Read Online A Time of Torment by John Connolly - Free Book Online Page B

them what the guy said to her; TP insisting on going back and giving the executive a beating he wouldn’t forget, and only the best combined efforts of Corrie and Brown convincing him that it would land them all in jail.
    ‘She hasn’t taken off her scarf,’ said TP.
    He was right. She hadn’t.
    ‘It doesn’t have to be her call,’ said Brown.
    ‘If she’s okay with him, so am I.’
    ‘TP—’
    ‘I said no.’
    TP hadn’t raised his voice – he rarely did – but Brown knew the tone. The discussion was over.
    Now here they were, watching the house in front of which the car was parked, the trees masking it from the road so they couldn’t even see what was going on.
    A house , thought Brown. Not a hotel, but a house. We’ve never tried it in a house before .
    He told himself that it might be simpler than a hotel because there would be no security.
    But what about an alarm? And what if the guy isn’t alone in there?
    TP took the gun from under his seat and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. Brown didn’t own a gun. He didn’t much care for them. But he was glad, just this once, that TP had no such qualms.
    Then TP said something that he’d never before said to Brown.
    ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘We should have called it off.’

13
    T P and Barry Brown entered the yard of the house, Brown leading, skirting the car and van in the drive, moving quickly to the back of the property where they had the best chance of gaining access without being spotted. They hadn’t even discussed the possibility of a simple knock on the door, not since TP had recognized that Brown might have been right about the mark, which meant Corrie had become the mark instead. Now, in unison, each pulled down his ski mask, obscuring his features. Brown hoped that TP didn’t find cause to use the gun. They were in enough trouble as it was.
    Brown heard a slapping sound as they reached the backyard, which caused him to tighten his grip on the bat he was carrying. He’d made the bat himself, wood turning being one of those skills that he just had, and from which he thought he might someday be able to make a living, or supplement a regular income. Brown’s view was that a gun did only two things well – it threatened, and it fired – while a baseball bat had a multitude of uses, and, unlike a gun, was capable of inflicting harm in subtle increments.
    TP paused beside him. There was a stirring in the yard, but TP’s eyesight wasn’t great at the best of times – although, thanks to the miracle of self-diagnosis, his condition was not yet serious enough to merit glasses or lenses. It was left to Brown to pick out the tarpaulin over the pool before them. One corner of it had come loose, and the sound of its flapping had gradually risen in tempo and volume as the wind increased. Brown figured that the tarp must have become detached recently, because the noise was loud and annoying, the kind that came between a person and sleep. It would even have been persistent and distracting enough to draw the attention of neighbors had the house not been comparatively isolated and sheltered.
    He risked a glance around the corner, and saw that, as at the front of the house, the drapes had been drawn across the windows. Glass patio doors led to a deck, and farther along was a wood door with a small glass window, possibly leading to a kitchen or utility room. Brown could see no sign of illumination within, and the rear windows on the second floor were also dark.
    To his right, that damned tarp kept flapping. It was possible that it might draw someone from inside, which would be good, especially if both the patio and secondary door were secured. He glanced at the area of the pool revealed by the tarp and saw that it still had water in it. Brown didn’t know much about pools. His family had never owned one, and neither had the kinds of families with whom they’d associated. He assumed that pools had to be drained for winter, but perhaps the