Deadfall

by Anna Carey

  The elevator opens. Empty.

  You slip inside, noticing the quilted fabric lining the walls. The elevator is for deliveries, twice as wide as a normal one. There’s no security camera, at least not that you can see. Rafe presses the button for the penthouse. There’s only one.

  As you pass the first floor, then the second, you feel the panic rising in your chest. “If we get there and a hunter is waiting . . .”

  “They don’t know we’re coming. There’s no way.”

  The fifth-floor button lights up. There’s only one more level to go and you reach for Rafe’s hand. When the doors slide back you’re in a hallway that ends with a double door. There’s a massive painting on the wall, abstract with giant blocks of color. Blue, black, white.

  Through the doors the muffled sounds of a television set can be heard. Rafe pulls the gun from the back of his belt, leading with it. He gestures for you to break the lock on the door. You pull the knife from your belt, wedging the blade in the space between the two doorknobs, finding the precise spot. With one good push the mechanism pops free.

  Beyond it is an enormous loft, the first floor open to a kitchen, living room, and dining room. There’s a couch in the middle of the polished cement floor. A staircase leads to another level. There’s a long hallway to one side with three doors.

  It takes you a second to process the girl, about thirteen, sitting on the sleek modern couch in the middle of the room. The TV is roaring with music and shows a woman with huge, blown-out hair and high cheekbones, another in a sequined halter dress. The opening credits announce a show called The Real Housewives of Orange County.

  The girl doesn’t notice you at first.

  “Who else is here?” you say, the knife still in your hand.

  The girl turns, startled. “Who are you? What do you want?” Her long brown hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, her terry-cloth sweatpants sitting low on her waist, exposing her hip bones. She reaches down and grabs her iPhone.

  You close the gap between you, hopping over the back of the couch. You grab the phone from her hand. “Who else is here?” you repeat.

  “It’s just me, I swear.” She looks like a child, her gray eyes huge and glassy. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Visiting a friend.”

  “Stay here.”

  You turn the phone off, tucking it in your back pocket as Rafe comes out of a room down the corridor. The gun is at his side. “Nothing. Just bedrooms, bathrooms, an office.”

  “Watch her,” you say. “I’ll be right back.”

  The second floor is dark. A sitting room, four bedrooms, two bathrooms. The master suite has a wall of glass, the river visible beyond it. You go to the desk, searching the drawers, most of which are empty. The top one has stationery in it. A pad of thick cream paper is embossed with the name Helene. There’s a notebook, some pens, a stack of old birthday cards. They’re all signed, You’re my everything. Love, Theo.

  You go to the closet, feeling the upper shelves for a compartment like the one you discovered in Goss’s house. But there’s nothing there. You pull aside the clothes hangers and press on every cabinet, looking for a place someone would hide valuables. Nothing.

  There’s only one framed photo—a woman with a young girl, lifting her in the air. Nothing of Cross.

  You comb through each of the other rooms, looking at bookshelves, in drawers. When you get back downstairs the girl is still sitting on the couch. She’s watching Rafe as he works through each of the kitchen cabinets.

  “Your name,” you say. “What are your parents’ names?”

  “Alana Cross. My mom is Helene Cross and my dad is Theodore Cross.”

  “Does your dad own guns?” Rafe asks.

  “What?”

  “Guns.” He holds his up.

  “No . . . of course not.” The girl folds her hands in her lap. “If you guys want money you can just call them. They’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “We don’t want money,” you say. “We’re looking for someone.”

  “What does your dad do?” Rafe asks.

  The girl says something about a hedge fund and Rafe acts like you both know what the hell she’s talking about. You go to the bookshelves along the living room wall. You press the spine of each book, hoping to trigger something. They’re all real—novels, finance guides, fat photography books with black-and-white pictures on the front. You’re moving so fast you don’t even notice the glass case sitting on the shelf beside you.

