  She nodded, and he took the magazine from her and threw it after the gun.

  As they approached the car, Mitchell pushed the button to pop the trunk.

  “Thanks,” said Lizzy sulkily, and retrieved Philip’s duffel from the back.

  They climbed into the car and Mitchell pulled away. After a minute, he said, “Going to see what’s in it?”

  “No. It’s probably just a change of underwear and a toothbrush. But whatever it is, I don’t want you to know.” She hugged the duffel protectively.

  It was after midnight when he pulled to a stop near the hospital entrance.

  Lizzy turned to him. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I thought I’d leave the car somewhere near the restaurant.”

  “What if there’s blood in the back seat?” she asked with a start. “We want them to think he was shot in the parking lot, not in the car.”

  “I checked while I was waiting for you,” he said. “It looks like all the blood went on your pants.”

  “Okay.” She was silent for a moment. “What are you going to do after you drop the car off?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you that.”

  She nodded and pushed the car door open.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  She turned back to him. “I thought you wouldn’t need to ask that.”

  “Of course I don’t really need to, I just thought …”

  She waited, not patient, simply too tired to push herself out of the car.

  “I can’t see it now,” Mitchell admitted.

  She regarded him, then said, “I’m going to check on Uncle Owen. Then I’ll find out where they took Philip and check on him. After that, I don’t know.” They were both silent for a long moment. The cold air from the open car door soothed the sting of the cut on her cheek. Finally, Lizzy asked, “Are you going to tell people about me?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Are you going to tell people about me?”

  “No.” She climbed stiffly out of the car, still hugging the duffel bag in one arm, then bent to look back in. “Thanks for helping with Philip.”

  “Thanks for letting me go.”

  She swung the door shut, then watched as Mitchell pulled carefully into traffic and turned at the next street.

  She held the duffel bag at her side so that it covered the bloodstains on her pants, then stepped into the hospital’s lobby and crossed to the information desk. The security guard manning the desk looked up and, by the widening of his eyes, she could tell she hadn’t cleaned herself up as much as she had hoped.

  “I’m here to see Owen McNally. I’m his goddaughter,” she said. Then, to explain her late appearance, added, “I just got in from out of town.”

  “Owen McNally,” repeated the guard, turning to his computer and tapping the keyboard. “ICU, room six-twelve.” He turned back to her. “It’s past visiting hours, but if you tell them you had to travel to get here, they might let you see him. Elevators are down the hall, on your left. Take them to six and someone at the nurses station can direct you to the room.” He hesitated. “Miss, are you okay? Your cheek’s bleeding.”

  She touched her fingers to her cheek, then wiped them on her pants, over the stains of Philip’s blood. She laughed shakily. “I fell outside. Tripped on a curb.” She looked away from his concerned eyes. “Thanks for your help.”

  She tried to break into a jog toward the elevators, but was too tired to manage more than an unsteady walk. The wait at the elevator seemed interminable. When it arrived she entered, then stood dully for several seconds before she realized she hadn’t pushed a button for the floor.

  The doors slid open at the sixth floor. The nurse’s station was unstaffed, but she could hear voices coming from down the corridor to her left. She turned right and walked down the hall, reading the room numbers and glancing into the rooms.

  She had almost reached the end of the hall when a man stepped out of one of t
he rooms. Andy McNally.

  His face, haggard for the first time that Lizzy had known him, split with a wide grin. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

  He opened his arms and she ran into them.

  Owen lay on the bed, eyes closed, face drawn, monitors beeping quietly around him. He looked, Lizzy thought with a jolt, frail—a word she would never have expected to associate with her godfather.

  “Is he okay?” she whispered.

  “Yes, I think he’s going to be okay. I guess in the scheme of things, it’s lucky that they decided to give him a heart attack rather than having that kid from the Brashear video give him a stroke.”

  “I found out some things tonight,” she said. “I’ll tell you and Uncle Owen later.” She gazed at her godfather from the foot of the bed.

  “You better let him know you’re okay,” said Andy.

  “Can I?”

  “He wouldn’t forgive you if you didn’t.”

  She went to the side of the bed and leaned toward him.

