by Ray Backley
Dan carried Phoebe, Cath carried Benjie, and they ran up the steps and along the corridor to freedom.
A few seconds later, the sun was blinding Dan, making him cover his eyes, which in turn made in stumble.
Not a good idea with Phoebe in the crook of his other arm.
But he could see a car and somehow assumed Cath had driven it here.
“Are the keys in that thing?” he asked.
Cath open her mouth to reply, but Phoebe got in first.
“Look, Mommy.”
“What is it?” Cath said to her.
“I saw another car, a black one.”
“What are you talking about?” Dan asked her, staring through slitted eyes at the white Toyota.
“No. Down there. A big black one with black windows.”
She pointed down toward the gravel track, but Dan could see nothing.
“Now it’s gone, but it was there.”
“Look, don’t worry about that, sweetie.” He headed for the Toyota. “Cath, give me the keys. I’ll drive.”
“I don’t have the keys.”
“What?”
“I need to go inside.”
“Inside where?”
Cath let Benjie down, said, “Stay with Daddy,” then backed away to the front door of the bungalow.
“Is he in there?”
“Just stay out here. It’s fine. I’ll be okay.”
“No way. Don’t be stupid. The guy’s a lunatic. I’m coming in with you.”
“But he’s tied up. That’s how I escaped. Trust me, Dan.”
“Trust you?”
She paused for a moment, lowered her voice. “It’s important to me that you always trust me.”
“But . . .” Dan swung his head left and right, assessing the opportunities. Walking wasn’t an option here; they needed the car. “This isn’t about me not trusting you, Cath.”
Cath’s face tightened, like it did on those rare occasions Dan did something wrong. “I need you to stay with Phoebe and Benjie. I know what I’m doing.” She pointed at the car. “I just need his car keys, then this will all be over for good. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” Dan shouted as she turned and ran toward the bungalow. “But if you’re not out in thirty seconds I’m coming in, and the children will just have to be on their own.”
Cath cursed herself for not taking Vinnie’s car keys when she had the chance.
She never had any intention of slicing him up or leaving him to die; her vague plan had been to drive to the next town and call the police, to let them have the pleasure of finding him all trussed up with nothing more than a pair of jeans keeping his ankles warm. He deserved that. And that could still happen; she could take his keys and leave him there.
But the silence in the place was disconcerting. Something was wrong. She halted for a second halfway along the hallway and pulled her knife from her pocket. The click of the blade opening only served to accentuate the silence. She expected to hear Vinnie shouting or struggling, but there was nothing.
It was probably better that she didn’t make any noise herself, so she edged along the corridor to the doorway and eased her head around the corner.
The bed was empty.
Somehow Vinnie had escaped.
And she felt ill.
Petrified yet curious, she glanced at the three points where she’d tied him to the frame. Near each position were zip ties that had been cut off.
How the hell had he done that?
Her stomach tightened, and then it got worse: she noticed that the large closet – under which the gun had come to rest – had been moved.
So Vinnie had his gun back.
And then something outside caught her eye – a fender of something. She stepped over to the window for a better look.
It was a bright yellow pickup. That definitely hadn’t been there ten minutes ago. She felt lightheaded, as if she were about to faint. She leaned against the wall for a moment, took a few breaths to steady herself, and told herself this was no time to crumple.
She held her knife out in front of her as she returned to the corridor. She listened, but heard nothing. She glanced into the kitchen. The back door was swinging wide open.
Where was Vinnie?
And where the hell had that yellow pickup come from?
Then an even more disturbing thought hit her:
Why couldn’t she hear Dan and the children?
She raced back to the front door and went outside, coming to a halt as she saw the car – only the car, no people. She was alone.
Oh, no. Please God, no.
She ran over to the car, to where she’d told them to stay, and spun around, chasing images near and far, scanning three hundred and sixty degrees. She came across nothing.
It didn’t matter how the bastard had done it, but he’d escaped, retrieved the gun, and taken her family again.
She kicked the car and cursed, then kicked it some more.
Chapter 36
Even from the grand hallway of the old hotel, Vinnie could hear Karen’s exasperated grunts and curses and thumps on his car. And her name was Karen and always would be.
He smiled inside at her sweet dumbness, and knew he would savor it later, but for now he had a job to finish. Okay, so perhaps he wasn’t going to keep her family imprisoned for thirteen years, but he would get justice of some sort, and then would drive away and disappear into the underbelly of whatever country he could get to.
He’d just shepherded Dan and the children into the old hotel with his gun, trying his best to ignore an annoying Johnny, who’d insisted on coming along with him.
A few minutes before, after the two of them had moved the large closet so Vinnie could retrieve his gun, they’d run out of the bungalow only to see that Cath and her family were leaving the old hotel, so had dipped back inside, gone out the back door, and doubled back around the side of the building, because surprise was everything. Johnny didn’t know what the hell was going on, but followed because . . . well, because the man was a prize dork with no mind of his own.
