by Stone, Kyla
Hannah waited patiently for the woman to say what she wanted to say. If she’d learned anything worthwhile during her years of captivity, it was patience.
Finally, CiCi nodded to herself. “I’ve got something for you, girl.”
36
Hannah
Day Six
Hannah entered CiCi’s bedroom. It was a bright, airy room with a quilted lavender bedspread and lacy curtains.
I’m not lonely here, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss someone to talk to. When my Ricardo was alive—” CiCi’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “Well, that’s neither here nor there, now is it? No use getting all misty-eyed for the things dead and gone. It’s the living that matter now.”
CiCi cleared her throat, turned, and went straight to her closet. “You can’t keep on wearin’ those baggy men’s clothes. I got some warm gear that’ll fit you well enough.”
Hannah’s chest went warm. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome to stay the night.”
“That’s very kind. I’ll talk to Liam.”
“I’ve even got an extra nightgown, if you want.”
Hannah went stiff, her jaw rigid. She shook her head. She would sleep in her clothes and boots. Easier to get up and run. A nightgown made you vulnerable.
Cici saw her face and nodded. “Fair enough.” She opened the closet and pulled down an old box from the top shelf. She removed the lid and pulled out a gun. “A Ruger American .45. The compact version. Seven round magazine.”
Hannah stared at it, eyes wide.
“It’s mine, but I use the Remington now. Old age bests us all in the end. I can’t shoot like I used to, not with these damn arthritic hands. A shotgun still gets the job done. I’ve got no need for this one anymore. Seems like you might.”
Hannah shook her head, took a step back. “I can’t take this.”
“Sure, you can. You just hold out your hands. Easy as pumpkin pie. The ‘thank you’ is optional. It’s yours, either way.”
“I don’t know how to use it.”
CiCi winked at her. “Lucky for you, you’ve got a good-lookin’ companion who does.”
Trepidation flushed through her. She wasn’t even sure why. “I can’t repay you.”
“You hear me ask for anythin’? I’m old enough to do what I damn well want to.”
CiCi grabbed Hannah’s good hand and thrust the gun into it.
Hannah’s fingers closed over the cool gray metal. It was lighter than she’d thought it’d be. She stared down at it. Such a small thing to contain so much power. Capable of killing a man. Maybe even a monster. “Thank you.”
“You got somethin’ to protect, don’t you?”
It took a moment for Hannah to realize the old woman meant the life growing inside her. Dread and doubt twisted her insides. “I guess I do,” she managed lamely.
“How far along are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
The woman’s gnarled eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Surely, you got an idea. I know I wouldn’t forget the fun of a good roll in the hay.”
Hannah blinked back a rush of bitter tears.
Instinctively, she touched her stomach with her deformed hand. Usually, she tried not to.
Her swelling stomach was a constant reminder of him, of what he’d done to her, of the evil he’d put inside her. It hurt too much to try and explain.
CiCi seemed to sense her resistance and took pity on her. “I thought six months when I first saw you, but up close, I see you just carry small. You’re much too thin. All skinny arms and legs and belly. But you’re carrying low. The babe’s already head down, I’d guess. You’re close, aren’t you?”
CiCi had just confirmed her fears. Worry gnawed at the back of Hannah’s mind. She was running out of time.
What would she do when it came? She had no idea. She’d done her best to push it out of her mind, to not think of it.
She couldn’t think about what happened last time. What he’d done.
The darkness came calling, whispering in her mind. Her chest went cold. A wave of dizziness washed over her. She leaned on the nearby dresser, her legs weak and shaky.
“You all right?” CiCi asked, sounding almost far away.
The blood. The pain. The thin, ragged cry.
Terror moved through her, mounting like waves upon a roiling sea, black wave after black wave. Desperately she scanned the room, searching for something to count, for a way to anchor herself.
The faded gold stripes in the ancient wallpaper. One, two three... She counted them again and then a second time. Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven…
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Hannah blinked. The warm, cozy room came slowly back into focus. The old woman with her flowery housedress, long johns, and compassionate eyes in her wizened face.
She sucked in her breath, forced herself back to the present. She was safe. He wasn’t here, wasn’t hurting her.
But he was still somewhere out there, prowling the hundreds of miles of national forest. Maybe making his way closer, ever closer.
“I…I’m sorry.” Hannah wiped cold sweat from her forehead. Guilt pricked her. She was being hunted. She needed to warn CiCi that the evil that tracked her might come here, too, to this warm and cozy home. “I need to tell you something. You might not want us to stay. There’s—there’s someone after me. A bad man. He wants to hurt me. He could come here.”
CiCi snorted. “Honey, I know how to take care of myself.”
“But if he—”
“I’m plenty familiar with bad men and what they do. That’s what my Remington is for.”
Hannah nodded politely. “But—”
“Weren’t you listening before? I live alone way out here, and that’s my choice. I’m going to live and die on my terms and I’m grateful for each day, come what may.” She clucked her tongue. “Don’t you worry none ‘bout me.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. At least she’d tried. “Okay.”