  “Uncle Owen?” she whispered. “It’s Lizzy.”

  Owen stirred, then opened his eyes with an effort. They moved around the room, unfocused, then came to rest on Lizzy.

  “Lizzy?” His voice was a painful rasp. “Lizzy!”

  “Here I am, Uncle Owen,” she said, taking his hand. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine now. How are you?”

  “I have lots to tell you when you’re feeling better. But for now you better just rest up. I’ll sit here with you.” She sank into a chair that Andy had moved up to the bed.

  “Okay, Pumpkin. Just a quick nap, then you tell me …” His eyes closed again and his breathing smoothed out into sleep.

  Fifteen minutes later, Andy had gotten the highlights of the story out of Lizzy, and ten minutes after that, Lizzy and Owen were both snoring away, Lizzy slumped in the chair, covered with a blanket Andy had gotten from the nurse, her hand still gripped in Owen’s.

  74

  Mitchell drove carefully back toward Kennett Square, nerves jangling with the expectation of seeing the flashing lights of a police car appear in the rearview mirror, but he arrived at Dos Sombreros without incident.

  As he approached the restaurant, he saw that the back parking lot where they had left Philip, as well as part of a small wooded area just behind the parking lot, was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Two portable pole-mounted lights, now unlit, stood just outside the tape. A police cruiser was parked in front of the restaurant, its headlights on.

  Mitchell drove past the restaurant, his heart thumping, and pulled over when he was out of the cruiser’s line of sight. He had planned to park as close to the restaurant as possible without actually being in the parking lot, ideally in a location where someone walking from the car to the restaurant would pass through the area where they had left Philip. That wasn’t possible with the police still watching the area. He pulled into the parking lot of a darkened insurance office and shut off the ignition. It was the best he could do—if Philip Castillo recovered, he could figure out how to explain how he had gotten from there to the back parking lot of Dos Sombreros.

  Mitchell got out and locked the doors, then considered what to do with the keys. Finally he shrugged and pocketed them. He’d drop them in a Dumpster somewhere, and the cops would likely think that whoever had shot Castillo and taken his wallet had taken the keys as well.

  He glanced at his watch: almost one thirty. He didn’t want to order a ride share originating anywhere in the vicinity of the supposed site of a shooting, and even if he did, where would he go? He supposed he’d have to make his way to his aunt’s house in Jenkintown eventually. He’d tell her things hadn’t worked out with the roommate from work, but it would be harder to use that story if he showed up at her house in the middle of the night, especially with bloodstains on his jacket. A jacket that was better suited for a classy party in Chester County horse country than to a nighttime walk in March.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and began walking toward the town center. The first car that passed slowed, as if it was going to stop to pick him up—that was a result of dressing decently. He waved the car away, and turned away from the road.

  He sat down on a low brick wall outside a beauty salon and tapped on his phone for a few minutes, his shoulders hunched against the cold. A result popped up that seemed promising. There was a twenty-four hour urgent care center not far from where he was—he’d take a page from Dr. McNally’s playbook and use it as a refuge. He did have a lump on his head that would be the perfect excuse—he’d tell them that he’d slipped and fallen. He considered the blood on the sleeve of his jacket, then removed the jacket and, trying to put the jacket’s price tag out of his mind, rubbed the sleeve on the ground. He examined the results—the dirt masked the bloodstain, and it looked like the kind of stain that would result from a fall.

  He started for the urgent care center, realizing immediately that his shoes as well as his jacket were ill-suited to his current needs. By the time he got to the urgent care center, he might be able to use serious blisters as a secondary excuse for his visit, although the cut on his ankle that Lizzy Ballard had made when she sliced the ties would be hard to explain.

  He turned the collar of his jacket up against the night breeze and jammed his hands deeper into his pockets. He had seen enough of her thoughts to know that she concurred with his belief that Louise had left him to burn behind the garage. Louise might have talked a good game about Mitchell stepping into Gerard’s shoes, might have called him the ultimate manifestation of what she wanted to create, but when her back was against the wall, she had been all too willing to sacrifice him to the flames, or at least to the authorities. And they would no doubt have quickly identified him as Louise’s escort to the federal courthouse, and as the person bending over Russell Brashear as he died.

