When the girl crawled out from beneath the bed, Reece tried to read the future in her face. She was afraid. Obviously. And cautious. She sat on the bed, clutching the blanket.
Wide eyes.
Beautiful eyes.
Reece chewed on the pad of his thumb.
If only she would settle in. Prepare a meal or open a bottle of wine. Maybe hum something. If she hummed a song, he might recognize it. He could find the record, maybe. And maybe leave it for her as a gift. It could be an opening, he thought, a shared love of the same song, this thing between them. The song would play, and she would smile. He imagined it on her face, the rose-petal lips and those straight, white teeth. He could hear the music; see the sway of her slender frame. The more she moved, the more she relaxed. She swayed, too, as she cooked. And they ate dinner together, and afterward, they danced, and her fingers were soft on his cheek, those lips slightly parted. When she took his palm, she pressed it on her breast; and the sway moved into her hips; and her legs were warm on his, and her breath was warm, and her lips were warm …
“Ow … damn it.”
He’d bitten through the skin. His thumb was bleeding.
“Hello?”
Suddenly, the girl was on her feet. Reece held his breath, but she dropped the blanket. Reece did not like what he saw.
Nothing soft.
Not anywhere.
“I’m not insane,” she said. “I did not imagine that.”
She took three steps in his direction, and Reece flinched away, so quick and clumsy he struck a wall stud, and made enough noise to freeze the girl where she stood. That was the tableau. Two seconds. Then she came straight for the place he hid. Reece wanted to run. He couldn’t stop watching. She smoothed a palm along the wall, then pressed her ear against it. He could see a bit of hair, the curve of her forehead. A foot to the left and she might find the hole he’d drilled into the base of a wall sconce.
So close!
If he held still …
If he was patient …
“Hey!”
Her palm struck the wall, and a sound escaped Reece’s mouth, something like, Yeep. She fell backward, said in the walls, then picked up a chair, and flung it. It hit like a bomb; crashed to the floor. Reece wanted to calm her down, wanted her to breathe, so they might one day dance.
It’s not too late.
It doesn’t have to be.
He watched in horror as she picked up the chair, and beat it to pieces on the wall that stood between them.
In the basement cage, Gibby tilted his head.
“Chance, do you hear that?”
A distant pounding. Hollow. Rhythmic.
“I hear it.”
Chance tried to sit up straight. He was stiff and hurting, though the bleeding had stopped.
“That way, I think.”
Gibby gestured toward the corner of the room, and both boys stared through the mesh, up at the floor joists. Not directly above them, but, Yeah, that way, and like the screaming, inside the house.
Gibby said, “Whatever that is, I don’t like it.”
Chance agreed. “Come on, man. Get us out of here.”
“Damn right.”
Gibby went back to work. It wasn’t easy. The clamp was small, and tended to slip. Half the bolts were rusted in place. He had five out, and needed to strip out three more along the bottom. He figured four more up the side and he could beat the corner into an opening.
“Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s make this happen.”
Gibby needed no convincing. He broke a bolt loose; twisted it out, and went back for the next. “Six more.”
That’s when the pounding stopped, and the screaming started.
For French, the night was a tribulation of body and soul. He was exhausted, desperate, and half-blind from the glare of a million headlights. He’d crossed the city a dozen times, lied to his wife on six occasions, and humiliated himself in front of Captain Martin’s entire family: midnight on the porch, and begging for information. But he was prepared to lie, steal, or cheat, to beat an informant half to death if he thought the guy was holding back.
Would he kill someone?
He was too tired to answer the question, and wouldn’t trust an answer if it fell out of his mouth. He was down to random streets and places: a park they’d gone to when Gibby was a kid, the dead man’s neighborhood, his neighbors, the crash pad of a dealer who’d grown up on Chance’s side of town, just on the chance he might have heard something.
Nobody knew a thing. That was the problem. They had an ID on the dead man in Chance’s house, and that gave them an address and a rap sheet, but that was it. The captain had sworn it: even the cops were dry.
How long until dawn?
Two hours?
“David 218.”
The radio squawked, and French keyed the mic. “David 218, go ahead, Dispatch.”
“Detective Burklow requests you call a private line. Stand by for the number.”
“Go ahead, Dispatch.” He found a pencil; jotted down the number.
“David 218, be advised the matter is urgent.”
French was on a four-lane, west side of town, and the last pay phone he’d seen was two clicks back. No traffic this late, so he cut the wheel hard, and left an arc of smoking rubber. When the Food Town appeared, it was across the street, so he left another black arc, and hit the parking lot entrance so fast he grounded out the shocks.
Burklow picked up a half second into the first ring. “This is complicated, so I need you calm. Are you calm?”
French squeezed the phone until he thought his hand would break. “Yes, I’m calm. Where are you?”
“Pay phone eight blocks from your house. Before you ask, your wife tracked me down an hour back, saying things like you were lying to her and she knew it, and it had to be about Gibby, and why would you lie about her last good son. She was on the ledge. I went over to talk her down. That’s when we got the call from Jason. He’s out. He’s looking for you.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t have the answers. He had little time and a lot of things to say, and that wasn’t part of it.”