“It’s none of my damn business, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” CiCi took hold of her arm just above the elbow and squeezed. “I see fear in you.”
Instinctively, Hannah shied away, but CiCi wouldn’t let go. The old woman’s eyes bored straight into her, like she could see all the way into the dark pit of her soul.
“That’s what I mean,” CiCi said. “There’s two kinds of fear. Healthy fear keeps you alive. It’s that gut instinct we women tend to ignore. You listen to that, you keep breathin’. Fear warns you to pay attention. To get out. To stand your ground and fight. Fear’s the body’s warnin’ system. Without it, we’re the deer trapped in the middle of the road stunned by oncomin’ headlights. Roadkill every time.”
“And the other kind of fear?” Hannah asked hoarsely.
“That second kinda fear takes hold of you and don’t let go. It sinks its claws in and turns you into somethin’ you’re not. That fear destroys you from the inside out.”
Hannah swallowed. She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure she could. But she knew exactly what CiCi meant. She lived it every second of every day.
CiCi released her arm. “You got that fear in you, but you don’t have to keep it, girl. You’re the only one who can choose. It don’t matter what’s out there.” She tapped her own chest. “It’s what’s in here that counts.”
“How—how do you get rid of it?”
CiCi rolled her eyes. “If I could tell you, it’d be too easy, wouldn’t it?” She tilted her chin at the weapon clutched in Hannah’s hand. “Start with that. You’ll figure it out from there.”
37
Pike
Day Seven
Pike watched the shabby white clapboard house through the scope of his rifle. The smell of woodsmoke filled his nostrils. He needed a cigarette, and badly.
Smoke billowed from the chimney. The curtains were open. He caught brief glimpses of movement through the kitchen windows. A hunched old Hispanic woman.
Two pairs
of boot tracks and one dog clearly led to the front door and inside.
He’d tracked them here easily enough, always staying downwind. All he needed was the damn dog alerting them.
First chance he got, he was shooting the mutt in the head.
Big fat snowflakes tumbled down from the gray evening sky. It would be dark soon. It had been snowing for a while and wouldn’t let up anytime soon.
No matter. Their tracks were deep and easy to follow.
Pike slung the rifle across his chest, readjusted his pack, and rose from his prone position beneath a large fir tree. He brushed snow and brown pine needles from his coat and pants.
He pulled out a cigarette and put it to his lips. He fished out his Zippo and stood turning it in his fingers, the old familiar weight of it, before at last clicking it open and flicking the flint wheel once and raising the flame to his face.
He tasted the smoke in his lungs, felt the nicotine speeding to his brain. He smoked the cigarette down, dropped it to the snow, and crushed it under his boot toe.
Now he was ready. Keeping inside the tree line, he made a slow circle around the house, searching for where the tracks picked up again.
It hadn’t taken him long to realize the woman was alone in the house. They’d already left by the time he reached the house.
They’d been here. That was what mattered.
Scowling, he circled again. The snow was falling harder, obscuring his vision further than a few dozen yards. That shouldn’t matter. Human tracks in two feet of snow were clear as day. A child could follow them.
He still didn’t find them. Where were they?
He slogged through the snow, retracing his steps to the edge of the clearing. Footprints crisscrossed the yard, leading to and from the woods in several directions.
Carefully, he scanned the property again until he found two sets of prints and the dog’s. The dog’s paw prints were spread wide and far apart, like it was bounding ahead of the man and the girl.
They’d exited the house, crossed the clearing, and entered the woods in a southwestern direction. The prints weren’t from boots. They were wide and shallow. Snowshoes.
Once inside the woods, he lost the tracks within a few hundred yards. The snow was windswept, peppered with fallen pinecones and small branches and littered with animal tracks. Regular brush-like indentations were barely visible beneath the newly fallen snow.
He cursed under his breath. They’d attempted to cover their tracks by brushing pine boughs behind them.
Even without the pitiful attempt to deceive him, the shallow tracks would fill quickly. He would lose them in less than an hour at this rate.
After the woods, they could hit any one of a half-dozen small towns, depending on where they exited the Manistee National Forest.
He turned and glared back at the house, rage filling him, searing through his veins, boiling his insides. His fingers tightened on the rifle.
The occupant of that house had done this. The lone decrepit old woman. She’d harbored them.
Maybe she knew where they were headed next. She would tell him, and he could intercept his prey with a surprise ambush.
Even if she couldn’t tell him anything useful, it didn’t matter.
He would make her suffer for helping them. She would pay, bone by bone.
Dusk had fallen. The shadows deepened over the snow, the moon completely hidden. Using the cover of dusk, he crept across the clearing to the side of the house. He peered inside the window into the kitchen.
An oil lantern glowed on the counter. The woman wasn’t in the kitchen.
Through the hallway leading out of the kitchen, he glimpsed a small living room and a set of wooden stairs leading up to the bedrooms.
He moved silently to the second window. This one offered a good view of the living room through the thin lacy curtains.
