Silver stooped over to retrieve the container and then froze. She slowly drew her Glock and turned to the back door.
Inside, the slices of congealed meat had fallen away, revealing four unmistakable letters scratched into the cardboard.
The wind pushed the box, now forgotten, towards the far wall, where it stuck in the hedge, propped open by the breeze, the message visible from a few feet away.
Silver thumbed her phone and dialed headquarters, but it still went directly to Sam’s voicemail. She stabbed another number, but Art’s line was busy. At least she had tried, she reasoned. Then her instinct to save her daughter’s life preempted any others, and she kicked in the rear door, the lock shattering on the second blow.
Across the meager backyard, the sun glinted against the glistening tomato sauce that had been used to increase the legibility of the four letters scratched into the carton bottom. They were unmistakable, etched in a child’s shaky script.
Chapter 24
Silver stepped into the narrow rear hall, the splintered shards of the doorjamb crunching underfoot. Her Glock 23 was clenched in both hands, pointed in front of her. She stopped in the kitchen, tilting her head to detect any hint of movement in the house. A creak sounded from the second story. A few seconds later, another. She couldn’t be sure whether it was the breeze or someone overhead, but she steeled herself to find out.
As she stood motionless, a third creak sounded, and she began to believe it was the wind — the sound came from the same area each time at the front of the house. She turned so that she would present as small a target area as possible and cautiously eased into the hall between the small combination dining/living room and the stairs leading to the upper level.
The floor plan was typical of the older row homes in the area — a modest downstairs forty feet deep by twenty feet wide consisting of the living area, and two or three bedrooms up, usually two, one in the rear and the other facing the street, with a landing and hall between them. She confirmed that nobody was downstairs and then carefully put weight on the first stair tread as she began ascending to the upper floor.
At the third step, the wood beneath her foot emitted a squeak. She stopped, her heart pounding in her ears. Her finger caressed the Glock’s trigger, ready to empty the weapon at anything that moved. She stood like that for a seeming eternity and then heard the creak from the front bedroom again — same as before. She was almost positive it was the wind now, but she still moved with stealthy deliberation as her head, and then her body, moved into sightline of the second floor landing. Both bedroom doors were closed, although the single bathroom between them had its battered door ajar. Now she was faced with an impossible choice — which bedroom to search first?
The front bedroom creaked again, and she realized it was the door — every time a draft moved through the house, it stirred it just enough to coax a protestation. Taking a deep breath, she made two rapid strides and threw herself flat against the wall. A single bead of sweat trickled from her hairline, down her temple, and then ran to the corner of her mouth, where it hung before she flicked at it with her tongue.
She took another step, and then another. Once she was alongside the door, she slowly dropped her left hand from its position on the pistol butt and gripped the worn pewter knob and turned it, trying to make no sound. When she felt the mechanism disengage, she flung the door ajar, pausing a split second before moving into the doorway in a crouch.
The second bedroom’s door burst open, and she spun, training her weapon on it, ready to fire. The door bounced against the wall and then swung shut again, with a slam that shook the house. She froze, momentarily paralyzed as she processed what was happening, and then felt the wind on her back.
She turned and peered into the master and saw that one of the two windows was open eight inches, causing the draft responsible for the creaking. The bedroom was otherwise empty except for the closed closet door and a neatly made bed. Opening the master must have created the breeze that had blown the guest bedroom door open. As if congratulating her for her deduction, it slammed again. The lock was either ill-fitting or out of adjustment — it wasn’t holding the door shut.
Now that she’d made enough noise to alert the entire neighborhood to her presence, she inched towards the closet — the final area in the master that could conceal anyone. Silver threw the door open, to be confronted with a tidy display of hanging shirts and pants. Her eyes took in the outline of a hatch in the ceiling leading to the attic, but the condition of the dust and cobwebs told her that it hadn’t been opened for a long time, so any possibility of an assailant hiding up there existed only in her mind.
The second bedroom door slammed again, and she turned to face it, ready to tackle the other possible upstairs hiding place.
Step by step she moved from the master to the rear bedroom, both hands steadying the Glock in a combat grip. When she reached the door she hesitated, listening, but detected nothing. Without warning she burst in, weapon sweeping the room. No closet, just a chest of drawers and a cheap armoire too small to hide in.
A sound echoed from downstairs.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she stiffened. Satisfied that the upstairs was secure, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Seth, but that call too went to voicemail. She left a terse message — a whispered advisement that she was in Howard’s house and to send backup immediately — that she believed the killer might still be inside, and that she was in pursuit.
Now the question was whether to wait, or go get her daughter. If anyone was inside, there were only two places they could be — the single-width garage or the basement. She hadn’t seen a car in the driveway, so she was guessing that if anyone was home, their car was in the garage. That left the basement.
Silver moved down the stairs, taking care to place her weight on the outer edges of the steps to minimize any noise. She’d learned that lesson on the ascent.
Once in the ground floor hall, she moved towards the front of the house and stopped at the only door along the span — the basement entry. There was little in the way of places she could hide, so she pushed the door open. A shaft of light stabbed down the concrete stairs to the dark expanse below. She listened, but didn’t hear any movement — just a dim hum of machinery in the gloom.
Groping along the wall with her left hand, she fumbled for a light switch. Her fingers felt the familiar shape and flicked it up.
Nothing happened.
After pausing for a moment, she reached into her purse and searched around until she found her keys. She had a miniature flashlight secured to the ring — a red anodized aluminum trinket she’d bought to make it easier to see her deadbolts at night. She flicked on the beam and winced as the keys jangled, then braced herself for the descent into the basement. The small beam of light seemed woefully inadequate, but it was better than nothing. She held the keys and flashlight in front of her and pointed her weapon down the stairs, carefully feeling with her feet for the next tread in the series. Step by step she moved lower, her pulse booming in her throat from the accumulated tension.
She was three-quarters down the stairs when something moved in the periphery of her vision. The door above her slammed shut. The next thing she knew, she was falling; a spike of white hot pain lanced up her spine, and her head slammed against a step with a crack. The last thing she registered was the sound of her now-useless gun hitting the concrete basement floor next to her flashlight, which extinguished with a pop as it skidded to a halt.
Silver regained consciousness to pain. Her back felt like someone had slammed her in the kidneys with a lead pipe, and her head shrieked in protest as she tried to open her eyes. Then she heard the most beautiful sound in the world and forced her lids wide.
“Mommy. Mommy. Don’t try to move,” Kennedy warned, her voice a distorted tremolo amid the ringing in Silver’s ears.
She tried to sit up, but the room swam dangerously. From the soft resistance beneath her, she concluded she
