She put a knee into his groin, heard him let out a yell of pain, and then she was running up the stairs. Nowhere to go from there, she knew that, but it was the only way to get away from him.
She went into her grandmother’s bedroom, picked up the phone, and of course it was dead—why in God’s name was she trying to use a phone when she knew it was dead, because what she really needed was to open up a window and jump out, no matter how high it was, no matter how badly she would hurt herself.
No, she told herself. Get a hold of yourself and think.
She went into the bathroom and pulled open every drawer, looking for some kind of weapon. She pulled out a nail file, then a little pair of nail scissors. Not nearly enough, and then she remembered her grandfather’s old hunting rifle, and that one day she’d watched him load it and how he’d told her that it would be hers someday, because he didn’t have a grandson to give it to. But she hadn’t seen that damned thing in years. Where would it be, if it was even in the house anymore?
She heard footsteps on the stairs, grabbed the scissors, and left the bathroom. She went out into the hallway, saw the top of his head as she went down to the other bedroom. When she pushed the door open, it caught against the boxes that were stacked inside. It was just a storage room now, used by her grandmother for a lifetime of clothes and furniture and whatever else. She locked the door behind her and pushed the boxes against it. Then she grabbed everything else she could—an old bowling ball in a bag, more clothes, a box of books, so heavy she could barely lift it—and she piled it all in front of the door.
She went to the window and opened it. The cold air rushed inside as she stuck her head out and looked down at the ground. There wasn’t enough snow to break her fall. She would fracture both of her ankles, but at least she would be out of this house.
And then he’d just walk right outside and grab you. You wouldn’t be able to run.
“Help!” she yelled. “Help me!” Into the wind, again and again, until her voice started to break and her throat hurt. There was another house fifty yards away, through the woods, one more house another fifty yards beyond that one, but those houses and every house on the lake had been abandoned and locked up tight for the winter.
There was nobody to hear her. She was alone with this man, who even now was turning the doorknob. She looked for more heavy objects she could put on the pile, but it was useless. He would get this door open eventually.
Another weapon, she thought as she rummaged through the rest of the boxes, finding a heavy wooden picture frame with an old photograph of her great-grandparents behind thick glass.
I can use this. As soon as he puts his head through the door, I can hit him.
She put it near the door, even as she heard him throwing his weight against it from the other side.
Something better, she thought, there must be something . . .
She kicked over another box, more old photographs, movies, letters, everything from her grandparents’ life, all of it useless to Jeannie right now. More clothes. A table in the corner, with more boxes.
The sound of him kicking the door now, every thump resonating through the floor, right into her bones.
She threw open another box, then another, until she’d finally made her way to the closet. She wedged open the door and worked her way inside. A foolish move, she knew that, like a child running away from danger, thinking that she could hide from it, but she couldn’t stop herself from huddling in the corner, in the darkness, the tears streaming down her face now, another scream building in her throat.
No, I have to be quiet.
She folded herself into a ball, listening to the assault on the door. He was kicking and kicking and finally she heard the splinter of wood and then the sound of boxes falling away from the door.
“Jeannie,” he said, his voice back to a dead calm now. “Where are you?”
Her eyes were adjusting to the dark. She pushed aside the old coats and dresses to see what else was in the closet. The old movie projector, a fold-up screen . . .
And a gun case.
Here it is, she said to herself. My grandfather’s rifle.
She pulled the case over and opened it. She’d fired a pistol before, more than once. Alex had made her learn gun basics, back when they were living in Redford, just a few blocks from the Detroit city line, and there was always a gun in the house. Then a few years later she had even owned a little semiautomatic of her own before her friends talked her into getting rid of it. But she had never fired a rifle.
She smelled the gun oil as she took the rifle out of the case. It would have brought back a pleasant memory in any other circumstances, her grandfather loading it, how he’d promised her that it would be hers someday, but telling her that in the meantime she must never, ever touch it. She tried to think back to that day, watching how he’d loaded it. Because right now that was the only thing she needed to remember.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” the voice said from miles away.
Then the sound of another box falling away from the door. He was in the room.
It’s a muzzleloader, she thought, pushing Livermore’s voice out of her head, trying to focus on that day. Her grandfather’s words coming back to her from across the decades. You have to load this thing by hand, honeybunch. The way it’s been done for hundreds of years.
She willed her heart to stop pounding, so she could breathe, so she could think about what she was doing. There were a few steps to the process. Starting with the gunpowder. Black powder, he’d called it. She found the bottle of black powder, and the metal tube she had seen him pour it into. She couldn’t remember how much it took, but she could hear him warning her about putting in too much. Just enough, not too much. Just a hundred grains, no more. Whatever the hell that meant. She opened the bottle and poured some of the powder into the tube, then tipped that into the barrel.