French ground his teeth, trying hard to fight off the confusion and disappointment. “You said this was urgent. I thought it was about Gibby.”
“That’s the thing. Jason claims to know where he is.”
“Say that again.”
“Where he is, who has him, and how to get him out. He said the kid’s in serious danger, that the guy who took him is a killer, the worst kind.”
“Give me the address.”
“Bill, he says it’s the guy who killed Tyra Norris.”
French realized something ten seconds after he left the lot: his tires did not have enough rubber for the way he wanted to drive. If he could break the laws of physics, he would. Burn the sky. Shake the ground. None of it was about choice.
But that was not exactly true.
Jason wanted Gibby safe and clear, but needed Burklow and his father to get it done. Just them, though, the three of them. But French believed in bigger help, and that meant manpower, control, the overwhelming force of the state. It was simple math. Roll heavy, and lock shit down. Resolution might take longer, but it was usually the better resolution. The hostage lived. No cops died.
That’s where Jason became a problem.
If he was out, he’d escaped, and that meant people would be looking. French’s people. There’d been nothing on the radio, but he couldn’t exactly call in a request, either.
Dispatch, could you please confirm that my son has escaped from prison?
No. Couldn’t do it.
And if Jason was right? If the man who’d butchered that poor young woman was the same who had Gibby?
The thought was unbearable.
So was the next.
Roll heavy or go light, whatever decision he made in the next few minutes would put one son in greater danger. If he called in reinforcements, Gibby would have a better chance of getting out alive. Tactical teams. Snipers. Trained negotiators. French believed that to the bottom of his shoes. It was instinct, faith, thirty years of cop. But Jason was a wanted man, a suspected killer; and there were cops in the city that would take him down without thinking twice, oil and fucking water. And Jason was very likely to give them a reason. He’d go hot; resist arrest. If French could do it, he’d tell Jason to leave, go now, let us handle it. But Jason had no trust for cops. They’ll get my brother killed … He’d told Burklow as much.
French rolled down the window, but it didn’t help.
There was this house, and in it, a killer …
Was this really the question he faced?
One son or the other?
It wasn’t fair, but what was? French had gone to war, and killed, and lost one son already; he’d seen victims and unspeakable crime, spent years in the pursuit of evil men. In a good life, there’d been bad moments, but this was the worst, wind screaming in the car as he did the same in the silence of a breaking heart. One or the other, he had to choose.
French reached for the mic.
He made the call.
Finding the house was not a problem. The neighborhood was new money, but big money. Lots of gates and walls. Garages the size of a workingman’s house. French got there first, did a slow drive-by, and then parked where he could see the gate, the roofline, the glow of lights beyond the wall. Burklow rolled in five minutes later, and it was a long five minutes.
“You okay?”
They met on the sidewalk, low-voiced as Burklow did a hard-target search of French’s face. Whatever he saw there made him happy enough. He didn’t repeat the question.
“Where’s Jason?”
“I don’t know. He said he’d be here.”
The street was empty. They settled more deeply into the shadows cast by a streetlight two houses down. “Tell me everything he said.”
Burklow glanced at the house. To save time, they’d decided to do the full rundown in person. “Jason knows a lot about the property. The structure is fortified with polycarbonate, armored glass and steel-core doors in hardened frames. The security system is state of the art. Eighteen cameras on the grounds. Another dozen inside. Motion sensors and infrared. Pressure plates at the main and rear gates.”
“How does he know that?”
“How does he know any of it?”
“Do you believe him?”
“Do you?”
French thought, Yeah, I do. “Did he give you a name?”
“Reece, but he thinks it’s fictitious. There’s no Reece listed at this address. We can check property records after.” An unhappy moment passed between them. “I think he might be injured.”
“Jason? Why?”
“Something in his voice, his breathing, the fact he called us at all. I’ve never known him to ask for help.”
That was true. Not even as a kid.
Burklow shifted uneasily, looking down from all his great height. They’d been together a long time, thick and thin. French didn’t have to see his face to know his thoughts or the unanswered question that still hung between them. He nodded once, glad for the shadows, and how they hid his face. “Yeah,” he said. “I made the call.”
“I’m sorry, Bill.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“How soon?”
“Not long.” French did not trust his voice to say more. The first wave was already rolling: everyone on duty, and close enough to get there fast. Behind them, other cops were being called up, body armor issued, the armory broached. They had no warrant; they barely had probable cause. But no cop in the city had ever seen anything like what had been done to Tyra Norris, and every one of those cops wanted the guy who’d done it, proper procedure or not. French had slipped the chain, and it was coming, no stopping it.
Where was Jason?
Why wasn’t he here?
Misunderstanding the expression on his partner’s face, Burklow said, “Brother, you made the right choice.”
French believed that, too.
It didn’t help in the slightest.