Iron House

by John Hart

  Elena didn’t wait around. She bolted through the door, into damp grass and the cool air of a brand-new day. She felt that air on her cheeks, very cold, and knew that she was crying, that strange sounds filled her ears and that they were coming from her. She looked at the cars, and doubted they would lead to an easy escape. Keys were on surfaces in the house, in the pockets of dead men, and she had no time for that. Jimmy was hurt, but not dead. She looked at the woods, which were deep and dark, then remembered the guns she’d seen scattered in the house, some on tables, other spilled from loose hands. Instinct screamed for the woods, for shadows and cover, a million places to hide.

  For an instant she was torn, then ran for the house, the guns, and got one foot on the steps when she heard Jimmy scream as a shot crashed out. She looked back. He’d fallen to one knee, but was coming up.

  The gun, too, was coming up.

  “Ahhh…”

  He yelled, and lurched as a second shot snapped out and struck the house. Blood was in his eyes, the skin split between them. He smeared a sleeve across his face, and Elena doubted he would miss a third time. She leapt off the stairs and sprinted for the forest. It was all she had, woods and dark and hope.

  Ninety seconds in, she knew she was in trouble. Leaves layered the forest floor, but the ground beneath was stony hard. At a dead run, she kicked an unseen rock, and felt toes break.

  She went down, hurt.

  And Jimmy was coming.

  She saw him at the wood’s edge, smooth and fast and whisper-quiet. He moved as if all his rage was channeled to that single purpose. He ducked limbs and slipped between trunks as if he’d been born in the woods. He flowed, face streaked red, and called out when he saw her.

  “Right side first, I think.”

  Elena dragged herself up, ran on broken toes. The pain was exquisite, but fear made a fist around her heart, its fingernails long and black and chisel-sharp.

  Please, God …

  She found a gulley and tumbled in; splashed through puddles as roots touched her face, and damp air clogged her throat. She staggered as muddy walls rose up. For long, sweet seconds she thought she’d lost him, but the walls dropped off after fifty yards. Jimmy ran parallel, and his face was a hunter’s face.

  “Little girl…”

  He was mocking her. She turned away, ran faster as the world blackened at its edges. There was only the run and the breath in her lungs. Trees pressed in, branches like hooks. She stumbled and rolled, popped back up. Ran. A ditch appeared; she leapt it.

  And that was all it took.

  She landed in a hole obscured by rotting leaves, and her ankle broke with the sound of cracking plastic. Pitching forward, she went down for keeps, crippled, hurt and frozen to her core. The leaves smelled of decay, and she curled in the desperate hope that she might sink into them and disappear. It didn’t happen. Metal scraped, and a whiff of bitter smoke filled her nose.

  “That’s a shame.”

  The voice was behind her and god-awful, terribly close. She saw a stream of thin, blue smoke that gathered as it slowed. She turned her head. Jimmy stood just a few feet away, one hand on his bloody side, the other holding a cigarette between two fingers locked straight. Red smears made a mask around his eyes, but he carried it like war paint, and the effect was terrifying, the blood and calm, the velvet jacket and cigarette smoke.

  Elena looked down, and saw the twisted mess of her ankle. The skin was white where bone pushed against it; everywhere else it was dark and starting to swell. She rolled onto her back, and it twisted as she moved.

  Screams and tears.

  A handful of hard, black seconds.

  When her vision cleared, Jimmy was squatting by her side. “Let me help you.”

  “Don’t touch it…”

  He pinned her leg with his knee.

  “No. Don’t. Please…”

  The foot had twisted sideways. He held her down and pulled it straight. When her senses returned, pain led the way, then memory. Jimmy sat cross-legged in the dirt, her injured leg in his lap, toes pointing the way they should. She saw bluish whiskers on his face, the ruin of her ankle.

  And she saw her cell phone.

  “We’re going to call Michael now.”

  Sunlight licked his eyes and made them look like glass. He laid a hand on the curve of her knee, and looked down his nose, mouth slightly open as he dialed. “I hope we get reception…”

  Talking to himself. Holding the phone higher.

  “I won’t set him up for you.”

  She had to force the words; thought she was in shock.

  “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. Ah. There we go.” Elena heard a faint trill from the phone. Jimmy pushed it against her face.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Shhh. It’s okay. Just say hello.”

  “Oh, God. Just—”

  “There he is,” Jimmy whispered.

  Elena heard it, too.

  His voice, so clear and close she almost broke.

  “Michael…” The phone was hard against her ear, the forest very still. “Michael, listen…”

  Jimmy grabbed her foot, twisted.

  And Elena screamed a forever scream.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Michael hit the parking lot at a fast walk. He’d been around long enough to know the feel of things coming together. Pieces were shifting in his mind, working for the fit. He didn’t have the picture yet, but believed now that it would come. He had this thing about Slaughter Mountain.

  Call it a conviction.

  He unlocked the Mercedes, fired it up and blew out of the parking lot, map open on the seat beside him.

  Slaughter Mountain. Salina Slaughter.

