Ryan parked in the empty back lot at 9:28, in a silence so complete he could hear his own pulse. The steel door at the rear of the Layaway department was, exactly as promised, unlocked.
The waiting room looked different at night. The same plastic chairs, the same flat fluorescent light, but emptier somehow, with a stillness the daytime bustle had always covered. In the middle of the room sat something large and box-shaped, draped in a heavy grey blanket. Walking toward it, Ryan assumed Henry wanted help loading something onto a truck.
Behind him, the steel door clicked shut and locked, with a finality that raised the hair along both his arms.
He turned. Inside the drawer that rolled out beneath the bulletproof window lay a revolver.
"Mr. Mendoza." Henry's voice came from behind the glass, though Ryan hadn't seen him arrive. "Are you ready for your task?"
"What... what exactly am I—"
"No questions. Just do the task. It will only take a few minutes, and then you can go home to your family." A pause, unhurried, almost gentle. "See the blanket? Remove it, please."
Ryan's hands were shaking before he reached the shape beneath the grey cloth. He gripped the edge and pulled. The blanket slid free and pooled on the floor, and what it had hidden was not a crate at all.
It was a cage. Inside it, bound, gagged and beaten, was Doug.
"I believe you know Doug Meyers," Henry said.
"What did you do to him?"
"Mr. Meyers was having trouble with his own balance. I gave him a task, same as I'm about to give you. He refused." Henry's voice stayed level. "This is what happens when someone refuses a task. There is a revolver in the drawer beneath the window, Mr. Mendoza. Your task is simple. Shoot Mr. Meyers in the head. Complete it, and you owe nothing further. Keep the microwave. Enjoy your Christmas."
"Are you insane? Doug is my best friend. I can't—"
"Is he?" Something in Henry's tone sharpened, the first real edge Ryan had heard in it since they met. "A best friend should be someone you can trust. He couldn't even trust you with his sister."
"That was a long time ago. I felt horrible about it. It's in the past."
"You didn't feel horrible that night. You felt more alive than you had in years. Julie even let you do the thing Jaimie never wanted to do."
"What? How do you—"
"But you weren't the only one blinded that night. While you were busy fucking Doug's sister, he was busy fucking your wife."
The words hit Ryan like a Mack truck. "What?"
"He's had a crush on Jaimie since the first day the two of you laid eyes on her, back in high school. He carried it, patiently, for years, waiting for his moment. He found it the same night you drove over to his apartment. The same night, Mr. Mendoza, right down to the hour. He told you he had a bar shift. He lied. He went to comfort your wife instead. To make her feel exactly the way she'd been telling you, for weeks, that she wanted to feel."
"No." Ryan's voice had gone thin and strangled. "That's not...Jaimie wouldn't—"
"Oh, yes she would, and did," Henry said. "She welcomed it. And he gave her something you never could: a child. He got her pregnant. Maddie calls him Uncle Doug now, but he's really her Doug Daddy."
In the cage, Doug's eyes went wide above the gag, wild, his head shaking side to side with a violence that could have meant denial or something closer to guilt. Ryan couldn't tell which, and the not-knowing was its own torture, laid on top of everything else.
"You're lying!" Rage and confusion climbed in his chest. But he couldn't stop thinking about how it hadn't been long after that night that Jaimie had told him she was pregnant. That was what had strengthened their marriage, the thought of having a child together. He hadn't believed he could love her any more than he already did, and then she was carrying Maddie, and their love reached a new level. That had been four years ago. Ryan had been Maddie's father all this time.
She's always been my baby, he thought. Unless...it's true.
"You have until 10:30," Henry said, checking a watch Ryan hadn't noticed him wearing. "If you refuse the task, someone else will be along shortly, and a new task will be assigned."