to the side. Rod began to turn to his own left. Rod’s left arm was tensed but held too low as he spun toward Hannibal. No! This was not the way it was supposed to go.
But of course it was too late. Rod’s hate filled visage turned toward Hannibal powered by the full might of his thick bull neck. Hannibal’s right fist drove forward, a missile beyond guidance, and Rod’s jaw moved directly into its path. The impact was jarring. Shock waves rode up Hannibal’s arm and into his shoulder. Shock washed over Rod’s face, chased by oblivion. As Hannibal withdrew his arm Rod began to drop toward the floor as if his soul had suddenly departed his body.
As the hulk crashed onto the floor life jumped back to full speed. Hannibal’s knuckles pulsed with pain, reminding him why he usually worked in gloves. Now he had only seconds in which to choose a new path. A face- to-face battle with Rod would have been more satisfying, but he had learned long ago that the only direction to go in life was forward.
His shoulders feinted toward the door before his head yanked him back toward the bed. If Mariah was in sight when Rod awoke he might beat her to death. Leaving her behind could not be an option. He grabbed her wrist and saw a slight smile move her lips as he pulled her over his shoulders. Hooking an arm around one of her knees he hurried down the stairs. In the living room he lowered Mariah to the sofa, even as he watched seconds tick past in his head. Time mattered, but now sound mattered too. He didn’t want Rod awake any sooner than necessary.
The basement held a storage area and a laundry room, but when Hannibal turned on the light his eyes scanned only the walls. He knew that home security systems were designed to defend from outside the walls, not from within. He found the small metal box he was looking for hanging beside the furnace. It was locked, and that would cost more seconds. He pulled a small Swiss Army knife from his pocket and opened the shorter blade. With it he defeated the lock in less than thirty seconds. Then he had only to flip two switches to shut down the alarm system.
Upstairs, silence and darkness continued to reign. Mariah leaked a soft moan. Hannibal hefted his human burden, not knowing how close to awareness she might be. With some effort he managed to sidestep out the front door and pull it closed behind them.
The air was thick and damp as he scampered down the street with Mariah across his shoulders like an ox’s yoke. Hannibal dragged air deep into his lungs, wondering if the alarm company received a signal when the alarm was disabled from within. If they did, he hoped that they would send the police to the house right away.
Less than a minute after leaving Rod’s house Hannibal was loading Mariah into his back seat. He felt naked and exposed under a white-hot full moon. Cars, trees and buildings hugged pools of blackness and when he closed the door and stood to his full height. Hannibal had the feeling that his shadow was taller than his soul. Still, he had more business to attend to. He pulled his backup piece, the Smith and Wesson Centennial Airweight, out of the glove compartment and ran back toward Rod’s house.
In seconds he was crouching silently beneath a rear window, one that would lead into the computer room. He slipped the five shot thirty-eight caliber revolver into the back of his waistband. What had come to Hannibal when he was standing over Rod’s unconscious body was a reconfiguration of values. The data disc containing Anita Cooper’s legacy was one objective, but he couldn’t abandon human needs for it. Even as he reached for Mariah he knew that he couldn’t leave the other girls behind. Sheryl might escape danger since she clearly had nothing to do with the apparently unsuccessful attempted theft. Missy, on the other hand, was still an innocent in Hannibal’s eyes. If he was going to stop to pull Mariah out of harm’s way, he had to at least save Missy as well.
A car full of loud teenagers approached from the beach and rolled past, leaving Hannibal with only the sound of his heart, thumping in a world painted stark blue and white by the moon. Then the sound of crickets slowly swelled in the yard behind him. That sound grew until the racket was almost as painful as the alarm had been.
Hannibal stood, fingers locked into the edge of the windowsill. His stomach clenched in anticipation of the next effort. Sensing no movement inside, Hannibal raised the window. While he pulled himself slowly up and into the room, Hannibal wondered if Rod had regained consciousness. If he had, walking in through the front door would have been suicide.
