In her whole life, twenty-four years, she had never been put in a position where bravery could be tested-until tonight.
She supposed she had passed that test.
Rabbit or not, she felt a faint uplift of pride at the thought.
Then the house shivered with someone’s rapid, ponderous tread.
Cain-returning to the kitchen.
The duffel bag thumped on the counter under the white fluorescent glare. As Tyler watched, Cain rummaged inside and produced the four dynamite sticks, as well as an M-80 firecracker that would serve as a blasting cap.
“Gonna use all four” Tyler asked, worried by the prospect.
“Got to.” Cain pulled out a roll of duct tape and began taping the M-80 to one of the sticks, working deftly even with gloved hands. “These charges were manufactured for coal mining. Ammonium nitrate, relatively weak concentration. Made that way to prevent cave-ins.”
“Still looks like a pretty damn big party popper to me.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Tyler hoped so. He stared at the dynamite, incongruous amid the stained birch cabinets and waxed tiles, the family snapshots, the copy of TV Guide tented on the countertop.
Tentatively he touched one of the sticks, two feet long, four inches in diameter, paper-sealed.
Death in a brown wrapper.
He looked up at Cain, still winding tape around the detonator. In the glareless light Tyler could see the sweat gathered on the big man’s face like a misting of dew, the strain tugging at the muscles of his face.
Hard night, too many unexpected complications, and there was a lot more riding on this job than a few cartons of VCRs and cigarettes.
Now all of it was at risk-because of one rookie cop who wouldn’t stay dead.
Under the sleeves of Cain’s nylon jacket, the massive muscles of his arms were sketchily defined, arms that could bench-press two hundred and fifty pounds, twice Trish Robinson’s weight. Cain could snap that woman’s neck like a damn dog biscuit.
It was crazy that she should pose any kind of threat to a man like him. Unnatural, bizarre-a field mouse challenging a hawk.
Well, Tyler mused, the mouse would be the hawk’s dinner soon. The natural order of things would be restored.
“Get Gage and Lilith in here.” Cain bundled the four sticks and started lashing them together with more tape. “And have Lilith grab the fire extinguisher in the foyer closet. There must be one in the kitchen too. Find it.”
Tyler obeyed, first issuing the instructions over his ProCom, then searching the kitchen. By the time he found the dry-chemical extinguisher in the pantry, Gage and Lilith had entered the room.
Lilith pouted when she saw the bomb. “You said we’d get to play with the girl,” she muttered sullenly.
“I’ll find us another sweet young thing.” Cain smiled. “One who’s even younger.”
Her eyes brightened. “Honest” she lisped.
Cain pecked her cheek. “Honest.”
“Boss.” That was Gage, staring mesmerized at the dynamite. “You, uh, you sure this is a good idea”
His gloved fingers twitched, and Tyler worried briefly that the kid would accidentally yank the Glock’s trigger and shoot off his own foot.
Cain grunted. “Why wouldn’t it be”
“What if it sets off the fire alarm”
“Any smoke detectors in the cellar will be vaporized before they can send a signal.”
“Smoke could get up here, though.”
“We’ll disable the detector in the kitchen.”
“There’ve gotta be other ones all over the house.”
“That’s why Tyler and Lilith are toting those extinguishers.” Cain clapped Gage on the back. “Quit worrying.”
Gage nodded without reply. Tyler remembered what Blair had told him. The younger Sharkey was a virgin at killing.
Well, the first time could be tough. Tyler remembered the scrawny sleepy-eyed clerk in the convenience store in Kingman-the shattering blast of the shotgun, the spray of brains, and how the space behind the cash register was abruptly empty, no person there.
His sleep had been restless for a few nights afterwards. But he’d gotten over it. Gage would too.
He shifted his attention to the bomb on the counter. The bundled dynamite was now wrapped in a plastic trash bag filled with cutlery. Cain had emptied the knife racks.
Fragmentation grenade. Nasty.
Tyler thought about what a bomb like that would do: the deafening concussive blast, and with it the shower of broken knives-red-hot spears of metal, mangled and twisted and razor-edged, impaling anything and anyone within range.
He shook his head slowly, emitting a low whistle. “Our lady friends won’t be getting any older.”
“You got that right.” Cain finished taping the plastic bag in place, then hefted the bomb, loose knives clinking. “The two Mouseketeers are about to go for an E-ticket ride.”
40
Not much longer. An attack was imminent.
Trish had heard a drawling voice on the radio summon Lilith and Gage into the kitchen. They would never leave their posts unless Cain was sure he had his quarries cornered-and was preparing to make his move.
And still there was no way out.
Probing with the flashlight, she’d checked every wall, every corner, every inch of the ceiling and floor, and found no openings. The cellar was a cage of concrete, impregnable as a pharaoh’s tomb.
There was no clock in the room, but she could hear a clock ticking anyway, her life winding down to that ultimate moment when reality would be erased in a shock of pain.
Funny to breathe and know your breath soon would be stopped. Funny to hear your heart and know its beats were numbered.
This line of thought wasn’t helping. She needed to focus on strategy, on ways and means, on what to do.
But there was nothing to do. Nothing.
No medals for quitters.
Shut up.
She was trying to think clearly, logically, but bursts of adrenalized panic kept breaking up her concentration like static interference chopping a radio signal.
Must be some tactic she could try, must be.
Had Marta been this scared
Come on, think.
The coroner said Marta was alive and probably conscious right up to the end.
Couldn’t let Ally die. Think.
Alive during penile penetration, alive when the jump rope tightened around her neck …
Trish shut her eyes, trying to push away the distracting memories, but it did no good. In the sudden darkness behind her closed eyelids, she was back at the farmhouse, on the verge of the weedy field, with the tumbledown porch to her left and, on her right, the dry well where she and Marta had cast pennies and made wishes..
The well.
She opened her eyes. Beamed the flash into the middle of the room, spotlighting the well cover in its wooden frame.
“Any other wells around here” she asked, holding her voice steady.
