After the job was finished he would always stop and toss the duplicate key down a storm drain, so the keys that could tie him directly to crimes already committed were gone. The remaining seven-certainly enough that he would not have to make any new ones for a while-sat in the gun safe, calling to him. Each one was a crime yet to be committed, a betrayal of the faith he'd once had in himself. Just having them in the house, storing them next to his gun, turned his mood black and put his teeth on edge.
I'm not a bad guy, he thought. But he could not escape the truth, that the gun and the keys made him feel nearly as sinister by their mere presence as did the knowledge of his crimes.
I'm not a bad guy.
Doug lay on his bed fully clothed, the room bathed in the blue light from his flatscreen television. According to the onscreen guide, this channel was meant to be showing a mixed-martial-arts tournament but instead he'd turned it on to find a celebrity poker game. None of the so-called celebrities interested him but he had left it on because he had never been very good at poker and thought he might learn something. Instead he found himself barely able to pay attention. His thoughts were drawn to that top shelf in the closet. He could practically feel the key ring in there, as if it gave off some unpleasant vibration.
Every day he tried to forget about those keys and every night he could think of little else. Yes, he had thrown away the ones they had used, but eventually the burglary investigations would crisscross at Harpwell's Garage. Unless every cop in Coventry was painfully stupid, they would figure out how the burglars were getting in without forced entry and start putting two and two together, tracking places where all the rich assholes could have had their keys stolen or copied. Doug had been careful to establish alibis for three out of the five robberies so far, but none of them would stand up to close scrutiny. He'd also taken four of the twelve total keys during shifts when he wasn't working-wasn't even supposed to be there. He'd gone in to pick up his pay and hung around shooting the shit with some of the other mechanics … been smart about it.
The cops would consider him, of course, but they wouldn't be sure. It helped that he had no criminal record. Once they started sniffing around, though, his little life of crime would come to a screeching halt. Doug had told Franco and Baxter that from the beginning.
The keys, though … they could trip him up. If the cops got a warrant and found that key ring, they might not be able to connect them to previous thefts but it probably wouldn't take them long to identify them as copies of house keys of Harpwell's customers. There had to be a better place to hide them but try as he might, he couldn't think of anywhere he could be certain they would remain hidden. A safe deposit box might work, but it would be damn inconvenient and someone was bound to notice him going in and out of the bank. If he stuck them in a jar and buried it in the yard, he would still have to dig them up every time he needed a key.
The keys were a problem.
How the hell did you get into this? he asked himself.
His head hurt, but not nearly as much as his back. He lay in bed, propped on a pillow, barely even seeing the so-called celebrities as they announced what charities they were playing poker for-as if they didn't really need the money themselves. A vein in his temple throbbed in time with his pulsing awareness of the key ring and how fucking stupid he'd been to get involved with Baxter and Franco. With work scarce and money even scarcer, he had persuaded himself that he was far cleverer than he actually was. Desperation, he had found, could be very convincing.
As for the crimes themselves, Doug waffled between guilt and a cynical sort of pride. The pride always made him feel even guiltier. The people he'd robbed might be rich and some of them might even be assholes, but he hadn't been raised to take things that didn't belong to him. Most people dropping off a car for service at Harpwell's left only their car keys, but some customers-usually men-would hand over the keys and then go jump into another vehicle with their wives or girlfriends, knowing that the spouse or partner or roommate had her own set and, after all, it was only for a night or two. For some reason these guys pissed him off, not because what they'd done was stupid but because of the carefree arrogance of their stupidity. In a way, stealing from them was doing them a favor, teaching them a valuable lesson.
The keys practically screamed at him from inside the metal box up in the closet. Wasn't he just as stupid as those rich guys, having the damn things in his house?
"Fuck!"
