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'I hope so,' Lula said. 'I hope he don't talk for days. I love Point
Pleasant. And I haven't beat on anyone in a while. I'm looking forward to this beating.'
'I've never actually beat anyone,' I said.
'Don't you worry about it,' Lula said. 'You just stand back and leave it to me.'
'We have to do this right,' Connie said. "We don't want anyone to know we have Ward. We're going to have to make it look like he just disappeared.'
'I've already thought it through,' I said. 'You can call Ward's brother back and tell him we'll bond Ward out if he agrees to wear a personal tracking unit. We just got one in from iSECUREtrac, right?'
'We haven't used it yet,' Connie said. 'Haven't even taken it out of the box.'
'If Ward agrees to the PTU we say we have to have him released into our custody so we can install the unit. Then we tell everybody we have to install the transmitter here, at the office. We tell them after the unit is in place Anton is free to go.
'We cuff Anton on his release and bring him back to the office, but instead of strapping the transmitter on him, we dump him in
Lula's trunk. All she has to do is back up to the rear door, and
Anton's off to Point Pleasant. Then we pretend Anton escaped. We can say he used the lavatory at the office, and he went out through the window.'
'Brilliant,' Lula said. 'You're a criminal genius.'
`I like it,' Connie said. 'Let's do it.'
We all did a high five.
'It'll take me some time to set this up,' Connie said. `I'll arrange it for the end of the business day. Then it won't be suspicious if we close the office down and disappear. In the meantime, you two should take a drive to Point Pleasant and make sure it's okay to use the house.' She took a key from a mess of keys she kept in her top drawer. This is the key to the house. He doesn't have a security system. It's just a little bungalow on the beach.' She wrote the address on a sticky note and gave it to me.
Lula and I didn't do a lot of talking on the way to Point Pleasant.
Hard to say why Lula fell into silence. Mine was brought on by a mixture of disbelief and terror. I couldn't believe we were going to do this. It was insane. And it was all my idea.
I was driving Ranger's truck, and Lula was reading the map.
We'd reached the ocean, and we were looking for Vinnie's street.
The rain was steady and the little shore houses that seemed cute and colorful in July sunshine looked sad in the dismal gray gloom.
'You turn left onto the next street,' Lula said. 'And you go all the way to the end. It's the last house on the right. Connie says
it's painted salmon and turquoise. I'm hoping she's wrong about the paint.'
This is like a ghost town,' I said. 'Not a single house has a light on.'
'Better for us,' Lula said. 'But it feels spooky, don't it? It's like we're in some horror movie. Nightmare in Point Pleasant.'
I got to the last house on the right and darned if it wasn't painted salmon with turquoise trim. It was a small two-story bungalow that faced the ocean. No garage, but there was a driveway separating
Vinnies house and an almost identical bungalow next to him. At this time of year a car parked in the driveway would be reasonably well hidden.
I pulled the truck into the driveway, and I cut the lights. Lula and I squinted through the rain to the bungalow's back door. Above the door was a hand-painted sign that said SEA BREEZE.
'Bet Vinnie had to think a long time to come up with that name,'
Lula said.
I put my hood up, and Lula and I sprinted through the rain and huddled together on the small back stoop while I fumbled with the key. I finally got the door open, we both jumped inside, and I slammed the door shut behind us.
