chance for revenge.
As the rest of the bidders left, Jane looked at each one and remembered. It occurred to her that in this small house tonight there had been only a few whom she didn't know to be killers. The few faces Jane had never seen before had simply been speculators in misery, professional hunters who had heard of Jane's existence and shown up to see if she could be had for a reasonable price.
Now the bidders were all outside, and Maloney stood beside the front door looking out the small window set into it, with the shotgun in his hands. He was watching to be sure the disappointed men really were getting into cars and driving off. She looked at Wylie and Gorman, who were still occupied with Eckersly and his suitcase. Jane did her best to look weak and in pain. Finally she stepped down from the low table and then sat on it. Wylie noticed, but it didn't seem to worry him. It didn't matter if she couldn't stand up on the table anymore, because the sale had been made. He looked down at Eckersly and listened to something he was saying.
'You can't seriously expect me to sit here all night watching you count my money.'
Wylie said, 'What we're going to do is count out a hundred thousand in hundreds and weigh it. Then we're going to weigh the rest of it, a bunch at a time. And we're going to look at it while we do that. So if there's something wrong, tell me now.'
'There's nothing wrong with it,' Eckersly said. 'This is four million. The other four million is in Jack Killigan's car. He's sitting up the road waiting for my call, and he'll bring in the rest of the money anytime you want.'
'I'm just giving you fair warning. If we find a one-dollar bill, you'd better be able to make it a hundred. If we find blank paper cut to dollar size, we'll kill you. Got it'
'You have no reason to talk to me like that. I came here and bid in good faith.'
'If you pay in good faith, too, you've got nothing to worry about.'
Jane felt the tension building in her chest. She had been waiting for a chance, an opening, an opportunity, for two days, but Wylie and his friends had never seemed to lose their interest in watching her. She had always been in their sight, tethered and hobbled by ropes. But now she sensed that her chance was coming. The men weren't watching her now. They were watching each other.
Jane's eyes moved to Gorman, who was at the front window with his hand on his pistol. She saw the watchful look on his face, then looked at Maloney, who was still standing at the front door. He had the same stern look, almost squinting to be sure he missed nothing that was going on outside. They were on guard, but not guarding Jane anymore. Then she realized that they were right to be anxious.
The house had just been visited by fifteen or twenty men who had killed people and were engaged in trying to find other victims who had eluded them. All of them knew that each of the others was carrying a lot of money- enough to bid in a million-dollar auction. Somebody was going to be attacked for that money, and it had to happen in the next few minutes, before the bidders dispersed. Jane retrieved the razor blade from the waistband of her pants and sawed through the rope that held her hands. She kept the hands together behind her.
Jane focused her eyes on Sarah Shelby, and Sarah understood that it was a summons. She edged close to Jane with her hobbled legs. Jane whispered, 'In a minute there will be gunfire. When it happens, I'll be running. You'll have to stick close to me.'
'How can-'
'Sit.'
Jane put the razor blade behind her on the table, where only Sarah could see it. Sarah sat on the table beside her, picked up the blade, held it behind her back while she adjusted her grip on it, then bent to tie her shoe while she sliced through the rope that held her ankles close together to prevent her from running. In one motion she sat up and set the blade behind her near Jane.
Jane picked it up, keeping both hands out of sight behind her back.
Suddenly all thought was obliterated as the world seemed to explode into deafening noise and flashes of light. Glass from the dining room window blasted into the house and peppered the hardwood floor. There was thumping as someone ran up the hallway near the back of the house. There was firing outside, but it was impossible to tell who was shooting at whom.
Eckersly half-rose from his chair and then collapsed to the floor, bleeding. There was random fire from the direction of the dining room as someone emptied a magazine in the general direction of the men standing near Eckersly's suitcase. Wylie and Gorman drew their pistols and fired a half dozen shots each at the opening in the window.
Maloney raised his shotgun to his shoulder and flung open the front door, then fired into the night. He pumped the shotgun and stepped back as Jane hurled herself toward him. Instead of letting go of the gun and fighting his much smaller attacker, he tried to swing the barrel around to shoot her. She was less than a foot away from him when she slashed the razor blade down the side of his neck, just below his jawbone. He dropped the shotgun and grasped his throat with both hands as though he could hold it together and save himself, but the blood spurted out between his fingers while Jane moved past him to the front door. He collapsed to the floor as she ran out into the night with Sarah beside her.
Jane ran to the yew bush where she had left her gun, knelt and grasped it, then raised it in both hands and spun around just in time to see Gorman come out the front door after her. She fired at his chest. He jerked backward, but still stood, so she fired twice more. The second shot went high through his throat, and the third hit the center of his chest. Jane could hear volleys of shots from somewhere up the road. The bidders must be fighting each other for the cash they'd brought.
She turned to look in the front window of the house, but she saw only Eckersly lying on the floor. She pivoted and followed Sarah to the left front corner of the house. She had not seen Wylie yet, and she couldn't go anywhere while he was alive. 'Stay here,' she whispered, and cautiously made her way along the side of the house to the back corner. Lying there was the body of Ronald Hanlon, probably shot through the dining room window by Wylie or Gorman. She stepped around it and aimed at the back steps by the kitchen door, but the door was already wide open and there was nobody to be seen. She advanced toward the garage quickly, trying to get there in time. She heard a car start, and knew she was too late. She heard the car squealing out of the garage, then kicking gravel up from the long driveway.
Jane hurried past the house to the driveway, and saw the big blue Ford Crown Victoria speeding down the narrow drive with its lights off. She used both hands to steady her aim, and fired four times. She punched a hole in the trunk, then the back window shattered and the car wobbled from side to side, but it didn't stop. The car reached the end of the driveway, swung out onto the highway, and drove out of her sight.
The gunfire out on the road had stopped. Some sets of robbers must have triumphed and left, and the losers were probably dead. Jane stepped to the kitchen door. She moved carefully down the short hallway to the living room, and found what she had expected. Maloney was lying by the door. The blood that had pumped out through his severed carotid artery had run all over the hardwood floor into a pool, then stopped when his heart did. Outside the front door she could see Gorman's body on the porch. Eckersly was sprawled on the floor where she had seen him fall. His suitcase of money was gone. And so was Wylie.
12.
Jane drove south out of Ithaca, heading for Route 17, the Southern Tier Expressway. Sarah sat beside her for a few minutes in silence, then said, 'I can't believe we're alive.' Jane said, 'We did what we could do, and didn't make any mistakes, so here we are. I can only hope it lasts. We're going to have to be very careful, and find a place where you can stay put for a while.'
Sarah didn't seem to hear. 'And now I know who murdered Susan.'
'Yes. The man Wylie and his men were working for, whoever that is. It was pretty obvious before, but Wylie admitted that much.'
'But I know the name. Right after they broke into the house and captured me, Wylie told Gorman to call the boss and tell him. When Gorman called, somebody else answered, and Gorman asked for Daniel Martel.'
'Are you sure about the name'
'Yes. Absolutely. I could never get that wrong, and I'll never forget.'
'Now that you've told me, neither will I.'
Jane brought Sarah into Buffalo, and then to the Hyatt hotel. She parked a short distance up the street near the convention center, because there was a pay telephone on the outer wall. She got out and called the hotel room. After a few rings, Iris answered the telephone. 'Hello.'
