All these years later, in Edgler Vess’s study, she could still hear the crash of the shot and see Bobby’s face explode; the memory was as vivid as ever it had been. She didn’t know what gun Memphis used, but the ammunition must have been high-caliber hollow-point lead wad-cutters that expanded on impact, because the damage they inflicted had been tremendous.
She lowered her hands from her face and looked at the open file cabinet. Vess had used three formats of folders, with staggered tab placement, so it was easy for Chyna to see all the names along the length of the drawer. Much farther back from the Almes file was one labeled TEMPLETON.
She pushed the drawer shut with her foot.
She’d found too much in this study—yet nothing helpful.
Before leaving the second floor, she turned off all the lights. If Vess came home early, before Chyna could get away with Ariel, the lights would warn him that something was amiss. He would be lulled by darkness, however, and as he crossed the threshold, she might have one last chance to kill him.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. In spite of her fantasies of pulling the trigger on Vess, Chyna didn’t want to have to confront him again, even if she found a shotgun and loaded it herself and had an opportunity to test fire it before he arrived. She was a survivor, and she was a fighter, but Vess was more than either: as unreachable as stars, something come down from a high darkness. She was no match for him, and she didn’t want another chance to prove it.
One tread at a time, balanced against the handrail, as fast as she dared, Chyna went down to the living room. None of the Dobermans was at the undraped window.
The mantel clock put the time at twenty-two minutes past eight, and suddenly the night seemed to be a sled on a slope of ice, picking up speed.
She extinguished the lamp and shuffled through darkness to the kitchen. There she turned on the fluorescent lights, only to avoid tripping in the debris, falling, and cutting herself on broken glass.
No Dobermans were on the back porch either. At the window, only the night waited.
Entering the windowless laundry room, she shut off the kitchen lights behind her and pulled the door shut.
Down to the cellar, then, to the workbench and cabinets that she had seen earlier.
In the tall metal cabinets with the vent slits in the doors, she found cans of paint and lacquer, paintbrushes, and drop cloths folded as precisely as fine linen sheets. One entire cabinet was filled with thick pads from which dangled black leather straps with chrome-plated buckles; she didn’t have any idea what they were, and she left them undisturbed. In the final cabinet, Vess stored several power tools, including an electric drill.
In one of the drawers on the big wheeled tool chest, she located an extensive collection of drill bits in three clear plastic boxes. She also found a pair of Plexiglas safety goggles.
A power strip with eight outlets was attached to the wall behind the workbench, but a duplex receptacle was also available low on the wall beside the bench. She needed the lower outlet, because it allowed her to sit on the floor.
Although the drill bits weren’t labeled except as to size, Chyna figured that they were all meant for woodworking and would not bore easily—if at all—through steel. She didn’t want to pierce the steel anyway; she wanted only to screw up the lock mechanisms on her leg irons enough to spring them open.
She chose a bit approximately the size of the leg-iron keyway, fitted it into the chuck, and tightened it. When she held the drill in both hands and squeezed the trigger, it issued a shrill whine. The spiral throat of the slender bit spun so fast that it blurred until it seemed as smooth and harmless as the shank.
Chyna released the trigger, set the silent drill aside on the floor, and put on the protective goggles. She was disconcerted by the thought that Vess had worn these goggles. Strangely, she expected that everything she saw through them would be distorted, as if the molecules of the lenses had been transformed by the magnetic power with which Vess drew all the sights of his world to his eyes.