The old woman was slumped in an oversized La-Z-Boy brown chair. Her stockinged feet were up on an ottoman, a glass of water on the end table beside the chair. A shotgun leaned against the chair next to her legs.
A book lay open on her chest, which rose and fell gently. Her eyes were closed. She was dozing—or maybe already asleep.
Pike’s lips curved in a slow smile.
Excitement built inside him. His pulse quickened. This would be child’s play. An appetizer before the main meal. Something to hold him over.
The frigid air scalded his throat, burned his nostrils. It didn’t bother him. He barely noticed the snow blanketing his head and shoulders. He was focused, alert, completely dialed in.
He inhaled the woodsmoke, the clean white snow, the sharp pine, and damp and loamy earth beneath it all—every sense alive and thrumming with power.
Still crouching, he moved silently to the rear door into the kitchen. He slipped off his hiking backpack and the rifle and set them both on the back steps beneath the porch overhang.
He only needed his knife and his bare hands for this.
From one of the pockets of his pack, he pulled out a slim lockpick case. Lockpicking was a skill that had served him well dozens of times. Today, it worked again.
He inserted the pick into the keyhole of the old lock, felt for the tumblers, and listened carefully. He heard the satisfying click.
He slid the door open, degree by degree, anticipating a creak or squeak, but it opened smoothly and silently. He closed it quietly behind him.
He stood for a moment in front of the door. He let his eyes adjust, his ears straining for any sound, any movement, but he heard nothing.
His boots were wet from the melting snow. He considered taking them off to move with utter silence. It wasn’t needed. She was a weak old woman. Even if he didn’t surprise her, what could she possibly do to him?
He reconsidered. She did have the shotgun.
Caution had gotten him this far. Smarts and cunning. Preparing for every contingency, no matter how simple or easy the task appeared.
He bent and unlaced his boots, removing them with great care. He moved without a sound in his wool socks, prowling with the ease and grace of a panther through the kitchen into the living room.
The brown leather La-Z-Boy faced away from him, toward the fireplace. The fire snapped and crackled. The flickering firelight cast heavy shadows.
The room smelled of cinnamon, charcoal, and the faint medicinal smell that always seemed to emanate from old people. He hated it.
Pike drew his tactical knife from the sheath at his belt. The razor edge gleamed, the edge honed so sharp it would split a human hair with ease. Or a human throat.
Pike snuck up behind the woman. Killing her quickly would be as simple as gutting a deer or slicing the throat of a hare caught in a snare.
But he wanted her alive long enough to give him the information he needed. What happened after that depended completely on his mood.
He raised the knife.
The old woman swayed to her feet, the shotgun gripped in her arthritic hands, trembling finger on the trigger.
38
Pike
Day Seven
His fury surging, Pike lunged in and smacked the weapon out of the old woman’s hands.
The shotgun went off with a thunderous boom. His ears rang from the blast. He faltered for a second, dazed.
The shot missed, the muzzle aimed toward the window instead of at him. The blast shattered the glass and peppered the bookshelf on the wall to his right with buckshot.
The shotgun clattered to the floor.
The old woman bent to retrieve it.
Pike came to his senses and kicked it out of the way. It went skittering across the floor and struck the brick lintel of the fireplace.
He whirled on the woman and punched her in the face with his left fist.
She collapsed into the chair, blood gushing from her broken nose. She let out a low moan and a string of unintelligible curses.
He shifted his knife to his left hand and seized her shriveled upper arm with his right. Without a word, he ha
uled her up and dragged her stumbling and lurching into the kitchen.
He hurled her into a chair. She landed with a soft thud.
He punched her twice in the stomach. She gasped, choking. The fight went out of her. She crumpled in on herself, shriveling before his eyes like a dried-up old raisin.
She should’ve been put down like a dog years ago.
“Where are they?” he snarled.
“Who?” she forced out between ragged breaths.
“This can go two ways for you. Easy or hard. The choice is yours.”
She gazed up at him, hatred blazing in her eyes. “Go to hell.”
He waved the knife at her. “Where did they go? I know they were here. I know you let them in this house, in this very kitchen. I can smell wet dog everywhere.” He angled his knife at a bowl of half-eaten dog food and drool-laced water next to the fridge. “See?”
“That’s—that’s from my dog.”
“Oh yeah? Where is it?”
She glared up at him silently.
He sheathed his knife and seized her wrinkled left hand. She tried to pull away, but she was much too weak to fight him. “One finger per answer. You give me the correct answer, I won’t break a finger. You lie to me? Well, you can guess the consequence.”
“You.” Her rheumy eyes widened. “You’re the monster. The one that put that fear in her.”
He smiled. Recognition was far too underrated. It was the one negative to what he did, what he was. He never received the accolades or the glory.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
“You should be.”
“Shall we begin? I know she was here. All you have to do is tell me where she’s going. Just a word or two. That’s all.”
She groaned and hunched over, her skin ashen. A withered old hag. She mumbled something, her voice so hoarse and scratchy, he couldn’t hear her.
