If he dropped from here, the only place he could land was the jagged stairway.
He hung by his left arm, pulled his belt off with his right, slipped it around the base of the corner post of the railing, and threaded it through the buckle. He lowered himself to the end of the belt, where he was clear of the ceiling and the upper steps of the staircase, held it with both hands, and bent his legs to start himself swinging. He swung a couple of times, until he judged that his momentum would carry him out over the part of the foyer he could see was clear of obstacles, then let go. The floor seemed to tilt and rush up at him, but he managed to break his fall by hitting on the balls of his feet with his knees bent and translating his forward motion into a roll. He came to rest near a fireplace at the end of the room, rose to his feet, and realized his pistol must have slipped out of his jacket pocket.
He crawled quickly back toward the ruined stairway, felt the familiar shape of the pistol under his hand, and grasped it, already planning. In order to take down the pipe that Varney had left at the window, Prescott had to have been on that side of the house, hiding in the low bushes that separated the house from the stubble fields. Varney moved to the opposite side, and unlatched a window that faced the woods. He tried to lift it, but it was closed too tightly. He looked more closely and let out a breath through his clenched teeth. Prescott had used six- penny nails to secure the windows. He would have to use one of the two doors, and Prescott would probably have booby-trapped one and be making his way through the brush toward the other with a rifle.
Varney moved to the front door and looked out through the peephole, then stepped to the front window. The place where Prescott had been was not visible from here, so there was no clear shot. If Varney moved quickly, maybe he could slip out to the edge of the porch, go over the railing, and hit the ground before Prescott could aim.
He tried the doorknob, unlocked the door, then pulled his knife. He stood to the side of the door and ran the blade along each side, then above the top, then lay on his belly and slid it underneath. He was startled by the voice from above and behind him: “Front . . . door.” He had rolled to the side and was aiming his pistol at the sound with one hand, the knife still in the other, before he realized the voice had not been human. He was aiming at the alarm keypad on the wall. He stepped closer and saw the slits for a small speaker, then knelt and ran his knife under the door again. “Front . . . door.”
The blade had interrupted the contact between the two magnets set into the door and the floor beneath it. He took a deep breath and regained his composure. The door wasn’t booby-trapped, and that was what mattered. He stood, took two more deep breaths, opened the door, slipped out, and closed it, ignoring the muffled electronic voice. In a few seconds he was at the end of the porch, vaulting over the railing to the ground. He lay still for a moment, listening: no metal sounds, no footsteps. He spider-crawled quickly along the side of the house to the back corner, then lay flat and paused to listen again and stare out into the darkness. He let time pass.
Prescott was devious. He had picked this remote, sparsely populated place just so he could convert it into a field of traps and snares for Varney. He’d had to be in a place like this, where he could run a power saw through a staircase and let it crash to the floor, where he could fire a gun through a helpless man’s head and not have to worry about anybody hearing it, or telling him later he had not done it the way the law said he should. The only way ever to be free was to see Prescott first and kill him.
Varney had to read the trap and use it against Prescott. The brush where Prescott was hiding tempted Varney. He stared across the lawn. The shortest way to the low bushes was across the patio at the back of the house. If he could make it across the open space, he could work his way through the brush and come up behind Prescott. The idea was tantalizing. Prescott would think he was still in the house, probably lying on the ruined stairway with a broken back. He had no way of knowing how good Varney was in a field at night. Varney could move more quietly, more quickly than Prescott could. But moving across an open patio to get to the first cover was a risk.
He crouched, still watching the brush ahead. He slowly moved to the corner of the house to get a view to his left. It seemed that the place where Prescott had been was not quite visible from here, but once he was out a few paces, it would be. He would try the quiet, invisible way. He went to his belly and began to slither across the back lawn, his eyes on the row of bushes, waiting for movement.
There was a loud crack as a bullet broke the sound barrier over his head. He was up and sprinting, gaining speed as he dashed toward cover. There was no reason to stay on the grass now, so he let his feet take him toward the paved patio, where he could make better time.
