He kissed my cheek. “Okay, Plan B.”
Larrimer snapped the antlers off the moose as if they were toothpicks.
“What are you doing with those?”
“Making do.”
A sudden fit of shivering stole my legs, and I banged into one of the walls and down on my ass. Breathing hard, the effort to rise felt impossible.
“Clea,” Larrimer said.
“What?” I sounded like Marilyn Monroe with the sniffles.
“When you hit that wall, it made an odd sound.”
He was losing it, too. “Meaning haha odd or weird odd?”
He staggered closer. “Not like steel odd.”
I thought about it, then gave the walls a closer inspection. “We’re in the basement inside some kind of meat locker.”
New Hampshirites are inventive. We wouldn’t purchase a professional meat locker if we could build one. DIY are us.
I knocked on the wall, covered in insulation board. He was right. It sounded different. I picked up the saw and moved it back and forth, again and again. The insulation was plastic foam, but it wasn’t seamless, had been riveted to the walls.
He swung an antler.
“Wait!” I stopped his arm before he hit the wall. The only noise was the persistent blower pushing frigid air into the room. Gods, I was cold. And sleepy.
His hand brushed my face. “Don’t go to sleep or I’ll leave you here.”
“Huh?” Oh, right, think, think. Synapses triggered. “A cellar window. Like the one we used earlier to break in.”
He peered down at me. Blood had dribbled from his right eye onto his cheek. “Good.”
I stumbled past the hanging man and moose to the darkened far corner, and touched where the walls met, barely feeling them with my frozen fingertips. I moved a few feet down the outer wall, judged where the half-window might sit. It had to be there. It just did.
“Try here,” I said.
He lifted one of the antlers to what I pictured the join of wood between the ceiling and wall. They clattered to the floor.
“Goddamn, fucking, lousy—” He opened and closed his hands a couple times.
“Ssshh.” I rubbed them, trying to bring back circulation. We listened.
Nothing but the blower and our chattering teeth.
He bent at the waist, rested his hands on his knees, wavered for a minute, then braced himself against the wall. “This level of cold does things to me.” Then, he retrieved an antler and wedged the spiky side into the board’s join.
In seconds, he’d pried the plastic away from the wall. It made a horrible noise, and we stilled, heard nothing. He pulled at the plastic and the pink fiberglass insulation beneath, tossing it like cotton candy.
A spurt of joy. Pale almost-light exposed a modern cellar window maybe three feet wide by two feet high, with a swivel lock handle at the top of the inner sash.
Perfect for lowering dead men through. Ugh! Horrible image.
I looked at Larrimer, my smile triumphant. Except Larrimer’s eyes closed, and he slid down the wall.
I knelt in front of him, ran my hands across his shoulders, his arms. “What’s wrong? Larrimer! Where did you go!”
He was out, and even if I could reach the window handle, which I couldn’t, there was no way I could lift him out of there. I pressed a hand to the pulse in his neck. Slow, so slow. We were freezing to death.
I began warming his hands. Tried kissing him again, massaged his arms, legs. I dug for our song and found… silence. He sat in front of me, torpid breaths puffing the air. I was watching him die.
Please. Please wake up.
Nothing.
If I could somehow get the moose down, climb onto it, use it like a ramp, I could crawl out the window, and bring help.
I tried to get the moose off the hook. I tugged and jerked, and there was no way. I looked at Larrimer, barely breathing.
Stop. I was going at this all wrong. The window wasn’t that much higher than I was. I tried jumping, but couldn’t reach the handle. A stepstool. Maybe…
I turned Larrimer and lay him face down on the floor, positioned his butt beneath the window, removed my boots, and stepped onto him. Sorry! Stretched on tiptoes, I wobbled, then bent my knees and jumped. Yes!
My icy fingers caught the lock’s handle and in one motion, I turned and pulled downward. Open!
I stumbled backward off Larrimer, silently begging for forgiveness. Air spilled in from outside, cold, but not as cold as the meat locker’s, and far fresher.
