‘We’re screwed,’ he heard the woman say. She had a low, raspy voice. ‘Or maybe he was never here.’
‘Someone was chained to that bed. He dismantled it. We better report in,’ the man answered in a heavy baritone.
‘He’s in chains, he can’t have gotten far,’ she said. Her tone was like an echo in a cave of wet stone.
‘Maybe someone came and collected him. Whoever grabbed him changed their mind, took him again.’
‘No, Mouser,’ he heard the woman say. ‘They would’ve just unlocked him or killed him on the bed. Luke pulled an escape trick.’ He heard a foot kick at the broken desk.
Mouser? And this woman knew Luke’s name.
Luke put his eye back to the cabin’s corner. It wouldn’t take them long to search the upstairs and the downstairs. Maybe just a couple of minutes. He’d have a few seconds alone with the keys, if they were still under the flowerpot. Then he could run like hell, vanish into the woods.
The woman stepped out onto the front step. She was tall, thin, wearing jeans. From the light inside the cabin, he could see a crown of dyed white hair and a thin tracery of scar along her jawline. She held a gun in her hand and a flashlight in the other. She walked toward the woods. Away from him.
Luke would wait for the trees to swallow the woman, and then he’d hurry and retrieve the keys to the chains if they were there. At least get his legs free. Then he could run.
She stepped into the heavy darkness of the trees.
He turtled toward the flowerpot, trying to move quietly enough where the crinkle of the chains sounded like the wind nuzzling the pines.
Luke knelt by the flowerpot. He heard the man call out from deep inside the house, ‘There’s food in the fridge.’
He tipped over the flowerpot. The keys to the shackles were gone.
Behind him the woman called, ‘You’re not very smart, are you?’
‘I guess not.’ Luke stood and faced her.
The woman wasn’t even bothering to point the gun at him. She walked close to him, and aimed the flashlight into his face. ‘Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m amazed you even got halfway free.’
So close, he thought. He noticed she wasn’t aiming the gun at him and wondered if she even considered him a threat. In a flash he thought: you’ve studied these people but you’ve never faced them. This is different than reading a book or a loudmouth posting on the web. You can’t analyze them, you just have to fight them. Because you know what they’re like. Single-minded. Brutal. Reasoning hadn’t worked with Eric; it wouldn’t work with these two.
Luke felt the quiet scholar in him easing backward, something new and primal emerging.
‘Mouser, he’s out here. Still in chains. Looks like he’s auditioning for A Christmas Carol.’ She laughed, a glassy sick giggle. ‘He looks like Jacob Marley. C’m’ere, schoolboy.’
Luke jumped at her, hammering into her before she could lift the gun, shoving the flashlight so it smacked her in the face. He fell to the grass with her and lassoed a length of the chain around her neck. She swung the gun at him, nailing him in the head, but he was tall and strong and desperate. He got her in front of him, the chain a choker across her throat. He knocked her down, pried the gun from her fingers as he yanked her back to her feet.
The man – Mouser – rushed into the doorway. He aimed his gun at Luke’s head. ‘Let her go.’
‘No. She comes with me.’ His voice broke, like a teenage boy’s. Luke put the gun on her head. The chain was a twisted braid in his left fist, the gun in his right hand. Don’t think, just do.
Mouser lowered the gun and Luke saw the gesture for what the woman’s laughter was – a sign of contempt. This couple weren’t remotely afraid of him, not even with him having a gun.
‘So you stay there,’ Luke said to him. ‘All right?’
‘Luke Dantry,’ Mouser said. ‘We’re here from your stepdad. Here to help you, find out who took you.’
‘You’re not the police,’ Luke said.
‘No, we’re better. Don’t be a stupid kid. Let her go and we’ll call him.’
But they were talking about bombing casinos and resorts. ‘I just want the keys to these shackles,’ Luke said.
‘You don’t know what a can of kick-ass you just opened up on yourself.’ Mouser sat on the porch step, with a sign of anticipation. Ready for the show to begin.
It was not what Luke expected. ‘Where are the keys?’ he yelled. The woman began to choke and he realized how tight the chain was across her throat. He eased his grip. But barely.
‘I’m going to… obliterate… you,’ the woman said.
‘Snow means what she says,’ Mouser added.
‘Where are the keys?’ Luke yelled again at Mouser. He tightened the chain again.
The woman pointed at Mouser. ‘His pocket.’
‘Toss the keys to her,’ Luke said.
Mouser didn’t stand. ‘Snow? How you want to go here?’
‘Give him the keys,’ Snow said.
‘Whatever you say,’ Mouser lumbered to his feet, dug in his pockets and tossed the keys. Snow caught them deftly.
‘Unlock me. The feet first.’
‘You think you’re smart because you escaped from a bed?’ She unlocked the chains binding his feet. Her skin was cool against his ankles. He pulled her back straight to him; she didn’t resist. He kicked the shackles free.
‘Be still and I’ll unlock your hands,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll play for real, schoolboy.’
If he lowered the chain from her throat she could fight him, even with the gun. Their confidence was daunting. He tightened the chain around her throat again, just enough to pull her close. ‘Not quite yet,’ Luke said. ‘Let’s walk to your car.’
‘Mouser has the car keys.’
‘Car keys,’ he called.
‘No,’ Mouser said. ‘Come on, Snow, enough. Let’s get going before the sky opens up again.’
Snow stayed still. ‘I just wanted to see what he’d try. What he’d do. It’s like watching a hamster work a maze.’
‘I’m going to shoot you is what I’ll do,’ Luke said.
‘Then shoot,’ she said. Her calm was maddening.
‘I… I need you alive for now. You come with me to the car.’
‘And we’ll be hot-wiring it?’ she asked. ‘You saw that in a movie, right, schoolboy?’
‘Come on.’ He gave the chains a harder pull than he meant to and she gagged.
‘For every second of pain you cause me, I will give you an hour of it.’ The icy tone of her promise chilled his skin. He shouldn’t be afraid of her but he was.
‘Maybe he doesn’t have the keys to toss me. Maybe you do,’ he said in a harsh whisper in her ear. ‘You. Mouse!’
‘Mouser.’
‘Whatever. You stay on the porch. I see you come off, I shoot her.’
‘How you want to play it, Snow?’ he asked again. The rain started again, hissing in the pines, thunder booming in the distance.
‘Do as he says,’ Snow said.
They hurried backward down the long path toward where he and Eric had come through the gate. The rain boomed out of the clouds, thick again. Mud sucked at their shoes, darkness drank them up except when the lightning flashed in the wet heavens.
Luke blinked, trying to keep sight of Mouser, looking back over his shoulder toward the gate. The metal chains grew slick in his grasp, from sweat or rain.
‘Empty your pockets.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Shut up! Prove to me you don’t have the keys. Pull out your pockets.’
Snow made a little grunt of anger and jammed her hand into her pocket. She stumbled against the gun and he pulled the gun away from her head. Suddenly she lashed her head back to catch him in the face. He tottered and