  The words tumbled over each other in his head. There was history at Slaughter Mountain, money, politicians, connective tissue. If Michael was to save Julian, he needed to know more about the makeup of that tissue. Was it linked to Iron House? The boys from Iron House? Could it be connected to the senator? Michael heard the old man from the gas station.

  Money. Politicians. Parties.

  He reached the edge of town.

  Word is they raped that mountain bare.

  Michael wondered at the origin of Randall Vane’s money. Could that be the connection? He was chewing on that question when the phone went off in his pocket. He dug it out, looked at the screen and then cut the wheel right, tamping hard on the brakes as the car hammered rough pavement and slewed to a stop on the edge of the road. The world was empty around him; hope a warm glow as the weight of her absence lifted.

  “Elena?”

  “Michael…”

  “Thank God, baby—”

  “Michael, listen…”

  Something was off in her voice, something bad. He looked down the long snake of twisted road, and Elena started screaming.

  “Elena!”

  He pushed the phone against his ear.

  “Elena!”

  The screaming went on for a long time. He bore it because he had no choice, and because he knew how the game would play. Jimmy wanted something. Or Stevan. They wanted him dead, and this was their play, so Michael gripped the phone and died inside as Elena’s voice rose and broke and finally failed. He listened to the sobs, so pale with rage and hurt that when Jimmy came on the line, Michael looked as if God himself had turned him to stone.

  “I suppose you know what I want?”

  “Your life?” Michael said it coldly. “You can’t have it.”

  Jimmy laughed, but said, “No, no. Too late for humor.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Jimmy. You shouldn’t have made this personal.”

  “Oh, Michael. Still acting as if the old man were alive to cover your ass.”

  “You know how this will end.”

  “Of course, I do. That’s why I called you. It’s why I’ve been entertaining your friend.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “And you will. Right after you bring me sixty-seve
n million dollars.”

  There it was. Michael was not surprised. Rumors of the old man’s money ran long and deep. “Let me talk to Stevan.” Jimmy laughed, and Michael understood. “Stevan is dead.”

  Elena screamed again, louder, longer. When it was over, Jimmy said, “This is not a discussion. I want the numbers. Either you have them or you don’t.”

  “I have them. Don’t do that again.”

  “Where are you?”

  Michael looked at the empty street, the high pink stone of a distant mountain. “Five hours away.”

  Elena screamed.

  “I’m in the mountains! I swear it! Five hours. I swear, Jimmy. I can be there in five hours. I have what you want. A few hours. Don’t hurt her again. Please.”

  “You really love her, don’t you?”

  “I’m begging you.”

  Jimmy was silent for a moment. Michael squeezed the phone until his hand ached. Finally, Jimmy said, “I’ll give you four. Call when you hit town. I’ll tell you how to find me.”

  “Four hours is not enough time—”

  “Four hours, and don’t be late. This phone’s running low on juice.”

  “I’d like to talk to her.”

  “Sixty-seven million, Michael.”

  “Jimmy…”

  “You’d better have it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Abigail took coffee on the rear terrace. An awning shaded her from the low sun, but light glinted off the lake. She was clean, dressed in attire she deemed appropriately somber. Cops had been on the lake since dawn, and as far as she knew, another body could come up any minute. That’s how uncertain life had become, how tenuous the bonds of normalcy.

  She sipped as she watched, said nothing as the senator dropped into a seat beside her. “If they find another one,” he said, disgusted, “I’ll kill someone myself.”

  She looked at the boat and saw thin, black lines come in over the side. Water trailed from metal hooks, and as they flew out again, someone in the boat turned her way, looked up the hill and shaded his eyes. It was Jacobsen, she thought. He had that stiff, officious air.

  Vane poured coffee. “Three bodies and the whole damn world watching. There’ll be subpoenas soon, warrants for the house. They’ll want Julian in custody, I suspect. Interrogation, at the very least. It’s a goddamn disaster.”

  He added cream, and she said, “I won’t let you take Michael down.”

  “What?”

  Her skin was washed of color, her eyes clear even though she’d been up all night, thinking. “You’ll drag him down for no good reason. You’ll ruin him for your own cause.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “I know how you work, Randall. I’ve seen you do it before.”

  He smiled, but convinced no one. “It would be nothing sinister, Abigail, just public relations, just politics. Smoke and mirrors. It wouldn’t stick.”

  “I won’t let you do it.”

  “You couldn’t stop me if your life depended on it.”

  “Is that some kind of threat?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, keep those offensive comments to yourself, Randall. I know how the world works.”

  He frowned, changed the subject. “You were seen with Victorine Gautreaux this morning. You brought her to the house.”

  “I gave her Julian’s medicine.”

  “Why?”

  Abigail watched boats move for the shore. “Because he’s delusional. Because he needs it.”

  “I mean, why did you let her go? Do you even know where Julian is?”

  “In the woods, I suspect.”

  “He needs to be controlled.”

  “Until his head is clear, I’d prefer him anywhere but here. He’s hallucinating.”

  “But you hate that family.”

  “I hate Caravel. There’s a difference. The daughter surprised me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I was impressed.”

  “How could the white trash daughter of a white trash whore possibly impress you? What could she have possibly said?”

