by James Tucker
Sitting on a white duvet, Mei was reading to Ben. The boy was under the duvet and staring at the pages of the book, silently following along. Both leaned against the pillows in the queen-sized bed. Mei, despite her exhaustion, glowed in the light from the bedside table. Ben appeared small and vulnerable, but he was mesmerized by her soothing voice.
Buddy noted the vertical blinds were closed, just as in Mei’s bedroom. He said, “Good night to both of you. I’m headed back to the city.”
Mei stopped reading and looked up. Her expression warmed.
Ben sat up. “But you’re coming tomorrow night, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And I’ll stay over then or the following night.”
Ben seemed satisfied.
Mei said, “Come give me a kiss.”
He went around to her side of the bed, leaned down, and gently kissed her lips. Then he kissed the side of her head.
As he did, she turned her face and murmured, “We have a lot to talk about.”
Chapter Forty-Two
A few minutes later Ward stood with Buddy by the front door. When Ward put his hand up to the luminous green surface of the security system’s fingerprint reader, the reader turned gray, and he unlocked the door.
They stood on the bluestone patio, their breath making clouds in the landscape lighting.
Ward said, “If the legal system will allow it, you’re going to adopt Ben, aren’t you?”
Buddy stuck his hands in his coat pockets and shook his head. “I can’t imagine having a child. I mean, not really.”
Ward turned toward him. “He’s a great kid. Why not?”
Buddy said, “Easy for you to say. You have everything. All the resources you’d need for a kid.”
Ward’s eyes narrowed. “I have everything?”
“Yeah,” Buddy said, waving a hand at the extensive grounds, the mansion. “Look around.”
Ward kept his eyes on Buddy’s. “Your perspective is off. It’s I who envy you. From where I’m standing, you have everything. Purpose, for one thing. Yes, your job. It matters. Another thing you have? The love of a smart, very beautiful woman. And the possibility of adopting a boy like Ben. My wife”—here Ward pointed at Buddy’s chest—“was murdered. And before that, before you and I had reconnected, she had three miscarriages. So we decided to adopt. But Anna was murdered in Rome. She’s buried somewhere in the Tiber or out in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Her life ended and so did mine. Now the agencies would have nothing to do with me—I’m single and had a holiday in a psych ward. Now you’re all I have.”
Buddy shook his head, not understanding.
Ward said, “You, Mei, and Ben—if he joins your family. Our family.”
Our family. Buddy stood in the cold, thinking about this. He hadn’t known about Anna’s miscarriages or her and Ward’s decision to adopt. And he’d never have guessed that Ward might envy him. It seemed impossible. He’d always believed that Ward had been the one with everything.
He heard Ward go back inside and lock the door behind him. Buddy imagined him setting the alarm system. Although he looked around and didn’t see or hear Ward’s security service and the Rottweilers patrolling the grounds, he knew they were out in the darkness, just beyond the illuminated landscaping nearer the mansion. He noted the stillness and peacefulness of the big lawn bordered by woods.
It’s safe here, he thought as he walked along the crushed-rock drive, climbed into the Charger, and began his drive back to Manhattan.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ben lay awake, listening to the sounds of the unfamiliar house. It was very quiet—much different than his family’s town house in the city. He decided that he liked the quiet, but wished Buddy had been able to stay.
In the darkness he sighed and turned over.
He thought of Buddy’s arrival that evening, the way Buddy had smiled and given him a big hug when he climbed out of the pool. Buddy had gone to the city for him, so that once again he’d be safe. It was just . . . it was just that he wanted Buddy to stay near him. He felt safe when Buddy was around. Almost happy. Not that he didn’t miss his mother and father and Ellen-Marie. He missed them so much that if he really thought about them, he wouldn’t be able to survive each hour of the day. Although he tried to suppress his memories, they were always hovering at the edge of his thinking.
He heard himself sob. Tried not to cry. But he couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t halt the sense of utter loneliness. And yet he wasn’t quite alone. He began to feel something like hope, or at least the possibility of hope, since he’d met Buddy and Mei. They care for me, he told himself as he imagined Buddy’s comforting bulk and Mei’s gentleness. They care about me. When he imagined going to live with his aunts and uncles, he felt sick with fear. He couldn’t live with them. He had the premonition that if Buddy and Mei gave him up and forced him to live with Uncle Carl or Uncle Dietrich, he’d be killed in a way that was even worse than how his family had died.
He forced himself to inhale and exhale, slowly.
But then the familiar sensation of alarm overtook him. What if, he thought, Buddy and Mei don’t want me?
What will I do?
Where will I go?
Who will love me?
Anyone?
Chapter Forty-Four
Mei removed the panic bracelet, set it on the bathroom vanity, and stepped into the shower.
The water fell onto her back, its heat soothing her neck and shoulder muscles. Her neck was sore from lying on Ben’s bed and tilting down her head to read from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She’d no idea why Ward had the book in his library. Probably something from his own childhood. Ben had followed the story carefully for about twenty minutes and then turned aside to sleep. She’d slipped from the bed, set the book on the night table, and switched off the light. She’d wanted to read more, to feel his boy’s form curled up against her, to hear his clear, inquisitive voice ask questions just a while longer. She thought his light-brown eyes so expressive, his long hair so handsome, his dependence endearing. She couldn’t understand how anyone could wish to hurt him. Instinctively, she wanted to protect and help him.
