‘Up.’ Her eyes move between the basement door and the stairs. If they descend to the basement first, she’ll lose all her nerve. ‘But block the basement door, just in case.’
Moving quietly, Travis wedges the basement door handle with one of the chairs. Emma waits for him by the newel post. Her weapon is clasped across her chest.
‘Point that thing at the floor,’ Travis reminds her quietly. ‘Put your left hand in support, pressure front to back to keep steady, trigger finger on the frame. Let me go first.’
Emma nods, lets him pass.
The stairs are carpeted but creaky in the centers. The house has white walls, thick with plaster: Emma suspects the plaster over the solid brick makes the building highly soundproof. A small amount of slate-colored light is reaching them via smoky glass bricks around the front door behind them. It disappears when they reach the upper floor.
Now, the dark hallway. There’s the same carpet, dado paneling that matches the banister, pictures along the walls. Emma wants to look at the pictures, but she doesn’t want to get distracted. Her body is electric with nerves. There are four doors up here, only one of them open. Travis moves away abruptly to get a better angle on the interior of the open room. His arms extend with the Colt as he scans, then drop as he returns.
‘That’s a bathroom. I’m gonna check—’
‘Wait.’ Emma has her gun pointed to the carpet with her right hand; she lifts her left, palm open. ‘Can you hear that?’
Somewhere nearby, a muffled thump.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kristin does not protest when Simon spins her around to press himself against her back. Her eyes are wide and frightened, because she is frightened. But not of him, never of him; only that this ruse may not work.
Simon tugs her hair aside, rests the razor on the artery throbbing under the white skin of her neck.
‘Don’t speak,’ he whispers in her ear. The deep sibilance of his voice, his lips at her earlobe, make her shiver. ‘Just dance with me, and let me lead.’
And so the stage is set, the dance begun.
There is much yelling in the reception area, and people moving fast. Shouting, the crackle of radios, weapons drawn, the acrid musk of anger and fear, the cool thread of her brother’s voice.
Kristin is insensible to all of it. She lets Simon lead. There are times when she closes her eyes and lolls, as if she has swooned. Her paleness and the blood on her clothes make her performance seem entirely convincing.
Then the brisk air of evening is on her face, and she knows they are outside the jail.
Simon’s arms around her are like iron bars. Kristin stumbles when he drags her off the sidewalk and into the middle of Ross Street, putting them both in the path of an oncoming vehicle. She feels detached from fear, squints at the glare of the headlights as the car screeches to a stop in front of her knees.
‘Get out!’Simon screams.‘Or I’ll slit her throat!’
The car’s driver complies without question, hands raised. Kristin doesn’t even see his face. Simon pushes her into the rear seat and slides himself behind the wheel.
She slumps down in the back, enervated from the furor of the last ten minutes. The car bucks and surges forward, and she sways on her side on the vinyl seat, watching the streetlights flash in passing. She can hear sirens. Simon takes a number of fast corners, and she has to brace. Cold air rushes in from the open window. Kristin feels her hair stir around her face like lemurs’ tails.
Soon, everything is quiet but for the sound of evening traffic and the burr of the engine. Kristin lies on the back seat of the dark car, listening to her brother’s heaving breaths.
‘I didn’t know you could drive a stick shift,’ she says softly. ‘Simon, you’re so clever.’
In the front seat, leaning over the wheel, her twin begins to laugh.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Emma’s breath catches.
‘There.’ She lifts her chin at the door near them on the right.
‘I hear it.’ Travis moves to the door, stands side-on. Tests the knob, shakes his head. He transfers the Colt to his other hand and shifts away a step. ‘Get back.’
Emma gives him room. He throws his right shoulder against the door, keeping the gun pointed down and away. The first time, the door only creaks. He tries again, with his full weight. The door is solid, but the locks are old: the door bursts open with a crack.
A muffled cry. Emma can see past Travis, into the room. On the right, a window with a drawn blind, a radiator. On the left, a nightstand with a bucket underneath, an old wooden bed frame, a mattress. On the mattress, a girl in a dirty white dress with a strip of duct tape over her mouth. She’s tied to the bed frame. She’s screaming behind the tape.
