“And isn’t he more of a scotch drinker?” Jessica asks. Sometimes, even as different as they are, the twins think uncannily alike.
“Oh, no, he just texted,” I lie, moving quickly down the hall in the direction of the basement door. “He’s on his way. And no, he loves fruity drinks.”
If there’s a hell I’m going straight to it for all the lies I’ve told in the past hour alone.
I have to nudge the basement door open with my foot because my hands are filled with sweaty-sided drinks, but I’m able to make it down the dark, narrow staircase unscathed. Cooper’s brownstone was built around the same time as Fischer Hall, so it has many of the same odd features as the dorm, such as a basement that was originally used to store coal and ice and possibly even dead bodies—or at least hanging carcasses of meat—so it’s dark and creepy down there, and has a tendency to flood because of an underground stream that runs beneath Fifth Avenue, Washington Square Park, and most of Greenwich Village.
Though most similar buildings have converted their basements into laundry rooms or at least parking garages (for which they charge shockingly high rent), Cooper’s grandfather never bothered, nor has Cooper since he inherited the place, so it’s continued to look like that malformed guy’s cave from The Hobbit (which I’ve never seen or read, because it looks quite dull, but I’ve heard Gavin go on about it ad nauseam).
I find Hal sitting in a puddle of light at a worktable Cooper once purchased during a fit of HGTV-induced home-repair fervor. Only instead of fixing a broken lamp or sawing an unstable chair leg, Hal is loading .22-caliber bullets into a small blue-finished, rubber-gripped revolver. Before him are four or five open gun cases, each revealing other revolvers of various designs and finishes, along with a great many boxes of bullets.
I see that Cooper’s gun safe is closed and locked, so I know none of the weapons came from there, and besides, only Cooper and I know the combination, which is Lucy’s birthday. The gun cases all seemed to have come from Hal’s duffel bag, which is lying on the floor beneath the worktable, right next to Lucy, who is studiously chewing on her left paw.
I’m not certain what to do. Hal hasn’t yet noticed me on the stairs, so retreating is definitely an option. I could sneak back upstairs and tell Jessica and Nicole that there’s a gas leak and they need to get out of the house, then call Canavan and ask him to get back here, pronto: there’s a gun-hoarding madman in my basement.
But before I have a chance to do this, an ice cube in one of the drinks I’m holding shifts, making a loud tinkling noise, and Hal looks up, the lenses of his glasses flashing in the light from the work lamp. He’s seen me.
“Why, hello, Hal,” I say brightly. “Had a bad day? Violence is never the answer, you know. Let’s have a nice refreshing drink and talk about it.”
Hal smiles sweetly.
“These aren’t for me,” he says, gesturing to the gun cases. “Cooper asked me to bring them over.”
“Oh?” I take a hesitant step or two down the stairs. “Is Cooper planning on arming a small militant group?”
Hal’s smile broadens. “No,” he says. “They’re for you, actually.”
25
There’s the vow row
There’s the mom bomb
There’s the not now
That’s the whole song
“The Whole Shebang,”
written by Heather Wells
I have to continue the rest of the way down the stairs and hurry to sit down at the stool opposite Hal’s. Otherwise I’d have dropped both cocktails in shock. Once I’m safely seated, I take a long, restorative sip.
Jessica’s right. Key West lemonades are quite refreshing.
“Excuse me, Hal,” I say politely. “Did you say Cooper asked you to bring over all these guns for me?”
“Well, not to use all at once,” Hal says, in his soft, breathy voice. “You’re supposed to pick the one you feel most comfortable shooting. I was trying to remember the last time you were at the range. Didn’t you like this twenty-two?”
I want to enjoy more of Jessica’s drink, but guns and alcohol are a terrible combination, so I set both glasses to the far side of the worktable where I can look at them longingly.
“Hal,” I say carefully. “Why did Cooper ask you to bring over such a large and varied selection of guns for me?”
“Did he not mention it to you?” Hal looks surprised. “He told me there’s someone trying to kill you. Or at least, someone who’s already killed one person where you work, and may come after you next. From what I understand . . .” Hal looks nervous. This is probably the longest conversation he’s had with a member of the female sex since the last time he visited his mother. “ . . . this kind of thing happens to you a lot.”
“Okay,” I say, after taking a deep breath. “I do get where Cooper is coming from. But I work in a seven-hundred-bed dorm, Hal. I mean, residence hall. I can’t go around shooting a gun off in there. I might seriously injure—or kill—someone.”
“Uh,” Hal says. “That’s sort of the point. The nice thing about these pistols is that they’re for small-game hunting. Squirrels, rabbits, gophers, maybe a fox or coyote—varmints. You won’t do much damage to varmints of the two-legged kind with one of these unless, of course, you’re deliberately aiming at them, and they’re standing very close to you.”
I swallow. “Varmint of the two-legged kind” is a pretty good way to describe Hamad—or whoever it is that killed Jasmine and tried to kill Cameron Ripley.
Still.
“I do not need, nor did I ask for, a gun, Hal,” I say, as politely as I can. “Not even one for small-game hunting. Where is Cooper, anyway?”
Virgin Hal looks uncomfortable as he sets aside the first pistol and opens the case for another. “He asked me not to tell you, because he doesn’t want you to worry. But he said he’ll be home soon, and in the meantime he asked me to stick around here to make sure you’re all right, in case you have any visitors. Male visitors,” he adds hastily, looking toward the ceiling. “I don’t think he meant his sisters.”
I latch on to only a single word Hal’s uttered. “Worry? Why doesn’t Cooper want me to worry about him? Is he in trouble, or something? I thought he was working on a simple case of insurance fraud.”