Boots back on, I got my hands under Larrimer’s armpits and lifted. I barely moved him, so I sat him up, back against the wall.
I wrapped my frozen arms around him and blew hot breath on his lips, his cheeks, his ears, whispering, singing, kissing his neck, mumbling incoherent words.
He didn’t respond.
With or without the window open, we’d die of hypothermia.
Another brush of sleepiness wrapped me in warmth. I could do that, cuddle with Larrimer and slip into that comforting, numb world. So easy.
Except we hadn’t even made love yet.
I slid down beside him and tucked my arm through his, rested my head on his shoulder. “It’s pretty easy, isn’t it? Going off this way. I read that somewhere.”
A picture of Tommy, smiling, dealing a hand of Texas Hold ‘em. He’d cheat, again. Always did. I peeked at my cards. Whoa. Except he transformed into Lulu, red hair aflame. Why was Lulu playing cards?
I tumbled down, down, and wrenched awake. She was trapped, too, kidnapped. She needed us.
I tugged at his shirt. “Wake up, dammit. Lulu needs us. Wake up!”
Nothing.
Focus. I pictured the burn from eyes blue as the Pacific, and reached deep, deeper for that otherness in him that echoed mine. My soul sang the song, grasping, straining for that resonance, that harmony.
And he moved.
I wheezed, coughed. “Are you there? I got the window open. We can do this.”
He nodded. “Here,” he mumbled. “Shut down for a minute. A reset. Sorry.”
“I thought you were dying.” It crushed me.
“Not a chance.”
He stood on his own in one supple, fluid movement. He cupped my face with his hands and kissed me, and I tasted his blood, felt his power flicker over me, building and building like furnace under pressure.
Just then, voices outside, faint, in the snow, but getting closer.
leapt toward the light switch, more like a stumble, but managed to flick it off just as the voices grew louder as they neared the window. Time to pray that they didn’t notice.
Oh gods, do not let them hear or see.
“Is the moose ready?” said a muffled male voice.
“Yup.” Another male voice, one I recognized as Ronan’s father.
“And George in there?” Muffled, but a ping of memory. Gone.
“Just about.”
“I’ll need his blood this weekend.”
“It’ll be ready,” Miloszewski said.
“Good.” A smile in that voice. Another ping, but not enough.
Bile surged up my throat. I swallowed hard.
Their boots boomed like cannon fire. I held my breath. Just past the window, they paused. Crap.
“You know what we must do to that boy of yours,” said the voice.
“Nope. Can’t.”
“You haven’t kept him in check, like we agreed. The Master—”
“He’s my kid.”
“Not for long.” A pause. “All right, all right. Let’s talk about this later.”
“Won’t do…” And they walked on, voices fading, the crunch of the snow beneath their boots drowning out their words.
The thought that they’d kill Ronan staggered me.
We waited moments longer until the only sounds were the trees clacking in the wind.
Larrimer braced his hands on the sill and slowly lifted his torso. “It looks clear.” He curled out the window until all that w
as left in the room were his booted feet. Then, they disappeared, too.
I waited in silence. And waited. And thought I’d lose my mind if I had to wait any longer.
Hands appeared at the window, then forearms. I jumped, snapped my hands around his wrists, and he did the same for me. And pulled.
I dangled a foot from the snowy ground, his arm banded around my waist.
“You good?” he asked.
“Better than good.” Almost-dawn smoothed the world’s edges, and I paused to listen, interminably glad to be free of that nightmare cellar.
Free. We were free.
We had to get to Ronan, except we were barely functional. We needed to warm up, so we raced down Station Road, thankful for the near darkness.
It had to be six-ish. My numb feet protested, threatening to spill me onto the road. I tripped over a rock, bit my lip to stop my shout of pain as I landed on my knee. Larrimer pulled me up.
We ran again.
The glow of Mandolins and of the Inn and the General Store brought a slow smile. Death had felt close and intimate and inevitable. I couldn’t stop picturing ‘George’ dangling on the meat hook.
