dubiously.
“How far”
“Back to the Kent place. So we can finish things.”
Nod. “I can make it.”
The statement seemed an expression of optimism more than fact, but Cain was prepared to accept it. He didn’t want Lilith at the wheel. He wanted her in the rear compartment, standing guard. Her cool, feral gaze never missed a thing.
“I’ll take the Porsche,” he said briskly. “Tyler drives the van. Lilith, you stay back here with the Girl Scout.” He smiled at Trish. “You were a Girl Scout, weren’t you”
She looked away. “No.”
Cain merely laughed, amused by the transparency and pointlessness of the lie. He tossed Wald’s keys to Lilith, then climbed out and shut the side panel with an echoing slam.
Quickly across the parking lot, his boots slapping asphalt in a clockwork rhythm. The Porsche was unlocked. He slipped behind the wheel.
Ally glanced at him, and he favored her with a cold smile.
“I just knew we’d be together again, freckle-face.”
She lowered her head, a shudder dancing lightly over her thin shoulders.
The keys were in the ignition. Cain guided the Porsche forward. Headlights flared in the rearview mirror as the van lumbered in pursuit.
Out the gate, onto the winding road. He opened the throttle, enjoying the engine’s power. Behind him, the van struggled to keep up.
On a short straightaway, he studied the girl’s profile in the glow of the dashboard. Wetness gleamed in the corner of her eye.
“Scared, Ally”
“No.”
“You ought to be. I got some real special plans for you.”
The Porsche rounded a curve, hugging the rutted road. The van’s headlights dimmed as Tyler fell farther behind.
Cain thought about what would come next. With duct tape he would bind Ally and Barbara to the two beds in the master suite. Then snuff them both, quick and nasty-the girl first, followed by her mother.
The rearview mirror was dark now, the van lost to sight. He was alone with Ally, the two of them as closely confined as travelers in a space capsule, and as far removed from the rest of the world.
He thought of Marta. She had been his passenger too.
“What about Trish” Ally asked above the engine’s hypnotic drone. “What’ll happen to her”
It was touching how she fretted about her hero even in the last minutes of her life.
“Trish gets to hang around for a little while. Another ten, twelve hours maybe.” Cain pictured the things he and Lilith would do in the trailer. “If she lasts that long.”
“She’ll find a way out,” Ally whispered.
“Not this time.”
“You always underestimate her.”
Despite himself, Cain nodded. The same thought had pestered him.
Then he saw Trish Robinson as she was now: disarmed, handcuffed, guarded, a prisoner with a gun to her head.
His last fears faded.
“The rookie’s good,” he said mildly. “I’ll give you that.” He smiled again, a private smile. “But she’s all done now.”
74
Crossing the living room was perilous. The broad bay window, curtains open, afforded a clear view to anybody who might be stationed outside.
Barbara kept her head down, staying close to Philip as he navigated a course through a surreal archipelago of overturned and mutilated furniture. A single lamp remained standing, a brass torchier, stoic as a lighthouse in a storm.
The destruction here was not the work of an explosion. It was deliberate vandalism, senseless and grotesque. Barbara knew she would feel something later about the loss of her precious heirlooms and antiques, but Ally was her sole concern now.
Had the bastards killed her Kidnapped her Or was she lying injured somewhere, unable to call for help
Philip reached the den, washed in the glow of a ceiling light. He looked cautiously inside, then entered, Barbara right behind.
The first thing she noticed was the wall safe, open and empty. Some remote part of her mind calculated the losses, covered by insurance but irreplaceable in personal terms.
Her gaze widened, taking in the rest of the room, Charles’s private retreat, his refuge. She died a little to think how he must feel to see his big-screen television smashed, his elaborate sound system cannibalized, his leather armchairs gutted like stockyard animals.
But when she glanced at him, she saw nothing in his face-no hurt, no anger, only a curious resolve, the look of a decision reached.
No time to wonder about that. The important thing was the phone on the desk, the phone that must have been sabotaged like the others.
But no.
The phone was in place, seemingly undamaged. The mayhem had been interrupted before that corner of the room had been touched.
Barbara reached the desk in two strides. She lifted the handset, put it to her ear, heard the hum of a dial tone, the most welcome sound she could ever hope to hear, other than Ally’s laughter.
“It works.” Her words hushed and solemn like a prayer.
For a moment she just stood there, marveling at the reality of a lifeline to the larger world.
“Nine-one-one,” Judy said gently.
Of course. Stupid of her to freeze up like that.
She tapped one digit, and from across the room a harsh voice ordered, “Stop.”
Her husband’s voice.
Baffled, she glanced up, and the glance hardened into a stare.
Charles stood just inside the doorway, his blazer unbuttoned, a black pistol in his trembling hand.
With a sickening switch of perspective, she saw what was really going on.
Saw why Charles had tried to talk her out of reporting the prowler in the backyard.
Saw why he had behaved so inexplicably ever since.
The violence of this night was not random. It was a plot, carefully planned, professionally executed, and its ultimate target could only be herself.
“Let go of the phone,” Charles said evenly.
Judy and Philip stood frozen, stares fixed on the gun that had appeared so unexpectedly in Charles’s hand, like a palmed card in a magic trick.
Barbara knew her husband well enough to see through his pose of cool assurance. The gun shook, just slightly but enough, and his left eyelid twitched.
Would he shoot her Did he have the nerve
Before tonight she wouldn’t have thought so. But if he’d hired assassins, staged this ugly show, then he was capable of anything.
She released the handset. It thumped on the desk.
“Now come over here.”
“Charles.” Philip sounded less angry than disappointed. “What’s this all about”
“Marital problems.” He chuckled. “A little domestic discord in the Kent household.”
