Finally, Harris demands the diamonds and orders Zira to leave, and a rush of relief partially eases my chest. “She did it.”
“Cassian’s near,” Valentina says. “He’ll be able to clear up who is in there.”
“C’mon, Zira,” I murmur. “Get out of there.”
But she doesn’t. She lingers on the doorstep and starts talking to Harris like they’re friends, and my heart sinks. I lower the binoculars as if they’re warping my vision and stare at the speaker as the words from Zira stray far from what we all agreed.
“What the hell is she doing?” I snap. “Is she trying to get herself killed?”
Lifting the binoculars again, I glare down them as Zira starts taunting Harris with something better than diamonds and before I know it, the door’s swinging open. Hatred swells in my heart at the faint glimmer of a rifle in his hands. A rifle that lowers as he invites Zira inside.
And she accepts.
“What is she doing?”
I’m out of the car before I’ve finished speaking, binoculars and tablet discarded and all thoughts homed in on one cold, terrifying thought.
If that door closes, I’ll never see Zira alive again.
I sprint full pelt out of the trees and through the first field, then the second, but the door’s already closed. As I run, Valentina’s breathless voice reaches me and a brief glance over my shoulder shows she’s following me just behind.
“Bradley!” she snaps with a gasp, but there’s nothing she can say that I want to hear.
Zira went off plan and I don’t understand why. Maybe I do, but I can’t think about it, and I can’t waste any energy on speaking when everything needs to go to my legs as I run faster than I’ve ever run before toward that ruined farmhouse.
Every second it takes for me to get there lasts an age and is filled with quiet horrors I fear.
The sound of a gunshot ending Zira’s life. The sound of two. Screams that end as soon as I reach the porch. Her falling out of the top floor window. Both of them falling out and her taking the brunt of the fall. Reaching the house and learning he’s dragged her out the back and I’ve lost her.
There’s too much and my chest tightens up like my ribs have become a vise around my lungs. My heart pounds in my ears like a deafening drum, the fabric of my pants bunches up and cuts into my hips, and sweat gleams across my shoulders and back, turning my shirt into a second skin.
I’m fast but not fast enough.
I finally reach the farmhouse and skid to an unsteady stop on the gravel with Valentina just behind me. Each ragged breath that tears from me threatens to flip my throat inside out with how hard I’m panting, but just as I charge for the porch, Valentina grabs my forearm with surprising strength. She hauls me backward and around the side of the house with her fingers on her lips. The only thing keeping me quiet is that I’m too pent up to speak around my gasps for air.
“Bradley,” she hisses breathlessly. “Listen! We can’t charge in there if he’s armed.”
“I’m not leaving her in there,” I snap, my voice more of a whine from lack of air.
“Then come with me. We’ll sneak in the back, okay? Easy. Don’t put her at more risk!”
I want to argue but she’s already jogging down the side of the house, so I follow and together, we reach the back door which, thankfully, is still locked. I doubt if Harris dragged her out the back, he would have stopped to lock the door. Valentina slips out her earring and hunches in front of the door, working quickly while my heart continues to beat in my throat in time to my thoughts finally catching up to what I might lose.
The lock clicks and Valentina eases the door inside, and as I follow, relief floods through me.
Zira’s voice, faint, resounds from somewhere within the house and from her tone, she’s not scared or in pain.
I just have to find her before it’s too late.
36
ZIRA
“Something bigger?” The greed drips from Harris’s tone as he leads me deeper into the crumbling house.
Why he chose to hole up here is beyond me. The floors appear rotted through, the banister against the stairs has lost several railings over the years, and the lounge we walk into carries the heavy, damp scent of mildew. Harris doesn’t seem to care, nor does it seem to have bothered him during his time here, which, judging by the scattering of beer cans and old take-out containers, has been quite a while. Did he come here right after our confrontation where he killed Adam?
“Something bigger,” I repeat while my heart pounds in my chest and my words wobble. I quickly misstep on the uneven floor to hide that tremble and maintain my distance from Harris. “Diamonds are good and all, but think about it, don’t you think they’re kind of predictable?”
