I went and got a gun. Not the one that had been left for me. I needed something clean, so I went and bought one from someone who didn’t know who I was, didn’t care, and wouldn’t care what I did with it. I got a pistol small enough to fit into my coat pocket. It held a magazine of eight and one in the chamber. I didn’t know if I’d need more than that – I didn’t know if I’d need it at all – but I bought a couple more magazines anyway. I hadn’t fired a gun in years, not since I was in high school taking potshots at anything that moved out in the woods when we should have been doing something better. I didn’t like the idea of even holding the thing, but I didn’t know who I was going to find or what they were going to do when it came down to it. I didn’t know what I was going to do. So like every other idiot, I bought a gun. It weighed less than two pounds in my pocket, fully loaded. It felt like a ton. I almost bought another one. I would have carried cannons if I thought that’s what it would take.

—

I used to be afraid of Mobley, that stick of dynamite you knew could explode. But not anymore. I had the difference now. I knew where he was and how to find him and the kid. He wasn’t going to stop me; he wasn’t even going to get in the way. I had the difference.

—

I tried not to look at my phone every few seconds, but Mobley was on the move. He always was. That was his day, running around for Froehmer, or with him, always because of him, always at the end of his string. But not now. He would be on his own, sooner or later. I wanted to follow him, really follow him, get in the car and watch with my own eyes, but this way was better. I could look at the map and see where he was. Most of it was the usual spots, but he’d get to Eva eventually. I just hoped he’d get there before we’d made the final arrangements.

—

As soon as Casey saw me she knew I was in trouble.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

I told her the whole thing, or most of it.

“You have to call the police,” she said.

“They’ll screw everything up,” I told her. “It’s easier this way. I give them what they want and get Eva back.”

“What do they want?”

I told her.

“Why do you still have that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “A lot of reasons, none of them any good.”

“Like what?”