  “Don’t touch that,” the girl calls out.

  A baseball sits inside a little five-by-five enclosure, perched on a gold pedestal. There’s a name scribbled on the front in black marker. “What is it?”

  “It’s my dad’s,” she says. “It’s signed by his favorite baseball player. Please . . . it’s, like, his favorite thing on earth.”

  You lean forward, studying the writing on the side. “Who’s his favorite baseball player?”

  “Some guy named Cal Ripken. I dunno. . . .”

  Rafe meets your gaze and smiles. “Cal?”

  “Yeah,” the girl says. “Why?”

  You lift the glass covering. When you push the baseball, it doesn’t move from the pedestal. In fact, it doesn’t move at all. You try pulling it and pushing down. As the girl watches she makes a horrible whining sound.

  Then you turn it.

  Just once, slightly to the right.

  Behind you, the dining room wall slides back, exposing a hidden doorway.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “GUESS NOW WE know why he didn’t want you to touch it.” Rafe opens the door, holding the gun in front of him. He feels around inside, flipping on a light. There’s a case of rifles on the wall ahead.

  You bring the girl with you, standing inside the narrow doorway. The room isn’t more than ten feet by seven. The wall on the left is covered with mounted animal heads: a lion; an elk with long, twisted horns; and two taxidermy birds, their feathers iridescent in the low light. A leather armchair sits in the corner. Beside it, a table with what looks like an elephant tusk. Your eyes move to the wall on the right.

  There are over thirty gold medallions. They’re the same ones from the ceremony last night. Each one has a silhouette of a different animal. Looking more closely, you can see there are eight numbers and letters beneath each. The same length and combination as your tattoo. Two images look like deer, a couple of them are exotic birds, several types of snakes, and what looks like an alligator.

  “What are those?” the girl asks.

  “Each one is a person,” you say, showing her your tattoo. “A person your father killed.”

  Rafe examines the wall, stopping at an image of another bird, one that looks like a hawk. He lets out a deep, labored breath. “This was one of the kids from the island—a boy called E. Maybe it was stupid, but I thought he might’ve made it.”

  The girl doesn’t say anything at the mention of the island. She’s studying the guns behind the glass case. She picks up the long tusk. “I didn’t even know he had a gun. . . . I didn’t even know he hunted.”

  You open the first drawer of the desk. There’s a thick leather book inside. You pick it up, thumbing through the first pages. “It’s a ledger,” you say, showing the lined paper to Rafe. There are Roman numerals listed down one side of it. Next to each one are full names and addresses. Then, below that, the names of different animals. “At that ceremony, at that house—he referred to each one using a number. No one was named.”

  “But now they are,” Rafe says. He flips back through the book, seeing the dates beside each one. “This is when they joined. It goes back to 1998.” He points to the very first number in the ledger, Roman numeral I. Next to it is the name Theodore Cross.

  You tuck the book under your arm. The drawer below it has folded gold jackets, the same ones that were given out at the ceremony last night. “When will they be back?”

  The girl stares at the book
in your hand. “I don’t know. They left an hour and a half ago.”

  Rafe looks at you. “Then we wait here for him.”

  “And then what? We confront him? How’s that going to go?”

  Rafe still has the gun in his hand. He nods to the wall with the other rifles. “We surprise him.”

  You know what he’s trying to say. That you could end all of this tonight. You turn to the girl. She looks much smaller beside Rafe, her thin arms crossed over her chest. Her low, shaky breaths fill the tiny room. Her eyes are glazed with tears. What will happen to her if you stay, if you wait for him to come home? What is Rafe suggesting you do, kill him in front of her?

  “We can’t,” you say. “No.”

  “We’re here, in his house. You know how lucky we are? We might not have this chance again.” Rafe tucks the gun into the back of his belt.

  “I’ll call Celia. She can be here by morning.”

