“Walter,” she whispered, wiping the blood out of his eyes. He was soaked with sweat. She could feel his muscles tensing as he tried to control the animal inside of him. Leigh looked around the garage. There was no one, but she didn’t know how long that would last. “We need to get out of here. Stand up.”
“It was him.” Walter’s head dropped down. He held tight to her hand. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders as he tried to regain his control. “He was there.”
Leigh looked around again. They were yards from a courthouse full of police officers. “Tell me in the car. We have to get out of here.”
“The play,” Walter said. “Reggie was there. He was sitting in the audience at Maddy’s play.”
Leigh sank down to the ground. She felt numb again, too overwhelmed to do anything but listen.
“During the intermission.” Walter was still breathing hard. “He came up to talk to me. I don’t remember the name he gave. He said he was new. He said his daughter went to the school. He said his brother was a cop, and then we were talking about the union and …”
Leigh’s hand covered her mouth. She remembered intermission—standing up from her seat, searching the auditorium for Walter. He had been talking to a man with short, dark hair who’d kept his back to Leigh the entire time.
“Leigh.” Walter was looking at her. “He asked me about Maddy. He asked about you. I thought he was another dad.”
“He tricked you.” Leigh hated the sound of guilt straining his voice. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“What else does he know?” Walter asked. “What are they planning?”
Leigh checked the parking garage again. No one was around. The only cameras tracked the cars entering and exiting. Reggie had jumped the fence instead of going around to the front gate.
“Put him in the trunk,” she told Walter. “We’ll find out.”
17
Leigh stood back as Walter opened the trunk. Reggie was still out cold. There had been no need to cut the emergency pull cord or bind his hands with the roll of duct tape that Leigh kept in her emergency roadside kit. Leigh’s husband, her sweet, thoughtful husband, had almost killed the man.
Walter turned, checking the perimeter. The parking lot outside of Reggie’s office was empty, but the road was twenty yards away, only obscured by a patchy row of Leyland cypress. Walter had parked the Audi by the crumbling concrete steps. The sun had dropped down, but Xenon lights put the parking lot on full display.
She held the Glock in her hand because she was afraid of what Walter would do if he had the opportunity to use it. She had never seen him so feral before. He was clearly standing on the edge of a dark precipice. Leigh couldn’t think about her part in his descent, but she knew that she had brought it on with her own stupid belief that she could keep everything under control.
Walter started to reach down for Reggie, but then he looked back at Leigh. “Is there an alarm?”
“I don’t know,” Leigh said. “I don’t remember seeing one, but probably.”
Walter shoved his hand into Reggie’s front pocket and pulled out a ring loaded with keys. He passed them to Leigh. She had no choice but to leave him at the car so she could open the glass front door. Her eyes traveled around the lobby as she looked for an alarm keypad.
Nothing.
Walter grunted as he started to drag Reggie from the trunk.
She tried several keys before the lock turned. The door opened. She nodded to Walter. She glanced out at the road. She looked around the parking lot. Her heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she couldn’t hear what must’ve been more grunts and groans as her husband lifted Reggie into a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. Walter struggled under the weight as he climbed up the stairs and dropped Reggie onto the lobby floor.
Leigh didn’t look down. She did not want to see Reggie’s damaged face. She locked the glass door. She told Walter, “His office is upstairs.”
Walter lifted Reggie again. He went first up the stairs. Leigh stuck the Glock deep into her purse, but she kept her hand wrapped around the weapon. Her finger rested along the trigger guard, the way that Walter had taught her. You didn’t put your finger on the trigger unless you were prepared to use it. There was no conventional safety on the gun. When you pressed back on the trigger, the weapon fired. Leigh did not want to find herself facing another murder charge because she had gotten startled and made a horrible mistake.
But it wasn’t just herself she had to worry about. Felony murder didn’t care who pulled the trigger. The moment Walter had put Reggie into the trunk of the car, they’d both become accessories to each other’s crimes.