Chapter 39

I DUCKED BEHIND the furnace and pressed my back against the wall as footsteps shuffled across the floor above my head. They were coming from the left, from the back of the little house. I guessed that was where his bedroom was, and that the noise had awakened him.

Bad news for me. I’d wanted to catch him while he was asleep.

At the top of the stairs, the doorknob turned. The door screeched open and a man croaked out a stream of curses. His voice was hoarse and raspy. Even though I hadn’t heard it for twenty-four years, I recognized that voice. A chill knifed through me. Not more than twenty feet away stood the man from my nightmares.

A light switch clicked on, and the center of the basement was illuminated by a weak bulb dangling from the ceiling on a frayed cord. It cut a few inches into the shadows outside its light radius, but it didn’t touch the darkness behind the furnace.

He spewed more curses, followed by the word “rats.”

He thought the noise had been caused by the reeking, four-legged residents of the cellar, and not by a two-legged invader. The noise hadn’t made him suspicious. That was vital, if I was going to succeed in what I had driven more than four hundred miles to do.

I couldn’t see him from where I was, but I didn’t hear any footsteps descending. Another tense moment, then the light was switched off and the cellar door closed.

Still in my hiding place, I waited and listened until I heard shambling footsteps, going away. But this time they were moving right, toward the front of the house. He was not returning to bed.

The sounds of movement stopped. When I was sure it was safe, I turned on my flashlight and came out from behind the furnace. The first thing my beam caught was two glowing red eyes, staring at me. I gasped. But the rat must have been more frightened of me than I was of him, because he scurried away into a hiding place of his own.

Taking a few deep breaths slowed my racing pulse.

I moved the flashlight around until I found the broken kitchen chair. It was old, and constructed from solid wood. I picked up the detached back leg and hefted it. Used as a cudgel, it was heavy enough to do some damage, if that became necessary. I didn’t want to discharge my 9-mm pistol upstairs and chance waking up neighbors who might call the police. The Glock 19 isn’t a popgun.

Before I went upstairs, I had to find something that would quiet those door hinges. Swinging the light along the shelves on the wall, I examined the usual tools and jars found in practically every cellar and garage, looking for WD 40. There wasn’t any, but I did find a dirty old oilcan. Taking it down, I shook it. There was a little oil inside. Not much, but maybe just enough.

With the chair leg clamped under my arm and the oilcan in my hand, I crept up the stairs. I was careful to place my feet on the opposite sides of each plank, to avoid the noise made when a person puts a foot in the middle of an old wooden step. I couldn’t risk having him hear a creak on the stairs because that was a sound a rat could not have made.

For a moment, it was like being back in Africa with Ian, sneaking through the bush to get wildlife pictures. It’s not true that stepping on a twig will spook an animal, because that’s a sound that other animals can make. Nothing alarming about that. I had to learn to cradle my cameras in my arms and against my chest in a way that kept metal from touching metal. A metallic clink was one sound no animal could make. It could send a herd into a stampede, or frighten away a lone creature we’d spent hours tracking.

At the top of the stairs I pressed an ear against the crack, and listened.

He was coughing, the kind of deep, wheezing cough that seemed to heave up from the soles of his feet. That was definitely coming from the direction of the living room. When the coughing subsided, I heard voices.

My heart sank at the thought that he wasn’t alone, but as my hearing grew more acute, I realized that he’d only turned on the TV. Fervently, I hoped that the set was placed so that his back was to the basement door.

In the darkness, I used my fingers to trace a path to the noisy hinges. I shook drops of oil onto them. In a few seconds, the can was empty.

I put the oilcan down at the far edge of the top step and . . . very carefully . . . turned the handle on the basement door.

An inch at a time, I eased the door open. Thanks to the precious oil, there was only a tiny squeak, and it was drowned out by the soundtrack laughter coming from the television set. I stood still against the door on the cellar side for a few seconds, then, hefting the broken chair leg, I stepped into the house.

I was in a small kitchen. Shapes of a stove and sink and refrigerator were faintly visible, courtesy of a feeble night-light plugged into an outlet on the back wall.

Through the half-opened door to the living room, I made out the shape of a big chair with a high, rounded back. Probably a recliner. It faced a TV set which was spilling light around it.

Before my mind processed the fact that I didn’t see the top of a head in that chair, an arm shot out and caught me around the throat. He had realized someone was in the cellar. Like a wary animal used to being hunted, he’d lurked in the darkness, waiting to spring at whoever appeared.

The chair leg and flashlight clattered to the floor as I tried to pry his arm away, but his other hand was clamped around his wrist. It was like pulling at cement. With the side of his head pressed against mine, I was forced to breathe the foul alcoholic fumes coming from his mouth. His forearm was squeezing my neck so hard I was afraid he’d crush my larynx!

Exploding with primal fury, I twisted my torso, trying to jerk him off balance. The hand that anchored his wrist slipped just enough for me to make one desperate maneuver. I torpedoed my left elbow into his chest so hard I heard a rib crack! It broke his grip. Reverberation from the blow I landed sent a spike of pain up into my shoulder, but I was so crazed by the rush of adrenaline that it barely registered.

He uttered a sharp, wounded grunt, then straightened up and grabbed at me again. Using a self-defense action that Matt Phoenix had taught me, I rammed the heel of my right hand up under his nose. His head snapped backward and blood spurted from his nostrils. With a gurgling cry, he fell to the floor, hit his head . . . and lay still.

Standing over him, pointing the pistol at one of his knees, and taking air in deep gasps, my mind began to clear. The bright red veil of madness dissolved from in front of my eyes.

I stared down at the crumpled figure on the floor.

He had seemed so much bigger when I was small.

That was my first thought. My second was, Dear God, please don’t let me have killed him!

After giving him a kick in the side, sharp enough to prove he really was unconscious and not faking, I knelt down and felt at the base of his throat for a pulse.

There was a beat. He was alive.

I switched on the light at the top of the cellar stairs, shoved the flashlight into my pocket, and picked up the broken chair leg. Clasping the weapon beneath one arm, I used both hands to grab Ray Wilson by the collar of his shirt. One step at a time, I dragged him down into his rat-infested basement.