One foot hit the patio and the ball of his foot pushed off, and he knew it was all wrong. There was a spongy feel to it. The other foot hit and the pavement sank. He saw a section of the stones ahead buckle and fold. The patio wasn’t stone slabs laid in the ground; it was just sheets of artificial masonry, made of drywall with a plastic veneer. He had broken through. He had to control the fall. He did not impede his forward motion, because he had to keep from dropping vertically. He flopped forward, both arms extended, slapping the next section of artificial stones, pushing down with arms and legs, scrambling ahead on the fragile surface to keep the drywall falling below him. He felt himself going through, then heard the first end of a section hit with a hollow echo. With the sound, he knew there was concrete, he knew it was about ten feet down. He hit, letting his feet break a sheet of drywall wedged beside another, and directing his body onto the next section of drywall.
His fall was jarring, but he felt no sharp pain, and he was on his feet. He could tell he was in an empty swimming pool, and he knew he had to get out. He ran up the steep concrete slope toward the shallow end, where the fragile sheets of drywall overhead still formed a roof to shield him from Prescott’s sights.
Varney reached the end, came up without pausing, his head lifting the end of the drywall enough to free him, and he was out and running again. He found himself heading back the way he had come, but for the moment he had no choice. He had to get out of Prescott’s view.
As he approached the side of the house, he was beginning to get past the pure anger at what Prescott had tried to do to him, and had begun to wonder at what Prescott had not done. There had been only one shot, and it had gone high. Prescott had had time to fire again. He could have put ten rounds through the half-inch drywall on top of the empty pool, let them bounce around in the dark concrete basin, and probably clip Varney on a ricochet. He must have known that Varney would come out at the shallow end, and should have leveled his weapon on it. Was he that slow? He couldn’t be. He had fired his one shot only to make Varney run and fall into the pool. He had to be at the wrong angle, too low and far away to fire downward into the pool, and too far to the left to have the shallow end in view. He must still be across the lawn from the pipes, where Varney had seen the bushes move.
Varney had one clear, simple idea and it would work only if he used it before Prescott did. When Varney reached the house, he kept running along the side. He had to take the chance that Prescott would still be aiming at the back corner of the house, waiting for him to show himself there. Varney came around the front, running harder now. He ran past the front porch, keeping his feet on the grass, where his steps would make no noise. He could see the start of the row of bushes now. It was not neat and thin like a hedge, but deep and unruly, planted there as a barrier to the wind in the summer, when the dust blew off the fields, and probably in the winter a snow fence to catch the drifts before they piled up on the side and front of the house.
He did not pause but moved immediately among the thick bushes, making his way toward the spot where he judged Prescott must be. His ears were sharp. He could hear insects take flight as he came close, hear a leaf fall from the tree above him, but he could not hear his own movements. He had practiced the skill of motion through foliage at night all summer long, and he knew he had gotten better at it. He began to feel the old excitement return, anticipating the sudden, brief, sweet moment when he would emerge from the bushes. He would take Prescott through the head. Prescott would have just enough time for the meaning of it to reach his brain before the bullet punched through it.
He stepped steadily, placing each foot tentatively, to feel the texture under the sole before he eased his weight onto it. He kept going, watchful and eager at the same time. When he reached the spot where he had expected to find Prescott, he was disappointed. He told himself that Prescott had simply moved onward toward the back of the lot, where he would have a better view of the corner of the house. He had no choice but to keep going. He quickened his pace. Then he was near the end of the bushes. Could Prescott have gotten this far?
He crouched, planted his feet, checked his gun to be sure he had not pushed the safety on while he was handling it. Finally, he took the cell phone out of his pocket.
The telephone was his advantage. Prescott had put it in his hands so he could rattle him, make him feel weak and hesitant and afraid. But Varney had immediately seen the potential. Varney’s reflexes had been too quick to let him fall across the sabotaged staircase, his body too agile to be trapped in the empty pool, too fast to be picked off