Seconds later Hannibal was listening for the slightest hint of movement from his familiar hiding place inside the computer room closet. He waited a full five minutes before stepping out of the computer room. Gun in hand he stood briefly, sniffing the air for trouble before moving to the stairs. He moved upward, one step at a time, sensitive to the slightest creaking.
The room at the top of the stairs stood open. Rod lay face down with his feet toward the door, unconscious or maybe just asleep. His hairy back rose and fell in a slow steady rhythm. A gentle snore rolled out of his mouth. Hannibal doubted his one punch could have done that much damage, but there was no way to know what effect drugs and alcohol would have added. All in all, it seemed that things were going his way this time.
At the second door he heard quiet conversation. Having been interrupted, Derek and Sheryl would be slowly getting back into the party mood. No danger from that quarter.
The door to the third room stood open by only a crack. Hannibal pressed it slowly open with his empty right hand, holding his gun close to his side. A muted lamp on one side table lent the room a ghostly glow. Missy looked up, her brown eyes round and wide. When Hannibal was growing up his mother had paintings of little black kids on the walls. Their eyes were bigger than any real person’s ever could be. She found it cute, but as a child Hannibal found the pictures disturbing in some odd way. Missy’s eyes almost reached that size now, and her pupils were stretched wide by the dark or maybe by drugs. Her face betrayed both surprise and relief. Her mouth moved but his finger pressed against his lips cautioned her to silence.
Only after taking in her beautiful brown face did Hannibal’s appreciation of the scene broaden. Missy was kneeling on the bed, naked, with her arms stretched out in front of her, spread wide to display her petite breasts. She did not hold the pose out of respect. Her wrists were each handcuffed to the short posters at the foot of the bed.
“You don’t have to take this,” he whispered, stepping slowly toward her. Her wary eyes followed him as he approached her, and then turned to the cluttered dresser. The small silver key lay there in plain sight. He felt her eyes on his face as he unlocked one cuff, then the other, but could not guess what emotion hid behind them. She never pulled at the small chains to free herself any faster. She continued to kneel on the bed with her arms spread apart until Hannibal took one arm and gently pulled. She placed one foot on the floor, hesitated, then stood beside the bed.
Hannibal pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it round Missy’s shoulders. When it began to slide off he pushed one edge into her hand.
“Hold this,” he said. She did. Was she in shock, he wondered, or heavily doped up? Holding her free hand he guided her toward the door. She didn’t resist, but she seemed in no hurry. They moved slowly through the darkness toward the stairs. They passed one room and were in front of the door to the other when Hannibal heard footfalls behind him.
“What the hell?”
Hannibal spun, leveling the gun in the direction of Derek’s voice. “Just stay quiet and don’t move,” Hannibal whispered, “and you can live through this.” Derek’s breathing was quick and shallow. He was on the verge of making a move. Hannibal took a couple of slow steps backward toward the stairs. Derek moved forward, maintaining a constant distance from Hannibal who had no desire to fire his weapon. If questioned by police, could he convince them that he was in the right? Was he on a rescue mission, or was he guilty of an overprotective kidnapping? Could saving Missy from whatever she had agreed to do merit the use of lethal force?
A roar of rage from his left froze Hannibal for a couple of tenths. It was enough. Rod’s bulk crashed into his side, a speeding freight train that numbed his gun hand even as its momentum smashed his right shoulder through the wall’s plaster. He saw his pistol hit the carpet and tensed his stomach just in time to receive the bludgeon that was Rod’s left fist. Rod’s right smacked across his skull, birthing a flock of blue floaters before Hannibal’s eyes.
“Raiding my stable, eh?” Rod said in a hateful snarl. “Well let’s see what you got when you don’t get to sucker punch me.”
Hannibal managed to block Rod’s next left hook, but his knees were already buckling. He had no space in which to move and his balance was thrown off. Rod had the momentum and just kept throwing punches until Hannibal slowly crumpled to the floor. Then kicks replaced the punches, flexing Hannibal’s ribs in as they landed. He clenched his teeth and kept his elbows in. Each kick rocked his body and spread a burst of pain through him, but he knew the important truth. This kind of thing never lasted very long. A familiar gray gauze curtain slid up over his senses.