  His right shoe was already rubbing a raw spot on his heel.

  He was glad Owen McNally had survived. He would have been happy to leave him unconscious in the hospital room once they had learned all they could from him, to wake up confused but unharmed when the Rohypnol drug wore off. And he would be happy if Philip Castillo recovered. He didn’t seem like a bad guy.

  But he was nothing but glad that George Millard was out of the picture. If Lizzy Ballard could pack the same punch that Mitchell had been able to under the influence of Louise’s drug, then he guessed that George Millard’s end had been quicker and more painless than he deserved.

  He bent down to loosen the tie of his shoe, hoping that might lessen the rubbing.

  So he had finally met the infamous Elizabeth Ballard. She was just a girl, albeit a pretty one, especially if she would grow out that red crew cut. And she was tough. And powerful, based on what he had learned about her from Louise. And straightforward, based on what he himself had seen of her mind when it was open to him. And … he searched for the right word, then realized what it was. Kind. She was kind. Even to him, whom she had every right to consider her enemy. She had known what he had done, who he had worked for, and she had let him go.

  And, he thought with sudden surprise, she hadn’t squeezed him.

  75

  The next morning, with Lizzy still sound asleep, Andy was bringing Owen up to date on Lizzy’s story of the night before when Owen’s breakfast arrived. He eyed the food with distaste as the nurse eyed his visitors with some misgivings.

  “This is the ICU,” she said to Andy. “He shouldn’t be wearing himself out with visitors.”

  “He’s not wearing himself out,” said Andy. “Look how much more cheerful he looks.”

  Owen gave the nurse a somewhat ghastly but nonetheless heartfelt smile.

  “You do look better,” she said reluctantly. She turned to Andy. “But, Dr. McNally, I’m counting on you to make sure he doesn’t overexert himself.”

  “He’s the king of underexertion,” said Andy.

  The nurse glared at him.

  “But I’ll make sure he doesn
’t turn over a new leaf right yet.”

  She rolled her eyes and stalked out of the room, leaving Owen poking disconsolately at a bowl of jello. “Could you get me an egg sandwich from the Sleeping Owl?” he asked.

  “I could, but I won’t. Pretend for a moment that you’re a medical doctor, and consider the consequences of indulging in a cholesterol binge at the moment.”

  Owen pushed the bowl away and looked down at Lizzy’s sleeping form. “How could I have gotten her into this situation?”

  “You didn’t get her into it, she got herself into it. She and this Castillo guy.”

  “But I could have—“

  “No, you couldn’t have. You did everything you could to help her. She decided to go to Pocopson, and she knew the risks.”

  Owen was silent for a minute, patting Lizzy’s hair. He pointed to the blanket that had fallen away from her shoulders. “Can you pull that up?” he asked.

  Andy adjusted the blanket.

  Owen leaned his head back on the pillows. “So George Millard is dead. If what Mitchell Pieda told Lizzy was true—that he can only squeeze people in a major way when he’s on the drug that Louise Mortensen gave him—then we don’t need to worry too much about him right now. Lizzy took the drug from him, and it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be getting more from Mortensen—it sounds like being left to burn to death behind the garage means he’s not likely to be teaming up with her again anytime soon. It does seem likely that she escaped somewhere, and if she was planning to come here and finish me off, she would have gotten here before Lizzy, right?”

  “Maybe,” said Andy, sounding unconvinced.

  “So what now?”

  “I can check on Castillo, see what his condition is.”

  “Where would they have taken him?”

  “Chester County … Brandywine … Mercy … maybe even Christiana. I’ll find out.”

  “When Lizzy wakes up, she’s going to want to go to see him.”

  Andy ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I know. I’m not sure what to do about that. Of course it would be best if we could keep our distance from Castillo. Him not having a wallet isn’t going to stop them from figuring out who he is, especially since he has a prison record. They’re going to know he’s from Arizona and wonder why he’s out here. If we knew he was going to keep his connection to Lizzy secret—assuming he recovers—then it would take some digging to connect Lizzy, or you, with him. But I don’t think we can assume that.”