And then she closed her eyes as she recalled his statement at dinner.
You even have a bedroom for me.
When she’d told Buddy that tomorrow they needed to talk, she meant that they needed to talk about how he felt about Ben. She didn’t know if she could love Ben, but she thought perhaps she could. But how would he—how could he—fit into their busy lives? How much did it matter that they weren’t related to him? That she and Buddy had never met his parents and didn’t know what they’d have wanted for him?
After her shower she dried off and opened the large tote that Buddy had packed for her. She found a sleeveless T-shirt and short pajama bottoms, and put them on. Having Ward see her once in almost nothing was one too many times. She withdrew her cosmetic bag, put moisturizer on her face, and then brushed her teeth. After switching off the light, crossing the hallway to her bedroom, and closing and locking the door, she climbed into bed and pulled the thick duvet over herself. She soon felt warm and comfortable. Tomorrow night, Buddy would join her here, and it would be hot under the duvet.
As she entered a deep sleep, she didn’t remember that for the second consecutive night she’d left the panic bracelet on the bathroom vanity. She also didn’t notice that the room was perfectly still. That the warm air coming through the registers had ceased. That the furnace had stopped. That the house had lost power.
Chapter Forty-Five
The lone figure outside the house moved forward.
The two men patrolling with Rottweilers had separated. They walked the property in clockwise circles.
After the lone figure had broken into the garage and switched off the power, he cut the line for the backup generator, cut the landline for the alarm system, and then slipped back into the woods bordering the house, always careful to remain downwind of the dogs.
The two men on patrol had seen the
exterior lights go out, but instead of panicking, they’d kept their watch of the estate. Ward or Ms. Gallatin had shut off the lights, they assumed. They kept a buffer between them: one man and dog on one side of the house, one man and the second dog on the other. They believed this to be a comprehensive method, yet it was a mistake.
From downwind the figure crept up on one of the patrols behind the house. With stealth and grace he swung the hatchet at the guard’s neck. No sound as the man fell. The Rottweiler turned in surprise and bewilderment. He stepped on the leash and with his fist hit the dog in the head, knocking it out. It lay there, panting softly.
He ran clockwise, around to the front of the house, gaining speed. Ahead were the second guard and Rottweiler turning the far corner of the house, where they’d pass by the garage and then move along the darkly lit rear. Faster. Faster. He was a blur of black in the black night, his face indistinct under a black mask.
He felt the anticipation of what would come. Of the young boy’s death, which couldn’t be helped. Tonight was simply another piece of the plan set in motion at Camp Kateri. For what the family had done. The figure inhaled the crisp night air. He was fully alive, agile, a powerful athlete. He charged toward the garage.
The second guard and Rottweiler marched through the darkness. As they rounded the garage and headed along the back of the house, the dog smelled blood and death ahead. It strained at the leash, pulling hard and growling. Its ears lay flat against its large head. The guard jogged forward, his attention in front of him. He didn’t watch his six. He had no warning and likely felt a sharp pain, and then nothing, as the hatchet blade nearly decapitated him. The hatchet was swung with practiced ease. A wide arc that gathered speed as it traveled, barely slowing as it cut through skin, muscle, arteries, and the spinal column just below the brain stem. The guard crumpled to the ground, his heart pumping blood up through his carotids, throwing a foul mist into the air.
The dog turned and leaped at the lone figure, but the figure was ready. He kicked the dog backward, stood over it, and twice punched it in the head. Now it lay quietly, breathing but with its eyes closed.
Everything was still.
He approached the house and set the hatchet on the ground. This was a new tool, bought that very morning. Beginning New Year’s Eve, this hatchet’s predecessor had proved to be a very effective weapon. Tonight, this one had proved the same.
He removed the small mountaineering backpack that contained two items: a portable glass cutter and a Beretta 9 mm with a modified suppressor attached to the barrel. Wearing form-fitting rubber gloves, he stuck the gun between waistband and skin, and returned the hatchet, dripping with blood and tissue and cartilage, to the backpack. After withdrawing the glass cutter and fastening the backpack and putting it on, he approached the ground floor windows at the back of the house.
There appeared to be two adjacent bedrooms, each with a wide pane of glass set in a casement. Each windowsill measured about three feet off the ground. This made for great views but poor security. He approached one window and then the other, trying to see through the blinds to determine where the boy was sleeping. In the left bedroom, he could make out nothing. The blind fitted almost flush against the window jamb. A few paces to the right, he attempted to look between the other bedroom window’s blind and the window jamb. He squinted. A muted night-light cast a weak glow over the room. The bed was a Japanese platform, very low. From the cold outside he could see what appeared to be a small person asleep. A small person with dark hair. The woman or the boy, he determined, it didn’t matter which.
