clever way to neutralize the enemy. Killed him only if absolutely necessary because Randall Shane had rules about things like that.
“Run, Mommy!” Joey screams. “Don’t stop!”
The boy urging her to keep moving before the monster in the basement wakes up.
They run together, into the darkness, moist grass under their feet. He called me Mommy, she thinks, and it pleases her. Not that she has any illusions about a happy ending that would let her keep the boy. No, he has to be returned to his real mother, that’s what will make this right, what will make her time on earth worth living. That’s what Stacy wants her to do, looking down from heaven. That’s the only thing that makes sense, as to why she’s been left behind. To do this, exactly this.
The big house, a shingled mansion, rises against the dark sky, a great hulking shadow of high peaked roofs and gables. Beyond that, as she recalls from a single glimpse on the day she arrived, is a sandy dune of beach grass, a rocky shoreline, the sea. Somewhere to the right of the big house is a long curving driveway that joins the main road. They have to get there, to the main road, and without a car-keys! keys! — they’ll have to do it on foot.
What she can’t recall is how far it is to the next house. Are there normal houses in the area, or are they all unoccupied mansions? What she wants, of course, is a door to bang on, some kind stranger who will take them in, call the police.
The guest cottage where they’ve been held hostage is something like a hundred yards from the main house, no more than that, surely, but at night, under a cloudy sky, it seems much farther, more perilous. The ground uneven under their feet, tripping them up. Bushes and hedges looming, making it difficult to judge distance. Rather than stumble, Kathy slows them both to a hurried walk as they approach what must be the edge of the property. They’ve crossed some sort of transition. Her feet detect gravel. Then, suddenly obvious, an eight-foot chain-link fence. Not metal-colored but something darker, green perhaps, to make it blend into the landscaping, which it certainly has done.
A fence never figured into her plans. She hadn’t noticed a fence when they first came to the property. How could she have missed it? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Shane would be tearing the chain link from the posts, utilizing his great strength and the leverage of his long arms. All she and Joey can do, find some way around it, or over it. Could the boy climb the links? Is he strong enough to pull himself up and over the fence? Can she push him somehow and then get over the top herself?
Kathy reaches out with her left hand, intending to grasp the chain and give it an experimental tug. A hot blue spark, big as a glowing softball, arcs from the fence to her hand. The voltage knocks her to the ground, into the big nothing of the deepening darkness.
Joey starts to cry.
Chapter Forty-Six
Morning finds us fifty miles to the northeast on a perfect summer day. High thin clouds, glorious sunlight. Everything sparkling, the world alive and breathing. But not everybody’s happy.
“I don’t like it,” says Jack Delancey.
“Your concern is noted,” Naomi says. “We’ll be fine, won’t we, Alice?”
“Totally,” I say. “If the son of a bitch tries to torture us I’ll tie his shoelaces together.”
“I’m serious,” Jack says. “I saw what they did to Milton.”
“And if something goes wrong you’ll come to our rescue, just as you did for him.”
“That was sheer luck. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. You can’t count on a thing like that.”
“Certainly I can,” Naomi says. “That’s why I hired you in the first place.”
Jack’s a pretty smart guy, and knows when the argument has been lost. He grunts unhappily, but he puts the car in gear and steers us over the quaint little bridge onto the island of New Castle, in the
At Naomi’s direction, Jack drops us off a hundred yards or so from our destination. There’s a sidewalk and, kid you not, a white picket fence holding back the blooming azaleas.
“Maybe we should be wearing bonnets,” I say. “Carrying baskets of flowers.”
“I’m sadly lacking in bonnets,” says Naomi. “Try to be shy. We’re supplicants, begging the lord of the manor.”
“Yes, my liege.”
She snorts and shakes her head. We advance through a picket gate, latch it behind us and follow a white gravel path that slopes down a slight hillside toward the harbor.
“Don’t look, but we’re under observation.”
“Don’t look where?”
“To the left, by the low hedges.”
Naturally I look and spot a big bruiser in a blue blazer. Try saying that fast. He’s wearing sunglasses, has an earpiece with a microphone wand drooping alongside his strong, clean-shaven jaw. Standing vigilant with legs apart and hands behind his back.
I wave, he waves back.
“Alice!” Naomi hisses.
“What? You think we’re not supposed to notice he has his own personal Secret Service? I’m just being polite.”
“You’re flirting.”
“Not my type.”
“What is your type?”
“I no longer have a type. I’m typeless.”
We’ve reached the entrance, climbed the steps. She rings the bell. Sounds like we’ve activated Big Ben for a count of two. I’m expecting a butler, or at the very least a French maid, but much to my surprise the door is answered by the man himself. Taylor Gatling, Jr., big as breakfast and favoring us with his billion-dollar smile.
“’Morning, ladies. Ms. Prescott, I presume? Welcome to Langford House.”
Naomi introduces me as Ms. Allen, which happens to be my mother’s maiden name. We’re supposed to be from the Colonial Dames, scouting out Langford House for the possibility of a tent auction to raise money for a historical preservation fund. But that’s just to get us in the door. On the ride up to New Hampshire Naomi called the deception our “Trojan Horse” and I pointed out that she was mixing historical metaphors, and that the real Colonial Dames would take umbrage, had they but known. I pointed out, quite helpfully, that unless Naomi was of lineal descent of an ancestor who lived and served prior to 1701 in one of the original thirteen colonies, she would not be eligible for membership. Boss lady had responded with a raised eyebrow worthy of any dame, period. Even one whose ancestors somehow forgot to sign the Mayflower Compact.
“Tour first and then coffee in the garden, how does that sound?”