  “She wants a better life. Julian is helping her.”

  “I bet he is.”

  “Must you be so juvenile? She’s an artist. Carves bone, apparently. Something her grandmother taught her. She must be exceptional at it.”

  “Because Julian wants to bang her?”

  “Because for all Julian’s faults,” Abigail finally raised her voice, “he is a man of exquisite taste. If he says she has talent, she does. He sent her work to New York. He got her a showing at one of the finer galleries. His publisher wants to do a book.”

  “About bones?”

  “About a disappearing art form. About an illiterate child who does this exceptional thing.”

  “Artists. Writers. Jesus. How did my life come to this?” The senator stood. “If you need me, I’ll be with the lawyers. They’re bloodsuckers, but at least I understand them.”

  He got halfway to the door before Abigail stopped him. “What I said about Michael…” She waited for him to look back. “I meant it. If you try to hurt him, I’ll take it personally.”

  The senator smiled thinly. “You would choose him over me?”

  “Don’t force the choice.”

  “Sometimes, Abigail, it’s you who I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps it’s best that way.”

  “And perhaps not.”

  The senator left; she finished her coffee.

  Two hours later, they came for Julian.

  * * *

  Michael heard about it on the radio. He was doing 110 on the interstate, eyes wide for state troopers, weapon cocked on the seat beside him. He’d never killed a cop or a civilian, but knew Jimmy well enough to know that four hours meant four hours.

  The needle touched 120.

  He checked the rearview mirror again, turned up the radio.

  “… sources close to the investigation indicate an arrest warrant has been issued for Julian Vane, the internationally best-selling children’s author and adopted son of Senator Randall Vane. Authorities have converged on the sprawling estate…”

  They had few details, but the story was sensational. Celebrity. Politics. Multiple bodies. When it was over, he called Abigail. “How’s Julian?”

  “Michael? Where are you?”

  He heard voices in the background, a low, vital hum. “Is he arrested?”

  “No, but they’re looking for him, and its only a matter of time. He can’t hide forever, and if he runs, God alone knows what’ll happen. I’m coming apart, Michael. Randall says the warrant is trumped up, but it won’t matter. If they arrest him, they’ll break him. You said it yourself. He can’t handle it.”

  “I’m on the road—”

  “Don’t come here!”

  Michael hesitated as hairs stood up on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just … don’t.”

  Michael thought for long seconds. “I need my gun,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  He pictured Elena, broken in some dark hole; Jimmy with an unknown number of men, and a full day to prepare. Michael had the forty-five, and that was it. “The nine millimeter you took from my car. I need it. I don’t have time to find another one.”

  “What’s going on, Michael? Please don’t tell me you’re in trouble, too.”

  “Can you get it?”

  “Yes, of course. But—”

  “Where can we meet?”

  * * *

  Abigail descended shallow, mossy steps and knocked on Jessup’s door. She knocked again, then opened the door and stepped into the low, spare room. Dim light filtered through covered windows. A teakettle whistled on a small stove in the kitchen alcove. “Jessup?” She lifted the kettle from the heat. It was light, most of the water boiled away. The whistle died, and she turned off the stove. “Jessup?”

  The bedroom door stood ajar. Inside, she saw Jessup. He wore a crisp, white shirt, buttoned at the cuffs, black
pants, a black tie and shoes that had been recently shined. He sat on the edge of a narrow bed that was tightly made. His back was rigid and straight, head bent so that his neck creased at the collar.

  “Do you remember when you gave this to me?”

  He kept his head down, but lifted a hand so she could see the small cross that swung from a platinum chain. She’d given it to him for Christmas on their fifth year together. They’d become very close, and he’d told her one cold night that he believed in hell. Not the vague concept of it, but the physical place: a lake of fire and remembrance. There’d been weight on his shoulders when he said it, tears in his eyes and sweet, dark whiskey on his breath. He was one of the strongest men she knew, and he was breaking. She’d always imagined some terrible thing that haunted him: the barbarism of war, a breach of faith or some poor woman broken to the marrow. But he would never talk about it.

  “I remember.”

  She stepped closer, rounding the end of the bed. His eyes were sunken, cheeks drawn. The nine millimeter lay on the bed beside his leg.

  He let the cross swing. “Did you know then that we would spend our lives together?”

  “How could I have known such a thing? I was barely into my twenties.”

  She stared at the gun. Jessup shook his head. “Yet, here we are, twenty years later.”

  “And you have been the most perfect friend.”

  He laughed, but the laugh was broken.

  Abigail hesitated. “Is that Michael’s gun?”

  His hand moved unerringly to the gun, and Abigail was reminded that Jessup Falls was a dangerous man. That was the reason her husband hired him. Ex-special forces. Ex-cop. Her driver and bodyguard.

  “Yes.”

  His voice remained empty, and Abigail thought of screaming kettles and boiled-off water. She wondered how long he’d been sitting in the dark, a cross in his hands and a gun by his side. For that instant, Abigail felt as if she knew nothing of this man at all, but when he looked up, his gaze was familiar and fresh and raw. “I thought for a long time that you loved me…”