Page 72 of Not a Word

Holden managed a nod.

Catherine felt she needed to drive her point home one more time. Up the stakes.

“You can’t ever tell anyone about this. They wouldn’t understand. It’s very complicated.”

“Okay.”

“And if you ever did tell anyone . . . and this might be the worst thing of all . . . you know what would happen?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t love you anymore. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then. Now give us a kiss.”

Crane was there in forty-five minutes.

He stood over the body, hands gloved, looking down, thinking. He was up to speed. Evelyn’s plan, Catherine shooting her with the gun Crane had provided.

Mixed feelings, to be sure. A fuckup, giving Catherine that gun, while at the same time, if she hadn’t used it, Evelyn might be across the border by now, pedal to the metal all the way to The New York Times. Crane had given the documents a cursory glance. A nuclear weapon, no doubt about it.

“I need a tarp, a large blanket, something that will make it easier to move her,” he said.

Brent stood there, frozen, still trying to get his head around it all.

“Did you hear me?” Crane said. “A tarp?”

Brent came out of his trance. “I-I might have something in the garage. I rake the leaves onto it so I can drag them—”

“Go. And find yourself a pair of gloves first.”

Brent ran off, leaving behind Crane and Catherine, who was still glancing up occasionally at Holden’s window.

Catherine said, “It just . . . happened. I had no choice.”

“The gun.”

“What about it?”

“Give it to me.”

“I don’t have it.”

He looked at her, blinked. “Where might it be, Catherine?”

She pointed.

“In the pond,” Crane said, sounding defeated. “You threw it in the fucking pond.”

“Brent was trying to take it from me and I just—”

“Shut up.” With only the deck light and the stars to help him, he looked out over the pond, assessing its size. “How deep?”

“In the middle? Maybe five, six feet.”

“What’s the bottom like?”