  “And you think he’ll still be here then? He comes home, his sweet young daughter tells him about our little home invasion—he’ll run. He’s not going to wait around for them to take him in.”

  “Then we bring her with us. Just for now, just until he’s in custody.”

  “Please,” the girl says, her voice breaking. “Let me stay here. You don’t need me.”

  But it’s the only way to guarantee Cross won’t run. Rafe seems to realize this, taking her arm and ushering her out of the small room. You follow behind, turning off the light and making sure that, other than the ledger, everything is exactly in its place. When the baseball is turned left the door glides shut. The apartment is as immaculate as when you first entered. How long will it be before he realizes someone has been here? That his daughter didn’t just go out, that instead, she was taken?

  “We’re not going to hurt you.” When Rafe says it there’s a softness in his voice. Even when the girl pulls away he doesn’t fight her, just adjusts his hold as he ushers her toward the door. You stay on her other side.

  You want to believe what he said on the island.

  We’re not like them. We’re not murderers.

  “It’ll just be for a little while,” you say. “By tomorrow the whole world will know who your father is.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  RAFE IS STILL holding the gun underneath his sweatshirt when you pull up to Forty-Fourth Street. The girl—Alana—sits beside him, staring out the window. Her cheeks are red and wet. The whole ride she’s turned her hands over, squeezing them, picking at the skin around her fingers until it bled.

  You pay the cab driver as you all get out, and walk toward the warehouse’s doors. You keep the ledger close to your chest, knowing it’s exactly what Celia needs—evidence she can use to pull the case together.

  When you get into the cellar a few candles are lit. Salto is up, clutching her arm to her chest, her dark hair sticking to the sides of her face. Devon and Ben are there, but Devon’s shirt has a blood spatter on the sleeve.

  “What the hell happened?” Rafe asks. “Where’s Aggy?”

  Devon rubs his hands behind his head. He’s looking past you, his eyes washed over. “I didn’t see them. I didn’t know they were following us until they were there.”

  “They killed him?” you ask.

  “We were out getting food for everyone. Salto needed water. I was in front and Aggy was behind; he was making sure we were good. They chased us into this alley by the Manhattan Bridge. We started climbing the fence, but he got caught on the wire at the top. That’s when they shot him.”

  Ben and Devon notice Alana behind you. “Who is that?” Ben asks. “Why is she here?”

  “The apartment,” you say. “Cross wasn’t there. So we brought his daughter here . . . until we can get to him.”

  Salto shakes her head. “Are you out of your mind? What the hell are we going to do with her?”

  You hold up the ledger. “We have everything we need—all the names of the hunters, who they killed, when they joined. It’s all right here. Now we go to the police. He can’t run if we have her. He’s not going to leave her with us.”

  “They’re going to be looking for us more than ever now.” Devon paces the narrow room. “We’ve been at this base for too long. We have to leave.”

  You grab the beaten gray backpack beside the wall, throwing it at Devon. “So let’s go, then. There’s that park on the West Side Highway—the one with the baseball field. We can stay there until we figure this out.”

  “You’re okay with this?” Devon says, turning to Rafe.

  “It’s not my decision. . . .” he says.

  “What else are we going to do?” Ben asks.

  The girl sits against the wall, her face in her hands. You can hear her heavy, choked sobs. You’ve told her you won’t hurt her. It’s the truth. You won’t, and you won’t let anyone else either. You just have to get through the night.

  “We should move.” You grab your backpack, throwing one of the old blankets in the top. You offer the girl your hand but it takes her a minute to pull herself up, to wipe her cheeks.

  “I’ll call Celia on the way.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE PICTURES ARE spread out on the table. Celia stands across from D’Angelo, studying them. A podlike intercom sits beside them. Every now and then they hear Fitzpatrick drinking his coffee on the other end of the line. Celia’s never met him in person, but she imagines him as a little older than her, with fiery red hair and a freckled Irish complexion.

