Chapter 26
The key rattled in the lock and my head whipped up. Fear shot through me like a jolt of electricity and my heart started thudding so hard it made my whole neck pulse. My single advantage was that I knew about them before they knew about me. I snatched up the flashlight, tucking the plastic-wrapped packet of weights under my arm. I was already on the move, assessing my options with a brain that felt slow and cold, as though plunged in an icy surf. My temptation was to head up to the second floor, but I scotched the impulse. There was no cover up there and no access to the roof.
I eased to my left, toward the kitchen, my hearing opened to the full. I could pick up low conversational tones out there. They were probably trying to get their bearings just shining a flashlight here and there. If Marty hadn’t been in the house since the night of the fire, she might be reacting to the damage, momentarily repelled as I had been by the charring, decay, and ruin. They hadn’t figured it out yet, but soon they would. The minute they saw that window frame, they’d start looking for me.
The basement door was ajar, a vertical black slot against the gloom of the hallway. I allowed myself one flicker of light from the flashlight and slipped through the crack, descending as quickly as I could without making noise. I knew the slanted basement doors leading out to the side yard were padlocked shut, but at least I’d find someplace to hide down there. I hoped.
Down I went, pausing at the bottom of the stairs so that I could orient myself. Above me, I heard the snap and crunch of footsteps. It was pitch-bloody-black where I was. It felt like the darkness was lying on the surface of my eyes, a thick, black mask that no light could penetrate. I had to risk the flashlight again. Even after so short a time, I felt myself recoil from the glare, turning my head abruptly to shield my eyes. I blinked, willing my eyes to adapt. Oh God, how was I going to get out of this?
I did a quick search, raking the beam in a 360-degree arc. I had to hide the sash weights and there wasn’t much time. They might catch me, but I didn’t want them to get their hands on the murder weapon, which is exactly what they’d come to fetch. I crossed to the furnace which stood massive and dead, looking somehow as ominous as a tank down there. I eased the door open and shoved the weights in, jamming the packet down between the outer wall and the housing for the gas jets. The hinge gave a harsh shriek as I pushed the door shut. I froze, glancing up automatically, as though I might make a visual assessment of how far the sound had carried.
Silence overhead. They had to be in the hall by now, had to have seen the damage I’d left. Now they were listening for me as I listened for them. In the dark of an old house like this, sound can be as deceptive as the voice of a ventriloquist.
Frantically, I scanned for someplace to hide. Every nook and cranny I spotted was too small or too shallow to do me any good. Overhead, a floorboard creaked. It wasn’t going to take them long. There were two of them. They’d split up. One would go upstairs and one would come down.
I cut left, tiptoeing across the basement to the short concrete stairwell that led to the outside world. I crouched and crept upward, squeezing into the narrow space at the top. My hunched back was right up against the wood doors, my legs drawn up under me. With the electricity shut down in the house, they’d be forced to search by flashlight and maybe they’d miss me. I hoped I’d be hard to spot wedged up here, but I couldn’t be sure. In the meantime, the only thing that separated me from freedom was that slanted expanse of wood at my back. I could smell the damp night air through the cracks. The sweet scent of the jasmine near the house blended unpleasantly with the musk of soot and old paint. My heart was pounding in my chest, anxiety flying through me with such force that my lungs hurt. I held the flashlight like a club and stilled my breathing to some infinitesimal sibilance.
I became aware of a hard knot pressing into my thigh. Car keys. I shifted my weight, extending my right leg with care, reluctant to allow so much as a whisper of tennis shoe on gritty concrete step. I placed the flashlight ever so carefully on the stair below me and inched the keys out, holding onto the bunch to prevent their jingling together. Attached to my key ring was a small ornamental metal disk, maybe the size of a fifty-cent piece with no rim, the closest thing to a tool I had access to at this point. I thought with longing of the utility knife, the crowbar, and hammer wrapped in plastic and wedged down in the furnace along with the weights. I ran my left hand up along the wood just above my head, feeling for the hinge. It was shaped like an airplane wing, maybe six inches long, and flat. The screws protruded unevenly, some loosened with age, some gone.
I tried using the edge of the disk like a screwdriver, but the heads of the screws had been painted over and the groove was too shallow now to afford any leverage. I hunched, pushing up. I sensed a little give. Hands shaking with hope, I sorted through the keys, picking out the VW key, which was longer than the rest. I eased it between the hinge and the wood and applied a slight pressure. The hinge yielded a bit. If I could work a little slack into the hinge, maybe the door could be forced up and wrenched free. I pried at it, pressing my lips tight to keep from wheezing with the effort.
I paused. All I could hear was my own breathing, labored now as I struggled to loosen the hinge. The wood was pine, old and rotting and soft. I shifted my weight again, trying to give myself more room to work. The basement door creaked.
I heard the soft scratch of a shoe on the basement stair.
And then I heard the panting and I knew who it was. Slowly I turned my head to the right. I could see the dim yellow glow from a flashlight, one of those big jobs the size of a lunchbox, throwing out a wide square beam of light. The batteries were weak, washing back only pale illumination. Even so, I recognized the woman I’d met in Florida. Pat Usher… Marty Grice. She wasn’t looking good. The tawny hair seemed lifeless and her eyes were in deep shadow, cheekbones exaggerated by the angle of the light. She swung the beam to the far wall. I held my breath, wondering if there was any chance whatever she’d bypass my hiding place. She moved out of my line of sight for a moment. I didn’t dare move. The tension made my bones ache. I could feel my legs start to shake, that uncontrollable trembling made up of stress and muscle cramp and the need to move. It was the drive toward flight turned inward, my body locked in place with no hope of relief. The flashlight beam made a slow turn in my direction, illuminating item by item everything in its path. She was going to pick me up any second and I did the only thing I could. I launched myself upward like a surfacing whale, pushing the locked doors with such force that they nearly sprung apart. I simply didn’t have enough purchase and she was too quick. I strained, shoving upward again.
She must have crossed the room like a shot. My upward motion had taken me almost into an upright position, the doors bulging outward with a cracking sound. My feet were snatched out from under me and I went down, cracking my head on the concrete step. Her flashlight had careened off to one side, its fading beam aimed ineffectually now at the wall, the light as pointless as a television picture after sign-off. In the thick dark of the basement, there was just enough illumination to work to my disadvantage.
I scrambled sideways, pushing to my feet again. She flew at me, nearly climbing my frame, her arms locked around my head. I staggered backward, thrown off-balance by the sudden weight. I tried to heave her sideways, skinning her off by bashing with her into the stairs. She was on me like an octopus-tentacles, suckers, and ravaging mouth. I was going down. I tried driving into her with my elbow, but there was no way to connect with enough force to do her any harm. I got one hand up, grabbing her by the hair, tucking forward abruptly so that her own weight carried her to the concrete with a soft grunt.