“Come out,” the voice said. “Right now.”
There was a little cup that went in next, she thought. A shell cup, he had called it. She rummaged through the other supplies in the case, found the plastic cup, about three inches long, just the right diameter to fit down the barrel. Had he put that in first? Before putting in the birdshot?
Yes, he did. I can remember the sound of the shot going down the barrel. But first he used the ramrod thing to push the shell cup all the way down . . .
She pulled the ramrod out of its holder next to the barrel, put in the shell cup, and then she tapped it down with the rod.
He used another cap to measure the shot . . . Filled it up, poured that down the barrel . . .
She opened the bottle of number six birdshot and poured it into the second shell. When it overflowed, it made a sound as it hit the floor, a hundred little pieces of metal drumming against the hardwood.
“What are you doing in there, Jeannie?”
She poured the shot down the barrel. Then she found the little plug and put that down the barrel.
One more time with the ramrod. And then I’m ready.
She pushed the rod down the barrel, feeling the plug hit the bottom. Then she threw the ramrod aside.
“Jeannie . . .” She could hear the anger coming back into his voice.
Wait. There was one more thing.
She tried to put herself back in that day, watching her grandfather. One more thing he’d done before the gun was ready to fire.
What am I missing?
She went through the rest of the supplies, found the little metal piece, tried to think back to where that went.
She heard the boxes being moved around on the other side of the closet door, made herself ignore everything else but that one day and that last step, her grandfather opening up the breech and putting in that last piece, something about a metal jacket and how he put that little metal piece on the front end of the shell before closing it all up and telling her it
was ready to fire.
She fumbled with the little metal jacket, dropped it on the floor and picked it up again. She slid the breech open and put it inside, closed it up, and thought about the safety and whether it was on or off or how to even work it, but it was too late now, anyway. The last box was moved, and she could hear his footsteps on the other side of the door, just inches away from her.
He wasn’t talking anymore. He was standing there, waiting to open the door.
Waiting to take her.
She slowly pushed herself to her feet, the rifle across her chest, ready to swing it, ready to point it at his chest and fire.
I hope to God I did everything right. Please, God, just let me get out of here.
She took a deep breath. She waited.
Nothing happened.
She could feel the panic building inside her again, filling up her stomach, her lungs, her throat . . .
I can’t just keep standing here. I have to do something.
One more breath, then she kicked the door open, heard it slam into him and drive him backward. In the next instant she was out and pointing the rifle at him.
“Get back,” she said, a sudden resolve coming to her from somewhere inside her. “I’ll kill you.”
Yes, she thought. Even if this gun doesn’t work . . . It doesn’t need to . . . As long as he believes it might . . .
“Jeannie, what are you doing?”
“I’ll do it,” she said, inching forward, the barrel still leveled right at his chest. “Get away from me.”
“You do not want to do this,” he said, but he took another step backward.
“Sit down. Right now.”
“No.”
“Sit down or I’ll kill you,” she said. “I swear to God.”
“You’re not going to do that.”
“Sit down!”
He held up his free hand to stop her, looked behind him to see where he would sit, then he started to bend down.
She saw him picking up the old electric coffeepot and throwing it at her, but it hit the barrel of the rifle a tenth of a second after the signal from her brain reached her trigger finger and the world erupted in a flash and a sound that obliterated everything else, the window shattering behind him as she tried to pull the trigger again but of course there was only one shot, only one chance, and she felt the rifle being pulled from her hands as she twisted away from him, tried to run, fell over a box, got up and took another step to the open door. He was right behind her. She grabbed the big wooden picture frame, turned and swung it at him, felt it connecting against his head, the glass cracking and the man going down, just long enough for her to get out into the hallway.
Down the stairs, hearing his footsteps behind her.
Throwing open the front door, letting out another scream that would be heard by nobody, nothing but the woods and empty houses all around her.
Except him, still behind her, getting closer.
She slipped in the snow as she ran to her car, touched the cold metal of the hood, turned the corner, and was about to grab for the door handle. But then the hands came around her again, catching her around the waist, pulling her backward.
She remembered the little pair of scissors she had taken from the bathroom, pulled them out of her pocket and slashed him across the face with them. He let out a yell, a sound like something from an animal, as he grabbed her hand and bent it, making the scissors fall into the snow. She tried to kick at his legs, slipped in the snow again, fell down hard and hit her face against the ground, tasted the blood in her mouth as she felt everything fading.
The last thing she remembered was being dragged along the snowy ground, back to the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I WAS THREE HUNDRED MILES away when I heard Livermore’s voice coming from Jeannie’s house on the lake. Three hundred miles away when he hung up her phone.
Three hundred miles away from whatever he did next.
