He stepped into the foyer and crouched by the dead man named Wald. The mingled smells of blood and urine reached his nostrils through the mask. He barely noticed. The stink of death was as familiar to him as the fragrance of honeysuckle to a gardener.
Rolling Wald on his side, Cain removed the cop’s handcuffs from a case on his belt, then found his key holder and detached it. The cuffs and the ring of keys went into Cain’s side pocket.
He had an idea how to use those items. Not part of the plan, probably a mistake, but maybe … just maybe …
From the closet he retrieved his duffel, stashed there before the cops arrived. He slung the bag over his shoulder and returned to the living room.
Lilith was clipping the police radio to her belt. “Look at me,” she said gaily. “I’m Officer Robinson.” She leaned close to Trish, still out cold, and added, “You’re under arrest.”
Tyler was amused. “What’s the charge”
“Impersonating a cop,” Lilith said archly, and Tyler and Blair laughed.
Even Cain had to smile. His Lilith was such a child.
“Hey, boss,” Tyler said. “The Porsche is blocking the driveway. Got to move it if we’re gonna take the squad car out the rear gate.”
Cain chuckled. “You’ve been itching to drive that hot little number since you saw it.” He turned toward the dining area. “Keys to the Porsche. Now.”
Philip Danforth produced a key chain. Gage tossed it across the room, and Cain snagged it in a gloved fist.
“No joyriding,” he warned Tyler as he passed along the keys. “We got work to do.”
“You sound like my father.”
I’m old enough, Cain thought, but didn’t say it.
Tyler left. Blair busied himself with Wald. Cain and Lilith escorted Charles Kent away from the fireplace, to the dining area, and sat him down. He was as pale and listless as a lobotomy patient.
Cain clapped his hands, and Ally jerked as if shot. “Valuables on the table.”
Silently the Kents and Danforths removed their jewelry and wristwatches. Two Rolexes, two smaller gold watches, a gold wrist bangle, diamond-studded cuff links, a gold herringbone choker, a sapphire-tipped tie clasp, sterling silver earrings, a gold brooch with a red silk flower, even Judy’s silver crucifix.
Outside, the Porsche’s motor turned over. Headlights rippled over the lawn.
“Wallets, too.”
They complied.
“Wedding rings.”
Judy started to say something, then changed her mind.
“Now, on your feet.”
Chairs were pushed back. The five prisoners stood, mute terror in their eyes. Cain thought of dogs waiting to be kicked.
He nodded curtly to Gage and Lilith. Their guns swung up, and Barbara moaned.
“March,” Gage said.
For a moment there was no reaction. The word might have been a relic of some long-dead language, meaningless to modern ears.
“Side hall,” Gage snapped. “That way.”
Judy started moving obediently. Philip stood his ground. “Where are you taking us”
Gage struck him across the face with his gun. Philip’s head snapped sideways, a gash torn in his lower lip.
“Move!” Gage screamed.
Screaming was bad, Cain knew. It showed a lack of discipline, an absence of control. The kid was raw, unseasoned. All wrong for this job.
Philip offered no more resistance. He shambled after Judy, followed by Charles. Barbara and Ally, holding hands, were last to go.
“Wait.” Cain grasped Ally’s shoulder. “The girl stays here.”
A single violent tremor shook Ally hard.
Barbara stared at Cain, her face drawn and blanched. “What for”
“I don’t answer to you, Mrs. Kent.”
“Don’t hurt her. Please, my God, she’s a child, don’t hurt her-“
“She won’t be hurt. We need her help, that’s all.”
“Help How can she help you What are you going to do”
“Get moving.”
“No, please”-she reached out blindly for her daughter-“she’s only fifteen, I’m begging you, take anything in the house, anything you want-“
Gage seized Barbara by the hair and twisted her head sideways, wrenching a gasp out of her. “Shut up and march.”
She was weeping as Gage shoved her toward the hall, where Lilith waited with the others.
Charles watched, looking distantly astonished, as if he hadn’t known there was evil in the world.
17
Barbara took a last look at her daughter. Then the thug who’d struck Philip shoved her sharply from behind, and she stumbled into the side hallway.
The intersection with the rear hall was only a few steps away. That hall led outside to the patio. She wondered if she and the others would be taken outside.
A movie sequence unreeled in her mind. She and Charles and the Danforths lined up against the exterior wall. Spurt of silenced gunfire. Blood on the patio. Wind chimes tinkling over shattered bodies.
Past fear she was conscious of anger, cold and unforgiving. Anger at the killers, to be sure, but a different and perhaps deeper anger also, directed at her husband.
She had disliked Charles before, hated him now.
Philip, at least, had made an effort. He’d signaled with the tapping of his spoon, defied the order to march. He had guts. He had, as her father would have said, balls.
Where are your balls, Charles she thought acidly.
Then the rear hall passed, and the two thugs, male and female, herded the prisoners deeper into the east wing.
On her left Ally’s bedroom appeared, the room where her daughter had been held hostage when the police arrived. Through the doorway Barbara glimpsed a four-poster bed, a tidy bookcase, an Apple computer on a writing desk.
She asked herself if Ally ever would sleep in that bed again, or read those books or do homework at that desk.
Well, of course she would. The man had said he wouldn’t hurt her.
And he hadn’t shot that patrolwoman.
But the other officer, though-he was dead. Shot and killed in the foyer of her house, gunned down like an animal.
The hall ended at the doorway to the master suite.
How odd to enter her bedroom in the company of others, to see it through strangers’ eyes. She was absurdly glad she’d made the beds.
Lace curtains billowed over the windows, the breeze carrying a perfume of roses from the front yard. The suite’s opposite wall was taken up by double bifold doors that opened on a walk-in closet.
The female killer opened the doors, and her companion gestured with the gun. “In there.”
“The closet” Judy sounded more bewildered than afraid.
“Yes, damn it.”
That one had a short temper and sounded young. They all seemed young, Barbara thought, except for their