The town twinkled, lights from cozy houses leading us on in the pre-dawn murk. So much beauty, so much horror.
I bit my chapped lips. Past the pond, the post office, the church. We crossed the street holding hands, frozen. I felt nearly paralyzed. When we slipped into our front seat, I retrieved my spare key from its niche, started the truck, cranked up the heat. Then I unlocked the glove compartment and removed my backup Glock, knife, and flashlight. The gun felt icy, but comforting.
Larrimer dug his hands through his hair and looked straight ahead. I wished I could see his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mandolins is open,” he said. “We need something hot.”
Minutes later, the scents of coffee and tea filled the cab. He drank swiftly, his face granite-still, staring at nothing.
He’d had problems in the cellar, but so had I. He looked shaken, disturbed. As if he’d failed himself or someone.
“James?”
A pause, then, “Yeah. I’m cool.”
“We need to get Ronan. I’m going to call the police, Balfour. We need backup.”
“No. They could kill the boy while we deal with red tape.” His bunched muscles relaxed as he downed his tea.
“So we go in first.” I angled myself to face him. “They’ll arrive and back us up. We don’t know what crazy stuff Miloszewski’s got going on there.”
“No.” He looked at me, eyes near-fever bright. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” My knee-jerk answer surprised me. “Yes, I do.”
“I’ve been investigating these people for months now. There’s more going on here than meets the eye. It’s deeper. Complicated. Deadly, in ways you haven’t dealt with before.”
“But I—”
“The last person we should call in is Balfour.”
My jaw tightened. This wasn’t about their pissing contest. This was more. And it played right into my fears about how my boss had taken to acting. “The Staties? The local cops? Why not them?”
“You realize Miloszewski’s people most likely have Lulu, too.”
The thought chilled me. “Yes.”
“Afterward. After we deal with Miloszewski. Alert them then.”
I had my suspicions about how he’d handle Ronan’s father, too. All of this a-tangle with Dave’s bizarre death. I gnawed my lip.
“Call now, and the echoes will aid Cochran’s killer.” He took a sip of tea, giving me time to think. But his eyes held mine, and his conviction burrowed deep inside me.
Larrimer wouldn’t stop me contacting the authorities. Trust. It always came down to that. “All right. I’ll wait.”
I finished the coffee, slipped on my spare vest and mitts, and handed Larrimer a fleece I’d tossed in the way back. As I warmed, the pounding in my head matched the one in my jaw, reminding me how much I despised Ronan’s father.
“I wish you had your gun,” I said.
“Not as much as I do.”
I held up mine, but he took the knife. “This will do just fine.”
Again, we dogtrotted up Main Street, avoiding the lights splashing onto the gravel sidewalks and stopped across the narrow dirt road from the sprawling white farmhouse that had almost killed us. We crouched behind a juniper.
“Kids are skating already,” he said.
“It’s New Hampshire.”
“Think he’ll do the kid the way he did us?”
I shook my head. “The father, you heard his reluctance.”
I was able to see over the small rise.
“A couple kids with glow sticks,” he said. “Ronan’s one of them.”
“Let’s just take him and go,” I said.
“No,” he said, voice iron. “The father tried to kill us. He’ll try again. We’ve got to take him out of the equation.”
“I hear you.” I wouldn’t let him kill Ronan’s father. But he didn’t have to know that now.
He gave me a hard stare. “I’ll do this alone. You look for the boy.”
So aloof. So cold. I paused. “No. Together.”
We moved forward and chose the shed connected to the end of the elongated house to slip inside. Old hay bales and rusty farm tools lay scattered about the small room.
We walked through another shed-like structure attached to the house, and I almost tripped over a pile of dirty clothes. I kept my flash out, but shielded and pointing downward.
Listening for the sound of voices got me nowhere. It was too quiet. When I stood before the kitchen door, I pushed out my senses, reached for Ronan’s father with my mind.
A hot poker knifed my brain. I clung to the doorknob, bit my lip so I wouldn’t scream.