He jumped up from the bed, turned toward the closet, and immediately staggered and groaned as pain lanced through his back and neck. Swearing profusely under his breath, he leaned against the wall. The pain ran like an electrical current across his shoulders and down the musculature of his back and he ground his teeth together, acutely aware-as he was anytime the pain seized him-of how alone he was. There had been women in his life in the past twelve years and he had genuinely cared for some of them. But none of them had eclipsed Cherie. From the day they'd met, he had always felt that she was too good for him. He had defined himself-who he was and what he was capable of-by his reflection in her eyes. If he could be half the man she wanted to believe he was, that would have been enough.
Now it just didn't seem to matter much anymore. Who did he have to worry about disappointing? No one. All he had was his pain and his guilt and the pills that made them go away.
The pill bottle sat waiting on his nightstand, as it always did. The original injury dated back years, to a fall he'd taken at the garage. Over time he had reinjured it so that he no longer seemed to have a single day without pain … without pills. It had gotten so bad that local doctors wouldn't even prescribe for him anymore and he had to go out of town. Lately, Franco had been hooking him up. Half the money he had gotten from the burglaries had gone to pills, but what choice did he have? He had to have something to dull the pain.
Dry swallowing two pills, he recapped the bottle and just stood for a second, letting the muscles in his neck relax a little. When he found he could breathe without pain, he walked gingerly over to his closet and looked at the rectangular gray gun safe that sat on the top shelf among piles of loosely folded T-shirts. The keys were just adding to his anxiety, which only tensed him up and made his back pain worse. One way or another, he had to get the keys out of his house. Now that he'd decided upon the task, it seemed important to do it immediately, snow or no snow.
"Screw it," he whispered to his empty house.
Doug punched in the five-digit code. The safe gave a long beep, almost as if it were deciding whether to cooperate, and then popped open with a clunk of the locking mechanism. As he reached in, his fingers grazed the handle of his Glock, causing his pulse to quicken. There were so many things a gun would solve, but Doug had never been enough of a coward to ever seriously consider suicide. His life hadn't turned out as he'd hoped, but he was still above ground. He might not like who he had become, might still burn with the guilt of not being there when Cherie needed him, but he didn't hate himself enough to think a violent exit would be preferable to his current life. It turned out that there were many things he was willing to do to resolve his problems, but that wasn't one of them.
He touched the key ring, snatched up the keys, and pulled them from the safe. For a second he stared down at his half-closed hand, studied the jagged teeth of the visible keys, wondering if he could do this. Baxter and Franco would be very unhappy with him-more than unhappy, they'd probably hurt him badly. If he really wanted out of the jobs they were planning, the smart thing to do would be to give them the keys and tell them to leave him out of their plans from now on. But then the keys would still lead the cops back to Harpwell's Garage. He would be questioned, and once he had turned his back on them he couldn't be sure about Baxter and Franco covering for him.
"Shit," he whispered, feeling the jagged weight of the keys in his grasp.
His decision had already been made. He had to get rid of the keys.
As he reached up to close the safe, the doorbell rang. He twisted around and stared in the direction of the front door as if he could see it through walls and floors. Barely breathing, half paralyzed, he clutched the keys and turned to glance out the window to confirm that the storm still raged outside. The snow had turned mostly to sleet and it pelted the glass in a harsh chorus. Who the hell would dare this weather to pay him a late-night visit?
The cops were definitely a possibility, here to question him or even arrest him. Baxter and Franco were another possibility. Either way, a late-night visit in an ice-and-snow storm did not bode well. Doug wetted his lips with his tongue; his throat and mouth were feeling very dry. What was he supposed to do with the keys in his hand? There was nowhere he could really hide them, which left him with only one practical choice. He put the keys back into the safe, closed the door, and relocked it.
Whoever was at the front door began to knock loudly, a series of raps followed by a long pause. He stood and listened. Then the doorbell came again and he thought he heard a distant voice, perhaps female, so faint that it might have been his imagination. He narrowed his eyes, paranoia turning to curiosity.