Vinnie figured that Karen would go back into the bungalow to fetch his car keys, and knew that the moment she set foot in the place, Dan and the two brats would once again be fair game. And that was exactly how it had worked out, except that Johnny hadn’t been impressed with the abduction, and was still bellyaching as the group approached the foot of the staircase.
“I thought you might have changed, Vinnie. If I’d known you were doing this, I wouldn’t have helped you get your gun back.”
“Well, you did help me, it’s done, so shut up,” Vinnie replied, keeping the weapon aimed at Dan.
“Why not put the gun down?”
“Why not shut up?”
“There are other ways to find contentment, you know.”
“Will you just shut your mouth!”
“You need to come to church with me. You’ll thank me for it in years to come.”
“Turn around,” Vinnie said to Dan. “And put your hands behind your back.”
“No way,” Dan replied.
“Getting angry here, buddy. Hands behind your back or a bullet in your head. Your choice.”
Dan huffed a few times, then looked to Johnny for help.
Johnny laid one of his bulky hands on Vinnie’s shoulder and said, “You need to think about what you’re trying to achieve here, my friend.”
Vinnie kept the gun pointed at Dan’s head, but spoke to Johnny. “At this moment, my friend, I need you to shut your goddamn mouth.”
“But you—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny. Don’t you get that I’m pretty busy right now? Can’t you see that?”
Dan just waited, not moving.
“Final chance,” Vinnie said to him. “You turn or you die. You got three seconds.”
Dan turned, and Vinnie pulled a zip tie around his wrists, pulling tight.
“We’re not going in that basement again,” Dan said.
“You’ll
go where I tell you to, dumbass.”
“Why don’t you put the gun down?” Johnny said from the sidelines. “Whatever this man’s done, his hands are tied behind his back. He’s no threat to you.”
Vinnie ignored him and jerked the pistol toward the stairs. “You three. Get up there.”
Dan looked up the dimly lit stairwell, then back at Vinnie. “What are you going to do with us?”
“What am I going to do? I’m going to shoot you if you don’t do exactly as I say. That clear enough?”
“Could I have a word with you in private?” Johnny said.
Vinnie ground his teeth together for a few seconds before replying, “Listen to me, Johnny, and listen good. I owe you for untying me, but my patience is all but worn away. Why don’t you just go someplace else and come see me another day, huh?”
“I think you need me now,” Johnny replied. “I know God can help you find a better way to live than this. What you’re doing here is terrible.”
Vinnie glared at Dan. “Are you going up those stairs or do I have to shoot one of your little rats?”
Dan looked down to Phoebe and Benjie, both now bawling, both clinging to his jeans. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s do as the man says.”
It took a little persuasion, but Phoebe and Benjie stayed with Dan as he went up the stairs, followed by Vinnie and Johnny.
When they all reached the top, Vinnie pointed the pistol at the next staircase. “Again.”
Dan stood firm. “Would you really shoot me?”
“You got two seconds to find out. One . . .”
Dan and the children started climbing the stairs.
“Life doesn’t need to be like this,” Johnny said, his deep voice now starting to sound desperate.
Vinnie ignored him and followed Dan and the children up the stairs, cursing the fact that Johnny also followed.
At the top, Vinnie opened a door, revealing another staircase, and they could all hear the birdsong and sense the fresh air.
“Up again,” Vinnie said, waving the gun.
“On the roof?” Dan said. “I don’t think so.”
Vinnie pointed the gun at his face. Close. “I do think so. Get up there.”
Dan left his face exactly where it was, took a sharp swallow, said, “You know, I don’t think you really would shoot me.”
“Please, Vinnie,” Johnny said from the side. “Just put the gun down. We can talk.”
Vinnie took a step back, pointed the pistol at Johnny’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Phoebe and Benjie started screaming as Johnny’s substantial corpse thudded against the floor and blood started turning the rug a deep shade of crimson. Dan looked at the fear in his children’s eyes and started to tremble.
“That guy was a dear old buddy of mine,” Vinnie said. “You, I really don’t even care for. Go figure.”
Dan nodded for his children to go first, then stumbled through the doorway and followed them up the steep flight of stairs that led to the roof terrace.
Still standing next to the white Toyota, and still kicking it, Cath was trying to control herself, trying not to cry, because there was work to do, her family to find. She was trying to ignore the fog in her mind and work out what the hell to do next. That was when she heard the shot ring out.
She instinctively homed in on the old hotel. She wasn’t certain, but that was the general direction the noise had come from, and it sounded muffled, like it had happened indoors.
She ran toward it.
Before she got to the door, she heard her name being shouted – her old name. She looked left, then right, then behind her.
“Up here, lollipop,” she heard.
She looked up to see Vinnie looking down. With him were Dan and the children. All of them were near the edge of the roof terrace.
“You son of a bitch!” she screamed up. “I kept my promise. I didn’t hurt you. Can’t you just leave them alone?”
“Oh, I’ll leave them alone, all right. Your pretty boy husband, your two rats. When they reach the edge here, I’ll just leave them to fall over and hit the ground next to you.” He kicked out at the rickety wooden barrier at the edge, and it gave way with little trouble.