I snapped my mind away, back from that horrible place. What had done that?
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
A few more beats, and I tasted only the pain’s bitter aftermath.
He moved in front of me and tried the door. Eased it open. Pale light dappled the worn linoleum. Not a light on in the place. Where was Ronan’s dad? I refused to believe he’d carry out his son’s death sentence.
A groan, from the room next to the kitchen. A trap? The floor squeaked as I crossed, bent at the waist, gun ready. Larrimer flowed forward, velvet smooth.
“Help.”
A whisper. A moist wet one.
I knew that sound.
“Help,” moaned the voice.
Gray light on the parlor floor. A man lay supine, fingers scrabbling at the carpet, lips painted dark, glistening. Ronan’s father.
I handed Larrimer my gun and crouched down. “Who did this to you?”
“Save… him.” A red bubble formed and popped, dotting his nose and chin with blood. He pointed toward the pond.
I knelt. “He’s going to kill Ronan, isn’t he?”
He nodded, lips forming an indecipherable word.
I leaned closer. “Who? Who’s going to kill him?”
“Master…” Then, a soft whoosh of breath and empty eyes. That metaphysical moment when the spirit leaves and the shell remains.
I closed his lids. Larrimer was already racing out the back door.
I skidded down the icy slope. Larrimer had vanished. Dawn’s rays fingered across the pond. The skaters were gone. I scanned the iced-over terrain. Where was Larrimer? Ronan? The killer?
I crouched on the slope, a target, then dashed to where the pines met the hill, slipping behind a large tree. Still no one.
My breath in harsh puffs, I rested my hands on the rough tree bark and inhaling the piney fragrance, opened my senses.
Silence.
So, pulse pounding, I raced like hell down the hill.
There, a man, silhouetted against the snow. I leapt for the trees.
My back to a pine, exhilaration throbbed in my blood.
“Goddammit, Clea,” cam
e the disembodied voice that hummed anger.
“What?”
“You should’ve stayed put.” Disgust bit his words.
“My ass,” I said. “And don’t sound so damned superior.”
He emerged from the trees.
“Ronan?” I asked.
“Can’t find him.”
“Wait.” Again, I quieted my mind. Pressed harder, reached out.
HIM. A clamp of pain, fell to my knees, clawed my scalp. It shook me, a wolf shaking prey, again and again, that crippling pain. And I pushed, slapped up my shields, and I was suddenly free, on all fours, panting in the snow.
More shielding practice needed. Check.
Two hands reached to lift me, and agony speared through me.
I shook my head. “Hurts.” I clawed to my feet using the nubby pine bark and leaned against the tree, catching my breath, dizzy. And there was Larrimer covering me, stance protective, my gun in his hand.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
Took a minute, but I finally caught my breath. “I suspect whatever’s hunting Ronan. It won’t happen again.”
He handed me my gun.
All was silent, empty. Then the crunch of snow and snap of twig boomed the air. Whistling? Oh, swell.
Larrimer charged up the hill, me after him. There, on the path where the old train tracks had lain, walked Ronan, casual, hands in pockets, whistling “You Are My Sunshine.”
“Down!” Larrimer shouted.
Ronan raised his head.
“Ronan!” I pumped my legs and leapt.
A gun barked just as I flew into the six-foot bruiser. We fell sideways and rolled together, arms and legs a-tangle.
“What the fu—”
“Sshhh!” I sprawled, gun drawn, pointing down the slope. “Stay down.”
I didn’t see Larrimer, who must have gone after the shooter.
Ronan’s whole body vibrated.
“Are you hit?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.” He snorted.
It sounded suspiciously like… “You’re laughing?”
“Never been tackled by a hundred-pound girl before.”
“Very funny. Not!”
We skittered to the tree line before we climbed to our feet. Well, I climbed, he bounced, much like Tigger.
“Ouch,” he said. “Shit.” The tips of his gloved fingers shimmered red.
Chest of Bone (The Afterworld Chronicles Book 1) Page 22
