Fear itself

slowly to the floor.

Twelve steep wooden steps, each with a lip that overhung the step below. Wall and railing on the left, ascending; sheer drop to the cellar floor on the right. Holding the thrashing coral aloft in her right hand, Linda grabbed the railing with her damaged left hand and hauled herself to a standing position. The pain shooting up her arm was…excellent. First rate.

By raising her left knee, she managed to lift her floppy left foot high enough to clear the first tread. When the sole was planted firmly on the bottommost step she leaned forward, put her weight on it, and by straightening the left leg she managed to drag the trailing right foot up to the step, though not without banging her toes on the overhanging lip.

One down, eleven to go.

Simon was feeling pretty good about himself. Large and in charge. This was going to be the best game ever, he told himself. Early as it was, he was already feeling connected with Pender-merely by looking at him, Simon could tell he’d just learned about his sister’s death.

He knew better than to take the credit for it right away, however. Simon didn’t want to drive the hulking Pender into a rage-not until he had him secured, anyway. But first he needed to take care of the superfluous Miss Bell. Having her around was making him too self-conscious-it was like having a ghost at your elbow.

No good-it was no good, trying to climb the stairs standing. Linda’s left hand had lost most of its gripping strength, her fingers were too numb to feel the rail, and the pain traveling up her left arm made her pay dearly when she tried to raise the arm above her shoulder. Every time her hand slipped from the rail, she flailed the other hand to keep her balance, further inflaming the already infuriated coral.

She dropped to her knees on the third stair; three down, nine to go.

Childs marched the two of them back into the bedroom where he’d first surprised Dorie, ordered her onto the bed with her hands on either side of the centermost vertical rail of the brass headboard, then ordered Pender to cuff her wrists behind it.

Yes, thought Pender, trying to hide his eagerness. Perfect. His last girlfriend had been a DEA agent, somewhat unstable, like most DEA, and a hellcat in the sack. She liked to play mild bondage games, with herself as dominatrix-that’s what the cuffs were doing under the bed in the first place. Pender didn’t mind-at least that way she did all the work-but he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. Which was why he had stashed a spare key under the mattress, at the head of the bed, where he could reach it even while cuffed to the headboard.

But how to let Dorie know, with Childs standing over them? Pender leaned across her body, fumbling one- handed with the cuffs. “Under the mattress,” he whispered. Probably not loud enough, but Childs was leaning closer; Pender could smell his own aftershave on the man. Sensing his chance, he whirled around, trying to club Childs with the elbow of his cast.

Childs jumped back; the blow missed. Dorie saw the barrel of the Colt come crashing down across the back of Pender’s neck. Pender’s hat went flying; he fell limply across her, knocking the wind out of her. With his weight across her chest, she couldn’t draw a breath. She started seeing stars; the white hat was a pinwheel, rolling on its brim across the floor. Then, as her consciousness began slipping away to a pinpoint of light, the crushing weight came off her; she sucked in a great gulping breath.

Pender lay on the floor, unmoving; Simon was stretched out across Dorie, clicking the handcuffs into place behind the rail. She tried to knee him. He avoided her easily, then knelt painfully across her thighs while he gagged her with one of Pender’s garish neckties.

This is the last time I’ll ever see him, thought Dorie, as Simon dragged Pender out of the bedroom by the ankles. By him, she meant Pender-she was pretty sure she’d be seeing Simon again.

To keep from toppling backward as she knee-walked up the stairs, Linda had to lean forward, bending at the waist (she hadn’t forgotten her old friend Lhermitte and his lightning bolt), and leaning awkwardly on her left elbow to keep from falling onto her face.

By the sixth step-fuck this excellent pain, fuck this excellent, first-rate pain, was her mantra-her knees were killing her, and both insteps were bruised from banging against the overhanging tread, but she could hear Childs and Pender talking in the kitchen. At least when she reached the top, it would be over, she told herself: she wouldn’t have to drag her sorry ass the rest of the way across the house.

Eight down, four to go.

7

A sense of rising, of swimming upward through blackness, shedding dreams as he rose to the surface. The swimmer, the dreamer-he had no sense of himself as himself yet-heard a voice, echoic and distorted. For a moment he was a boy again, playing a joke on his mother, holding his breath at the bottom of Little York Lake to frighten her.

With the memory came identity; when Pender knew who he was, the rest came flooding back. It was the second time in four months he had been separated from his senses. Back in July, a blow to the head had launched him on one of those so-called near-death experiences, white light, tunnel, a visit from his dad in dress blues-the whole nine yards. This time, there’d been only chaos, and his dreams were not so much dreams as swirling fragments.

Pender opened his eyes, found himself lying in a contorted position on his side on the kitchen floor, with his left arm drawn painfully behind his back and cuffed at the wrist to his right ankle. Looking up sideways, he saw Childs sitting on a straight-backed kitchen chair.

“Sorry about your sister,” Childs said in a conversational tone.

Pender assumed he’d read the letter; he mirrored Childs’s tone-stay calm, keep the hostage-taker calm. “She had a good life.”

“I didn’t mean I was sorry she was dead-I meant I was sorry I had to kill her.”

“No shit? Did you off Judge Crater and the Ramsey girl, too?”

“No-neither of them had killed my sister.”

“I didn’t kill your sister. The doctor said she died of a congenital heart condition.”

“Congenital-that means she had it for forty-nine years. Why is it, do you think, that her heart gave out while she was struggling with you?”

“Struggling? She was trying to save me from getting my brains bashed out by you.”

Simon let it pass-he wasn’t here to argue. “Almost biblical, don’t you think? The retribution, I mean-my killing your sister in return for your killing mine. I have to tell you, though, I didn’t really want to kill Ida, fitting as it might have been. I thought she was a very nice lady, right up until the moment I broke that blue capsule into her hot toddy. If it’s any consolation to you-it was to me-she was dead by the time she hit the floor. As I say, I didn’t want to do it-but I couldn’t take a chance on her telling you about our conversation. Would you like to hear about our conversation, Eddie? Or should I call you Pen, like that hooer waiting for me in the bedroom?”

Pender wanted to kill Childs of course-he wanted to kill him as badly as he’d ever wanted anything in his life. Instead, he reminded himself that the most important thing he could do at the moment was to work the problem.

And the problem-how to get loose, at least long enough to dial 911 on the phone in his pants pocket-was in the present. If Childs had killed Ida, that was in the past-nothing he could do would bring her back. And Childs’s threat about Dorie belonged to the future, and was of no account. When your enemy threatens you, he’s either lying, which means he’s scared, or he’s stating his intentions, which gives you more data to work with. The more data, the more better. “Call me anything you want. And, yes, I’d like to hear about your conversation.”

Childs leaned back, laced his arms behind his head, and crossed his legs casually at the ankle-not an easy thing to do in a straight-backed chair. “It was very illuminating. For some reason, Ida was under the assumption