“Who’s with you?”
Michael told him.
“Ah, the good senator’s wife. I’ve seen her picture. Pretty lady. What does she hope to buy with her extra ten?”
“The lives of everyone involved.”
Silence for a full minute, then, “Why does she care about you?”
“She just does.”
“Anyone else with you?”
“No.”
“All right, Michael. We’ll talk about it. I’m in the barn with your lady-friend. No windows; one door in. So, let’s make this nice and simple. You both come in. I tell you what to do. I want your hands where I can see them.”
“I want to talk to Elena-”
The phone went dead.
Elena heard the phone click shut. Jimmy was right behind her; had been right behind her the whole time. How long? She’d not seen him in over an hour. He’d been behind her and dead silent.
Then the pain!
Such terrible pain. She fought to control herself, felt breath on her ear, fingers where the wire cut into her throat. Her eyes settled on Stevan, spread on the tractor. She had no idea if he was dead or alive. No movement or sound.
Black flies buzzed the open wounds.
“Sorry about that.”
Jimmy’s voice was intimate; his mouth so close that if he stretched his lips he could kiss the shell of her ear. She sobbed around the metal lodged in her throat, choking, barely able to breathe. Wires cut her skin in a dozen places. His hand slid down her shoulder, traced the edge of her breast, then ran down her arm to the finger he’d just broken. He touched it lightly, and her whole body locked in anticipation. But he didn’t hurt her further; he took her palm in his hand and gently squeezed.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
He stepped where she could see him.
“Michael’s coming.”
A killer’s calm descended on Michael, and he knew the feeling like an old friend. The way time slowed, the clarity of his perceptions. His thoughts ordered themselves, as muscles loosened and possibility stretched out like lines on a graph.
“There it is.”
Light swelled where the drive emptied from the forest. Trees fell off and the land opened. Michael saw an old house at the edge of uncut fields. He saw vehicles. And he saw the barn.
“So many cars.” Abigail hunched forward, her hands white on the bag of money. “He’s not alone.”
Michael checked windows in the house, saw blackness behind empty glass. He considered the tree line, the high, brown scrub. There was deep shadow and lots of cover. Anyone with a decent rifle could take them out. He stopped the car. Everything around them was perfectly still.
“Jesus, Michael. We’re sitting ducks.”
“He wants his money. We control it. Try to remember that.”
“Okay.” She nodded, swallowed. “Where are we going?”
“There.”
The barn was like any barn, rough and angular on a patch of dirt and weed. The wood was weathered and unpainted, the roof rusted metal. On its peak, a fox-shaped weathervane leaned at a drunken angle. There was an opening in the loft, but other than that, it looked as if Jimmy was right.
One way in.
One way out.
“Don’t do anything unless I say.” Michael opened his door. “Understand?” She reached for the door handle, fumbled it. “Abigail?”
“I can take care of myself.”
And then they were out, in the yard, with the barn tall above them. Michael had a gun in the front of his belt, and one at the back. Rounds chambered. Safeties off. He looked once more at the empty clearing, then lifted the book from the dash and walked for the barn door. Three feet from the place it gapped, he called out. “Jimmy. It’s Michael.” He waited, but got no answer. “Abigail Vane is with me. We’re coming in.”
He put a foot through the gap and nudged the door, which scraped on dirt and old straw. He went in, hands first, Abigail close on his back.
“Slowly.”
That was Jimmy, deep and to the left. Out of sight.
“Slowly,” Michael said.
He eased around the door, came five feet into the barn and stopped, Abigail hard against him. The place was brighter than he expected, well lit by at least a dozen lanterns. He heard Abigail take in a shocked breath, but felt his own calm flow as he catalogued the barn in a few clear, brutal seconds. He saw Stevan first, but wasted no time breaking down the extent of his injuries. He was dead or not. No matter. He glimpsed Elena, but forced himself to move away from that, come back later. He located Jimmy in a shadowed place, partially concealed by a heavy post. One arm was out, gun in hand.
That was not the hand that Michael feared…
“Can I assume we understand each other?”
Jimmy’s voice sounded surprisingly deep in the high, vast space. Michael watched the hand that held a small, wooden dowel that was maybe ten inches long. The dowel was tied to a length of baling twine. The twine ran through an eyehook embedded in the post, then to another hook in a second post, then to a third, and then to…
She was wired to the barn’s central support structure, a thirty-inch beam that soared to the roofline. The wires that held her were twisted razor tight, so they cut into her forehead, her neck and limbs. Her arms were pulled back so fiercely that her shoulder bones jutted. Blood from her throat made a sharp V at the collar of her shirt. She stood on one foot, and Michael saw lacerations and several toes bent sideways. The other leg was broken at the ankle, bent at the knee and wired high on the post so the foot dangled at a tortured angle. Michael had no idea how long she’d been forced to stand like that, but he’d suffered enough broken bones to imagine the hurt. Yet, the pain was nothing compared to the fear he saw in her eyes. They nailed him where he stood; they begged and said so many things.
“It’s okay, baby.”
But it wasn’t.
A double-barreled shotgun wedged her jaw open; it was jammed deep in her mouth and secured with bright, silver tape that twisted thickly around the barrel, her head and jaw. Michael saw teeth smeared red, a glimpse of crushed lips. She was sucking hard through her nostrils: panicked, in shock. Her skin had blued out. Tears gathered in her lashes.
The shotgun hung from nylon straps.
Twine ran from the trigger to the dowel in Jimmy’s hand.
“Are we clear on the stakes?” Jimmy said.