I went out the back door at a dead run, and as I did I heard the man coming up behind me. The man who’d been sitting in the car, watching the house, not that I even cared who he was or why he was suddenly right behind me.
“Stop!” he said. “FBI!”
I went over the back fence, waiting to feel the bullet ripping through my back. The shot never came, and I ran up the driveway, almost falling in the snow, catching myself as I got to my car. I started it, put it in gear, and took off, spraying snow behind me. The man appeared in my rearview mirror as I made the turn and gunned it back down Ontario Street, toward the expressway.
I heard a siren in the distance, then another coming from another direction. I caught the lights flashing just as I made the final turn, burying the accelerator as I merged onto I-270.
You’ll need a barricade to stop me. You’ll have to blow out my tires and then shoot me when I come out of the car.
I saw another police car racing up behind me as I got off the expressway and hit US 23. The car blew past as I made the connection. I let out a breath and kept going, knowing that this was the fastest road to Grand Rapids, but knowing at the same time that this was a secondary highway, with slower traffic, and that more snow was starting to fall.
God damn it, I said to myself. Why did I rent this little shitbox car, anyway? Even though I already knew the answer: because I never thought I’d drive it all the way across the country and then have to push through yet another three hundred miles to get to Jeannie.
I’d settle in at around eighty miles an hour, until I’d feel the tires starting to slip and I’d have to back off. Then after a few minutes I’d be back to full speed. I watched a hundred miles go on the odometer, racing through the empty fields of central Ohio. Then another hundred miles until I reached I-75 and took that through Toledo. The traffic got heavier as I hit the late-afternoon hours. People on their way home from work. But I picked my way through the cars, weaving from one lane into the other.
When I hit the Michigan state line, I knew I still had a long way to go. I had to stop myself from imagining what Livermore could be doing to Jeannie at that moment. Had to shut out every other thought from my mind but keeping the car on the road and getting to her as quickly as possible.
I came up behind two trucks driving side by side, leaned on my horn and flashed my lights until one truck finally pulled ahead of the other and I was clear. A few minutes later I cut between two cars with not enough room to spare, and I actually felt my driver’s-side door brushing up against the front corner of his bumper. The driver swerved and fought to keep control, and for one second I thought he was going to go right off the road, but then he got all four wheels under him again and I left him behind.
I picked up my phone and hit the redial button, hoping by some crazy chance that she’d answer. Or even Livermore. But it rang through. I threw the phone on the passenger’s seat and kept going.
The snow was falling harder. Nothing by Upper Peninsula standards, but enough to make everyone around me drive even slower. I was on I-96 now, heading northwest, passing through Lansing as the sun went down.
This will be the last day, I promised myself. Whatever happens, if you kill him or he kills you . . .
Then I saw the flashing lights behind me.
I’m not stopping.
It was a Michigan State Police car, one of the new blue Dodge Chargers. I would never be able to outrun it. The car stayed behind me for a half mile, finally pulling up next to me. I could see the red face of the trooper, and as he tried to wave me over I could see exactly how the rest of the scene would play out. I can usually talk my way out of just about anything—in the state of Michigan, at least. A Detroit cop who took three bullets on the job, I can drive ninety miles an hour anywhere in the UP, and even the troopers will let me get away with it. But I was a long way from the UP, and I was sure the FBI had put me out on the wire.
I knew t
hat as soon as I pulled over, this trooper would come out of his car with his gun drawn. A felony stop, telling me to put my hands out the window. To open the door from the outside, stay facing away from him, move backward to the sound of his voice. Then get down on my knees with my hands interlaced on my head.
You’ll never talk your way out of this one, I thought. And you can’t outrun him.
But then, as I looked ahead, I saw the exit sign about a half mile down the road. Grand Rapids. The biggest city in western Michigan, which meant a lot of streets to get lost on, as soon as I was off the expressway.
I started to slow down, watching my rearview mirror as the trooper settled in behind me, his lights still flashing. There was maybe twenty feet between us.
You need to find some ice, I told myself. It’s your only chance.
I kept my car rolling. The trooper stayed behind me, and through his windshield I could see his face turning an even deeper shade of red. I tested my brakes, hit a little patch of ice and slid, tested them again. There was enough snow on the ground that it was hard to see just how much ice might be hidden beneath it. I hit my brakes one more time and felt the car start to go sideways. I turned into the skid, pure instinct after God knows how many winters on Upper Peninsula roads, until I finally felt the tires hitting solid ground.
That was when I hit the gas, pulling away from the trooper just as he hit the patch of ice I had left behind me. I could see his tires spinning as he used all of his car’s superior power at exactly the wrong time. He went completely sideways, and his front wheels were off the road. I kept pushing it as hard as I could, being careful not to go off the road myself. Fifty yards ahead of him now. Then a hundred.
Dead Man Running Page 19