  This is the first time she’s seen the photos of Connor. Fitzpatrick sent the copies from New York. There’s a close-up of his tattoo, an image of a curled-up snake, with the code JSU02649 beneath it.

  “The hunter who did this,” Celia says, pointing to the picture of the bullet wound. “They knew the exact angle. The bullet went through the neck and into the brain—he died immediately. It was so precise.”

  “We’re calling them hunters now?” Fitzpatrick’s voice asks from the intercom.

  D’Angelo shakes her head. She has short, wavy, black hair she pins back with bobby pins, and eyes the color of espresso beans. “What else do you need to be convinced?” she asks. “I found a girl in Seattle with her throat slit with a hunter’s knife—same tattoo. When are you going to come to our side?”

  “There’s no sides,” Fitzpatrick says. “I’m just saying . . . a ring of people who hunt humans? It sounds a little sci-fi Tom Cruise–movie bullshit, huh?”

  “It doesn’t when you have targets—kids—who are willing to testify about what happened,” D’Angelo says. “We’re close. There’s a case here.”

  Celia isn’t interested in convincing Fitzpatrick. Now that they have the photos it’s already moving forward. She pulls out the other picture of the girl found under the bridge in Seattle, still unidentified, with the defense wounds on her right hand. She was trying to block them as they came at her. Her tattoo was slashed, but it’s there. The same one.

  “We don’t have a single name, though. Who are these people? You’re talking about a missing doctor and a guy who died in jail. No one’s going to believe they organized a national hunting league that starts on some tropical island.” Fitzpatrick’s voice fills the room. “You get me a—”

  “Hold on, Ed,” Celia says as her cell starts to ring. Blocked number. It could be her.

  Celia hits a few buttons and adds her to the line. “Lena?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “You’re on speaker. I’m here with an agent from Seattle—Agent D’Angelo. We have Fitzpatrick, an agent from New York, on the line, too. He was on the scene after they found Connor’s body.”

  “We found him—we found Cal,” Lena says. “His real name is Theodore Cross.”

  Celia sucks in a breath. “Where?”

  “I have his address for you. Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Theodore Cross, Ninety-Eight Vestry Street, New York, New York. We found a ledger in his apartment. It has all the hunters’ names, a
ddresses. Who they killed. Everything.”

  “You were in his apartment?” Celia tries not to sound angry, but it’s embarrassing. No matter how desperate Lena is, she was supposed to wait for information from her, not the other way around. How are they supposed to use evidence she got by breaking into someone’s house?

  “Don’t do anything else,” D’Angelo says. “We have to see what we can find on him. Something that doesn’t involve you stealing things from his apartment. That already discredits our case.”

  “I’ll read you the names. Follow any of them, anywhere—they’re killing targets right now, in every city. In New York.”

  Celia flips over one of the photos as Lena starts reciting the names. She scribbles them as fast as she can, sometimes double-checking the spelling of addresses and names. It takes her almost ten minutes to get all of them down.

  “Give us a few days,” Celia says when they’re done.

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s something else—we have his daughter. She was at his apartment when we went there and we took her with us.”

  Fitzpatrick explodes on the other end of the line. “You kidnapped her? What the hell were you thinking?”

  “We didn’t want him to run,” Lena says.

  Celia rubs a hand over her face. “You’re handing them reasons to throw out the case. They’ll arrest you, and we both know AAE has resources inside.”

  D’Angelo starts pacing the length of the conference room. She unbuttons the top of her dress shirt and airs it out.

  “Rafe didn’t want to wait,” Lena explains.

  Who the hell is Rafe? Celia tries to keep her breaths even. “Don’t do anything. I’m coming to New York. Fitzpatrick and I will arrange for you to get her back to the family, maybe set up some sort of meeting where he has to show. Give us twenty-four hours to see if we can find one of these hunters, get something concrete. We just need to catch them doing something illegal. We can arrest them and see if they’ll turn over Cross.”