He held the glass cutter up toward the window. The base of the cutter had a black suction device on one side that would anchor it to the window. Extending out from it, connected to the base, was a stainless steel arm ending in a steel claw that held a diamond-tipped blade. Quietly but confidently he pushed the base and its suction cup against the window. After a moment he stopped supporting the cutter. Its seal was tight against the window. He put one hand on the cutter’s base, and the other on the claw that held the blade. The steel arm was thirty-six inches long, and its diamond tip moved slowly in a large arc around the base as he pulled it in a circle. The blade made almost no sound as it cut the glass. He didn’t stop halfway, to see if the figure in the bedroom had stirred. He simply continued. His pulse jumped.
When the blade had moved three hundred sixty degrees, he lifted the steel arm and blade away from the glass, and then in a swift, powerful motion, pulled on the base and suction cup.
The disc of cut glass popped out, almost silently, invisible in the darkness.
He waited ten seconds. No alarm. No sirens. But he knew the alarm system likely had a cellular backup. In five minutes the police would be here.
He peered through the round hole in the window and parted the blinds. No visible movement within the bedroom. He set the glass on the snow and peeled the rubberlike suction cup from the glass. After stowing the glass cutter in the backpack and again strapping on the pack, he approached the window. Put both hands through the hole and spread them wide on the wood floor. Then he pulled up through the hole and into the bedroom.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mei woke to an odd sound. Was it a piece of china set on a table?
Strange. And though she was under the heavy duvet, she felt the cold upon her face. A draft. But in Ward’s house?
She heard the rustling of the blinds, sat up, and looked around. A dark figure vaulted into her room.
But she didn’t freeze—she moved. Instinctively she knew that if she didn’t get out of the room, she’d have no chance. No chance at all.
Slipping out of bed, she reached for the panic bracelet on her left wrist but found nothing but smooth skin. Then she remembered: she’d left it on the bathroom vanity across the hall. And then she remembered Ben.
She darted to the door, quietly unlocked and opened it. As she went into the hallway, she looked back and saw the black figure stand up in the bedroom, see her, and lunge forward.
She screamed and slammed the door behind her, turned left along the hallway, and ran to Ben’s door. Thank God, she thought, when she found it unlocked.
She leaped into his room, slammed and bolted the door, and ran toward the bed. Her eyes swept the room. No figure dressed in black. No hole where the window was supposed to be. She went to the bed, grabbed the duvet and the blanket and sheet beneath it, and yanked them down. Ben stirred. Even in darkness she could see the panic bracelet on his right wrist. She took hold of his wrist, roughly, and began pressing at the bracelet, unable to make out the red panic button.
Crash!
The sound came from the door. Not a fist pounding but more likely a kick. And then another, louder. Bash! Bash!
But the door held. It was solid, and Mei had noticed the handle and lock were stainless steel, large and heavy.
Crack! Crack!
Mei heard the door shudder from the impact of bullets.
The shots were like clangs of metal on metal, loud in the silent house. Mei grasped Ben’s arms and pulled him up.
He woke and said, “Mei. What? What are you doing?”
“Get down,” she told him, pushing him onto the floor and lying on top of him. “We’re being attacked!”
“No!” he cried. “We can’t be!”
“Shhh,” she said, holding him tightly. “Shhh.”
Crack! Crack!
More pounding on the door. The room seemed to vibrate. Mei tensed and began to sob. Thirty seconds, she guessed. If she were lucky, she’d live thirty seconds. Ben might live five or ten seconds longer. Gripping his shoulders, telling him over and over that it would be all right, she wished Buddy were here. How sad it was to die like this, with so much life remaining, with so much love in her heart.
“It’s all right,” she told Ben. “We won’t suffer. It’s all right.”
“No!” he shouted. “No, it isn’t all right!”
CRASH!!!
The door opened. Mei tensed, read
y for the bullet or the blade. Ben screamed, “Buddy! Help! Help!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ward heard the sound as he woke. At first he didn’t recognize it. But three seconds later he knew the loud beeping came from the phone on his night table. The master bedroom was on the second floor of the house, in a different wing from the guest bedrooms where Mei and Ben were sleeping. Had been sleeping, he corrected himself. At least one of them was awake, unless in sleep they’d somehow set off a bracelet alarm by accident.
He’d take no chances. He jumped out of bed in his boxer shorts and pulled open the drawer of the night table. He took out a black .44 Magnum Research Desert Eagle and flicked off the safety. He didn’t check to confirm that it had one round in the chamber, seven in the magazine, for he’d loaded it himself.
He stood to the side of the master bedroom door and listened.
Nothing.
With his left hand, he pulled open the door. He saw no one in the hallway. Crouching along the right wall, he stepped quickly but carefully, his bare feet making almost no sound on the maple floor. Easing around the corner to the staircase, he bobbed his head forward and saw nobody.
False alarm, he thought as he went down the staircase. He lowered his gun a few inches.
On the main level he headed through the living room toward the kitchen and the back hallway that led to the guest bedrooms. He heard and saw nothing unusual. And then he did. Complete darkness. Utter silence. The digital clocks on the oven and microwave were dark. There was no sound of the furnace. No air being pushed through the house. It was cold, nowhere near sixty-eight degrees. Either the backup generator had failed, or someone had disabled it.