Cath’s eyes followed the pieces of rotten wood as they fell three floors down onto bare concrete.
Bare concrete. Three floors. None of them would stand a chance.
“We can talk,” she shouted up. “Just you and me. But first, let my husband and children go free.”
“I’m done talking, lollipop. Time to settle scores. I lose thirteen years. You lose three people. I’d say that’s a fair bargain.” He kicked away more of the barrier and dragged Dan so both men stood right on the edge, their feet inches from the drop.
“Time to say your goodbyes, lollipop,” he shouted down, grinning. “I thought about tying them all together so when one fell, they all did. Then I remembered my promise to you, so now you’re gonna have the fun of watching them fall one by one, starting with the biggest.”
“No!” Cath screamed out.
Vinnie pointed the pistol at Dan’s forehead, right up close. “You ready, lollipop?” he shouted out.
Dan closed his eyes and started rambling – praying or pleading, Cath didn’t know which.
Then a shot rang out, and Cath drew breath to scream again, but her lungs locked up, and for a few seconds, with tears welling up in her eyes, she was unable to breathe in or out.
She heard the dull thump of a body hitting the ground, and somewhere within that was the crack of skull on concrete. Through a lens of tears, she saw the body twitching its final goodbye to the world, then saw blood streaming away from what was now a lifeless form. She froze, eyes now glazing over.
A long time ago she’d had to say goodbye to Karen Fisher.
Now she would have to say goodbye to someone much more important to her.
Chapter 37
Pasadena, near Los Angeles. Two months later.
It was a new beginning for Cath, and she accepted that life wasn’t going to be easy from now on.
She sat, chilled soda in hand, magazine on her lap, on the bench in the back yard of forty-one Lancaster Drive, watching Phoebe and Benjie play together on the lawn. They were both safe and perfectly well physically, but Cath hadn’t stopped worrying about how they would be affected in more subtle ways by the events of two months ago, when they’d witnessed that horrible day of killings in the remote backwater of California.
Phoebe had changed, become a little less ebullient, although Benjie appeared to be unaffected by the whole thing. They were both seeing counsellors, and probably would be for a few more months. The child psychologist had assured Cath that they would get over it in time, but Cath found it difficult to believe that, because a mistrust of authority was now in her bones.
She’d given a talk on her experiences at a fundraiser for the local women’s shelter, and following on from that had been offered an unpaid position at one of their centers. She was giving serious consideration to it; her part-time job at Verusian Financial Services had become something she was doing merely to keep her hand in with a view to returning full-time once the children were old enough, and as such her heart wasn’t in it.
She would talk it over and probably give her notice sometime soon.
She had needed counselling herself, of course. The events of two months ago had been such a big turning point in her life, and her closest personal relationship had been changed forever. The counsellors weren’t so sure that Cath would come out of the affair mentally unscathed; the trauma had been too great for that level of reassurance.
And then there were the sleepless nights. Bad memories of sleeping pills still cast a long shadow, so she wouldn’t touch them, preferring to rely on long walks to tire herself out and then herbal tea and meditation to help her relax before bedtime.
At first, none of those things worked. For two weeks, she could hardly get the images out of her head. As soon as she closed her eyes she was
back there, on that driveway, staring down through the lens of tears at the body in front of her, at the blood that streamed away from it. In her mind, that play was going to run and run.
But she stuck with the project: no drugs, no false saviors, she would only need her own inner strength and the love of her family to get through this.
And now, eventually, the nights were gradually getting better.
It became a matter of control over her own thoughts. She had no problem thinking back to that day – to when that madman’s gun was pointed at her dear husband’s head. The battle was about control. She had to be in charge. She needed to decide for herself when she would think back.
And oftentimes she did think back, wondering how it all could have been so different.
Like now, as she sat out back in the shade, when the children’s screams of joy formed a cocktail of pleasing sounds, and when she decided to put down her magazine and replay the events of that life-changing day in her mind once more.
Yes, through eyes awash with tears, she saw the body fall from the roof of the old hotel and land in front of her onto unyielding concrete. She witnessed a human being become a corpse in a fraction of a second, and saw the blood escaping from it. Yes, she froze, her eyes glazing over.
But then she blinked and looked again, wiping those tears from her eyes, almost ripping them away. Then her lungs burst into life, she gasped and cried in turns, not quite understanding what was in front of her. She could see blood pouring from various parts of the head on the concrete below her.
But the head belonged to Vinnie, not Dan.
She looked again. Was her mind playing tricks?
No. It was Vinnie. The corpse was Vinnie’s.
She didn’t dare believe in miracles. But here was one. Vinnie was dead – and would stay dead. And Dan . . .
“Stay there!” she heard the voice shout down from above. It sounded like Dan’s voice, but she couldn’t force herself to look up, not daring to assume what she was thinking: that Dan was alive.
She was still staring at Vinnie’s corpse when Dan and the children came running from the front door. Dan turned around, and without a thought, Cath got her knife out and cut the zip ties around his hands. They all embraced. This time there were no tears. There was only joy. It was over.
